The World and Everything in It: February 28, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Mark Chanski. I live in Holland, Michigan, and I'm the coordinator of the Reform Baptist Network, an association of churches pursuing the great commission to the ends of the earth. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Leadership is changing in the Republican National Committee.

MCKISSICK: Our job is to win. If we get too far afield from the things that only we can do, then those things don’t get done and then we lose.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about that and have highlights from CPAC on Washington Wednesday. Also WORLD Tour. Plus how an overrun border town is making the best of a bad situation.

GALLO: They were saying, Oh, they're gonna come in, they're gonna burn this down and do this, all kinds of rumors were going on in the community

And how the documentary God and Country misses the mark.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, February 28th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Time now for the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Michigan primaries » Donald Trump cruised to victory last night in Michigan.

TRUMP: We will make America great again. Thank you very much, Michigan!

He has now swept the first five states on the Republican primary calendar.

But his lone remaining GOP rival Nikki Haley told supporters in Colorado the race is far from over.

HALEY: We had 14 people in the race. I defeated a dozen of the fellas. I just got one more fella I gotta catch up to.

President Biden also won big last night among Democratic voters. But many selected the “uncommitted” option on the ballot in protest of Biden’s support of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Several states will hold caucuses over the weekend and then it's on to Super Tuesday with nearly 900 delegates up for grabs.

Biden meeting with lawmakers » President Biden is urging leaders in Congress to take immediate action to avoid a government shutdown and to fund military aid to Ukraine.

BIDEN: I think the consequences of inaction in Ukraine every day are dire. I’ve been speaking to some of our G7 partners and they’re very concerned.

The president met with House and Senate leaders in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

After the meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he’s optimistic that Congress will pass a government funding bill this week. But as for other concerns, the speaker said he told President Biden that we must take care of America’s needs first.

JOHNSON: When you talk about America’s needs, you have to talk first about our open border.

He also said he once again stressed to the president that he could immediately issue executive orders to help secure the border.

JOHNSON: It’s time for action. It is a catastrophe, and it must stop. And we will get the government funded and we’ll keep working on that. So we’ll have more for you soon.

Border/immigration polls » And a new Gallup poll reveals that for the first time in five years illegal immigration tops the list of the most important problems in the United States. 28 percent of respondents said that’s the top concern.

And in a Monmouth University poll this week, 53 percent of Americans said they support a border wall. That was up from 42 percent in 2019.

Israel/Hamas refute Biden cease-fire progress remarks » Israel and Hamas are refuting comments Biden made Monday night about a possible deal for a new cease-fire in Gaza.

BIDEN: My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. We’re close. We’re not done yet. And my hope is that by next Monday, we’ll have a cease-fire.

But Israeli officials said Biden’s comments came as a surprise and were not made in coordination with the country’s leadership. A Hamas official played down any sense of progress, saying the terror group wouldn’t soften its demands.

Macron and NATO chief on troops to Ukraine » Meanwhile, Western leaders are refuting recent remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron.

He said this week that NATO has not ruled out sending troops into Ukraine.

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano:

STANO: There is no decision at the EU level about any kind of sending of troops or ground forces to Ukraine to fight.

The NATO secretary general also pushed back on Macron’s comments as did German Chancellor Olaf Sholz.

OLAF SHOLZ: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

He said no soldiers from any member of the alliance are currently on the ground in Ukraine and there are no plans to send any.

Army restructuring » The U.S. Army says it’s downsizing  amid recruiting shortfalls and a need to modernize its forces. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The Army will cut some 24,000 positions, which are currently vacant. It’s also slashing its special forces by roughly 3,000 troops.

There aren’t enough soldiers to fill those roles, but the Pentagon says the cuts are also aimed at modernizing the Army.

It says the branch is now “significantly over-structured” with many roles focused on counterinsurgency which was a major emphasis during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it is now retooling with a focus on a potential great power conflict.

To that end, the Army also plans to add nearly 8,000 new positions focused on things like cyber warfare and air defense.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Macy's Closing Stores » One of America’s most iconic retailers is closing almost a third of its stores.

AUDIO (Macy’s classic commercial): It’s Macy’s one day sale with spectacular savings and values in every department …

Macy's will shutter 150 underperforming stores.

With the rise of online shopping, the brick and mortar retailer is shifting its focus towards its luxury brands – Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury.

Oliver Chen with investment bank TD Cowen says Macy's is attempting a “less is more” growth strategy.

CHEN: I think that the view here is that closing more stores is a good idea and that focusing on the most productive stores is a very helpful idea as well.

Last year, Macy’s laid off nearly 3,000 workers in a cost cutting move amid declining sales.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Republican party priorities in 2024 on Washington Wednesday. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 28th of February, 2024.

Thanks for joining us for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

It’s Washington Wednesday. Today, a leadership shakeup at the Republican National Committee. But first, highlights from this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC. WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno went to CPAC, and joins us now.

REICHARD: Good morning, Leo.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: Hey, good morning, Mary.

REICHARD: CPAC tends to be a barometer for what issues American conservatives are most concerned about, particularly in an election year. Leo, what were the 2-3 top issues, and what did headline speakers say about them?

BRICENO: I mean, just about everything came up, right. You talk about Ukraine, border policy, energy. I mean, the gamut was just as broad as really you can imagine. But really, kind of three themes that I saw come up time and time again, were that the Republican Party, right, when it gets together in a room, is increasingly America-first, it's continually MAGA or Trump-oriented, and it's deeply reliant on anti-establishment rhetoric. If you take a look at someone like Matt Gaetz, for instance, on kind of anti-establishment, he’s been a figure that’s been very prominent, and in the House of Representatives has been kind of emblematic of the most conservative movement of the GOP there. His talk was literally titled “Burn the House Down,” right? And he got one of the biggest receptions, I think of the entire conference. Here’s a little bit of what he had to say on the establishment. 

MATT GAETZ: So if you’re out there campaigning, running as a Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy Republican, my message to you is this: they don’t work here anymore.

And then how the party is still very Trump-centric, right. CPAC is not necessarily pro Trump. It’s pro-conservative, pro-Republican. But I think that the theme predominantly virtually everywhere was that this is Trump’s event, still very much Trump’s party. Here’s Governor Kristi Noem on that.

KRISTI NOEM: Last year when everyone was asking me if I was going to consider running for president I said, “No. Why would you run for president if you can’t win?” I didn’t say it to be nice. I said it because it was a fact. No one we knew could beat Donald J. Trump. We’ve known that for over a year—he’s the only person who has the support to be the Republican presidential nominee.

REICHARD: Well, what about abortion? Now, it used to be the focus was to put justices on the court who would stick to constitutional analysis and thereby overturn Roe versus Wade, and that did happen with the Dobbs decision. But what was said this year at CPAC about abortion?

BRICENO: Yeah, that’s, that’s a really great question. You know, it wasn’t until after leaving the event, and kind of looking back and reflecting on it that I realized, man, you know, I don’t really think I heard all that much about abortion at all. And I don’t want to pretend that I have an exhaustive view of what went on at CPAC. Maybe I missed the session, in the plenary session or the keynote speech where you know, it was the focal point. But it is surprising looking back on and that, you know, something that has been so critical, so central to the conservative movement for the past 50 years, right, the pro-life issue, for now, I can’t really say that had much of a presence at all.

REICHARD: Before we go, what other stories are you watching in the Capital this week?

BRICENO: Yeah, we’re rounding the corner on the week that ends with a potential, a partial government shutdown. So we’re still playing this government funding game. We still have a two-step funding process where parts of the government will shut down March 1st. Others will shut down March 8th. And we’re really looking at four bills this week to meet the first deadline there. So speaker Johnson has struggled to create unity among the GOP and a very thin majority to do much of anything. But spending has really been the repeating thorn in his side. So this week will be critical for him as he looks to galvanize Republicans to put together for spending bills. They have a top line number, a kind of a bottom line to work with that they negotiated with Democrats, but the specifics of what those bills look like are still up in the air. That’s what’s going to be front and center and Congress this coming week.

REICHARD: Leo Briceno covers politics for WORLD in Washington D.C. Thanks for this report.

BRICENO: Sure thing. Thank you, Mary.

EICHER: Well, in other news, on Monday, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel announced that she would resign after Super Tuesday primaries on March 5th.

McDaniel’s co-chair, Drew McKissick, also announced that he would step down.

In their place, Trump endorsed a North Carolina-based campaign operative, Michael Whatley, to take over with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.

REICHARD: Before announcing his resignation, McKissick told WORLD reporter Carolina Lumetta what he thinks party leadership should focus on:

MCKISSICK: Our job as campaign committees, which is what the party is, is a campaign committee, is to win. You know if we get too far afield from the things that only we can do, which is the organizing, the messaging, and the fundraising, then those things don’t get done and we lose. And then everybody’s got something to be mad about.

Joining us now to talk about the shake-up is Hunter Baker. He’s provost of North Greenville University and a regular contributor to WORLD Opinions.

Hunter, good morning.

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning to you.

REICHARD: Well, McKissick was elected to RNC leadership just last year, and he told WORLD that Trump is essentially the presumptive nominee. But when Trump on Saturday thanked McKissick for his conservative work, the crowd booed the RNC co-chair. Hunter, why do you think Trump’s base is dissatisfied with the RNC even though they’re largely pro-Trump?

BAKER: Well, there’s a couple of things. I think that first, the RNC has been blamed for the lack of the red wave in 2022 that a lot of people expected. I personally think that it’s incorrect to blame them for that. I think that really Joe Biden was able to fend off the wave through a couple of things. One is he released a massive amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which reduced the price of oil in the run up to the midterms. I think the other thing is he was trying to perform a massive student loan debt cancellation, which would also bring a lot of voters to the polls. And I think that that kind of held down the red wave. I don’t think that was the RNC’s fault, but Trump, I think, kind of played it that way. And the other thing is in all of the post 2020 election claims of fraud and things like that, the RNC really did not get involved in it. And so I think that a lot of Trump folks feel betrayed that the RNC did not enter into that, that fight. To the RNC’s credit they avoided legal trouble, unlike some of the other folks.

REICHARD: What do you think about the two people Trump wants to replace Ronna McDaniel and Drew McKissick?

BAKER: Well, so Michael Whatley would be sort of a typical internal party operator, not known to a lot of people and of course, that often happens with with these folks who operate these posts. But his desire for Laura Trump to be the co-chair, that’s interesting, right. That’s, it’s intriguing to see sort of building something like a family empire within the party, not something that you’ve really seen that much within the Republican Party. And I don’t know if it would turn off voters generally. I guess it all depends on where the Trump brand is. These days, the Trump brand is stronger than I thought it would be back in 2020, so we’ll see.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about running mates. Last week, Trump confirmed some of the names on his short list of potential running mates during a FOX News town hall event. It includes SC senator Tim Scott, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Dakota Governor, Kristi Noem. No surprise, Trump did not include Nikki Haley. Hunter, who stands out to you as a potential VP who could shore up the ticket where Trump is weak?

BAKER: Well, so the interesting thing is, is that if you if you look at the list, there’s a lot of diversity on this list. So if you’re going to ask me who is my choice as somebody who has the best chance, I’m tempted to say Tim Scott. Tim Scott has tremendous credibility with evangelicals. Many of them would like to see him be president someday. They love the fact of his diversity. They’re tired of being thought of as racists, and so Tim Scott brings that. He also had some effective public policy work on criminal justice when Donald Trump was president. And he’s been a stalwart supporter of Trump. And when he dropped out, he quickly endorsed Trump.

REICHARD: Any other stories you’re keeping an eye on?

BAKER: Yeah, one of the interesting questions about Trump is how he’s going to do in the general, because he has to some extent underperformed his polls in these primaries. Is he beating Nikki Haley and everybody else? Yes. Is he beating them by as much as the polls suggest? And the answer is, not always. And so then the question you have is, well, does that mean that these Nikki Haley voters are going to desert him in the general election? The analyses that I have seen probably indicate that they will rally to him in the end, but that’s a little bit of a concern.

REICHARD: Hunter Baker is provost of North Greenville University and a regular contributor to WORLD Opinions. Hunter, Thanks for joining us!

BAKER: Thank you.

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

Niger sanctions lifted — Today’s roundup starts in Niger where regional authorities have lifted some of the sanctions that followed a military coup last year.

The Economic Community of West African States—or ECOWAS—said the lifted sanctions include a no-fly zone, border closures, and frozen assets.

Omar Alieu Touray is the ECOWAS Commission president.

TOURAY: This decision is based on humanitarian considerations, especially as we are in the month of Lent and as we prepare for the holy month of Ramadan.

Nigerien military officers deposed President Mohamed Bazoum last July. He is still imprisoned in the presidential palace in the capital city of Niamey.

Abdoul Aziz Issoufou is a salesman in Niamey.

ISSOUFOU: [Speaking Hausa]

He says here that the lifted sanctions are a cause for celebration since supplies would flow back into the country and people could eat.

AUDIO: [Protesters]

Albania-Italy deal — We head over to Albania where activists and opposition lawmakers opposed a controversial migrant deal with Italy.

A majority of Albanian lawmakers approved the deal that will see the country host two holding centers for migrants rescued in Italian waters.

One camp would screen migrants on arrival while the second would detain them while their asylum requests are processed. The migrants would then either be allowed into Italy or sent back to their countries.

Arilda Lleshi is an Albanian activist.

LLESHI: [Speaking Albanian]

She says here that evidence from other countries shows that the processing centers would increase crime in the area.

Opposition lawmakers blew whistles in protest during the vote. Albania’s Constitutional Court upheld the deal last month.

AUDIO: [Chanting protesters]

South Korean doctors strike — In South Korea, senior doctors have turned out in solidarity with junior doctors, who are protesting the government’s plan to increase medical school admissions.

Thousands of medical interns and residents have walked off their jobs, triggering delays in surgeries and other medical procedures.

Authorities have said the increase in medical students will help with the country’s rapidly aging population. but doctors have argued that authorities need to prioritize working conditions and pay.

Kim Seong-Geun is vice president of the Seoul branch of the Korean Medical Association.

SEONG-GEUN: [Speaking Korean]

He says here that authorities need to change the system and not rely on more doctors to graduate.

The government set a Thursday deadline for the doctors to return to work, or face the consequences.

HERBERT FRITZ: I am happy to be here and I also thank Qatar.

Afghanistan releases Austrian — We close today in Qatar where officials welcomed an 84-year-old far-right Austrian, arrested in Afghanistan more than nine months ago.

Herbert Fritz was a founding member of Austria’s National Democratic Party, a far-right group banned in 1988.

Austrian media said he had traveled to Afghanistan to prove the country was safe. Taliban authorities arrested him on allegations of spying after he published an article lauding the Taliban-ruled country as safe enough to visit.

Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal is the Austrian government spokesman.

LAUNSKY-TIEFFENTHAL: We would like to express our gratitude to the state of Qatar, to his highness the Emir, his excellency the prime minister and state minister (Mohammed bin Abdulaziz) Al-Khulaifi for their strong support that made the return of Mr Fritz possible, the return to his daughters and his grandchildren.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Sometimes presidents of the United States have more in common than just the presidency.

Consider: Back in 1864 as the civil war raged on, President Abraham Lincoln issued a pardon.

The man who needed the pardon was a civilian employee of the union army. Went by the name Moses Robinette.

Turns out Robinette was a bit of a scrapper. He’d gotten into it with a fellow army contractor named John Alexander.

Big guy. Alexander was much bigger and stronger than Robinette.

But Robinette didn’t back down, though he did resort to the use of a pocket knife to defend himself. Which was his main point: that he was just defending himself.

The army threw him into the brig anyway.

But three officers petitioned the president and Lincoln was convinced.

So back to the beginning, how does this connect presidents?

Maybe the name rings a bell. Moses Robinette is the great, great grandfather of Joseph Robinette Biden.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 28th. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The little border town that gets big attention.

Here’s part two of a story we began yesterday.

WORLD Radio reporter Bonnie Pritchett on Eagle Pass, Texas, and the effect of illegal immigration on that community. Here’s the conclusion.

AUDIO: [Metal gate scraping open]

BONNIE PRITCHETT: The State of Texas has, essentially, taken control of Shelby Park—blocking access to the park from Mexico—and from Eagle Pass. Main Street once emptied into the park; now a chain-link fence and armed Texas National Guardsmen control access.

Annual city-wide events held at Shelby Park have been relocated.

Event coordinators planning to use the park’s unique proximity with Mexico to share the gospel had to move to a venue 8 miles away.

ABNER CHAVEZ: Franklin Graham is going to be here, February 28…

That’s Abner Chavez, a pastor at New Journey Church, one of the local churches partnering with the Billy Graham Evangelical Association for its Eagle Pass meeting of the God Loves You Frontera Tour.

CHAVEZ: And the plan was to, for him to preach, not only to the people of the community here in Eagle Pass, but also to the people of the community of Piedras Negras which is right across the river. They were going to set up speakers where the gospel was going to be shared to the Mexican side as well. So that's pretty sad, to be honest with you…

The border barriers have divided more than nations. Sisters Sophie Gallo and Ana Santleben admit their own families’ opposing political views are the source of heated arguments. Here’s Gallo.

SOFIA GALLO: But when it's over, it's over. We speak our minds. It's over with and then we move on and we get together for dinner.

Familial and community bonds can’t repair some fissures.

GALLO: And that's what I was telling you about the division in the city, which, you know, which I had never, never seen before in my entire life. You know, I work the elections, I see the division so much clearer now, which is sad, because it really has torn not only families apart, friends…

Real estate broker and former Eagle Pass mayor Jose Aranda questions Governor Abbott’s response to the border crisis.

ARANDA: What you see at Shelby Park was political…

Aranda points to the U.S. Senate immigration bill rejected days earlier by the Republican-controlled House.

ARANDA: But they don't want it because they say it's not a good plan. And I think it's a great start…

A Main Street store owner applauds the governor’s actions.

OWNER: If it wasn’t for the governor, just think - all those people New York, Chicago were going to be here? That would be a nightmare. So he followed the law…

In December, 250 thousand people—more than any month on record— crossed the U.S. southern border illegally.

Customs and Border Protection pulled agents from legal points of entry to help with processing. That required shutting vehicle entry into the U.S. on one of the international bridges in Eagle Pass - at the height of the Christmas shopping season.

Cergio Marquez works at Cowboy Corral on Main Street, two blocks from the bridge.

CERGIO MARQUEZ: We sell Western wear clothes, hats, boots, belts.

The store smells like leather.

MARQUEZ: We've got more customers from Mexico. They come more by us because they say there's more quality. And we lost a lot of sales.

SOUND: [“Thank you.” Register tape]

Next door is Claudia’s, a floral craft and novelties store. Eighty percent of his customers are from Mexico. December sales plummeted when traffic on the international bridge ground to a crawl.

The effect on both cities wasn’t just economic.

Abner Chavez, and his wife Claudia also lead a congregation in Mexico—a congregation born off of New Journey Church.

ABNER CHAVEZ: So when we have to cross and they have to shut one of the bridges down. The crossing lines are extremely long, we have been in line to come back up to three hours and a half…

In early February residents feared another surge of people – this time from the north.

A loosely knit band of protesters calling themselves “God’s Army” caravanned to South Texas with calls to “Take Our Border Back.” Here’s convoy spokesman Craig Hudgins.

CRAIG HUDGINS: This is all about what's in everybody's gut knowing that if we don't do something, we're gonna lose our nation…

That rhetoric combined with media hype put some Eagle Pass residents on edge. Here’s Sofie Gallo.

GALLO: We didn’t know what to expect. They were saying, Oh, they're gonna come in, they're gonna burn this down and do this, all kinds of rumors were going on in the community…

That weekend someone did threaten to burn down the Customs and Border Protection migrant processing facility, forcing an evacuation.

Eagle Pass Police Chief Federico Garza prepared for the worst.

GARZA: This is the first weekend that we've been put on a high alert with the police department and the sheriff's office and all the other agencies surrounding us where we felt that it was a critical point of public safety to make sure that everyone involved were all going to be kept safe…

Not everyone felt safe. Jennifer Chacon’s bakery and cafe is just blocks from Shelby Park.

CHACON: I hate to say this, somebody compared it to it getting out of hand as it did when the George Floyd situation happened. And it's scary, because it destroyed communities, it destroyed cities…

By the end of the weekend, nothing was destroyed. Seven people were arrested.

Each person I interviewed believed something good could come from the troubles. Claudia Chavez, co-founder and co-pastor of New Journey Church with her husband Abner, put it this way:

CLAUDIA CHAVEZ: Everything that's happening around us, it's like labor pains, it’s like something that God is preparing this town. Because this town was a nobody town. Nobody knew about Eagle Pass. Now everybody knows about Eagle Pass. We need to be ready to receive the [SPANISH] the reaping what was planted or be able to pick up the harvest.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in Eagle Pass, Texas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: Christian Nationalism.

WORLD Opinions managing editor Andrew Walker says a new documentary says more about the filmmakers than it does about their targets.

ANDREW WALKER: The much-discussed Rob Reiner-produced God & Country documentary is now in theaters, and if you saw a trailer, the final product is exactly what you’d expect: a biased vilification of conservative Christians.

Admittedly, the documentary landed a few good punches in its criticisms. Did it rightly call out a lot of cringe and horrible theology done to defend Trump? Yes. Some conservative evangelicals deserve scathing criticism for sycophantically excusing or defending Donald Trump’s many flaws. But one need not be a theological or political liberal to make that criticism.

To its credit, the documentary did qualify that not all conservative Christians are enemies of polite society. But it’s impossible to know when one of those culturally acceptable values that Christians affirm—like human dignity—runs afoul of progressive views. One lesson near the end seems to be that if you mobilize to oppose abortion, you hate women and have sacrificed your faith on the altar of politics.

Seems balanced, I know.

According to the film, if you oppose abortion or LGBTQ ideology, that’s a marker of Christian nationalism. If you oppose critical race theory or feminism, that’s a marker of Christian nationalism. At one point, innuendo suggests that even worldview formation is a marker of Christian nationalism.

Apparently the only authentic expressions of Christianity are the forms that are left-coded in our society. In truth, helping the poor, loving the immigrant, and helping the helpless aren’t left-coded. That’s just Biblical Christianity. But it becomes left-coded when left-wing pundits, academics, and activists consider all right-coded concerns about abortion and the LGBTQ agenda as “political.”

The film also strings together a historically simplified, exaggerated, and contradictory storyline. One moment we’re literally on the “precipice” of theocracy, while later Christian Nationalists seem to be a very small percentage of Christians. Which is it?

Of course, anyone paying attention knew the film was going to end in this direction. As I wrote in 2022: “It’s just too convenient to delegitimize the areas where progressives are always prone to disagree with Christians by slapping the label ‘Christian nationalism’ on it.”

No wonder the movie has turned out to be a general market flop, with ticket sales reaching only $38,415 opening weekend. That’s not exactly the sign of a groundswell for a looming fear of theocratic take-over.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once remarked that “liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” The only acceptable form of Christianity in this film is politically neutered Christianity, one that is little more than sentimentality and social justice. Of course, when you consider that evangelical Christians give far more to charity and mercy ministries than to political organizations, the narrative of God & Country quickly falls apart.

The final scenes offer an extended look at abortion, as well as a reference to the “least of these” in Matthew 25. But the filmmakers never ask whether the unborn might qualify as “the least of these.” The failure to ask that question, and others like it, show how intellectually unserious the documentary is as a whole.

I’m Andrew Walker.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Progressive Democrats taking issue with President Biden’s support for Israel, particularly pronounced in Michigan, with its high concentration of Arab Americans. We’ll tell you about that electoral challenge in a must-win state. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

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

The Psalmist writes: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” —Psalm 55:22

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.