The World and Everything in It: December 3, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Before we get started, it’s my privilege to offer a word of sincere thanks to each one who responded yesterday on Giving Tuesday with a first-time gift. Thank you.

Your response lifts us up—especially the remarkable number who pledged ongoing, recurring support.

NICK EICHER, HOST: At WORLD, the journalists you support produce so many great stories all year long—and when you give, think of it as stepping into the story by making those stories possible. Think of it, too, as stepping into the story of independent, Christian journalism.

All week we’re continuing our New Donor Drive. If you’re new and WORLD is becoming a regular part of your daily routine, you’re the kind of listener we count on to support this program.

MAST: And if you’ve not yet made a gift of support, we understand. But this is the week to change that—and join with so many other first-time donors.

You know, I really love that fifty-thousand-dollar challenge gift that kicked off the drive—not as a match, but as a challenge and an encouragement. It’s a reminder that we’re all in this together, that no one is expected to go it alone or carry the whole burden.

EICHER: When you give, you join the team. You step into the story. WNG.org/NewDonor.

MAST: Good morning!

Today on Washington Wednesday: electoral politics, foreign and domestic, the law of war, the war on law, and vetting refugees.

EICHER: Hunter Baker is standing by. Also today WORLD Tour.

And later: recovering heroism and faith in the shadows of darkness.

LOCONTE: The survival of Great Britain, the survival of Western civilization is an open question. And these men are getting on with their callings in the midst of that.

And the isolation of the elite life: commentary from WORLD Opinions contributor Erick Erickson.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, December 3rd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

MAST: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR: Drugboat fallout: Hegseth defends double tap, Democrats call for his ouster » The Trump Administration is doubling down in its defense of a double strike.

Lawmakers in both parties are concerned the second strike on a suspected drugboat from Venezuela three months ago could be a war crime. But the White House is defending the follow-up hit, which targeted survivors of the initial strike as a lawful act of self-defense.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is distancing himself from the second strike, saying he didn’t see survivors in the water while watching the initial strike live, didn’t stick around for the conclusion, and that the admiral in charge -Frank Bradley- made the right call in ordering the second hit.

HEGSETH: Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.

Hegseth, making those comments during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

Meantime, as lawmakers in both parties step up their scrutiny of the strike, some are calling for Hegseth’s ouster. Democratic Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal:

BLUMENTHAL: Hegseth trying to shift the blame and make Admiral Bradley the fall guy ought to be reason to ask for his resignation or fire him.

Admiral Bradley is expected to give a classified briefing to lawmakers overseeing the military Thursday.

U.S.-Russia talks ‘productive’ » U.S. and Russian leaders met for five hours of talks at the Kremlin Tuesday. But where the effort to end Russia’s war on Ukraine goes from here is unclear.

A senior adviser to Russian leader Vladimir Putin called the talks constructive, but says a lot of work remains. The adviser also says a compromise hasn’t been found on the issue of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, and says there will be no resolution without that.

President Trump sounded determined Tuesday.

TRUMP: Our people are over in Russia right now to see if we can get it settled. Not an easy situation, let me tell you. What a mess.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff presented the White House’s peace proposal to Putin and key aides. Some analysts criticized the plan at first for being tilted in Russia’s favor, but it’s since undergone revisions to give Ukraine more of a fair shake.

Tennessee special election result » After Democrats won prominent races in places like Virginia and New Jersey last month, Republicans were hoping for a bounceback win in Tennessee last night. They got it, but it wasn’t easy.

Republican Matt Van Epps held Tennessee’s 7th District Congressional seat for the GOP in Tuesday’s special election, fending off Democrat Aftin Behn.

Van Epps won by a solid, roughly 10-point margin. But it was still a relatively close result, considering President Trump won the district by more than 20 points three times.

Analysis from Hunter Baker is just a few minutes away in our Washington Wednesday segment.

Immigration sweep planned for Minnesota amid fraud scandal » As President Trump blames Minnesota’s Somali community for a huge fraud scheme involving the state’s social services, leaders in Minneapolis are bracing for immigration enforcement operations in the next few days.

Those operations will focus on unauthorized Somali immigrants living in that city. Mayor Jacob Frey promises local police won’t support Immigration and Custom Enforcement, or ICE, activity.

FREY: Our values and our commitment to the Somali community, to every community of immigrants and people in our city, is rock solid and will be unwavering.

As part of the recently uncovered fraud scheme, Somali immigrants are suspected of funneling U.S. taxpayers’ money to an Al Qaeda-linked terror group in Somalia.

D.C. National Guard shooter formally charged » The suspect in last week’s D.C. shooting that killed one National Guard member and left another fighting for his life now formally faces murder and assault charges.

The Afghan national made a court appearance remotely from his hospital bed. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro says she’s throwing the book at him.

PIRRO: We are pursuing everything. There is nothing off the table right now.

The suspect, who was shot himself in the encounter not far from the White House, said he was in pain and couldn’t open his eyes. An attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Dells pledge $6.25 billion to fund ‘Trump accounts’ » The technology mogul Michael Dell and his wife are pledging more than $6 billion dollars to supercharge so-called ‘Trump accounts’ that allow families to invest in the stock market for their kids.

Under the program, the Treasury Department will deposit $1,000 dollars into investment accounts for all American children born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028.

But the Trump accounts are actually available to any American child under 18. Michael Dell says his gift won’t cover babies getting the $1,000-dollar seed money. Instead, he says:

DELL: Our gift will cover most of the children that are 10 and under that are not part of the federal program, the 0- to 2-year-olds, and who also live in ZIP codes where the median income is $150,000 dollars or less.

The Dells say the accounts won’t officially launch until July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of American independence.

I am Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: Washington Wednesday. Hunter Baker sizes up what happened in Tennessee last night. And later, exploring the friendship between Tolkien and Lewis, and the lessons it holds for us today.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, December 3rd. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday!

Joining us is political scientist Hunter Baker. Hunter, good morning.

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning!

EICHER: Well, you heard the news from Mark Mellinger a few moments ago. We saw this coming as we went into Election Day: Looks like Republicans hold the seat—but just barely. In a district President Trump a year ago carried by twenty-two points, this race was way closer than one would think. What does a result like that tell you?

BAKER: First thing I want to say is something I think that not many people are talking about, which is the decision of Representative Mark Green to abandon his seat halfway through his term. You're talking about a situation where the Republican majority is on a knife's edge, and he is leaving midterm to pursue a job opportunity or a new business or something like that. And I'm just thinking to myself, when you ran for office, you ran to represent the people, and I just don't think that it makes sense to leave, especially when national policy is on the edge to pursue a new interest. The term is only two years. Now that, having been said, yes, it's a big deal. It's a big deal for the Republicans to hold the seat, and it's a big deal that they barely held the seat. You're exactly right. This should be a very easy hold. And I think that's why the opponent, Ms Behn, is such an odd opponent who has talked about how she hates Nashville and she hates all the bridesmaids and all the pedal taverns and all these things like that. Normally she would not register, but it looks like she has. And I think that that's not good news for Donald Trump, because it indicates that there's tremendous resistance even in Trump country.

MAST: Let’s turn to Honduras. The presidential election there is in what officials call a “technical tie.” The two leading candidates are separated by just a few hundred votes. The country’s electoral council has halted the electronic count; it’s begun a manual, vote-by-vote verification that could take weeks. I read the law allows the council 30 days.

Now, the reasonable listener is saying, “this is Washington Wednesday right now, not World Tour”, well, there's nothing wrong with your podcast player. This Honduras election does have a Washington angle because of President Trump’s huge footprint.

He weighed in in favor of National Party candidate Nasry Asfura. And just days before, the president pardoned a former Honduran president from that same National Party: Juan Orlando Hernández, he’d been convicted in a U.S. federal court for conspiring with drug cartels. But the word on the street was that he’d retained a level of popularity:

AUDIO: [Translation] He was a not a bad president. His error was getting involved in something else, in drug trafficking, but he wasn't a bad President. 

That food vendor in Honduras saying Hernández was not a bad president, his error was getting involved in drug trafficking.

Just drug trafficking, no big deal, right? Unless your name is Nicholas Maduro and you run Venezuela.

Hunter, what do you make of this? It’s one thing to endorse a candidate, it’s another to pardon a kingpin collaborator.

BAKER:There is a lot going on here, and I think that part of the reason that we are talking about Latin America so much is because Donald Trump is involving himself in Latin America so much and so often. The first thing I want to take note of is that we've been talking about Argentina Bolivia and now Honduras, and in each of those cases, we've seen a rejection of the parties of the left. Now in Argentina, we had Trump directly saying to the people, I'm going to withdraw support if you don't vote for Milei, who is my candidate. And that seems to have happened again here in Honduras. So his involvement is extremely transactional, very specific. And you know, it wouldn't necessarily always work. You could alienate the electorate of another country by inserting yourself into their national politics. But so far, it seems to be working for Trump here. The pardon of the former president is pretty tough to understand. We are claiming that we're extremely unhappy with quote, unquote, Narco terrorists and people who are bringing drugs into the continental United States, and yet we're pardoning this ex president, I guess, on the theory that it could marginally affect the calculus of that election. So the thing that I would say is, I. Think that Trump should think about his principles versus just kind of a pure situational decision making that seems to be going on. We need to know what the United States stands for, and then, just to clearly pursue that kind of an agenda.

EICHER: So much serious news this week, Hunter: Now we need to turn to a controversial harder line against drugs. Congress is now looking into a U.S. strike on a Venezuelan drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean that killed the crew and, according to the Washington Post, may have also killed survivors after the vessel was blown up.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denies giving any order to “kill them all,” as the Post said. And a New York Times report — citing different officials — says the follow-up strike was authorized on the scene by Admiral Frank Bradley. That name specifically surfaced in this White House statement by the press secretary Karoline Leavitt. I'll play most of it.

LEAVITT: Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.

And I would just add one more point to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place — because this administration has designated these narco-terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations. The President has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America and if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate, which is what they are doing.

And under the previous administration, there was enough fentanyl trafficked into our country to kill every American man, woman, and child many times over. And so that’s why you’ve seen a drastic difference in this administration’s policy with respect to the last. …

So, the White House saying the operation was lawful and part of a broader campaign against what it now classifies as foreign terrorist organizations.

I read some friendly commentary from The Wall Street Journal editorial board, saying the seriousness of the allegation demands full congressional oversight. The Journal says Congress needs the full paper trail—written orders, comms, rules of engagement. It’s not prejudging guilt, but it does insist on transparency.

There, that’s the waterfront. Hunter, we’re going to draw on your legal training

What are the pertinent legal questions for Congress? And then you can pivot to the political angle.

BAKER: Well, I'm going to start by using a highly legal term, which is, this is what is known as a mess. It's a big mess now, which should get your attention when you look at any story about this or these words Narco terrorists, that's because we're kind of setting out a new sort of way of engaging drug traffic. You can imagine that in the past, we would, you know, maybe intercept these vehicles, maybe board them, maybe search them. Something really different is happening here. This is more like warfare. And so these are not just sort of drug smugglers. These are Narco terrorists. Presidents have tremendous power to do things in the short run. I think that we've recognized early in the history of this country that you can't wait for Congress to deliberate on these things and to authorize presidents to act in the short term. However, I do think that there's a serious question here between what is criminal and justifies sort of police actions, and what is warfare and justifies lethal force. One thing that I would say is in favor of the warfare interpretation, is the state involvement, based on what I've seen so far, it seems that we have kind of a union of cartels and the Venezuelan state, which is empowering this sort of drug trafficking. But boy, we're getting into some scary questions, right? Well, you know, we still don't know this idea of a second attack. Are we attacking survivors after the boat has already been disabled? And if we're are we changing the rules of warfare? Even if it is warfare, what are the duties to survivors? So I think that there's more to unfold with this.

MAST: Hunter, an Afghan national who received asylum earlier this year is now charged with killing a member of the National Guard blocks from the White House. He’s also charged with the grave wounding of another. That attack has revived questions about how the government screens asylum applicants and how it keeps track of people once they’re here.

We are assured again and again — and we’ve reported these assurances in our online stories, quoting refugee NGOs, including one that actually, according to The New York Times, helped this particular man. We are told that these individuals are well-vetted. That the system works. That this guy just snapped and he’s just one bad apple.

The administration, of course, disagrees. President Trump has already paused new asylum applications, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has floated a new travel ban aimed at countries that are unable or unwilling to provide information about their citizens to the administration’s satisfaction.

So that’s the policy landscape: the shooting, the claims of “strong vetting,” the pause on asylum, and now the prospect of a broader ban.

Hunter, what are the core questions the administration is going to have to answer on vetting?

BAKER: We really don't know if vetting would have prevented this incident. This young man may not have been the same sort of person when he came in that he has become. Some of these problems that we experience are the problems of basically an open and a free society. And part of how you lose a free society is if enough people act in this fashion, if enough people begin to act in unpredictable, dangerous and lethal ways, then the state grows and the restrictions are increased. So that's what we're facing. Do we have to figure out, are there things that we can do to make this sort of thing less likely? One thing that I would say, and I think this is going to sound weak to people, but I mean, it is to police our discourse. I think that the way we talk about politics. You know, some people hear the have heard of the phrase conflict entrepreneurs? I think that there are conflict entrepreneurs out there who gin things up so much that they sometimes launch some of these people into dangerous sorts of ways of thinking and activity. So the first thing we can do is to discipline our discourse.

EICHER: Major fallout this week over a fraud scheme involving a Somali immigrant community and the man who would’ve been Vice President–Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Hunter, the information coming out is staggering: Federal prosecutors say dozens of people took more than a billion-that’s billion with a B- dollars in Minnesota taxpayer funds meant to help feed children during Covid.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced yesterday that his department is investigating whether some of the money may have gone to a terrorist organization.

A New York Times piece quotes one investigator who says the situation grew because democrats in the state didn’t want to tackle it and face backlash from the Somali community–a key voter bloc for them.

Hunter, this isn’t a Washington story per se, but this certainly says something about the leadership of the man who was very nearly the Vice President. Paired with the increased scrutiny on immigrants right now and there’s a lot to unpack. Hunter what stands out most to you?

BAKER: Well, first of all, this, you said, this is a national story. It is a national story. This is not just a Minnesota story. I think that we probably could go through the country and find many, many examples of this in the state governments and in the federal government. And really what it comes down to is that governments like to do the easy things, and they don't like to do the hard things. It is always easy to dispense massive amounts of money to anybody who asks you for it, or anybody who fills out an application. What's hard is figuring out who deserves the money and what's what is actually a justified request. And then what's hard after that is making sure that you actually police the system, that you find the people who are committing the fraud, that you stop the fraud. You stop it fast. But you don't stop it after a billion dollars in the hole. And I just think that politicians don't want to do that. They haven't been doing that, and it's a betrayal of everybody who is working hard and doing things the right way, and it's a betrayal of the taxpayer. And I want to see some political leaders who are ready to tackle this problem.

MAST: Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University. Thank you, Hunter.

BAKER: Thank you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: We begin today with expatriate Nigerian Christians and other supporters calling for an end to violence in the country.

AUDIO: Christians chanting/singing

In Madrid, hundreds of protesters chanted and sang outside the Nigerian embassy over the weekend.

Nigeria has faced two separate school abductions in recent weeks. More than 200 children remain in captivity.

Christiana Wariboko is president of the National Youth Council of Nigeria.

CHRISTIANA WARIBOKO: We as Christians, we're standing on behalf of Christians, representing Nigerian Christians. Please save the lives of Christians.

In October, kidnappers abducted a priest, Edwin Achi, along with his wife and daughter in northcentral Kaduna state. Last week, Anglican leaders confirmed that fighters killed Achi, and his wife and daughter are still with the abductors.

Gunmen also abducted nearly 36 people over the weekend in northern Borno and Kano states, and have targeted other parts of the country. The ongoing violence has left Nigerians fearful.

Rasheedat Eniola says her recent journey by road to northern Kano worried her family and friends.

RASHEEDAT ENIOLA: I’m worried each time, each moment, I'm getting closer to my travel time, I'm thinking, I'm asking myself, am I doing the right thing? I mean, am I supposed to be here? Everybody I spoke with about the trip there they are telling me that they don't have money to pay for ransom.

Authorities have closed down several schools in the country over the rising attacks.

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu also declared a state of emergency for the entire country and authorized the recruitment of more security forces.

In Hong Kong, authorities are still uncovering more details from the city’s deadliest fire in decades, which has left more than 150 people dead.

The flames began last week at the residential complex which housed nearly 5,000 people.

Some of the residents previously raised concerns about the safety of ongoing renovations.

Eric Chan is the chief secretary for administration of Hong Kong.

ERIC CHAN: [CANTONESE] Samples collected from seven locations across high, middle, and low floors did not meet the fire resistance test standards.

He says samples from seven locations across the complex failed to meet fire resistance test requirements.

Officials said some exterior netting used on scaffolding also failed the tests.

Thousands of people queued up to lay flowers near the complex. Authorities also temporarily detained a student over his petitions for the government to prevent similar disasters from happening.

SOUND: [Voting in process]

On Sunday, the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan held snap parliamentary elections. Critics say the vote will solidify President Sadyr Japarov’s hold on power. Allies of the president won all but a handful of seats in an election where no official opposition party was allowed.

Japarov came to power in a 2020 revolution and has since changed the electoral system so that only one party can participate in elections.

Kyrgyzstan was once long considered Central Asia’s most democratic state … but that reputation has eroded under Japarov. His government has cracked down on political opposition and media freedom in the country.

Kyrgyzstan is a close ally of Russia and has stepped into the trade gap created by Western sanctions on the country.

We wrap up in Brussels, where vandals disrupted a Nativity scene at the Christmas market in the main city square.

The thieves stole the figure of Baby Jesus in the nearly life-sized display. Officials say the vandalism happened between Friday night and early Saturday, just days after being set up.

Critics blame pro-Palestinian protesters who crashed the Christmas market on its opening night. The unauthorized protestors set off smoke bombs and chanted pro-Hamas slogans, causing market visitors to flee the area.

SOUND: [Protests and chants]

The Brussels Nativity display was already controversial. This year the city replaced traditional wooden figurines with faceless cloth ones. Flat patchwork panels cover the heads where faces would be.

ORGANIZER: C’est vrai que c’est un choix artistic qui….

An organizer says leaders discussed the artistic choice with local churches, and that the display is meant to allow everyone to project themselves onto the characters of the Christmas story.

But critics are calling the display “woke” and saying city authorities are pandering to Muslims. Authorities say they have replaced the figure of baby Jesus and that they will keep a closer eye on the manger the rest of the season.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Onize Oduah.

NICK EICHER, HOST: In western North Carolina, a driver calls 911.

DRIVER: “Okay, you may not believe me, but I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield…”

Positive ID of a bird mid-flight while she's cruising at highway speed, difficult to believe.

But the dispatcher's like, mmm-kay, just another day at the office.

DISPATCHER: “I do believe you, honestly.” (laughter)

DRIVER: “He’s like, ‘That is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.’”

The impact shattered the passenger side, presumably where her eyewitness was sitting.

But just one last question:

DISPATCHER: “Is the cat still alive?”

DRIVER: “No… it is not.”

So she was directed to a highway patrolman who would take her report.

Apparently it's not unheard of for birds of prey to drop what they’re carrying —what's unusual is the bullseye.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 3rd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: recovering moral and spiritual truths.

EICHER: In the years leading up to World War II, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis sensed the threat from the dangerous ideologies gaining influence over the world. The friends and colleagues set about fighting against it through writing fiction.

MAST: Joseph Loconte’s new book explores their friendship and the way it influenced what they wrote, and in turn, the world. He is the author of The War for Middle Earth and he joins us to talk about it.

Joseph, good morning.

LOCONTE: Lindsay, it's great to be with you. Thanks so much for having me.

MAST: Tolkien and Lewis are often lumped together, but in one sentence, what would you say about how they were profoundly different from one another?

LOCONTE: That's a fabulous question. I would say that Tolkien was much more concerned in his imaginative life. He wanted to create these worlds with a very deep, rich history, a real antiquity, as he said in one of his lectures in Beowulf, “a deep antiquity of sorrow” is so much of the backdrop of the worlds that he's creating. And C.S. Lewis is not as interested in that. And I think part of the reason is he does want to get to his main message—his deeply Christian evangelistic message—much quicker, I think, in his works. And Tolkien is more restrained, you might say, more modest about that. I think that's one of the significant differences in that way, how they approach their imaginative works.

MAST: What do you find that each man admired most in the other that readers today maybe tend to overlook or don't know about?

LOCONTE: Yeah, that's another great question, which I have not been asked before, what they admired about each other because they encouraged one another in their writings, as you know. And Lewis really saw the potential in Tolkien to take these stories that he was working with, these short stories—The Fall of Gondolin, The Hobbit itself when he had the draft in 1933—and he really encourages Tolkien that he is on to something. He is recreating or redesigning or reimagining the heroic ideal and reinventing it for the modern mind. And I think Lewis saw the potential in Tolkien to do that. And that was just remarkable. I think for Tolkien, he really encouraged Lewis, when he first started thinking about his own imaginative fiction, to introduce people to the Christian story. And that was Out of the Silent Planet. Tolkien helps Lewis to find a publisher. And I think what Tolkien sees in Lewis is: this man understands the Christian faith at a profound level, a deep level, and he's going to use the genre of fiction, science fiction, epic, to communicate that message. And Tolkien was a huge supporter of that effort.

MAST: I'm curious about if there's anything, maybe something you uncovered in your research that maybe most changed your view of either man, something you didn't know or weren't expecting.

LOCONTE: I think that the thing that has one of the most profound effects of working on this book on me personally was to see how these men pursued their callings as Christian authors and scholars at a moment of civilizational crisis. From 1939 really to 1945, the survival of Great Britain, the survival of Western civilization is an open question because of Nazism, Communism, scientism, totalitarianism, and these men are getting on with their callings in the midst of that. They are just determined to push back, to create this beach head of resistance against the ideological madness that they are awash in. And to me, that's an example of cultural leadership at a moment of cultural crisis that we rarely see nowadays, but we certainly saw it there at Oxford with these two men.

MAST: I'm curious what's a question about either their friendship or their work that scholars still debate? So much is written about them, so what is out there that is still being debated, and where would you land on whatever that is?

LOCONTE: I guess one of the debates is: how much did Lewis affect Tolkien? How much did Tolkien affect Lewis? That's an ongoing debate because you have these letters between them, or letters that they're writing to others, which will suggest sometimes that, well, Lewis didn't have any effect on Tolkien, or Tolkien didn't have any effect on Lewis. But you know when you really unpack their lives, their correspondence, their relationship, their meeting together in the Inklings—this group of fellow Christian authors every week right through World War Two—the meetings that Tolkien and Lewis had, regular lunches there at Oxford, I think we have to really conclude that neither man would have produced the works that they did without the other. At the end of the day, I think you have to come to that conclusion. And Tolkien says explicitly, he never would have finished The Lord of the Rings without Lewis's encouragement. He read virtually every chapter of The Lord of the Rings out loud to C.S. Lewis, who would respond with encouragement or suggested critique. That's a pretty amazing thing to say without that profound encouragement from Lewis. “Give me more, Tollers,” he would say, “Give me more.” And of course, Tolkien's influence on Lewis is profound. We know the relationship they had together, the famous conversation on Addison's walk in 1931 that leads to Lewis's Christian conversion, the capacity for Tolkien to speak into Lewis's mind at that moment of spiritual crisis for him was also profound. So these men had an incredible impact on one another. If you think about it, it's probably one of the most consequential friendships of the 20th century given the impact of their work.

MAST: The book was heavy and difficult at times to read, but I'm glad that I read it. If readers take away maybe only one idea from this book, what would it be? What should keep them going through reading about some of these really dark times in history?

LOCONTE: Yeah, I think the theme of friendship and the importance of friendship between these two men, particularly in this moment of crisis, civilizational crisis, as they're pursuing their callings in that crisis is really crucial. There is a line from Tolkien, he's writing to one of his sons during the Second World War, and I think he's going through a rough patch. And he says, “Friendship with Lewis compensates for much.” And I love when I read that line for the first time, I thought, wouldn't you love to be the kind of person of whom people say friendship with Loconte compensates for much? So that is a really important part of the storyline here, how their friendship together during those moments of crisis, it really helped them not only to just get through or to endure the Second World War, but to thrive and to offer this amazing vision of life as it could be.

MAST: Well, Joseph Loconte is a New York Times best selling author. His newest book The War for Middle Earth is out now. Joseph, thank you so much for being with us.

LOCONTE: Thanks so much for having me great to be with you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. WORLD Opinions contributor Erick Erickson believes that isolation is harmful for anyone, but especially those who wield power and influence.

ERICK ERICKSON: Several weeks ago, millions of people watched all or part of the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. A surprising number of well-educated progressives admitted on social media that what they saw seemed foreign and alien to them.

The most viral of all the comments came from Thomas Chatterton Williams. His Twitter biography describes him as a staff writer for The Atlantic, a member of faculty at Bard College, a trustee of the American Academy in Berlin, and a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Williams tweeted, “I’ve spent half of my adult life in one foreign country or another and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so estranged from the surrounding culture as I am from the aesthetics and sensibilities of this movement. Not even a criticism, I just feel more at home in Greece than in these images.” The images he’s referring to were of Erika Kirk hugging Donald Trump as he pointed up…as well as photographs of worshippers at the memorial service with their arms in the air singing praise music. Williams followed that tweet with this: “I feel more at home in spots where I can’t read the road signs than here.”

From age five to 15, my family lived in Dubai. Every few months, we had to leave for visa renewals and my father’s oil company would send us to just about any country in the Eastern Hemisphere. Even now at 50, I have been to more nations than states in our union. At seven, I was eating Toblerone bars out of a mini fridge in Malaysia with the president of Pakistan. At 15, I met Margaret Thatcher. I speak multiple languages, have a post graduate degree, and have had multiple passports because I’ve filled up all the pages. I should be among the elite of the elite.

But at 15, when my family repatriated to the United States, we settled in rural Louisiana, where I had been born. Our parish—or county—remains one of the poorest in the state. My mother is from there. I was born there. Only two of my graduating class left the state…a girl with a sports scholarship who went to Indiana, and me.

Rural Louisiana, like so many places in America, has a rhythm. Sundays still involve church and family lunch and afternoon football. The small-town restaurants are more integrated in the kitchen and the dining room than many restaurants in Manhattan. The schools are more integrated too. The taco is as ubiquitous as the pot of gumbo and the hamburger. It is an American culture that would be recognizable to a person from rural Wisconsin or the exurbs outside the D.C. Beltway.

Christianity is similar. There are approximately 2.6 billion Christians on Earth. Drop a Christian from one part of the world into another and, though he may not speak the language or recognize all the songs, much of the flow of worship will be recognizable and understood. Even across the broad expanse of Christendom—from Catholicism to the Greek and Russian Orthodox to the strip mall nondenominational Protestant church—Christians can recognize Christian worship.

What is amazing is how so many of the elite who shape the opinions of their fellow elite cannot recognize either the patterns of living outside a metropolis nor Christian worship. The national press corps drops into Des Moines, Iowa, once every four years in the middle of January to cover presidential primaries. It may also visit Ames, Iowa, for a fair…but the reality is that Lafayette, La., Bainbridge, Ga., Carbondale, Ill., and Dodge City, Kan., are all foreign lands to our elite.

Mr. Williams and his cohort of elite writers, thinkers, and commentators at The Atlantic, the New York Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and NPR…should perhaps spend less time in Athens, Greece, and more time in Athens or Rome, Georgia, or maybe Paris, Texas. I would invite them to join me in a pew at the First Presbyterian Church in Macon, Ga., and on my front porch on a Sunday evening where a group of friends spend the night eating and talking about life, watching football.

After COVID, Americans live increasingly isolated existences. But long before the pandemic, many of America’s elite have chosen to isolate themselves from Americans who live different lives at a different pace. Isolation is unhealthy for anyone…but especially so for the elite who increasingly feel entitled to wield the levers of technocracy and bureaucracy for—and against—a population they no longer understand or relate to.

I’m Erick Erickson.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: more on what Christians are facing in Nigeria. And, a call to action to prioritize marriage and family in black communities. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

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