The World and Everything in It - August 6, 2021

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Good morning!

Events during the Tokyo Olympics placed a spotlight on social media, the fear of rejection, and mental health.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Plus, potential good news for pro-lifers from a surprising source. That’s ahead today on Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

Also a new documentary that tells a very different story about sharks.

Plus, Ask the Editor. Why should Christians follow the news? We’ll hear Marvin Olasky’s answer.

BUTLER: It’s Friday, August 6th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BUTLER: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden seeks to tighten fuel economy, boost electric car market » President Biden spoke on the South Lawn of the White House Thursday with two all-electric Jeeps parked behind him.

BIDEN: Today, I’m announcing new steps we’re taking to set a new pace for electric vehicles. First, I’m following through on the campaign commitment to reverse the previous administration’s shortsighted rollback of vehicle emissions and efficiency standards.

The Trump administration eased Obama-era fuel efficiency standards. The Obama administration required 5 percent annual improvements in fuel efficiency. President Trump’s EPA reduced that requirement to 1.5 percent each year.

The new proposed rules would reportedly be 25 tougher than the Trump rules, with the new standards phased in over four years.

President Biden later sat down at a desk perched on the South Lawn, and put pen to paper. He signed an executive order … which aims to make half of the cars and trucks made in the country zero-emissions by the year 2030.

U.S. vaccinations continue to rise amid delta varient surge » Jeff Zients, the White House virus response coordinator said Thursday that more Americans continue to get vaccinated.

ZEINTS: Over the past 24 hours, we’ve recorded 864,000 vaccinations, the highest in a day since July 3rd.

That comes as the delta variant continues to fuel a surge in new cases. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky ...

WALENSKY: 83 percent of our counties in the United States are experiencing moderate or high transmission, with delta variant continuing to be the predominant circulating virus.

The delta variant is also fueling surges across the globe. Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, went into a sixth lockdown on Thursday. A state government leader blaming the nation’s slow vaccine rollout.

Melbourne joins Sydney and Brisbane in locking down due to the spread of the highly contagious delta strain.

Meantime, Tokyo again reported a new record high in daily cases, with more than 5,000 infections reported on Thursday.

At least 10 dead as van carrying migrants crashes in Texas » An overcrowded van carrying nearly 30 immigrants crashed on a remote South Texas highway, killing at least 10 people, including the driver. Twenty others were injured.

Sgt. Nathan Brandley with the Texas Department of Public Safety ...

BRANDLEY: They were traveling in the right lane here on 281 northbound, and they tried to make a right turn onto the FM road, and they were traveling at a speed way too fast to try to maneuver that curve and went into the metal utility pole.

The crash happened about 50 miles north of McAllen.

Authorities believe the passengers entered the country illegally. The driver may have been involved with a human smuggling operation.

A surge in illegal border crossings has resulted in an uptick in the number of crashes involving vehicles jammed with migrants who pay large amounts to be smuggled into the country.

The Dallas Morning News has reported that the recruitment of young drivers for the smuggling runs, combined with excessive speed and reckless driving by those youths, have led to horrific crashes.

Police allege Hillsong founder concealed child sex abuse » Authorities have charged the founder of the Sydney-based global Hillsong Church with concealing child sex offenses.

WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Detectives said Brian Houston stands accused of concealing a serious indictable offense.

Investigators claim that Houston knew information relating to the sexual abuse of a young male in the 1970s and failed to report that information to police.

The 67-year-old Houston responded, suggesting the charges related to allegations that his late father, preacher Frank Houston, abused a boy over several years.

Brian Houston said, “These charges have come as a shock to me given how transparent I’ve always been about this matter.” He added, “I vehemently profess my innocence and will defend these charges.”

A government inquiry back in 2015 found that Houston became aware of allegations against his father in 1999. It found that he allowed his father to retire quietly rather than report him to police.

His father confessed to the abuse before he died in 2004 at age 82.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumpka dies » Richard Trumka, the powerful union boss of the AFL-CIO, has died.

Trumka rose from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to preside over one of the largest labor organizations in the world.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reacted to news of his death.

SCHUMER: The working people of America have lost a fierce warrior at a time when we needed him most.

Trumka was known for his aggressive style of leadership. He had served as AFL-CIO president since 2009, after 14 years as the organization’s secretary-treasurer. Trumka reportedly suffered a heart attack on Thursday. He was 72 years old.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: social media and fear of failure.

Plus, advice for consuming the news.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Friday, August 6th, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

MEDIA MONTAGE: Well this just in from Tokyo … U.S. / gymnastics superstar Simone Biles / the four time Olympic gold medalist / has withdrawn from the final individual all-around competition / she said to focus on her mental health / mental health / mental well-being / the US gymnastics team applauding her, writing in a statement, / “after further medical evaluations, Simone Biles has withdrawn … to focus on her mental health / people are using Simone Biles as their own soapbox / what's your reaction to the news? / is she a pathetic quitter or a heroic, trailblazing mental-health warrior, or are both of these narratives wrong? / It's a combination of social media...

The question of emotional pressure that young, high-level athletes are feeling on the world stage these days has prompted many a think piece in the news media.

EICHER: The Wall Street Journal carried an editorial by psychoanalyst Erica Komisar who took aim at social media.

Quoting now: It “leaves teens highly vulnerable to external influence and especially sensitive to harsh criticism and bullying. … Twitter and Instagram are breeding grounds,” she says, “for brutal, constant, and omnipresent bullying and judgment. Social media also encourages unrealistic standards of what it means to be ‘beautiful’ or ‘cool’ and to have a ‘good life,’ all of which contributes to anxiety, self-consciousness, and harsh self-criticism.”

It’s Culture Friday. John Stonestreet is here. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Good morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning.

EICHER: I want to read one more quotation from that editorial: “shallow pursuits [of the sort we see on social media] have always been a part of adolescence, but they were a brief developmental phase on the way to self-acceptance and emotional security.

Now social media prolongs this period of self-involvement, self-consciousness, and insecurity, and teens and young adults often get stuck in a negative feedback loop.”

What do you think, John? Is there something to this?

STONESTREET: I think there's absolutely something to this. And we need to be really clear on what it is. The mental health issue across the west, particularly America, is ubiquitous. It is at an all time high. I mean, and it's far worse by the way than COVID. Three times as many people killed themselves in that young adult age bracket than died of COVID last year.

So we took a group that was already struggling with mental health issues. And then we put them all by themselves in front of these very dangerous social media platforms that you've just described, and Erica Komisar described.

But I think it's even more than that. I don't think it's just the bullying: I think this is kind of like if you go back to the Columbine shooters in 1999 people were like, “well, they were bullied.” And what we found out is that that may have been partially true, it really wasn't very true. The most true thing was their philosophy of life that they had embraced.

Now, the problem with the ever fast-moving world of social media and influence is that it doesn't give students a time to really sit down and think about what is true and what is meaningful. And what's worth my attention and loyalties and my allegiances. It moves them from one thing to another. But what it doesn't give them is a philosophy of life. It doesn't give them something bigger than themselves to live for at anything that's beyond the here and now.

In fact, it's not even here. It's just the now, because the here continues to move and social media. You can be here and then somewhere else. And you care about what's happening when you shouldn't care. So there's this perpetual fear of missing out. There's this perpetual sense that something's going on without me—[of] being disconnected.

And there isn't this deeply framed responsibility for loving God and loving neighbor. This deep sense of purpose and meaning, why I am here. How I can actually give my life to someone else. And Jesus was clear, if you don't lose your life, you can't keep it and our life is to be lost for others.

But this is a completely insular and self-oriented and self-referential way of living on social media. You know, you can live with hard challenges if you have meaning. You can't live with the most, you know, incredible amount of leisure and wealth if you don't have meaning.

BUTLER: John, in that same article, Erica Komisar writes this:

A 2019 survey for the Lego Group found that “YouTuber” is the most common career aspiration for 8- to 12-year-olds, nearly three times as popular as “astronaut.”

Hoping to go viral, or earning your 15-minutes of fame is a strong siren call—and not just for youth, but adults as well.

STONESTREET: Yeah, well we've been on a journey. I mean, the journey started, you know, in this modern age of entertainment. There were news stories and entertainment stories. So we went from having news and celebrities to having news about celebrities to having somehow offering celebrities a platform to tell us the news.

You know, I remember, you know, 20 years ago, picking up a newspaper and seeing Johnny Depp on the front page, you know, criticizing the war in Iraq. And I thought to myself, well, I mean, I'm sure he has an opinion and a right to have an opinion, but I'm pretty sure he's not getting security briefings from the Pentagon. So why do I care what this guy, you know, the pirate, has to say about Iraq, because he doesn't know what he's talking about? Now, you fast forward to today. And you have a democratization of celebrity, where some of the most well known people in the world are people with social media channels. And this is the thing that everyone's trying to get.

And, you know, I remember, you know, again, 20 years ago, I'm dating myself, but I'm, I'm working at on the campus of a small Christian college and I have these freshmen over to my house and, and I asked them what they're majoring in, and this you know, he kind of young punk guy says, “I'm majoring in basketball.” And I thought to myself, do you realize where you're at like, you're in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, and you're playing NAIA Division 2, but like, if this is your life, this is pretty sad.

In other words, it was the emulation of this basketball as life sort of thing with NBA players. And he had completely lost perspective. Multiply that across the whole scope of adolescence, where the democratization of celebrity has given everyone the illusion of this is what it means to be an adolescent is to try to be a celebrity and therefore to try to be an authority and that somehow this gives you some sort of moral standing in which to make proclamation and quote unquote use your platform. I think you lose any sort of external reference point for truth, for meaning, for value, for perspective.

EICHER: Switching gears now. Did you see the story about a short-lived Planned Parenthood president, Dr. Leana Wen, talking about why her tenure was so short-lived? According to our story in WORLD, she came under fire from colleagues for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about abortion.

Leah Savas reported: “Wen says she used to think pro-life groups hyped the connection between Planned Parenthood and abortion to bring down the organization’s reputation among legislators. But she discovered that Planned Parenthood wanted to own the abortion label. Some of her coworkers said they were proud to provide the procedure and would call themselves ‘pro-abortion’ rather than ‘pro-choice.’”

Does this tell you the pro-life argument is a winner or maybe just that the pro-choice argument is a loser, or is it something else?

STONESTREET: That's a that's an interesting way to put the question. I think the pro life argument is a winner because it matches reality and not because of this but I've been looking at the story too and wondering, man, what is actually happening here? Is this the story of the loss of social capital around abortion, leading those that believe that the you know the quality of life itself rests on preserving it now have to go kind of full on on offense, you know, when you when you kind of are in the cultural majority and people are with you, and you know, you're able to sneak it in under the radar of you know, verbal gymnastics like women's health care or whatever else. Then at that point, you don't really have to defend it. And now that all of that I think has been exposed, that you just have to come out and own it. Is that what it is? I mean, is this kind of like, you know, the the communist revolutionaries finally admitting that their plan was to kill everybody? I don't know. I mean, this is this seems to be like, what this is.

But you know, some of us have been saying this for a really long time, right? We've been saying that this is planned parenthood's bread and butter. This is where they make their money. This is what they're most committed to. This is not really something about women's health. This is something about abortion. And you see this come out when you have these people that are like, well, I really want to help women, in other words, their true believers in the helping women narrative, and then they get there. And it wasn't this the story of Abby Johnson, how crazy would it be if Leanna when would you know, follow the path of Abby Johnson gets so disoriented and turn around and go, yeah, maybe this wasn't such a great plan and maybe the unborn are human and become an activist against Planned Parenthood. That would be  great. Because it's just this is, you know, evil that's hidden is evil that flourishes, and now we have yet another story of somebody kind of pulling back the cover and saying, here's what's really happening behind the scenes.

BUTLER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

EICHER: John, thanks so much.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: 65-year-old Robert Crampton received quite a shock last week when someone found a letter he had written as a young boy in England.

Workers with a chimney sweeping service discovered the letter still neatly folded inside a chimney in Nottinghamshire.

Despite all the soot and a few tatters, it was still perfectly legible.

It was addressed to—who else? Santa. And in the letter, a then 5-year-old Robert Crampton asks for a "cowboy suit and guns and a hat and everything.”

He added, "that would be enough for me, Santa."

Making the discovery all the more special for Robert, he wrote it with the help of his late father, also named Robert, in December, 1961.

The letter never made it to the North Pole, but Santa still came through.

That Christmas, Robert got a six-shooter cap gun in a holster and a sheriff's badge.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Friday, August 6th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: sharks! (Just in time for a trip to the beach. Yikes!)

A new documentary streaming on Disney+ chronicles one woman's mission to dispel the myth of the man-eating monster. A myth she helped create. Here's reviewer Collin Garbarino.

CLIP: JAWS THEME MUSIC

COLLIN GARBARINO, REVIEWER: Sharks are some of the most feared predators on the planet. And much of our collective shark paranoia began in 1975 with the movie Jaws.

CLIP: SCREAMING 

But how dangerous are they? How much of their reputation do they deserve? And who’s responsible for that reputation?

Interviewer: People who saw the movie Jaws are afraid of sharks. Have we reason to be afraid of them?

Playing with Sharks is a National Geographic documentary streaming on Disney+ that follows the extraordinary career of 85-year-old Valerie Taylor. Valerie and her husband Ron were pioneers in underwater photography and filmmaking who worked on the film Jaws. They later regretted their participation and focused their efforts on protecting sharks.

But while Valerie would come to love sharks, it wasn’t love at first sight.

Valerie: The first shark I saw was a grey nurse. I was just terrified, expecting to be attacked at any minute.

Ron and Valerie began as spear fishers in their native Australia.

Valerie: And then we decided to get married. I was the woman spearfishing champion, Ron was the world spearfishing champion. We were at the top of the trade.

Their marriage lasted almost 50 years, until Ron’s death. It wasn’t long after they married that the Taylors shifted their focus away from hunting. Ron went on an excursion in which he felt the other fishermen participated in irresponsible overfishing.

Valerie: I thought it was sad. Really changed the way I looked at the world and spearfishing. After that, Ron said, “Actually, killing fish upsets me. I’m not doing this anymore.” We put our spears down and never did another competition again. We said, “From now on I’m shooting them with my camera.”

To get the footage they wanted, the Taylors helped pioneer the use of diving cages in the 1960s. They were the first to film great white sharks underwater. Playing with Sharks reminds us how until very recently we knew so little about what went on under the ocean’s surface.

Valerie: The first great white shark I saw was like a freight train coming out of the mist.

They got their big break when Universal called and asked them to film the underwater scenes in Jaws. Stephen Spielberg wanted a 25-foot-long shark as the movie’s antagonist. But great white sharks are usually about half that size. There’s a famous line in Jaws where the hero says, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Turns out the Taylors needed a tiny one.

Valerie: Everything we filmed was half-size to make our sharks look bigger.

Valerie’s reminiscence on movie magic is interesting. But the Taylors’ response to the film’s release is really the heart of this documentary. They never expected Jaws to be popular, and they certainly never expected people to become paranoid about sharks.

Valerie: We were amazed. You don’t walk around New York worrying about King Kong. It must be an instinctive subconscious fear of being eaten alive.

But people were afraid, and Jaws sparked a wholesale slaughter of all kinds of sharks, dangerous and docile alike. The problem of overfishing intensified as new prosperity in Asia created an insatiable demand for shark-fin soup.

Valerie: I used to climb on to the shark finning boats and take photographs. And one day, there’ll be very few sharks left. And these photographs will be proof of where they went.

Playing with Sharks is a stunning documentary, thanks in part to Valerie and Ron’s vintage footage. And the film does a good job balancing the beauty and the danger of sharks. They are wild animals that should be respected like other wild creatures. But Valerie reminds us there’s no need for irrational fear. She also reminds us that though they’re wild, they’re really smart.

In one scene Valerie talks about how she trained a shark to pose for her so she could get the photo she wanted.

Valerie: Eventually, he came over the pink coral and I gave him the food. I did that twice and he knew if he swam over the pink coral in a certain direction, he’d get a piece of food, just a small piece of fish. And it worked. It worked. The shot was exactly what I had planned. They learn. Faster than you can teach a dog.

Valerie wants us to love sharks as much as she does, and viewers will gain some new insights and appreciation for the ocean’s greatest predator. But if you watch this documentary, you’ll really come to love Valerie. Her optimism and her sense of adventure are inspiring.

Valerie: I usually get out of the water screaming my head off with joy, jumping around, “I love it. I love it.” And I do. I love it.

Watching Valerie continue to do the work she loves in spite of her age and her body’s aches and pains brought tears to my eyes. It was another reminder of how short and beautiful human life is.

Valerie: Every dive has the potential to be a great adventure. People think you’re mad, but you’re not.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, August 6th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. Up next: Ask the Editor. Today, Editor-in-Chief Marvin Olasky offers a few suggestions on why it’s important to follow the news.

MARVIN OLASKY, EDITOR IN CHIEF: Here’s an email: “The news is so beastly I feel like screaming. Sometimes I think I should ignore all the headlines. Why not?”

Good question. I have four thoughts. First, the Bible teaches that when man turns away from God, he acts like a beast. When we ignore the news of beastliness, we may be drawn to a romantic view of the world. It may seem wholesome, but it deadens us to the understanding of man’s sinfulness that is essential to Christianity. If man without God is not beastly, then Christ’s sacrifice for us was unnecessary. So, the news provides daily evidence of the truth of Christianity.

Second, five minutes of headline news is good, five hours is probably not – unless you’re called to be a journalist. Psalm 131 says, “I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. I have stilled and quieted my soul.” A little bad news trains us to pay attention but not become obsessed with the details of incidents over which we have no control. It teaches us to worship a God who keeps an infinite number of balls in the air. Most of us can handle just one or two. It pushes us to take action on things not too great, when we can have some influence.

Third, the news invites us to act at times in one Godlike way: laugh. Psalm 2 begins by asking, “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain.” The psalm then notes, “He who sits in the heavens laughs.” Sometimes we should do the same. When we hear that it’s now politically correct to say “pregnant persons” rather than “pregnant women,” it’s time to laugh. Sooner or later our media leaders will realize how stupid this sounds. Some of them will laugh in embarrassment. We should be the first on our block to laugh.

Fourth, the news reminds us to pray. It reminds us of what Psalm 73 teaches: “You guide me with your counsel. You will bring me to glory.” News from afar helps us to see how everyone desperately needs Christ. It spurs us to pray for others. It makes us thankful for biblical objectivity, with its clear direction on crucial matters. It reminds us that we don’t know how to solve many problems, so we need to pray for God’s guidance and be thankful that this world is not our final resting place. God has promised us much more.

I’m Marvin Olasky.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, I’m stepping away from the host's chair for a few days for some time away with my family...but I want to encourage you to be sure to check in on Monday.

Next week The World and Everything in It turns 10 years old! We have a special anniversary episode lined up for Monday that you won’t want to miss.

We’ll check back in with a few of our original reporters and staff and tell the story of our humble beginnings!

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It is time to thank our team in order of appearance this week.

Mary Reichard, Kent Covington, Katie Gaultney, Anna Johansen Brown, Sarah Schweinsberg, Emily Whitten, Whitney Williams, Onize Ohikere, Bonnie Pritchett, Steve West, Cal Thomas, and Collin Garbarino.

EICHER: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz are our audio engineers who stay up late to get the program to you early! Leigh Jones is managing editor. Paul Butler is executive producer. And Marvin Olasky is editor in chief.

BUTLER: And you! Thank you for supporting independent Christian journalism.

Give thanks for the freedom we have to worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord willing, we’ll meet you back here on Monday.

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