The World and Everything in It: December 10, 2024

PREROLL: Hi, everyone. We’re in our Year-End Giving Drive. In one way these semi-annual drives amount to an evaluation of the job we’re doing. So I’d like to ask: how do you evaluate us?

What is WORLD worth? And how would you express it in dollar-terms? Whatever that number is, please go to wng.org/YearEndGift and let us know.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Syrian rebels have chased President Bashar al-Assad out of the country. But what's next?

And, DEI policies are on the way out:

BUTCHER: The movement towards radical racial preferences overshot its target.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today a centuries-old tradition is uniting people in Australia.

REED: It came into my life at a similar time that my faith was developing. So it's an important part of that—the music and the words

Later, WORLD Opinions commentator Joe Rigney on a timely novel by C.S. Lewis from eighty years ago.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, December 10th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: It’s time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Syria » The reign of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is over. And Secretary of State Tony Blinken says … while questions remain, that is very good news.

BLINKEN: The end of this regime is a defeat for all who enabled his barbarity and his corruption. None more than Iran. Hezbollah. And Russia.

But with Assad now out of the country … who exactly is in charge?

Syria's prime minister on Monday agreed to hand over power to what's being called the Syrian Salvation Government.

We’ll have much more on leadership in Syria very shortly.

But Israel says it's taking no chances. The Israeli Defense Forces released a video that appears to show Israeli paratroopers entering Syria.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he ordered the Israeli military to seize a buffer zone between Israel and Syria. He says it's necessary to ensure Israel's security … with heightened tensions in the Middle East.

Zelenskyy open to Western troops in Ukraine » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he is open to the potential deployment of Western troops in Ukraine … as part of a bigger effort to end the war. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Zelenskyy says he proposes that Western troops be posted in some territories to help guarantee the security of Ukraine … while Ukraine is not yet a part of NATO. But he said that should be with the clear understanding that Ukraine will be a part of NATO in the future.

If Western troops were stationed in Ukraine, that would likely be as part of a ceasefire agreement with Russia. And the purpose of those troops would be to help keep the peace.

President-elect Trump recently met in Paris with Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss efforts to end the war. The Kremlin has said it’s open to negotiating.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin parents appeal » The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a case involving parental rights on Monday. Wisconsin parents brought that case, alleging that a local school district’s transgender policy instructs teachers to intentionally withhold information about students from their parents.

By turning away the case, the high court left in place an appellate ruling dismissing the parents’ lawsuit.

The court was one vote short of approving the case for review. But three conservative justices signaled willingness to revisit these topics down the road.

Lara Trump stepping down as RNC co-chair » President-elect Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump is stepping down as co-chair of the Republican National Committee … less than a year after taking the job.

LARA: You know, I could continue to stay at the RNC, but I do think I completed what I came to the RNC to do.

And that was to help steer the party through the election.

She said she’s considering numerous opportunities, but there’s one in particular she appears to be eyeing.

LARA: I know my name has been floated as a potential replacement for Marco Rubio, assuming he’s confirmed as Secretary of State. Obviously that is ultimately up to Gov. DeSantis.

If Florida Senator Marco Rubio departs the Senate to lead the State Dept. Gov. Ron DeSantis would choose a replacement to fill his seat for now ahead of a special election in 2026.

AUDIO: [Penny verdict protests]

NY subway case verdict » Protestors gathered outside a New York City courthouse Monday … demonstrating after a jury acquitted Marine veteran Daniel Penny of a criminally negligent homicide charge.

Penny restrained a man who was reportedly threatening other passengers on a New York subway … leading to his death.

The man who died, Jordan Neely, had a history of mental illness. And Mayor Eric Adams called it an avoidable tragedy.

ADAMS:  Jordan should not have had, had to die. Um, and, uh, I strongly believe as I've been stating probably from day one, uh, we have a mental health system that is broken. Uh, when you have someone repeatedly going through that system, uh, that's a signature of failure.

He added, though, that the jury rendered its decision and he respects the process.

New York City CEO shooting suspect » Authorities say they’ve arrested a person of interest in connection to the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week in Midtown Manhattan.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania … after an employee recognized the man from surveillance footage the NYPD has shared online.

TISCH: Officers recovered a firearm on his person, as well as a suppressor both consistent with the weapon used in the murder.

Tisch said police also found clothing that matched the suspect…and a fake ID that matched records at a hostel where the alleged shooter stayed… along with a handwritten manifesto.

Straight ahead: more on the situation in Syria. Plus, organizations and institutions reconsider DEI initiatives.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 10th of December.

This is WORLD Radio. Thanks for listening! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

First up on The World and Everything in It out of the frying pan into the fire.

It’s been two days since the capital of Syria fell to rebel forces. Why did the regime fall, and who appears to be filling the void? Here’s WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde.

CALEB WELDE: Bashar al-Assad was the second Assad to rule Syria. His father took control of the country in 1971 via a coup the third coup of his career.

HUSSAIN: He outsmarted everybody else.

Hussein Abdul Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He grew up in Lebanon during Assad senior’s reign.

HUSSAIN: He modeled Syria along the lines of North Korea, cult leader, father figure kind of thing.

Assad senior ruled until his death, when, allegedly, 99.7 percent of votes came in for his son, Bashar.

HUSSAIN: Now mind you, Bashar was not the one who was being groomed to succeed the father, Basil, the older brother was being groomed, but Basil died before his dad in a car accident, so Bashar found himself doing this all of a sudden.

Under Bashar, the regime has been torn apart by civil war. Food prices have climbed out of control. I spoke with this man last year in Syria.

AUDIO: Really, I'm not, I'm not making any exaggeration. I'm, I'm amazed how people manage to stay alive. Like, what do they eat?

Until now, Assad brutally squashed efforts to overthrow his government with the help of Iran and Russia.

HUSSAIN: But now that Israel decimated Iran and Russia has become busy in the Ukraine war, no one came to his rescue, and he just crumbled like that.

So can the rebels turn things around?

The faction in charge is known as “HTS,” short for, “Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham,” or, “The Levant Liberation Committee.” They’re actually a coalition formed in 2017 by a former Al Qaeda member named Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a. He later changed his name to Abu Mohammad al-Julani.

“Julani” refers to the Golan Heights where his parents fled their home during the Israeli-Arab Six Day War.

AP: Israel claims to have destroyed the bulk of Arab air forces, in less than three hours.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Julani joined Al-Qaeda. In 2005, he was arrested by U.S. forces in Iraq and detained in a prison camp for five years. He spent his time writing about how he thought best to fight Jihad in Syria. When the Americans released Julani, he sent his fifty-page strategy to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the leader of “Islamic State” in Iraq. The ISIS leader met with Julani and agreed to expand operations into Syria. He even agreed to fund the twenty-nine year old fifty thousand U.S. dollars a month.

PBS: Julani and his men– all wearing suicide belts, in case they were caught, crossed into Syria a few months later.

PBS released a full-length documentary about Julani three years ago.

PBS: Julani spent several months recruiting and forming Jabat-Al Nusyra.

Julani distanced himself from ISIS shortly after he arrived in Syria and publically severed ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016. That’s when he rebranded again to “HTS.” But the difference in 2017 was Julani had ten thousand men following him.

PBS: Julani began his attacks on Assad by sending young fighters on suicide missions. 

One source of income was hostage taking. Dozens of survivors report beatings, torture, and executions.

But now Julani seems to be trying to rebrand himself again. Last week he specifically reassured Christians and Kurdish minorities. Julani sat down with CNN last week just after HTS had taken the city of Hama.

CNN: People listening to this are going to wonder why they should believe you. You are still a specially designated global terrorist by the United States with a ten million bounty on your head. Your group is a prescribed terrorist organization by the United States, by the UN by the EU and others,

JULANI: I say to people, don't judge by words, but by actions. I believe the reality speaks for itself.

Hussein Abdul Hussain says he has his doubts but he’s waiting to see if Julani really has moderated and left behind his Islamic extremism.

HUSSEIN: So far the few days that have passed by, I think you know, his things have been better when compared to other Arab Spring or Iraq War change, no looting, no burning, no breaking. But moving forward, I wish, I hope, that things continue going in this direction.

When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan in 2021, they made similar promises but if their track record since is any indication, Syria is in for challenging days ahead.

For WORLD, I’m Caleb Welde.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next, backing away from DEI.

Over the past few months, organizations have been walking back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. DEI grew out of the social-justice movement … with proponents claiming they were meant to foster environments in which people from all backgrounds felt respected and valued.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But in practice, DEI programs fostered resentment, and now companies are reversing course. WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

ROBBY STARBUCK: Walmart will be removing all inappropriate sexual and or transgender products that are marketed toward kids.

MARY MUNCY: Robby Starbuck, advocates for companies to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. He announced Walmart’s reversal on his X account last month.

STARBUCK: This is the single largest employer in the United States. We are talking about a company that is worth almost a trillion dollars on its own.

For 11 years in a row, Walmart has had the highest revenue of any company in the US and now, it joins a list of companies like Tractor Supply and John Deere reversing course on DEI.

STARBUCK: Walmart will be discontinuing their racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute again.

A few other companies high on the Fortune 500 list like Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway are also reversing course but the change isn’t just corporate.

SARAH HUBBARD: We're open for business for people from all walks of life.

Sarah Hubbard is a regent with the University of Michigan. The regents govern Michigan state colleges, approve budgets, and can review policy.

Last week, they stopped requiring job applicants to write diversity statements, those typically ask the applicants to explain how they would promote equity and diversity in their role.

HUBBARD: People should feel comfortable on this campus expressing diversity of thought and freedom of expression from places From throughout the state and throughout the world.

Students protested outside the meeting room and one speaker yelled at the regents during a Q&A.

The regents made it clear that they’re not planning on cutting any programs aimed at helping diverse students, and they’re expanding scholarships for in-state students. But Vice President of Government Relations Chris Kolb worries that the new administration in Washington could change that.

CHRIS KOLB: DEI is one of the things that they believe need to be eliminated from from higher education, and they will use whatever tools they can, including the cutting off of finances, to make that happen. And we need to be aware of that as an institution.

And last month, the Georgia Board of Regents went a step further, when they not only stopped requiring diversity statements but also said the determining factor for employment will be the ability to accomplish the tasks of the job.

Several other schools have also walked back some of their policies, including MIT and Harvard, but why now?

JONATHAN BUTCHER: The movement towards radical racial preferences overshot its target.

Jonathan Butcher is a fellow with the Heritage Foundation. He says it’s hard to find an exact tipping point, but sometime in the summer of 2020, Americans started to question how their country was operating.

BUTCHER: Anti bias trainings had been very prevalent in businesses for many years. So as we, as we recognize that the violence that ensued okay, and that this constant fight over amorphous ideas around race was not bringing us closer together, and people did begin to speak out.

Butcher says activists like Starbuck deserve some credit, but there are also people like economist and financial advisor David Bahnsen, who told WORLD’s Nick Eicher that he and other investors are pressuring companies to return to neutral.

And now, the pressure has even more force. Last summer the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action, or what Butcher calls “racial preferences,” in college admissions are unconstitutional. That means colleges can no longer consider race in college admissions.

BUTCHER: After that decision was released, many observers of what was happening in in the business world said it's only a matter of time before the right case comes before these justices, and they recognize that the same thing is going to apply here.

But it’s not just outside pressures, employees who are tired of DEI are speaking up too.

BUTCHER: Nobody likes to be required or forced to sit through some sort of training, or so called professional development, where they are told that they are inherently biased and that there's something wrong with them because of their skin color. I mean, nobody likes that.

And on the flip side, few want to wonder whether their success was based purely on the color of their skin.

Companies, universities, and the U.S. government have invested billions of dollars into DEI hoping to get a high score from the Human Rights Campaign Equality Index, but now, some, including Microsoft and Walmart, are refusing to give data to the index, saying DEI is no longer business-critical.

BUTCHER: Something that's business critical, it is either helping you create, generate revenue, sell your product, create benefits for your shareholders, create a healthy workplace.

Walmart’s website doesn’t mention diversity, equity, and inclusion anymore… instead, it has a “belonging” tab where it commits to making employees feel valued and respected.

Walmart told me that being willing to change alongside Americans is how they stay in business.

BUTCHER: When something's called or said to be not business critical, there's no reason to be investing in it any longer as a part of your operations.

Most of the companies that have walked back DEI have created similar policies to Walmart saying they are trying to keep a healthy and inclusive work environment, but that DEI is not the way to accomplish it.

Meanwhile, activist Robbie Starbuck and others are putting pressure on other big retailers like Amazon and Target to follow suit.

BUTCHER: I have yet really to see a high profile case where a company's been exposed for having DEI operations and they've turned around and defended it and said they're going to keep doing it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Payton May spent two years deployed, of which 9 months were in Iraq, and by his side was a canine soldier,  Yyacob, a Belgian Malinois.

Sound from ABC News:

MAY: Working with each other and going on secret service missions and going on deployment, was able to come together and build that trust.

Yyacob was an explosives detective and he had the trust of his master! But then May was reassigned to another base and had to leave Yyacob behind:

MAY: It was kind of heartbreaking to be honest with you.

The dog wasn’t able to bond with subsequent handlers so the military had to retire Yyacob.

Well, just before Thanksgiving, after a two-year separation? The now 8 year old Yyacob had a sweet reunion with May: 

MAY: I’m very thankful to have this little guy home. Awww, buddy! Laughter. Oh, wow!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 10th.

This is The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you are along with us today. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next: musical traditions.

It was in the early 1800s that musicians traveled around New England teaching a method of singing. It relied on a four-note system of shapes … squares, triangles, and diamonds.

Fa-Sol-La or shape-note singing used British folk melodies to sing the words of hymns.

EICHER: The boisterous songs were used at camp meetings and revivals, but soon they were replaced with more refined European music. But shape-note singing didn’t die.

Here’s WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis.

SINGING: [BRETHREN WE HAVE COME]

AMY LEWIS: When Natalie Sims learned about old-style shape-note songs and Sacred Harp music, she and her husband were living in Connecticut in 2001.

SIMS: We came across Sacred Harp singing actually from hearing it on the radio. So we went and looked up the internet and found our local singing, which was, at the time, a bit over an hour's drive away, and just went and tried it and fell in love with it.

Even though they enjoyed it, her husband Shawn Whelan says it was a steep learning curve.

WHELAN: They opened up the books, they said, welcome. Look at this number on this page and go. And launched into this breakneck speed song that we'd never heard, and we were expected to sight read and sing along with all of that. Like, ah, strap yourself in for the roller coaster ride.

For the next 6 months, Sims and Whelan attended every shape-note event they could. Then they moved back to Melbourne, Australia.

SIMS: And we thought, oh, we'll just find our local group and we'll sing with them. But there was no local group. So we thought, well, we better start one, because we like it.

That was 23 years ago. Since then, they have helped a number of groups form in Australia. Sims teaches briefly at the start of all-day sing-alongs.

SIMS: So the different shapes that we have is fa, so, la, and mi. A way to remember the name, the shapes and their names, is fa is like a triangular flag, so like some bunting or something like that. So is round, like the sun…

STUDENTS: Fa, so, la, fa, so, la, mi, fa

In November, one of the groups they helped form in Kyneton, Victoria, held their annual all-day sing in the cavernous Kyneton Mechanics Institute. It’s about an hour drive from Melbourne and a 90-minute flight from Sydney. Four Sydneysiders made that trek, including Angharad Davis.

DAVIS: So I've come down from Sydney to the Kyneton all-day Sacred Harp singing, which is a yearly gathering in which Sacred Harp singers from around Australia—especially from the Melbourne region and the Victoria region—come together for a day of loud singing, good fun, fellowship, and food.

Davis learned about the singing method 10 years ago while studying musicology in Connecticut. She now writes shape-note songs and submitted several to the revised Sacred Harp songbook due out next year.

Shawn Whelan has also tried his hand at song writing.

WHELAN: Even the new songs typically are tunes and arrangements which are set to some old words going back to Isaac Watson's time. Some of the words that we sing, then have some very old fashioned theology that wouldn't be sung in a lot of churches these days, certainly not in mine.

SINGING: Oh that I could repent…

WHELAN: I sometimes say I enjoy some of the songs despite the words. There are other songs I love because of the words.

Experience is the best teacher for people learning. People like Kate Reed visiting from Dunedin, New Zealand.

REED: There’s a website called Sacred Harp Bremen that has the music and a little MIDI recording, so you could sing along and learn the songs. I have a little loop pedal, so I would learn all the parts and sing all the parts, because I didn’t have anyone to sing with, because there’s none in New Zealand.

This is the second time she’s flown to meet other singers in person. She and nearly 20 others sit in a hollow square facing each other.

SINGING: Fa so la…

After choosing a pitch, the singers first sing through the song with the names of the notes. Each song has a new director who stands in the middle and faces the tenors who carry the melody-line. The director swings his or her arm up and down to keep simplified time. Singers keep time the same way, lending a pulsating rhythm to the music.

SINGING: [Pulsating rhythm]

Reed was fascinated by more than just the music.

REED: Hearing this sort of the quality of the singing was really otherworldly, and also it came into my life at the similar time that my faith was developing. So it's really, it's an important part of that, the music and the words and the style of communal singing and that kind of, like, it's quite desperate. A lot of it, it feels really desperate and, but also so joyful.

SINGING: Would to God I had died, oh my son, oh my son. Absalom.

Natalie Sims says the loud, sometimes discordant chords make shape note gatherings unusual. As well as who is welcome.

SIMS: Anyone can come and sing. You don’t have to be a great singer, you don’t have to want to perform. You don’t have to have any experience or any goals. You can just come and sing it…and you get to meet a bunch of different people that you wouldn’t normally meet from day to day life.

By the end of the day in Kyneton, the 18 singers from two countries and three states have sung an astounding 65 songs under 12 different directors.

Reed is used to singing by herself. But today she’s not alone. She hopes someday there’s a group in New Zealand to sing with her.

REED: I know the difference of singing with other people, because the feeling of the sound being more than what you can contribute. At the same time, your contribution is really important, and you're kind of carried along. I think it's so beyond you, but so important. You know, you get to be in two worlds at once.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Kyneton, Victoria, Australia.

SINGING: Thus may we abide in union…[fade out]

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 10th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. C.S. Lewis wrote:

“There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there’s never more than one.”

That comes from the 19-45 novel “That Hideous Strength.”

Lewis is known as a Christian apologist, literary scholar, and creator of Narnia. But WORLD Opinions contributor Joe Rigney says he was also a timely prophet of the modern age.

JOE RIGNEY: Imagine a dystopian novel in the vein of 1984 and Brave New World, but one that is more prophetic than both. It’s a modern fairy tale for grown-ups. One that weaves together the core arguments of many of Lewis’ most profound books and essays…including: The Abolition of Man, “The Poison of Subjectivism,” “The Inner Ring,” “Membership,” and “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”—all of which could be read as an appetizer for the main course.

The novel’s relevance is nowhere more apparent than when it speaks to issues of sexuality. On the one hand, we see the dehumanizing grossness of gender ideology and insanity. From the Italian Filostrato—who finds intimacy disgusting and desires instead to sterilize humanity to make it more manageable—to Fairy Hardcastle, the sadistic and grotesque head of Belbury’s institutional police. The novel also alludes to a cold and barren society that uses realistic pleasure robots as substitutes for marital relations and uses technology to fabricate children in secret places.

The male protagonist of the novel is consumed with the lust for influence and acceptance by the Inner Ring. He has a deep fear of being ostracized by the Progressive Element so that he eventually becomes an emasculated and pathetic stooge in Belbury’s plots. The female protagonist considers herself to be an up-to-date and modern feminist…one who refuses submission in marriage and deeply fears being invaded by children. That is until she comes face to face with true masculinity of both the earthly and the heavenly kind and is forced to choose to bow up or yield.

From the opening word, the novel is fundamentally about marriage and the centrality of childbearing. In the final scene, the leader of the resistance tells the female protagonist: “You’ll have no more dreams. Have children instead.”

But the mundane troubles of a young married couple are embedded in a cosmic war between the bureaucratic tyranny of the scientistic conditioners and the humane and Christian resistance at St. Anne’s. The National Institute for Coordinated Experiments—or N.I.C.E.—is a prophetic depiction of the Total State, complete with bureaucratic ambiguity and doublespeak that renders all accountability impossible. No one is ever to blame for anything, and yet anyone can be scapegoated at any time. Belbury is committed to “the liquidation of anachronisms,” the destruction of traditional ways of life because of its lack of efficiency.

All of this is managed through propaganda directed at the educated middle class. As one character puts it, “[I]t’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? … The educated public, the people who read the highbrow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. … They’ll believe anything.” This includes the so-called “humanitarian theory of punishment” that substitutes “rehabilitation” and “reeducation” for just retribution, thereby enabling the state to experiment on criminals with impunity.

But lurking behind the governmental and industrial powerful are the Macrobes… dark and demonic forces seeking the domination and destruction of humanity. Opposed to them is a motley assortment of Christians and one reality-respecting atheist. Their leader is a crippled academic who has traveled to Mars and Venus and conversed with the angelic Intelligences in Deep Heaven. Together they resist That Hideous Strength.

In short, the novel is timely for a world in which everything is narrowing and coming to a point—good getting better and bad getting worse, and the possibilities of even apparent neutrality always diminishing. In the words of C.S. Lewis: “The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder. … ‘Life’s business being just the terrible choice.’”

And so, this holiday season, the choice is before you. Take up and read…and learn.

I’m Joe Rigney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Congress shows skepticism about the new Department of Government Efficiency, but most agree something has to be done. We’ll talk about it on Washington Wednesday. And, the story of a young woman who took the abortion pill and then sought to reverse it. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible warns against apostasy: “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” —Hebrews 5:11-14.

Go now in grace and peace.

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