The World and Everything in It: December 8, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Hi. My name is Laura Watson. I'm a photographer and mom to three in Los Angeles, California. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Today on Culture Friday: remembering a TV culture warrior, and why the silence on the atrocities of Hamas?

AUDIO: I say to the women's rights organisations, to the human rights organizations, where are you?

NICK EICHER, HOST: 

We will talk about that and more today on Culture Friday with Katie McCoy. Also, a round-up of movies to be looking out for in December.

DR. BELL: So how does that feel? To be working again?

MONK: Like riding a bicycle.

DR. BELL: Good. I’m glad to hear that.

MONK: I mean it’s terrifying.

And a Christmas gift recommendation for Elisabeth Elliot fans.

BROWN: It’s Friday, December 8th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Hunter Biden indicted » Hunter Biden has been indicted on nine tax charges — three felonies and six misdemeanors.

In a statement, special counsel David Weis said, Hunter “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.”

If convicted, the president’s son could face up to 17 years behind bars. And the special counsel probe into his business dealings remains open.

He also faces separate federal firearms charges in Delaware.

Impeachment inquiry » Meantime, House Republicans say Hunter Biden will testify on Capitol Hill next week, or else.

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer:

COMER: My investigation will be finished when we do those depositions. That’s why the president’s son is going to show up here next week or he will be held in contempt of Congress.

Republicans allege that the president had improper ties to his son’s business dealings — something the White House denies.

The House Rules Committee says it will put a measure to a vote on the House floor next week to make the ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Biden official

It’s a procedural move that pushes the process one step closer to actual impeachment hearings.

Gaza civilians» Israeli forces continue to target Hamas terrorists in southern Gaza.

SOUND: [Airstrike]

Israel is providing evacuation notices to civilians in advance of airstrikes, but aid groups insist there’s nowhere safe to go.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken:

BLINKEN: Israel has to make maximum efforts to avoid civilian casualties, even as Hamas continues to use civilians as human shields..and as well to sustain and indeed increase the humanitarian assistance that’s going to people who need it.

President Biden spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday. The White House said the president expressed deep concern over the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas…and underscored the need for continued humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Sen. Gillibrand on UN » And as more details emerge about Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women and children, some US lawmakers are calling out the United Nations over its relative silence on the matter. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said using rape as a weapon of war must be condemned.

GILLIBRAND: The fact that the UN has not called Hamas a terrorist organization and condemned the horrific violence of October 7th is unacceptable.

She said UN leaders are “not even enforcing international law” and calling out the sexual violence “as a violation of war,” even as they have accused Israel of war crimes.

Surveillance Act » Lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee have advanced a bill for a full vote on the House floor that allows the U.S. government to spy on foreign terror threats without a warrant. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The bill would renew section 702 of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act which is slated to expire at year’s end. Top law enforcement officials have urged Congress to extend it, calling it critical to national security.

But some lawmakers have expressed concern that government agents have abused its powers. They’ve also noted that Americans could be incidentally spied on, if they’re in contact with a targeted foreigner.

The current bill would grant only a temporary extension until April, buying more time to debate those concerns.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

UNLV Shooting » Detectives are investigating a deadly shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The gunman killed three faculty members on the UNLV campus and wounded another. He died in a shootout with police.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

JEAN-PIERRE: At the President's direction we have federal officials on the ground supporting local response efforts, and providing all necessary assistance. 

The shooter was reportedly a former business professor who had applied for a position at the school but was turned down.

Disney audit » In Florida, a government oversight board says Disney may have committed serious violations of state and federal law. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: A 72-page report examines Disney’s decadeslong influence over the local government of Reedy Creek.

The state created the special Reedy Creek tax district In the 1960s when Mr. Walt Disney. planned to build a city near Orlando.

WALT: By far the most important part of our Florida project, in fact the heart of everything we’ll be doing at Disney will be our Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow, EPCOT.

The district was given city-planning powers over roads, power, and infrastructure to work closely with Disney.

But after Walt’s death, the company built a theme park instead of a city. Yet it continued to benefit from the original arrangement.

The audit lists potential violations including: Bribery and corruption, securities fraud, and misuse of public funds.

It says Disney treated the government body like an arm of the company, blurring legal and ethical lines.

The report details lavish perks for Reedy Creek employees and asserts a grossly improper level of control over the district.

Disney dismisses the probe as political targeting by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with Katie McCoy. Plus, the music of Advent.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 8th of December, 2023.

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

NICK EICHDR, HOST: And I'm Nick Eicher. It's Culture Friday. Joining us now is author and speaker Katie McCoy. Katie, good morning!

KATIE MCCOY: Hey, good morning.

EICHER: Well, the man who introduced political commentary into primetime sitcoms has died Norman Lear at 101 years old. He's probably best known for the hit show All in the Family that featured the conservative that only a liberal could create: the fictional character, Archie Bunker. I doubt you could exaggerate Norman Lear's influence on the TV industry. But if you think you can, well consider this: next Wednesday night, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW, all planned air and in memoriam message honoring Lear at 8pm Eastern at the start of television's prime time. All those over the air networks at the same time.

Of course, television today is much edgier than anything that Norman Lear ever produced. But it was a different time in which he did it. Maybe the biggest difference from that time to today is how widely Lear reached American culture. Because there were just so few choices available. In the 70s, when All in the Family ruled the airwaves, it was just airwaves, more or less a captive audience. Imagine the shock though, after a decade of highly popular liberal television, Ronald Reagan was elected president and the so-called religious right was on the rise. So Lear responded to that by taking his millions in earnings, and starting a political action committee of his own called People for the American Way which does exist to this day. But politics, it can be very temporary, but it's culture that endures. He may not have made a huge mark on politics, per se, but he did change the culture and Katie, you are way too young to have experienced this yourself. But you know, Norman Lear was really a historic figure.

MCCOY: He was a Titan and a legend in American television entertainment and your point Nick brings up an important principle that we see at work even today, that entertainment and, more broadly, the arts is one of the vehicles of significant cultural change. And significant cultural change leads to different attitudes in the public about certain ideas or beliefs or practices. And one of the big examples of that in Norman Lear's career was the show Maude. In Maude season one, this is 1972, the main character Maude has an abortion and it is a two episode, I believe, part of the season, pretty bold, not only to do that for primetime television, but season one, and the show kept getting renewed. But what's most significant about that is that was in '72, Roe passed in '73. And you see, combine that with other initiatives in culture to change public perception of a particular idea. Now if someone is watching Maude, perhaps they had a view of abortion that was abstract, that it was somehow distant and removed, but here they come to love this character and they identify with this character and all of a sudden they're understanding the logic behind why a character might want to get an abortion. It's one of the many ways that television, entertainment, the arts, shapes culture, shapes conversations, and it's also one of the many reasons that we cannot retreat from it as Christians.

BROWN: Well, let’s move to an extremely difficult, extremely serious subject … having to do with what we’re learning about what happened in the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel … just the extent of the barbarity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had this to say:

NETANYAHU: I say to the women's rights organizations, to the human rights organizations, you've heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation, where are you, I expect all civilized leaders, governments, nations, to speak up against these atrocities.

So, where are they?

MCCOY: So earlier this week there was a meeting, it was a UN special session, in which representatives of Israel brought in different people to speak, among them, Sheryl Sandberg. And they also brought in officials from Israel to talk about what they witnessed, and the types of violence and sexual crimes that they saw. It is absolutely horrific. It's almost too graphic to even say in a venue like this. But these are just unspeakable horrors that Israeli women endured - sexual violence, mutilation. And this was women and girls of all ages. And one of the people who was speaking very passionately against this was Kirsten Gillibrand, the senator from New York, and she called it evil. And I was so glad to hear her put it in those terms, that there's just no other word for it. It is simply evil, and it is the type of evil that can only be explained by a demonic hatred.

But here's the thing that is even more alarming as we are learning more and more about this is just how silent different organizations have been in decrying the sexual violence against women and girls in Israel. Organizations that ostensibly exist to combat violence against women and girls or violations of human rights - and I'm talking organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood, I think they finally caved to pressure and released a statement earlier this week. Emily's List, the Women's March, these are groups that claim to champion what is in the best interest of women. But whenever it comes to Israeli women, even though there can be no doubt of what occurred, these organizations can't doubt it, but they just disregard it.

EICHER: Well, I'm seeing this more and more Katie. So it doesn't surprise me so much. It used to surprise me. It doesn't now, but what do you think accounts for this?

MCCOY: You know, this is something that we're seeing in real time, so we're seeing the fruit of different ideas play out. There was a conservative commentator who said that America is looking more and more like 1930s Germany. Now in 1930s Germany, the Nazis hated Jews because they were considered not white enough. Among the American left, there is a hatred of Jews because they are considered too white. And in both of those systems is a moral framework determined exclusively by hierarchies of power. There are people scratching their heads, saying, why is it that anti-semitism has gone from the far right fascist populist movement of the Nazis, and now we're seeing it in the far left, these halls of elite academia? And they have something in common: when you take away absolute moral principles, when you take away absolute transcendent truth to guide whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, the only thing that you are left with is power. It's how the Nazis did it when they co-opted Nietzsche in the Ubermensch, and it is how the far left is doing it using the legal theory of intersectionality as a social theory, writ large. Everything that we're seeing is about concepts like hierarchies of oppression, and who is the victim and who is the oppressor. And the reason there is this uprising, really eruption of anti-semitism is because Jews are considered white, and Palestinians are non-white, and in the hierarchy of oppression, that makes Jews automatically the oppressor.

EICHER: You mentioned Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she's a liberal Democrat. And she did risk the ire of the progressive left by speaking out on this. And I guess sometimes it just takes one.

MCCOY: It did. In fact, it wasn't just Senator Gillibrand. It was also Hillary Clinton, who gave a very impassioned address as well. And so these are women from the ideological left. But on the other side of the political aisle, there have been plenty of people on the right decrying anti-semitism. A day after that UN special session, you had the congressional testimony and hearing of three different Ivy League presidents, interestingly, all of them women, and none of them could say conclusively whether a call for genocide would constitute a violation of the Student Code of Conduct. And once again, we just saw these ideas on display in the name of freedom, in the name of individual liberty, even in the name of free speech. So what we are seeing is the outflow, the results of being a people who are free, but not moral.

BROWN: Katie before we let you go, I’d like to get your take on a recent agreement between the Portland, Oregon, school district and its teacher union.

What this bargaining agreement does is it allows Portland teachers to take gender identity and race into account before disciplining students. So, when a student engages in continuous disruptive behavior, school officials have to develop a support plan for the student that has to take into consideration the impact of issues related to the student’s trauma, race, gender identity/presentation, sexual orientation and something called restorative justice as appropriate for the student.

How could this possibly be helpful to students?

MCCOY: With the exception of trauma, and I don't want to discount whether they're talking about a student who has endured some type of personal harm, all of those other aspects are demographic aspects of a person's identity. And so when I hear this, I think a couple of things. First, it's kind of robbing the student of personal agency, because instead of seeing this student as an individual with perhaps behavioral needs, things happening at home that are affecting school performance, you are assessing the student according to his or her demographic combination. And it really is just perpetuating this idea of victimhood, that people are victims of not only their circumstances, but their race, their gender, their sexual orientation, whatever category you want to fill in the blank, and that therefore, they're not responsible for their behavior. Well, those ideas just get perpetuated into adulthood and the shirking of responsibility or someone not considering themselves responsible for their behavior because of their background or their demographic, etc.

But you know, there was something really missing from that list, Myrna, and it's really important. One of the major factors of disruptive behavior for children in school is fatherlessness. Eighty-five percent of disruptive children in school come from fatherless homes. And so if this school board truly wanted to advocate for children, they would be taking into account things like the family structure, whether this child is in a stable two parent home. And society at large would be talking about these issues as well, rather than reducing people to combinations of victim status, talk about the need for children to grow up in stable two parent homes with a father and a mother. Every child is worthy of that, every child deserves that, and every child is benefited from that - not only in school, but in future life success.

BROWN: Author and speaker Katie McCoy. Her most-recent book is To Be A Woman. Thanks, Katie!

MCCOY: Always good to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, December 8th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino offers a preview of what’s new in entertainment this December.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Summer might be the traditional season for blockbusters, but in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Hollywood rolls out the red carpet inviting all those families who’ve gotten together for the holidays to sit down and enjoy a movie together.

Granted, the movie magic is a little less shiny this Christmas since the actors’ strike pushed many of the biggest movies into next year. But there are some options coming to theaters and streaming that might pique your interest.

This weekend, fans of quirky crime shows can rejoice because after more than a decade, Tony Shalhoub returns as Adrian Monk. He’s an obsessive-compulsive detective who’s plagued by a thousand phobias.

DR. BELL: So how does that feel? To be working again?

MONK: Like riding a bicycle.

DR. BELL: Good. I’m glad to hear that.

MONK: I mean it’s terrifying.

Mr. Monk’s Last Case is a new movie debuting today on Peacock, and if you loved the original series you’ll enjoy this funny reunion episode of one of the most popular police procedurals.

Over in theaters, Hayao Miyazaki and his famed Studio Ghibli have a new animated feature, The Boy and the Heron. The movie is set during World War II. The young hero must travel from the Japanese countryside into a fantastical world in hopes of rescuing his mother. The Boy and the Heron feels like an old-school fairytale. You know, the kind that warns kids not to wander into the woods and where not everything ends as happily ever after as you would hope.

OLD MAN: This world that we’re in. It will only last one more day.

This film is rated PG-13 because there’s a little bit of blood and some cigarette smoking. Otherwise it’s family friendly, though little ones will probably find it too slow. The movie is beautifully animated and thought provoking. It calls into question whether imperfect humans can ever create a perfect world.

Looking ahead to next weekend, there are two new movies revisiting classic stories.

Netflix will debut Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, a sequel to 2000’s Chicken Run made by the claymation studio responsible for Wallace and Gromit.

ROCKY: You know, I’d say our little island paradise just got a little more… paradisier. Cock-a-doodle do!

In this age of super-slick digital animation, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget offers some nostalgic charm.

In theaters, the big movie arriving December 15th is Wonka starring Timonthy Chalamet. It’s a prequel to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, telling the story of how Willy Wonka became a candy-making magician. The movie also stars an orange Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa.

OOMPA LOOMPA: What is it?

WONKA: Nothing.

OOMPA LOOMPA: Well it’s obviously something because you said, “Huh.”

WONKA: Forget it.

OOMPA LOOMPA: Very well.

The sets are fantastical and there will be singing and dancing.

The weekend before Christmas we’ll also get plenty of new movies. Migration is a PG-rated animated movie about a family of ducks who fly the wrong way for winter and end up in New York City. Migration was made by Universal’s Illumination Entertainment, which has been putting out some winning movies lately. The movie also features the voice of Awkwafina as a cranky pigeon. She always cracks me up, no matter what movie she’s in.

BABY DUCK: What’s duck a l’orange?

PIGEON: It’s you… with l’orange on top.

Coming out the same day is the big action movie of the holiday season, which you can probably skip.

In 2018, Aquaman made more than a billion dollars worldwide, but its sequel appears to be dead in the water. Warner Bros. is scrapping their comic-book movie universe and starting over from scratch in 2025. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the last drop in a failed franchise.

On Christmas Day, a couple of new movies come out. First, there’s the remake of The Color Purple, but it isn’t going to be like Steven Spielberg’s classic from 1985.

SHUG: [SINGING] Now that I’ve got your attention. Here’s what you men need to hear.

This version is a screen adaptation of the 2005 Broadway musical adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s classic from 1985. Be warned, this movie will have lots of singing. Movie musicals have become a polarizing subject, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that in the trailer Warner Bros. is hiding the fact that this version is a musical.

The other movie coming out Christmas Day worth looking into is The Boys in the Boat, directed by George Clooney. It’s one of those inspiring based-on-a-true-story sports movies.

COACH: The 8-man crew is the most difficult team sport in the world. The average human body is just not meant for such things. Most of you will not be chosen.

This one is about how despite the trials of the Great Depression, the University of Washington rowing team beat the odds to compete at the Berlin Olympics in 1939.

So, that’s what we have to look forward to for the rest of 2023. I hope you find something new or old to enjoy with your family this Christmas.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: exploring the life of missionary and theologian Elisabeth Elliot.

Here’s book reviewer Bekah McCallum.

AUSTEN: On the last night in Arajuno, she wrote to the Howards and Elliotts: “My flesh, and my heart may fail. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

BEKAH MCCALLUM: That’s Lucy Austen reading from her new biography, Elisabeth Elliot: A Life. Elliot may be best known for her work as a missionary in Ecuador who tried to bring the gospel to the Waorani tribe. Austen begins her prologue there, in 1956. Elliot’s husband Jim and four other missionaries were first reported missing, then killed. Radio announcements brought news of their deaths.

MEMORIAL SERVICE: Greetings, radio friends round the round world! The back home hour tonight will be a memorial service to the five missionary martyrs who gave their lives for Christ and his Gospel just one week ago.

It wasn’t her only deep loss. During the eighty-eight years of her life, Elliot became a widow twice. She also watched many loved ones pass away before her own long and deadly bout with Alzheimer’s. Throughout her biography, Austen shows Elliot’s faith through great tragedies.

AUSTEN: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee…” Isaiah 42 came unbidden to Betty’s mind. She began praying silently, “Lord, let not the waters overflow.”

Early chapters deal with Elisabeth’s childhood and teenage years, while a second section covers her life in Ecuador. Two years after Jim died, Elisabeth tried to live with the Waorani again. Austen describes what it was like for Elliot to live among her husband’s murderers.

AUSTEN: Again and again as the days went by, Elliot marveled to find herself in this community, marveled that these extremely ordinary people were fabled killers. “After all these months of living on tenter-hooks, wondering, wondering - here I am. Here they are. And we live in peace.”

A third section deals with Elliot’s final decades. When she returned to the United States in the 1960s, Elliot hosted a radio program called Gateway to Joy and wrote at least twenty books. To improve her writing, she read from a wide variety of authors including Amy Carmichael, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor.

AUSTEN: Elliot felt that most of “those we call ‘Christian’ authors…do no not fall into the category of artists,” neither addressing the great themes nor communicating effectively. She was not interested in preaching comfortably to the choir.

Readers likely won’t approve of every one of Elliot’s convictions, especially her later views on gender roles. Some of her books were used as proof-texts for the purity culture movement, but that’s why Lucy Austen says reading about Elliot’s life is so vital.

AUSTEN: It helps to contextualize where she was coming from, and, and what the influences were that shaped her and shaped then the teaching that she gave.

David Steele is pastor of Christ Fellowship Church in Everson, Washington, and author of six books. He attended a Ligonier conference back in the 90s where Elliot was a speaker. According to Steele, Austen’s description of the determined Elliot seems spot-on:

STEELE: I remember thinking she was very feisty, might be the word. I think that's the word my wife would use. She's feisty, and, and a little bit opinionated. And I liked that. I thought that was that was really endearing.

Elliot had flaws and frustrations. She didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment when she left Ecuador, even though she became famous for her missionary work. By making this disappointment part of the book’s climax, Austen encourages the reader to wrestle with this question: what really makes a Christian’s life successful?

STEELE: I think every pastor ought to read this book. It was deeply not only challenging to me, but encouraging to me. I think I'll tell you what, every outgoing missionary should be required to read this book.

At over 600 pages, it’s a hefty read. It flows well, though, and is full of interesting details to contrast Elliot’s adventures in the jungle with her life in the U.S.

AUSTEN: Elliot wrote with humor of the difficulties of rural life for city-bread transplants: the time spent hauling water; the struggle to sterilize the water, which came from a river that doubled as an outhouse, and to cook food over an open fire that kept going out.

Elliot’s life spanned from the time of Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic to the fall of the Twin Towers and beyond. So, Austen had a lot of material to sift through. It took Austen eleven years to complete the biography, and her hard work shows.

AUSTEN: So she really turned out to be to be kind of irreducible, and and I think that that has really shaped my thinking about, shaping my thinking about what it means to be human.

Readers won’t get the impression that Lucy Austen tried to put Elisabeth Elliot on a pedestal. Elliot would have been the last to ask for that. The biography may encourage readers to admire Elisabeth Elliot’s faith and most of all, to praise the object of her faith. And that’s fitting, considering she always opened her radio program this way:

ELISABETH ELLIOT (Gateway to Joy): “You are loved with an everlasting love.” That’s what the bible says. “And underneath are the everlasting arms.”

I’m Bekah McCallum.

EICHER:  For more ideas of books you can give family and friends this Christmas, check out the link in today’s program notes.

[WORLD Radio Advent 2023 Spotify playlist]

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday December 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. This Sunday marks the second Sunday of Advent. Last week’s musical offering focused on Advent’s main theme—waiting.

EICHER: But what should we do, in the waiting? Isaiah prayed for God’s people and implored God’s kingdom come. Today, WORLD Correspondent Bonnie Pritchett introduces us to songs drawn from the prophet’s words.

MUSIC: COMFORT, COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE

BONNIE PRITCHETT, REPORTER: In 1741, George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah gave voice to the cries of Isaiah 40. In Comfort Ye My People, gifted tenors sing the prophet's plea for God to comfort, forgive sins, and show his glory.

MUSIC: COMFORT, COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE

Handel’s opus came 70 years after fellow German Johann Olearius penned the hymn Comfort, Comfort ye My People.

American composer Don Locklair arranged an a cappella version in this 2022 album called Requiem.

Voices resonate in the stone-walled 1300-year-old priory of Christ Church in Dorset, England.

Verse 1 says: Comfort, Comfort ye my people. Speak ye peace, thus saith our God; Comfort those who sit in darkness mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load.

LYRIC: Speak ye, speak ye to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them! Tell her that her sins I cover, and her warfare now is over.

MUSIC: THY KINGDOM COME, OH GOD

In 1867 vicar Lewis Henry published Thy Kingdom Come, Oh God, another musical adaptation of Isaiah 40.

LYRIC: Thy kingdom come, oh God thy rule begin. Break with thine iron rod the chains of sin…

Providence is a gospel-centered church in Austin, Texas. Its musicians provide their interpretation of the 19th century hymn.

Thy Kingdom Come, Oh God pleads for God’s reign of peace while recognizing that the source of hatred and war is our own sin.

LYRIC: We pray thee, Lord, arise and come in might; revive our [TK] eyes, longing for sight. Over the lands of far where darkness hovers yet: arise, O Morning Star, arise and never set!

MUSIC: DAWNING LIGHT OF OUR SALVATION

Wendell Kimbrough also drew inspiration from Isaiah 40 in his 2014 release Dawning Light of Our Salvation.

LYRIC: Every valley be exalted! Every mountain be made plain! Crooked ways repent and straighten. All creation bend in praise!

The singer-songwriter doesn’t leave worshipers in the distant past, still waiting for God’s Messiah. Kimbrough also draws from the gospel writers Matthew and Luke who testified that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. In verse three, Kimbrough gives a name and praise to the one Isaiah longed for, the one whose return Christians await.

LYRIC: Jesus, Lord, and mighty Savior, David’s Son and yet his King. Dawning light of our salvation of your saving power we sing! Stand, oh lame, and dance ye broken, know the Savior’s healing grace. Come, oh deaf, and hear him singing. Turn, oh blind, behold his face.

Every valley be exalted! Every mountain be made plane! Crooked ways repent and straighten. All creation bend in praise! Every valley be exalted! Every mountain be made plain! Crooked ways repent and straighten. All creation bend in praise!

For WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett.

BROWN: We’ll update our Spotify Playlist with these new pieces, so you can enjoy them at home. We’ve included the link in today’s transcript at wng.org/podcasts.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who helped put the program together this week:

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Paul Butler, Steve West, Will Inboden, Emily Whitten, Daniel Suhr, Leo Briceno, Hunter Baker, Onize Ohikere, Ryan Bomberger, Jill Nelson, Lillian Hamman, Emma Freire, Cal Thomas, Katie McCoy, Collin Garbarino, Bekah McCallum, and Bonnie Pritchett.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Lynde Langdon, Steve Kloosterman, Travis Kircher, Lauren Canterberry, Christina Grube, and Josh Schumacher.

And, breaking news interns Tobin Jacobson, Johanna Huebscher, and Alex Carmanaty.

And thanks to the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Our producer is Harrison Watters. Our production team includes Kristen Flavin, Benj Eicher, Mary Muncy, and Emily Whitten.

Anna Johansen Brown is features editor, and Paul Butler is executive producer.

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 Psalmist writes: “Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, you shall be blessed and it shall be well with you.” —Psalm 128: 1, 2

Be sure to worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ, in church this weekend. And Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.