The World and Everything in It: December 13, 2023

NICK EICHER, HOST: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Yeah, that’s right. We can say that today, you made yours, and I made mine, our contribution to the December Giving Drive.

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EICHER: I hope you enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Hard to believe the GOP primaries begin next month, but the race for the White House is still eleven months away.

It’s never too early to talk strategy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s the right time ahead today on Washington Wednesday. Also today, World Tour.

And an upscale neighborhood in Baltimore has had enough.

AUDIO: One of our neighbors got carjacked at five o'clock in the afternoon. We all decided we should try to do something.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, December 13th. 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: Time for news. Here’s Kristen Flavin

AUDIO: [Demonstrators outside the Knesset]

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel - Hamas update » Crowds of Israeli demonstrators gathered outside parliament in Jerusalem last night, calling for the safe release of the remaining hostages held by the terror group Hamas.

The IDF announced yesterday that its special forces recovered the bodies of two hostages, Eden Zecharya and Sergeant Major Ziv Dado, during an operation in Gaza.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is pressuring Israel to pull back on its offensive in Gaza. The president said yesterday that Israel was losing international support because of “indiscriminate bombing.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showing no signs of backing down, however saying Israel and the United States have differing visions for Gaza after the war.

The U.S. has expressed support for a two-state solution, but…

NETANYAHU: [IN HEBREW] I want to clarify my position: I will not let Israel repeat the Oslo mistake. I will not allow that.

The prime minister saying there that he will not let Israel repeat what he calls the Oslo mistake.

That’s a reference to the 1993 Oslo Accords that granted limited Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza.

U.N. cease-fire vote » And last night the United Nations General Assembly stepping into the fray, passing a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.

Speaking before the vote Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan denounced the measure as woefully one-sided.

ERDAN: This resolution does not even condemn Hamas! It doesn’t even mentions Hamas! I honestly don’t know how can someone look in the mirror and support a resolution that doesn’t condemn Hamas and doesn’t even mention Hamas by name.

More than three-quarters of the 193-member assembly backed the move.

The United States voted against the resolution along with Israel and eight other countries.

BIDEN: It’s great to be at your side once again. We’re gonna stay at your side.

Zelenskyy in D.C. » President Biden hosted a special fireside guest in the Oval Office yesterday: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy was in Washington to personally urge lawmakers to pass Biden’s $110 billion aid package including funding for Ukraine, Israel, and U.S. national security needs.

ZELENSKY: We are fighting for our country and freedom and also in Europe we say for our freedom and yours.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying without that aid Ukraine could lose the war.

SCHUMER: If Ukraine falls, it will be a historic colossal tragedy. Historians will look back on this, not two weeks from now, but years from now and say that this was one of the turning points where Western civilization took a dramatic turn downward.

But some Republicans saying the proposal amounts to a blank check for Ukraine.

House Speaker Mike Johnson among them:

JOHNSON: I’ve made this very clear, again, from the very beginning when I was handed the gavel: We needed clarity on what we’re doing in Ukraine and how we’ll have proper oversight of the spending of precious taxpayer dollars of the American citizens. And we needed transformative change at the border. Thus far, we’ve gotten neither.

Biden Impeachment Inquiry/Hunter Hearing » The House is scheduled to vote today on whether to formalize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

House Republicans want to investigate further whether the president and his family of profited from policy decisions when Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama. Republicans also accuse the president of inappropriate involvement in the foreign business deals of his son, Hunter Biden.

House Speaker Mike Johnson says the decision is not fueled by partisanship.

JOHNSON: We have no choice to fulfill our constitutional responsibility, we have to take the next step. We're not making a political decision, it's a legal decision.

The GOP-led House has called Hunter Biden to testify in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill today. They say if he doesn’t show, they will hold him in contempt of Congress.

His legal team wants him to testify in public. Attorney Abbe Lowell told MSNBC that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer originally gave witnesses a choice .

LOWELL: We want to bring them down, we want to hear what they have to say. And they can testify by a way of deposition or a public hearing. It is their choice.

Hunter Biden was indicted a week ago on nine new federal charges accusing him of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.

U.S. Coast Guard Academy sexual assault » Four women testified before a Senate subcommittee yesterday about an alleged cover-up of sexual assaults at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Retired Coast Guard Lieutenant Melissa McCafferty testified she was assaulted in two separate incidents.

McCAFFERTY: He told me that he had booked separate hotel rooms, but when I arrived, I discovered only one. It was then that I realized this person was not my friend. Over the course of three days, he repeatedly raped me in that room.

Caitlin Maro told lawmakers she dropped out of the academy after several instances of sexual assault. She said when she reluctantly told her company commander about one such incident, he asked her if it was really worth investigating.

MARO: In a later meeting, after an investigation was forced the same company commander admitted that he didn't start an investigation because, “he figured that it happened on a date. You do have blonde hair and you wear makeup.”

Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan has ordered a review of the service’s sexual assault policies.

Abortion funding » Insurance providers in Michigan are now required to cover abortion procedures. WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry has more.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Monday signed a bill repealing a law that let insurance companies opt out of covering abortions.

Now state tax dollars can be used to fund the procedure. Michigan voters last year approved a constitutional amendment to remove protections for unborn babies.

Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office published a report yesterday, detailing that abortion groups received nearly $2 billion in federal funding from 2019 to 21.

In its first year, the Biden administration more than quadrupled federal obligations to Planned Parenthood.

The abortion provider also received more than $90 million dollars in Covid relief loans, all of which the federal government forgave.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

Haley Endorsement » New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is officially throwing his support behind GOP candidate Nikki Haley in her 2024 run for the White House.

Sununu made the highly anticipated endorsement last night at a town hall in Manchester.

Haley is battling Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to be the party’s alternative candidate to front-runner former President Donald Trump.

New Hampshire has one of the earliest primary elections scheduled for January 23.

I'm Kristen Flavin.

Straight ahead: The likelihood of a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 on Washington Wednesday. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 13th of December, 2023.

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

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

Just one more quick word on our December Giving Drive. We’re incentivizing early giving this week.

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[PAUSE]

It’s Washington Wednesday, but we begin in Boston.

AUDIO: [James Taylor at fundraiser]

You’ve got a friend in President Biden. That was the message from singer-songwriter James Taylor at a recent fundraiser for the president.

Biden’s campaign had $91 million dollars cash on hand as of the third quarter of 20-23. That’s a new high-water mark for a Democratic presidential candidate at this stage of the campaign.

EICHER: But during a closed-door donor event, he admitted that if Donald Trump were not running for president, well, neither would Biden acknowledging his 81 years.

Trump currently has a campaign war chest half the size of Biden’s, in part because he’s still in competition with other Republicans.

Even still, he’s taken a slim lead of 2 percentage points over Biden in an average of recent national polls, and a commanding lead in the primaries.

Joining us now to talk about what is looking more and more like an eventual rematch of 2020 is Kyle Kondik. He is an elections analyst and director of communications at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics

KYLE KONDIK, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: Kyle, before we talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Trump and Biden’s campaigns, I just want to recognize the weariness many people feel about the coming election. A few years ago around the run up to the 2016 election, we got a call from a listener who just dreads election years…and all the hype and vitriol and fear-mongering that goes along with it. And now the mainstream media message about 2024 is that a Trump-Biden rematch is inevitable…and so the politics of past elections will push out more pressing concerns and better candidates.

Kyle, why should Christian, conservative, church-going, family-oriented people care about electoral politics going into the primaries starting next month? Do you have any inspiration for us?

KONDIK: Well, I mean, look, it's ultimately up to the people to decide who the President is going to be. And, you know, if you want to have some sort of say in it, you need to register to vote and participate, however you may want to do that. And, you know, look, we have a two party system, it's very difficult for third party candidates to get much traction. You know, that's the system we have. Sometimes people have to decide between two choices that they don't necessarily like. But if you think about it, for probably not that much amount of time for most people, it's probably clear as to which candidate is closer to them. And so they make a choice that way. You know, it's easy to say, Oh, well, I wish there were different people. Well, first of all, we are having primaries on both sides. So like, whatever you think of the challengers, particularly to Biden, the challengers are fairly minor. You know, they're more credible people running the Republican side. But you know, you can participate in your own states, you know, caucus or primary or what have you and participate. But people often do and are totally entitled to complain about politics, but you probably have more or more entitled to complain if you actually participate.

REICHARD: Yeah, some skin in the game. Well, let’s get to it. As we mentioned, Trump appears to be on track to run away with the nomination. He enjoys a nearly 50-point lead over Ron DeSantis who is in second place.

If we go back to the beginning of 20-23, it really did look like this might be a two-person race for the GOP nomination. DeSantis was riding high on wins in the midterm election in Florida. And at one point in January, Trump and DeStantis were only 13 points apart. … What happened?

KONDIK: I think it's a lot of things. You know, I think at times Trump can dip with Republicans if there's some sort of short term problem. And so I would describe January 6th and the pretty terrible end to Trump's presidency as part of that. I also think of the 2022 midterms, Republicans did poorly and, frankly, a lot of candidates that Trump backed did poorly in that general election. But the thing is, is that it's like pushing on a balloon, like you have to keep pressure on it to change its shape. But once you let go it kind of restores back to where it was. And for Republicans and Trump, I just think that if there's not that continual pressure put on Trump, and a reminder of some of his downsides, what Republicans kind of like about him or the enemies he has that they like him having or all of that, I think just the support kind of regenerates. You know, it's easy to say it's easy to sort of pick at the campaign strategies of Ron DeSantis, or other Republicans, but it may just be that no one is capable of really toppling Trump at the head of the party. As of now, so many of the candidates themselves have decided not to go, you know, whole hog in terms of going after Trump because they feel like it does more harm than good. But it also speaks to their own fairly weak position within the nomination fight.

REICHARD: We mentioned Trump’s edge over Biden in recent polls. But … according to some polls, he isn’t the Republican who fares best against the incumbent. That is Nikki Haley.

There are a few recent polls that actually gave Haley a double-digit lead over Biden. How much mileage do you think she might be able to get out of the electability argument?

KONDIK: Well, look, it's ultimately going to be a hard one to make on the Republican side in part because Trump himself is doing okay. And the polls are probably better than he did in 2016 and 2020. And you know, when people are asked about the electability question on the Republican side, a lot of people support Trump and if you support someone, you naturally are going to say that they're electable. And I think that's what you're seeing in the polls and what people say about Trump. You know the other thing is that we know that Trump would react poorly to not being the nominee, and he has no inherent loyalty to his party. So if he's not leading it, and so I my guess is that he would probably try to undermine whoever the nominee would be, which I think, again, I think elected Republicans would worry about, so it may be that the numbers for someone like Haley or even DeSantis against Biden don't necessarily reflect what effect you know, having to run both against Biden but also frankly against a disappointed, and angry non-nominee Trump would be. Now that said, you could also see the potential upside in that, both Biden and Trump have fairly poor national favorability numbers. There's, you know, some attraction potentially on both sides to picking someone who's different. It's just that you don't necessarily know at the end of the day if that replacement candidate would be better than Biden or Trump, because, you know, polls at this point are not necessarily predictive, and we don't know how the campaign would turn out.

REICHARD: What do you think each campaign believes is its strongest winning message? And do you agree those are winning messages?

KONDIK: I mean, I really think that probably the strongest message for either candidate is the weakness of the other. You know, I think they're both kind of dependent upon running against one another. And I think the campaign is going to be highly negative. And it's going to be a campaign just like 2016, where you think of politicians want, they want to be in the limelight, they want attention. This is a campaign where I think if you're Biden or Trump, you probably don't want attention, you probably want to be as disciplined as you possibly can be, which is, frankly, a challenge for both of these candidates in different kinds of ways, historically speaking, and you want the focus to be more on the problems of the other person.

REICHARD: Bring this all home for us. And I’ll ask the same about Trump in a moment. As succinctly as possible, I’d like for you to finish this sentence: President Biden wins reelection IF …

KONDIK: Donald Trump is a weak candidate whose problems predominate in the fall.

REICHARD: Okay, and Trump reclaims the White House IF …

KONDIK: Joe Biden is a weak candidate, and Biden's problems predominate in the fall. I do think this is in both cases. I think it's the path of victory for one relies on the weakness of the other.

REICHARD: Kyle Kondik is with the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Kyle, thanks so much!

KONDIK: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Voting process]

ONIZE OHIKERE: Egypt election — We start today in Egypt, where polling units closed yesterday after a presidential election.

The vote comes as Egypt battles an economic crisis and the Israel-Hamas war along its eastern border. Refugees have also flooded over the southern border from Sudan as a war continues there.

RESIDENT: [Speaking Arabic]

This Cairo resident says security and safety are top concerns.

Incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is widely expected to clinch a third term. He came into office in 2014 and has cemented his hold on power since then. Officials will announce the election results on Monday.

India Kashmir ruling — Over in India, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a measure that revoked the special status of the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir.

JILANI: We have held that Article 370 is a temporary provision on a reading of the historical context in which it was included.

The court also ordered the country’s electoral commission to hold legislative polls in the region by next September.

Back in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government stripped the Muslim-majority region of its special status. Jammu and Kashmir had operated as a semi-autonomous region with a separate constitution and land and job protections.

India and neighboring Pakistan have fought over control of the region since August 1947, when both nations gained independence from Britain.

Pakistan has rejected the ruling and India’s right to make that decision.

Here’s Pakistan’s caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani.

JILANI: Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute which remains on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council for over seven decades. The final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir is to be made in accordance with the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

The ruling is expected to boost the electoral prospects of Modi’s party ahead of national polls next year.

AUDIO: [Sound from meeting]

EU AI law — In the European Union, negotiators reached a landmark deal on a comprehensive set of rules to guide the use of artificial intelligence.

The first-of-its-kind agreement on Friday followed marathon closed-door talks.

The AI Act was initially created to block any dangers from specific AI functions based on risk levels. But lawmakers pushed to extend it to foundational models. That’s the advanced systems that make up general purpose AI services like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot.

Here’s Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the internal market.

BRETON: It's a launchpad for the European startups and also researchers to lead the global race for what our citizens want, a trustworthy AI.

Some big tech companies have raised concerns about overregulation. The European Parliament still needs to vote on the act early next year.

AUDIO: [Cheering]

Iran Nobel Prize collection — We close today in Norway, with the twin children of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi.

Iran has detained Mohammadi since 2021 in Tehran’s Evin prison over her campaign against the mandatory hijab requirement for women.

Her 17-year-old children read the Nobel acceptance speech she smuggled out of her cell.

TEEN: [TRANSLATED] I think the most important has been said but what we are asking people in the world is to be our voice, to support us, to share what is happening in Iran because as you are defending our democracy, you are also defending your own democracy.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A young man rising to a challenge has gone viral on social media because skills.

The name: Harry Cozens.

The game: auctioneer.

The challenge: to auction off a perfectly worthless trucker’s cap while riding a commuter train in Melbourne, Australia.

COZENS: I got 50, gonna be 50, gonna be 50! (laughter)

Not 50. Much more, as he nailed the close.

COZENS: It’s 74 now. Sell it, quick, Harry, getting’ away, 74! (Cheers)

Well he pulled it off … wouldn’t you say?

MARY REICHARD, HOST: I’d say, hats off to ya, mate!

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 13th.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’re along with us today. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Today on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast, Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes break down an AP report on the growing trend of religious nones. “N-O-N-E-S,” as in “nothing.” Why are people leaving —and how should Christian educators respond? Here’s a preview:

REED: I understand those instincts, I understand the desire to be in a place with maybe unfettered freedom, or at least that encourages the enjoyment of life and of the beauty of creation, but has taken all of that off of the foundation of the One who created it in the first place.

BOES: Everything that the nones hate about religion is actually not a part of true religion, and almost everything they love about "spirituality" is part of true religion. One person left because a pastor refused to visit a dying relative because that person wasn't a member of the church. You know, that's against so much of what we see in Scripture, we see in Scripture that visiting the sick and the needy is so essential to faith. It doesn't matter whether or not they're part of the church and other person talks about, you know, they can't accept the picture of a big bearded dude in the sky. Obviously, that's not the true picture of the Christian God. Down the line, every single thing that is seen as a critique of the church here, those problems aren't arising from something intrinsic to religion, I would say again, analyzing against a biblical worldview, what these problems are arising from is something intrinsic to humans, which we would call sin.

You can hear the entire episode of Concurrently today wherever you get your podcasts. And find out more at concurrentlypodcast.com.

REICHARD: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: private security.

In some American cities, residents are getting fed up with increased crime. They say the police don’t respond fast enough. So they are banding together to hire private security firms to patrol their streets.

EICHER: What is it like for a security guard to work in an environment so dangerous?

WORLD senior writer Emma Freire took a ride along with a security guard in Baltimore to find out.

EMMA FREIRE, REPORTER: It’s early evening in Federal Hill park. Families are out enjoying the lingering sunlight. Groups of friends stand around talking. Others sit on benches overlooking Baltimore’s inner harbor.

SOUND: [Dirt bikes]

Suddenly the peace is shattered by the sound of dirt bikes.

A group of five or six young men ride straight through the park. They’re wearing ski masks. They stop at the best spot overlooking the harbor. And then they just hang out. They seem to have no plans to go anywhere.

Federal Hill Park closes at dusk. One man is in charge of clearing the park. He goes around politely but firmly telling people it’s time to go home. His name is Brian Askew. But he’s not a police officer. He doesn’t even work for the city of Baltimore. He’s a private security guard.

AUDIO: [Askew talking on radio]

Confronting hooligans is a dangerous job.

BRIAN ASKEW: So some of them are actually armed. Some of them commit robbery, some of them, you know, do a couple of different things. So it just all depends on what's kind of going on. You know, for the most part, I don't know why they come to Federal Hill and do all of that. It really makes absolutely no sense at all.

Askew is the founder of Matcom, a private security firm. The people who live around Federal Hill park hired the company to help limit criminal activity.

ASKEW: Federal Hill is a beautiful place. But then Federal Hill on the public safety side, it goes from zero to 100, just like that, and a lot of people don't see that that portion of it.

Askew grew up in Virginia. He didn’t set out to do private security. He started Matcom as a dispatch company.

ASKEW: It started off as a joke, actually, we were watching Alaska State Troopers. And I said, Well, you know, I think I could do this, or I could start a little dispatch company. And my family busted out laughing. And they thought it was the funniest thing in the world. But they saw that I was, I was serious like this, I meant business. So we opened our doors January 17, of 2017. And we have about 15 agencies now that we dispatch for.

Last year, Askew and Matcom started offering private security guard services. His first contract was with Federal Hill.

Baltimore is struggling with a severe police shortage. The police department has over 500 vacancies and crime rates are high. In 2022, there were 335 reported homicides even though Baltimore has fewer than 600,000 residents.

Askew and his employees look a bit like police officers. They drive decommissioned police Crown Victorias and they carry badges that prove they are certified by the state of Maryland. But there are important differences:

ASKEW: So here in Maryland, there's no such thing as arrest in the capacity of guards or private police or special police. You can detain them until Baltimore city gets here, or whatever county you're in.

The idea to hire private security in Federal Hill goes back three years, to a man named Ian Neuman. He lives walking distance from Federal Hill Park.

IAN NEUMAN: I moved in here in 1978. So I've been here for quite awhile.

In September 2020, crime in Federal Hill had gotten so bad that Neuman and some of his neighbors decided to take action.

NEUMAN: it was a group of us that after a particularly bad spat, like one person being shot and murdered up in the park around the corner, because somebody didn't like the dice game or results, and then catty corner to us, one of our neighbors got carjacked, at five o'clock in the afternoon, we all decided we should try to do something.

Neuman and some of his neighbors banded together to hire a private security firm to patrol their streets.

They ask residents to contribute $300 a year.

NEUMAN: And that allows us to hire an outside security firm, to patrol our streets five nights a week. And we always do Friday and Saturday after that we make a decision depending on what we think's going on as to what other nights it is we patrol it at different hours of the night, but it's mainly at the nighttime during the day, we don't do that much patrolling.

Residents who contribute money get Matcom’s phone number and a smartphone app with a panic button so they can get help when they need it.

That service costs about $45,000 a year. Matcom only patrols between May and November because crime is lower in the winter. That also helps keep costs down.

Neuman tells Askew to use his judgment when patrolling Federal Hill Park. If people are minding their business, they can stay.

NEUMAN: Federal Hill Park is not owned by Federal Hill neighborhood. It is owned by the city. I come up and say I know the park is closed. But if somebody is there with their girlfriend at one o'clock at night, taking a romantic walk, you better not be bothering them to get out of the park. If somebody's doing something nefarious, that's a different thing. And we.. you know, drug dealers or prostitution or dice games.

Askew shares the work of patrolling Federal Hill with two other guards. They send Neuman reports each night.

The young men on dirt bikes loitering at dusk end up leaving without any trouble. But Askew and his team regularly prevent crimes from happening.

Sometimes in the early morning hours, they’ll disrupt groups of young people that are going around trying the door handles of cars to find ones that are unlocked so they can steal what’s inside.

Despite the dangers, Askew finds his work meaningful and rewarding.

ASKEW: We started the protective services firm because we wanted to be involved. We wanted to have an invested interest in the safety and well being of Baltimore. And in the same you know, we want to make Baltimore become the greatest comeback story in America, and we will you know.

That could take a while. In the meantime, Askew and Neuman are determined to make life in Federal Hill at least a little bit safer.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 13th. 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. Up next, book reviewer Lauren Dunn says a new book helps women see the gospel in their work.

LAUREN DUNN: How do our gender differences as men and women affect our work? Our culture often tries to confuse or explain away these differences, but in Called to Cultivate: A Gospel Vision for Women and Work, author Chelsea Patterson Sobolik brings Christian wisdom about gender into the workplace. Not only does she address the struggles a woman can face at work, she also paints a vision of how the gospel applies.

This is a short book–only 160 pages. But Sobolik covers a lot of ground. Early on, she turns to Scripture for the foundation of a Christian’s relationship to work, and much of her advice can apply to both sexes. She notes that God gave both Adam and Eve the creation mandate, what she also refers to as a calling to cultivate. In that mandate, God told humans to “have dominion” over the world God had just created. In chapters like “how we reflect God’s nature when we work,” Sobolik explains how that calling still holds true for us, even after Christ’s first coming. “We are now free,” Sobolik says, “to joyfully serve both God and neighbor resting in the fact that we are forgiven…”

Still, women face unique challenges with their work, and Sobolik’s goal was to write the book that could have helped her when navigating her own work difficulties in her years on Capitol Hill. She writes about her frustrations in jobs that didn’t feel fulfilling, and at one point, she even lost her job when her boss–a legislator–left office after being accused of sexual misconduct.

Called to Cultivate points to God’s care for women throughout Scripture. It also focuses on women’s experiences in areas such as leadership and negotiating a salary or raise. Chapters explore dealing with difficult coworkers and people-pleasing, as well as more serious barriers like sexual, racial, or age discrimination. Sobolik encourages women to help other women in the workplace through prayer and mentorship. Her book is an example of Paul’s admonition to Titus that older women should “train younger women,” though she misses an opportunity to mention that reference. Each chapter ends with discussion questions, verses to meditate on, and suggested books for further reading.

Some Christian circles have popularized the phrase that “a woman’s highest calling is to be a wife and mother.” Sobolik in no way downplays those roles, sometimes defining work broadly to include volunteering or the work of stay-at-home moms. Instead, she helps readers see a gospel-focused picture of all women’s work. “The Great Commission and the Great Commandment are a woman’s highest calling,” she writes, reminding us that while aspects of our lives may change, this calling to cultivate never will.

Finally, Sobolik cautions readers against allowing work to play too large a role in their lives in the following quote: “When we rest, we are acknowledging that the burdens of this world don’t rest on our shoulders, they rest on His.”

I’m Lauren Dunn.

REICHARD: You can find more ideas for books to give as Christmas gifts on our website…we’ve included a link in today’s show notes.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: A political thriller straight out of Bollywood is playing out in real-life New York City. We’ll have a report.

And, celebrating Christmas in modern-day Bethlehem.

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 says: In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” —Hebrews chapter 12:4-6

Go now in grace and peace.

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