The World and Everything in It: December 2, 2025

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Good morning!

The U.S. and Ukraine make progress on a peace plan…will Russia buy in?

MARCO RUBIO: This is delicate. It’s complicated. There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there's another party involved here that’ll be a part of the equation.

EICHER: We’ll talk about it with an expert in foreign policy.

And later …

ROACH: Back when the penny was first struck for circulation, it was worth something. Now, there isn’t really a necessity for it.

A fond farewell on the phase-out of the fabulous American one-cent coin.

And WORLD Opinions managing editor Andrew Walker on the Nuremberg trials and natural law.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, December 2nd. 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: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump Administration confirms gunboat follow-up strike » Lawmakers from both parties are turning up the heat on the Trump Administration.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is at the center of it all. In September, The Washington Post reports Hegseth gave Seal Team Six a verbal order that led to a second strike on an alleged drug boat from Venezuela… after the first didn't kill the entire crew. Killing survivors at sea is a war crime.

The White House Monday did confirm the second strike, though President Trump says Hegseth did not order it.

TRUMP: Pete said he did not want them. He didn’t even know what people were talking about. So, we’ll look at- we’ll look into it… but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike.

Though the White House denies The Post report on Hegseth, it is defending the strike order… saying it was done in self-defense and in accordance with laws governing armed conflict.

Lawmakers, however, aren’t so sure. Both Republican and Democratic Senate and House Armed Services leaders have sent bipartisan letters to the Pentagon… demanding a full accounting of the strike.

Oval Office Cabinet huddle on Venezuela » President Trump and top members of his Cabinet, meantime, huddled in the Oval Office Monday evening to discuss next steps on Venezuela.

The White House has recently sent more troops and warships to the Caribbean… in an effort to pressure that country to stop drug trafficking. President Trump also confirms he’s spoken by phone with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, but didn’t say what was discussed.

As U.S. lawmakers ratchet up scrutiny of the strikes on suspected drug boats in the region, the White House is facing increased pressure to release more information… especially on that September 2nd double strike.

The Trump Administration says Admiral Mitch Bradley, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, executed the second strike… and was acting within the authority granted to him by Defense Secretary Hegseth.

New post-D.C. shooting immigration restrictions » In the wake of an Afghan national shooting two National Guard members near the White House last week, the Trump administration is tightening immigration restrictions.

It’s postponing all asylum decisions, pausing visas for Afghans, and -for the moment- stopping migration from what the White House calls 19 ‘countries of concern.’

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says this will give the government time to reexamine Afghans who helped U.S. forces during the Afghanistan war… and were let into the country by the Biden administration.

NOEM: Many of these that came in even under this operation were people that never should have been here. They were not vetted before they came. People should be vetted before they come here. Joe Biden allowed people to get on airplanes and come here and said we’ll do that later.

The suspect in last week’s shooting was let in by the Biden administration, but granted asylum in April by the Trump administration.

By the way, good news on the wounded staff sergeant who survived the shooting. West Virginia’s governor says Andrew Wolfe’s condition has improved from critical to serious, and he is responsive.

Three of Schumer’s offices receive bomb threats » The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, says three of his New York offices have received bomb threats.

SCHUMER: The bomb threats against my offices came with the email subject line MAGA and from an email address alleging the 2020 election was rigged.

Schumer says the threats referenced his offices in Rochester, Binghamton, and Long Island. He also says law enforcement responded immediately, everyone’s safe, and that such threats have no place in our political system.

A law enforcement source confirmed police responded to Schumer’s Long Island office but couldn’t confirm details of the threat.

U.S.-Russia peace talks » U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow today to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The subject of the talks: ending Russia’s war on Ukraine. President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is also there for the discussions.

This comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sounded optimistic notes Monday saying the Trump administration’s proposed peace plan ‘looks better’ after recent revisions.

Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko says one key sticking point is probably on the table during today’s U.S.-Russian talks.

MEREZHKO: Putin continues to insist on withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the remainder of the Donetsk Oblast, but which is totally unacceptable for us.

Russia controls most but not all of the Donetsk region after Ukraine says it illegally annexed it from Kyiv a few years ago.

Zelenskyy spent Monday in Paris meeting with French President Emanuel Macron.

The two men talked by phone with other European and U.S. leaders about issues like ensuring Ukraine’s security and independence. A potential peace deal could include Ukraine ceding some land… in exchange for security guarantees.

Nick and Mary will take a deeper dive into all this… in just a few minutes on the program.

Tennessee special election » It could be a close race in a normally deep red Congressional district in Tennessee today.

Polls show Democrat Aftin Behn competitive with Republican Matt Van Epps, who’s fighting to keep the seat in GOP hands after Congressman Mark Green’s resignation over the summer.

It’s a district President Trump carried by 22 points. House Speaker Mike Johnson was there campaigning Monday… working to get out the vote and avoid a loss that would narrow the GOP’s already-thin House majority.

MIKE JOHNSON: The problem is, when you have a deep red district, a lot of the people take for granted that the Republican or the conservative is going to win. And so, this is in the middle of a holiday, a lot of people aren’t even really aware this is on the ballot.

Johnson on Fox NewsChannel’s Will Cain Show. President Trump also held a virtual rally for Van Epps Monday.

Behn, meantime, held an online rally Monday with former Vice President Al Gore and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Former VP Kamala Harris also stumped for Behn last month.

I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: the Trump Administration meets with leaders from Ukraine and Russia—hoping to broker peace. Plus, a visit to the U.S. Mint as the penny’s days come to an end.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 2nd of December.

Thank you for joining us today on WORLD Radio. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

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

First up on The World and Everything in It: Ukraine peace talks.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is scheduled to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow today…to discuss a deal to end the war in Ukraine. This comes after talks in Miami over the weekend…between a delegation from Ukraine and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

MARCO RUBIO: This is delicate. It’s complicated. There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there's another party involved here that’ll have to be a part of the equation. And we continue to be realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we've made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that this is not just about ending the war, which is very important. It is about securing Ukraine's future.

EICHER: Joining us now is George Barros…he’s Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War and a former adviser to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

REICHARD: George, good morning.

GEORGE BARROS: Hi Mary. Good morning. Thanks for having me once again.

REICHARD: Well, as you predicted last week, no deal by Thanksgiving…Marco Rubio said after meetings on Sunday that talks were productive, but no details yet. What’s your read on where things likely stand between the U.S. and Ukraine?

BARROS: The Ukrainians and the Americans had a very productive meeting two Sundays ago, the Sunday before Thanksgiving in Geneva, where they turned the 28 point plan into a 19 point plan, I suspect by axing some of the provisions that were problematic in the first edition. And then there was a subsequent meeting, as you noted this last Sunday in Miami, which was productive, but we don't have very many concrete details coming out of there. And now we have, today is Steve but going to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss these plans. And candidly, we don't have any readouts yet, but I strongly, strongly suspect that this is going to be dead and arrival in Moscow, that the Russians will reject this plan, and we'll sort of be back to square zero once again.

REICHARD: The delegation to Florida was smaller because Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned on Friday. What’s going on there?

BARROS: Yermak is implicated in a corruption scandal because several of his associates were implicated in abuses and graft and that sort of thing. And Ukraine's independent anti-corruption bureau successfully investigated and uncovered that corruption, and so Zelensky therefore asked for his resignation, which he tendered.

REICHARD: What’s the origin of that commission? Where did that come from?

BARROS: The National anti-corruption agency of Ukraine, also called NABU, This was stood up in the post 2014, years, actually, with support from the American FBI and the American government to essentially root out systematic corruption that had dominated the Ukrainian government since it became independent following the end of the Soviet Union, really the legacy of vestigial corruption from the Soviet period as it bled into independent Ukraine, and the history and legacy of that anti corruption Bureau has been very successful in uncovering these sorts of things. You know, it's always, of course, disturbing to see corruption within Ukraine or any other country that we're an ally with. But the key difference here between Ukraine and other countries, or Ukraine and Russia, of course, is when there is corruption, it's observed, there's accountability, and people are fired for it. Which is, which is better than it being just in the shadows, in perpetuity.

REICHARD: Well, Zelenskyy has been negotiating with the United States…but also meeting with European leaders, particularly French President Emanuel Macron. Now, what has Europe been putting on the table?

BARROS: The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Europeans also came up with their own alternative plan to the 28 point peace plan, which, by all counts, is better than the original 28 point peace plan, but really we don't know. I'm tracking at least three different lines of revision to the initial 28 point peace plan that was leaked back in mid November. So there's the line of negotiations and iteration that Marco Rubio is overseeing when he took this to Geneva and then took it to Miami last week. There's a line of revision where, as I understand, Steve Witkoff has been working on his own feedback and trying to incorporate various different critiques of that plan. And then there's the European plan. And it's unclear to me the extent to which provisions in the European plan are affecting what Marco Rubio is doing and or what Steve Witkoff is doing, and it'll be very interesting to see once, I suppose, we get an official announcement or the plan is leaked to see what points stuck and what points have been amended or changed.

REICHARD: Now you say that deal is likely dead on arrival in Moscow. Why do you say so?

BARROS: The Russians have been very clear what their maximalist war aims are, and they have offered to make exactly zero concessions, and they continue to do so throughout this entire process. The deal as it existed in the first 28 point plan, it actually had many provisions that benefit the Russians and that actually are major concessions from the US and Ukraine to Russia, but it doesn't concede everything that the Russians demand, and the Russians have been very clear in reiterating that they want to have their cake and eat it too. President Putin on Thanksgiving Day, gave a lengthy speech in Kyrgyzstan where he basically outlined and said, We want to have these territorial concessions. We want to seize all of these provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine and come hook or come crook. We're going to get it in negotiations, or we're going to war fight for it. And the 28 point peace plan, as describes, doesn't have that there's a deputy Russian foreign minister. His name is Ryabkov. He also made a statement saying that the plan is no go. We have numerous Russian military bloggers and commentators within the Russian state media apparatus saying how the plan is a no go. So, you know, it would, it would be a major inflection, if all of a sudden the Russians are. Accept this because they've not demonstrated any kind of willingness to back down off of their maximalist war aims.

REICHARD: Earlier this year, President Trump said on Truth Social that Putin just was not serious about peace talks. So if Russia does reject the deal again, do you think Trump will respond the same way?

BARROS: When the Russians reject this deal, it's going to impose a decision point on President Trump, and the decision point is this, do we say we give up with trying to solve this war, and we will stop intelligence sharing with Ukraine and stop selling weapons to Ukraine, because you no longer give it to them for free. It's now under the rubric of military sales, and just sort of tell the Ukrainians and the Europeans, hey, enjoy your war. 

We're done with this. That's one option, although I would argue that's a bad option. The other option is to explore the other tools that we have that we've not yet used, namely those being coercion against Russia. The Americans and the Ukrainians have gotten all strung up and working out in the details of this plan, which the Russians were from day one, saying that they were never going to accept. And, you know, it's put the Ukrainians into a weird place, because if they don't accept the terms of this deal, and it blows up in the Ukrainians hands, and it makes the Ukrainians look like they're the impediment to peace, and they're the bad guys. 

Now, when this does blow up in the Russian hands, then you know, we have to come to that other conclusion, which is actually it's not the Ukrainians that are not willing to make concessions. It's not the Ukrainians that are willing to budge. It's actually the Russians. And therefore, how should that impact the way that we go forward with dealing with Moscow moving forward?

REICHARD: George Barros is Russia team and Geospatial Intelligence Team Lead for the Institute for the Study of War. George, thanks so much for your time once again!

BARROS: Of course, thanks for having me. Mary, always a pleasure.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next… evangelical accountability.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, a series of televangelist scandals sparked concern about the integrity of big ministries…and the integrity of their leaders.

The biggest headlines involving the PTL Network … and financial scandal.

JIM BAKKER: Jim Bakker was found guilty on all 24 counts of wire and mail fraud and conspiracy.

Since then, Christians formed the ECFA, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability to bring transparency to big ministry finances and their leaders. But decades later, not everyone thinks they are sticking to the essentials.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Back in October, two ministries run by the family of the late evangelist Billy Graham cut ties with ECFA over a new policy the leader of those ministries says goes beyond the original purpose.

WORLD’s Paul Butler has the story.

MERRITT: Board governance is one of those that I'm still trying to grow in, and I feel like they provide some good resources.

PAUL BUTLER: Joseph Merritt is Executive Pastor of Operations at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. As the church has grown, Merritt and fellow pastors decided they wanted to do more to ensure leaders understand financial accountability and godly governance.

MERRITT: We've got six campuses as a church with about 2,500 in attendance on a Sunday morning, you know, on average.

Highview completed its ECFA accreditation back in March.

MERRITT: And so I feel like there is, you know, a little bit higher of a bar that, as a church, I want us to operate at.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has more than 2000 members—from local churches to international ministries—and accredits them based on its Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship. The list covers issues from transparency with financial statements to responsible board governance.

But the list will soon change to include a new standard.

WARREN SMITH: The ECFA has arrived at the conclusion that leader care is an important issue when it comes to the financial integrity of an organization.

Warren Smith is President of Ministry Watch…a nonprofit that does financial analysis and reporting on Christian ministries and agencies like ECFA. Smith formerly wrote for WORLD. He has critiqued ECFA’s model of charging member fees, saying it undermines independent accreditation…but he supports the new policy.

In March 2024, ECFA announced it would create a Standard for Excellence in Leader Care, to go into effect in January 2027.

SMITH: The standard says that the board and the senior leader of the organization should have a conversation on at least an annual basis to you know, make sure that the leader is doing okay that the leader is adhering to the the moral, biblical standards that the organization says that it subscribes to, and that the organization should document that conversation in some way.

The standard lets members craft their own leader plans, but offers examples like regular prayer for the senior leader, protecting time off for vacations, and mandating annual health exams.

WAGENMAKER: There's an awful lot of pastors who the expectations are so much. They work a ton of hours. So to have something that has to do with leader care, I think is really important.

Sally Wagenmaker is an attorney who works with nonprofits and churches.

WAGENMAKER: I don't know of anything that is as well developed as this with respect to other denominations or non denominational organizations. This just seems like a really helpful tool.

But not everyone is happy about it. Days before the announcement in October, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and humanitarian group Samaritan’s Purse both announced they would not renew their membership in ECFA. Warren Smith once again…

SMITH: Franklin Graham was very explicit in a letter to the ECFA, a letter that we have a copy of, that he says that leader care is not an issue, and that he accuses the ECFA of being the moral police for evangelical organizations.

BGEA’s press team sent WORLD a copy of that letter. In it, Graham says, “The Leader Care Standard deals with spiritual maturity and behavior, matters clearly outside the scope of ECFA’s expertise.”

The letter concludes with Graham’s concern that the policy cannot address or prevent a leader’s deceit. In his words: “This is ultimately a sin problem, with its root in the human heart, which only God can fix—not ECFA, even with a mountain of standards.”

WORLD asked ECFA CEO Michael Martin about Graham’s letter, and he said “While we are disappointed that the leaders of BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse have decided to withdraw from ECFA, we honor their legacy.” Evangelist Billy Graham was among ECFA’s founders in 1977. Now his organizations are out…but Warren Smith says it does not look like a larger exodus is happening.

SMITH: Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, at least so far, are the only organizations that I have heard about that have left and explicitly identified this new standard as the reason for their leaving.

Ministry Watch has downgraded its donor confidence scores for both organizations, but quickly adds that the scores do not mean a ministry like BGEA is failing to do good work…

SMITH: But it fails to do certain things, including release their form 990s and become members of the ECFA, that allow them to be part of the top echelon of Christian ministries. In other words, if you're going to ask people for money, you should tell people where the money's going.

Nonprofit organizations registered as 501(c)(3)s with the IRS are required to submit information about their executives’ salaries and board members…in the Form 990. But churches, mission societies, and denominations are exempt from this requirement. In 2013, BGEA stopped filing a Form 990 after declaring itself a mission society.

Samaritan’s Purse does file a form 990, and posts financial statements on its website. But because it withdrew from ECFA, Ministry Watch moved it into the Withhold Giving category as well.

When asked about this change, a spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse pointed to other metrics showing greater confidence in the organization’s financial accountability. He also told WORLD that Samaritan’s Purse would welcome ECFA’s return to the original scope under which it was founded…without the rules for leader care.

Back in Louisville, Merritt says Highview Church does have plans in place to care for senior leaders…but he’s not sure that it should be part of ECFA’s accreditation program.

MERRITT: I think when organizations can sometimes go in directions that are good, but aren't really at the core of what purpose that organization has, I think it can kind of distract from its core mission.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler. Washington Producer Harrison Watters reported this story.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Off the coast of Australia, scientists studying humpback whales discovered they weren’t alone.

Their whale-cams kept getting photobombed by free-riders.

They’re called remoras—popularly known as sucker fish—tiny hitchhikers that vacuum-seal themselves to whales for an all-expenses-paid trip acr

oss the ocean.

But when the whales try to give their stowaways the slip, the remoras have a move of their own.

Here’s researcher Olaf Meynecke:

OLAF MEYNECKE: They knew exactly when to let go of the body of the whale before it was breaching the surface of the water.

And seconds later, the fish glide right back into place —like synchronized swimmers.

Scientists say the whales don’t really love the company. And the remoras probably don’t love the nickname they’ve been stuck with.

Because when you think about it … who’s the sucker?

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 2nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia pressed the very last penny after a 232 year run.

REUTERS BRANDON BEACH: Three, two, one … done! [Applause]

U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach gave his two cents’ worth at that November 12th ceremony.

BEACH: The last time we discontinued a coin was the half cent, and that was in 1857, 168 years ago. So, everyone sitting in this room, we are experiencing history today.

REICHARD: The move comes after an announcement this spring from the Treasury saying pennies cost more to make than they’re worth. WORLD’s Emma Eicher went to the Philadelphia Mint, and has the story.

U.S. MINT ANNOUNCER: This is the coin production area of the U.S. Mint …

EMMA EICHER: Tourists stroll around a viewing area above the warehouse floor of the Mint, peering down through glass at the rows of blue machines and conveyor belts. An overhead announcer delivers information about typical operations.

ANNOUNCER: At regular intervals, inspectors carefully examine the finished coins.

The machines press up to one million coins in just a half hour. Shiny new quarters are piled on the floor, leftover from a day’s work.

ANNOUNCER: The new coins are then stored in huge concrete and steel vaults. Later, the coins are shipped to Federal Reserve Banks.

A penny saved is a penny earned … and the U.S. Treasury is taking that idiom seriously. A single penny only has the buying power of one cent, but costs almost 4 cents to make. Turns out, its days have been numbered for a long time.

STEVEN ROACH: This isn't something new, even I believe as early as the 70s, the Mint was looking to suspend the denomination.

Steven Roach is a collector and currency expert with the American Numismatic Association.

ROACH: The Mint is a profitable organization. I would say it’s self sufficient. I believe they'll be saving about 50 million annually.

While the penny has been discontinued, there are still roughly 250 billion of them in circulation, so they aren’t likely to disappear anytime soon.

But without new coins, retailers face a shortage. And consumers may have to adapt to a penniless exchange with cashiers.

Last month in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, a GetGo gas station stuck a poster to the door urging customers to pay with a card. It also warned that cashiers might be unable to give exact change.

These adjustments are becoming common.

JORDAN: I just went to lunch at Burger King and they have like an actual thing on their window talking about the penny shortage, so …

Jordan is a Walgreens cashier down the road from the GetGo. One day, a new button on the register appeared, allowing her to automatically round an item price up or down to the nearest nickel.

JORDAN: So then we discussed it with our managers, and they were like, Yeah, this is what's happening, it's for the penny shortage.

She swiped a Snickers bar to demonstrate.

SOUND: [Snickers bar purchase]

JORDAN: On our payment screen, it allows us the ability to, like, adjust for a penny shortage.

It’s a temporary fix to the problem. There’s also an issue of legality, as at least 10 states prohibit rounding any business transaction to the nearest five cents.

It’s up to policymakers and individual retailers to sort out the way forward as American sticker prices change. But Roach anticipates there won’t be much difficulty because there isn’t a real need for the penny anymore. In fact, other countries have set the trend the U.S. is following.

ROACH: So Australia, they discontinued their penny. Our northern neighbors, the Canadians, back in 2012 they discontinued their cent as well.

New Zealand removed their one- and two-cent coins in the ‘90s and got rid of their five-cent coin almost 20 years ago.

In the U.S., it currently costs a whopping 13.78 cents to make a nickel. The Mint is looking at alternative metals to reduce the cost.

But in the future, the nickel might receive the same fate as the penny, joining a long line of discontinued coins.

ROACH: The smallest denomination struck for circulation was the half cent. Ultimately they discontinued that in 1857. We’ve also had a two cent piece that was first struck during the Civil War in 1864, then discontinued in 1872 for circulation.

There have been 15 discontinued denominations since the first coin was minted in 1792. Most of the time, rising production costs trigger the death knell. In the case of the penny, the cost coupled with inflation makes it nearly obsolete.

ROACH: Back when the penny was first struck for circulation, long ago in 1793, it was worth something. It was a significant amount of money. Now you know, there really isn't a necessity for it.

Even though the move makes practical sense, some still mourn the loss. The coin remains relevant in American terminology … like when something costs “a pretty penny.” Or perhaps you’d like “a penny for your thoughts.”

MICHELLE LEILANI: Like, if there's a penny on the ground, but it's, you know, tails, you don't pick it up, because it's bad luck …

Michelle Leilani brought her daughter to the Philadelphia Mint to catch a glimpse of the coins and learn about their history.

SOUND: [Penny cranking machine]

Together they cranked the penny press machine in the gift shop to make an engraved souvenir out of the trip.

LEILANI: I think that most people, if they look back and their own interactions with coins, they would see that you really, you use the penny more than you think.

But for the Treasury, stopping the coin’s circulation is more about the math than the memories. And that will be worth every penny.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Eicher in Philadelphia.

NICK EICHER, HOST: 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. Eighty years ago last week, the Nuremberg Trials began. It was an unprecedented attempt to hold leaders of the Holocaust to account.

WORLD Opinions Managing Editor Andrew Walker says Nazi war crimes cried out for a justice beyond the reach of man-made laws.

NEWSREEL: At Nuremberg, the Hitler gang has gone on trial. For the first time, criminal war leaders are being judged by an international court. 

ANDREW WALKER: I confess that the events of Nuremberg fascinate me. On the one hand, the idea that a temporary military tribunal comprised of the Allied Powers would formulate legal standards almost ex nihilo  to put Nazi leaders on trial raises perennial philosophical questions about legal authority and legitimacy. Was this a court with true jurisdiction or simply the moral will of the victors? The question still lingers.

Yet as a professor of Christian ethics, it is not merely the procedural complexity that holds my attention—it is the moral gravity. Nuremberg was not simply a courtroom. It was humanity’s attempt to reckon with evil so horrific and so intentional that ordinary categories seemed insufficient. The Nazis’ crimes were grotesque and intentionally dehumanizing, and those crimes demanded justice. The trials stand as evidence that human conscience and the laws of nations cry out for justice.

NEWSREEL: Judges from Britain, America, Russia, and France assemble in Nuremberg's courthouse. Empowered to impose the sentence of death or such punishment it may consider just, the tribunal sits in judgement of 20 leaders from the Nazi party…

Four legal categories were established at the tribunal: crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit the same. These standards did not arise from any nation’s legal code but from universal principles of justice. They rested on the natural law.

That point is decisive: The Nazis’ preferred defense—“we were obeying lawful orders”—collapsed the moment a law higher than German positive law was acknowledged. Natural law established a moral jurisdiction transcending national sovereignty.

Why, then, was a trial necessary? Justice Robert H. Jackson of the Supreme Court of the United States, the chief American prosecutor, framed the answer soberly and unmistakably in his opening statement:

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

For Jackson, Nuremberg was not merely punitive—it was a civilizational test for whether the world possessed the legal temerity to reckon with the horrors that visited it. Humanity had to prove it possessed moral resources sufficient to prevent such evil from recurring.

NEWSREEL: There have always been ambitious and ruthless men ready to gamble with the lives of their fellows. Now for the first time, international gangsters stand trial as common criminals.

Still, the trials were morally and philosophically fraught. Were the Allies themselves not guilty of moral wrongs in war? Was it legitimate to try defendants on legal grounds formulated after their actions had occurred? And could anything called “international law” truly bind—and supersede—sovereign nations?

These questions are not trivial. They remain live issues in jurisprudence, ethics, and international relations.

Even so, one feature stands out with clarity: When confronted with atrocities of such scale, humanity instinctively appeals to an objective moral standard. Abstract academic debates about relativism sound impressive in seminar rooms. They sound absurd amid the piles of shoes at Auschwitz.

NEWSREEL: Imagination sickens at the crimes laid upon the accused now stripped of the trappings of power. The world’s writ has run to Nuremberg and justice waits ...

Nuremberg stands as a modern vindication of the moral law of God—the natural law. It demonstrated that evil cannot be excused by legality, that positive law cannot be the final authority, and that justice demands reference to a universal moral order grounded in human dignity.

At Nuremberg, the nations of the world looked into the abyss of human depravity and rendered judgment—not merely by power, politics, or treaty, but by appeal to a law higher than man. That law is nothing less than the law of God—written on the heart and revealed in creation.

We often repeat the phrase, “There are no atheists in foxholes”—meaning that at the brink of death, the denial of God collapses under the weight of staring existential reality down at the end of a gun barrel. That is true.

When we confront evil so profound that language strains to describe it, the human heart knows instinctively: There must be justice, and justice must be grounded in something higher than the state. But the moral horror we feel in the face of Nazi atrocities teaches an additional truth: There were no atheists at Nuremberg either.

I’m Andrew Walker.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A reminder that it’s Giving Tuesday and we are asking that if The World and Everything in It is an important part of your day and you’ve never given before … that you make today the day you do. Please visit WNG.org/NewDonor.

Tomorrow: Washington Wednesday and World Tour. And, the remarkable friendship of two of the 20th century’s greatest writers and how they used the power of a Christian imagination to influence culture. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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, “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” —I Timothy chapter 4:7-10

Go now in grace and peace.

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