The World and Everything in It: January 19, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. I'm Maegan from beautiful rural Kentucky, wife to Wes, and stay at home, homeschooling mother to four sweet children all age seven and under. I listen whenever I get a quiet moment. We hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Today on Culture Friday China’s trying to reverse its population decline, but there’s a new roadblock— modern feminism.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And ’tis the season, so we’ll have to ask about politics, as well. John Stonestreet will be along in a few minutes.

Also today, two foreign-language documentaries with gripping stories from Ukraine and North Korea.

AUDIO: Imagine waking up one day and realizing everything you learned was a lie.

BROWN: It’s Friday, January 19th. 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: Spending bill » In Washington, lawmakers have sent a short-term spending bill to President Biden’s desk that will avert a partial government shutdown.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 77. The nays are 18. The 60-vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed.

The vote heard there on the Senate floor Thursday. The House passed the measure on a vote of 314-108.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said passing the stopgap measure is good news for the nation.

SCHUMER: No chaos, no spectacle, no shutdown.

But some conservatives complained that the bill did nothing to address Washington’s spending problem or the border crisis.

The bill will continue current spending levels into March for some federal agencies whose funding was to expire tonight.

Uvalde report » The Justice Department released a scathing report Thursday on the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The report chronicled what it called a series of “cascading failures.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland:

GARLAND: That failure meant that law enforcement officials prioritized a protracted evacuation of students and teachers in other classrooms, instead of immediately rescuing the victims trapped with the active shooter.

An 18-year-old gunman shot and killed 19 students and two teachers in May of 2022 before officers shot and killed him more than an hour later.

The DOJ found that hundreds of first responders who arrived on scene did not treat the incident as an active shooter event.

Instead, they left children trapped inside the room with the shooter treating it like a “barricaded suspect” situation.

Several responding officers have since been fired, and local prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the police response.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

Netanyahu: no two-state » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is rejecting the Biden administration’s call to move toward creating an independent Palestinian state when the war in Gaza is over.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

Netanyahu made the case that to ensure its own safety Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.”

And he added, “I put the brakes on the attempt to coerce us to a reality that would endanger the state of Israel.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters:

KIRBY: This is not a new comment by Prime Minister Netanyahu. We obviously see it differently. We believe that the Palestinians have every right to live in an independent state with peace and security. And the president is going to continue to work on that.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken argued this week that Israel can never achieve peace or security without allowing an independent Palestinian state.

EU Parliament Israel » Meantime, amid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza European lawmakers are calling for an end to Israel’s war with Hamas on one condition. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The EU Parliament has adopted a resolution demanding two things: A permanent cease-fire in Gaza and the dismantling of Hamas along with the release of the hostages the terror group’s still holding.

The resolution sparked division among EU factions. The original version of the proposal called only for a cease-fire. But conservative lawmakers forced an amendment demanding the destruction of Hamas and the freeing of all hostages.

Israeli leaders say the resolution reflects competing objectives and that the only way to dismantle Hamas is to continue the fight.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Houthis » The United States conducted a fifth strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen on Thursday as the Iran-backed group continues attacks on commercial ships in the crucial Red Sea corridor.

Reporters at the White House asked President Biden if the U,S. counter-strikes are working.

BIDEN: When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.

But the White House said, “the strikes will continue for as long as they need to continue.”

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the United States does not want war or conflict with the Iran-backed terror group.

SINGH: The Houthis are the ones who continue to launch cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles at innocent mariners, at commercial vessels. 

U.S. officials said Navy F-18 fighter jets destroyed two Houthi anti-ship missiles that “were aimed into the southern Red Sea and prepared to launch.”

Fani Willis hearing » A judge in Georgia has scheduled a hearing related to alleged wrongdoing by the district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump and numerous co-defendants in the state. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The judge set the hearing for February 15. And he has ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to file a response to allegations from an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman.

His attorney filed a motion to dismiss all charges against Roman claiming Willis improperly hired her romantic partner to work on the prosecution.

He’s identified as special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

Roman’s filing also alleges that Willis has financially profited from her offices’ payment to Wade saying the couple used the cash to take vacations together.

Willis denies any wrongdoing.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Hunter Biden to provide deposition » House Republicans say Hunter Biden has agreed to testify privately before two House Committees.

Hunter will reportedly be deposed by the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees.

House Republicans were prepared to vote to hold the president’s son in contempt of Congress after he defied a congressional subpoena last month.

Lawmakers ordered him to testify behind closed doors, while Hunter Biden demanded he be allowed to testify publicly.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, Word Play with George Grant.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 19th of January, 2024.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher

It’s time for Culture Friday, and joining us now is John Stonestreet. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Morning, John!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: One thing we’ve not talked about and I just learned this, John, about what seems to be at the heart of China’s problem of population decline and demographic time bomb and that is, China’s feminist movement.

You heard that right. The New York Times reports women don’t want to get married and don’t want to form families in part because they don’t believe in it.

The Times reports the communist propaganda campaign about rejuvenating the nation by building families has fallen on deaf ears among young Chinese women. The Times points out: “authorities have tried to silence China’s feminist movement, but its ideas about equality remain widespread.” It quotes an activist saying that “during these past 10 years, there is a huge community of feminists that have been built up through the internet. Women are more empowered today.”

The story does go into some abusive practices by men, and they obviously want to avoid that. But the report finds a widespread belief that marriage and childbearing will make them more vulnerable to abuse and isolation, not less.

It concludes by pointing out that government policies to encourage women to marry, quoting one woman: “make me feel that it is a trap.”

What do you think about that?

STONESTREET: I think there's a number of things to say about this. First is the Chinese Communist Party is sleeping in the bed that they made, I mean when you lock down on fertility in various ways like they did in the last four, five, six decades, first with a one child policy then with a slightly revised one child policy and then a two child policy and then a three child policy-ish. And then you know, you basically think that every aspect of life is under government control as opposed to seeing an entire realm of human activity as being outside of government control that the government's actually supposed to create space for rather than dictate. Well, this is just what happens when you treat family as something that can be constantly tinkered with and manipulated and controlled and, and managed for the good of something else as if family and marriage and children aren't inherent goods, and, and, and and of themselves.

So that's the worldview that's been inculcated into this place now for decades. And the other thing I'll say about this: the New York Times could have written this article about America immediately, where you have basically, in fact, there was a study that came out I think Brad Wilcox highlighted from the University of Virginia, that you have young women who are skewing left in their political views and young men who are skewing right in their political views. And that's really lowering, in many ways, the number of committed relationships and whether, you know, there's trustworthiness across the sexes. And that, of course, then leads to, also contributes, I would say, to the decline in marriage and other things.

But where is that coming from? Well, it used to be the man's joke, right, that marriage is a ball and chain. This is now a woman's taken-for-granted idea that is taught to them from the beginning to the end, fertility is taught as something that is a problem to be overcome, not actually a feature of being made in the image of God as a woman. And of course, there's plenty of blame to men to go around to, you know, I'm not blaming women here. I'm just saying, Look, this idea that marriage is somehow bad for us, specifically, when it comes to women, and then choosing not to participate in those things. I mean, that's the headline of the really most parts of the globe for the last 20 years, not just China, you have to ask not only, you know, what's behind the current belief, which is what the New York Times did about these women and China. But where does this ethos come from where there's such cynicism heaped upon the family, there's such skepticism about it, where it's assumed to be bad as opposed to being good for various reasons. And that's really, I think, what's at work here. It's a much bigger story than the New York Times told, both geographically and ideologically.

BROWN: John, I’ve got to ask about politics. This week was the Iowa caucuses, next week New Hampshire. Erick Erickson was on with us a couple of days ago basically saying it’s over, the polling is real, and our former president looks like he’s going to get another shot at it.

But all I see online is finger wagging at conservative evangelicals. One prominent critic on the religious left said, you know, it’s much, much worse this time around, because evangelicals didn’t have to go with Trump, but they did.

Is it as simple as all that, John?

STONESTREET: Well, you know, you look at the results, and there were other options there. And the one that was chosen, clearly and overwhelmingly was Trump. So at one level, the critics have a point. And, you know, my personal view is, is I wish they would have chosen differently. And I think that just because politics is a pragmatic activity, really, you have to be grounded in principle, and then you got to make a pragmatic decision. And as you do that, I think that there are pragmatic concerns with Trump as a candidate, I mean, he doesn't pole as well against, you know, head to head against Biden, as the other candidates have, I think there's concern on whether he will be able to stack the administration, the way that he did the first time around.

So all the wins that we point to in the Trump tenure, and there were a lot of wins for people of conscience. And people, for example, who were pro-family and pro-life and pro-religious liberty, like, these were things that ended up being good and actually move the needle. But that had a lot to do with the fact that every president comes along with three or 4000 other people who are unelected and these unelected folks can make an enormous difference and swing the pendulum dramatically. All you got to do is go back and look at the priorities. And the proposals of the Department of Health and Human Services from President Obama to President Trump to President Biden, and it'll feel like whiplash, but that's there.

So the question is, are we going to get that same sort of result that we liked the first time around? I'm not sure that that's the case. And there are reasons for that. But at the end of the day, if it's a head to head, people on the right, and people on the left have to defend their moral decisions, and those in the evangelical center, and those on the evangelical left are really, really quick, to make those to their right defend their support of a guy like Donald Trump, without any sort of reciprocating that defense of a political decision on the left.

Look, this administration, the current one, President Biden, did not just sign on to a Democratic platform on the abortion issue. The head of the reelection campaign said, the top priority, the Biden administration, in the next term, would be returning all the rights that were lost when Roe was overturned. In other words, abortion is the number one issue. So look, if this does go the way that it seems to be inevitable, now, something could change. But if it does come down to the moral priorities right now, the right and moral priorities right now, the left, it's not even close in terms of what's being pushed on a moral level.

I always pray that God does not give us what we deserve. But biblically speaking, that tends to be what government is, it's a reflection of where a particular group is, and God can show grace and God can show mercy. And that's what I'm praying for right now. But the essence of the political illusion is not looking to God for that grace and mercy. It's looking to somebody who will save us from them. And unfortunately, that dominates the discourse. It's not completely wrong, that “them” are a real problem and a real threat. I know that gets downplayed, oftentimes on the evangelical left, these are real issues. And real people's lives are at stake, real children are at stake. But as Chuck Colson used to say, salvation will not come in Air Force One, no matter what the Iowa voters decided.

EICHER: Nevertheless — and this’ll be last — there’s nothing wrong with going out, exercising our judgment, going to the polls, and doing our civic duty, making your best judgment. Do you have any hope at all, John, I was thinking about the column in the newest WORLD Magazine by Lynn Vincent calling on public evangelicals: “This election year, disagree but do it with grace.” Do you have any hope for that, or is it going to be an ugly rerun of last time, do you think?

STONESTREET: Well, it'll be because of God's grace and God's mercy if it's not ugly, right? I mean, I know it's the right that gets accused because of January the 6th, of not accepting election results. We know that that actually now has become a feature of every campaign on both the right and the left to not accept the results and to claim that something has gone wrong. And we also know, too, that there's a whole lot of pent up energy, let's put it that way.

So do I have hope based on what I see, no, it'll get uglier before it gets easier. And part of that is look, the political divide is based on a divide over real moral issues right now. You know, it's not like we're agreeing on what we're trying to get to as a nation but disagreeing on how to get there. We completely disagree on what we think we ought to be going after as a nation? I mean, these are very polarized sides, and as deep as it gets.

Now, I do think that the real answer in the long run lies with rebuilding society so that there's a whole lot of life that's not touched by politics. That is something that Christians can lead in. That's something that the church can illustrate that we can just go and do an awful lot of life that doesn't touch politics, and maybe we can see that balance shift so that it doesn't overtake everything.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks so much, John.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, January 19th, 2024. 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: we take a look at a couple of foreign language documentaries attracting a lot of attention.

Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino to talk about 20 Days in Mariupol and Beyond Utopia.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Documentaries have gotten a bad rap as of late, with true crime frequently veering into sensationalism, but two of the best documentaries from last year offer understated commentary that serves to heighten the atrocities they depict.

First up, we have 20 Days in Mariupol. It’s the story of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Feb. 24, 2022, a team of Associated Press reporters headed for the city of Mariupol, knowing it held strategic value for Vladimir Putin. Most of the film is in Ukrainian with English subtitles, but one of the reporters provides some sparse narration.

CHERNOV: Someone once told me, “Wars don’t start with explosions. They start with silence.

Getting into Mariupol was easy, but leaving proved more difficult once the invasion was in full swing. The team spent almost three weeks documenting the plight of a city under siege and their own harrowing experiences.

CHERNOV: I have no illusions about what will happen to us if we are caught.

For much of their 20 days in Mariupol, the reporters use a hospital on the edge of the city as a base of operations. A steady stream of casualties arrive, and the doctors valiantly attempt to save those they can. But as the days tick by, the necessities of life, including food, medicine, and electricity, become increasingly scarce. It feels like the city is trapped in a natural disaster, but the tragedy is compounded by the knowledge that this is a man-made disaster.

POLICEMAN: Russian troops commit war crimes. Our family, our womens, our children need helps.

The unfolding devastation is painful to watch. Russian shells obliterate Ukrainian homes. Old women cry out in confusion and despair. Children die on hospital operating tables. Mass graves are filled with civilians.

We follow the team’s desperate attempts to find internet access so they can send images and videos to their editors. These photos and videos provided the West with many of the indelible images from those early days of the war—the father crying over his dead teenage son, the pregnant woman led away on a gurney after Russian shells hit a maternity ward. 20 Days in Mariupol reveals the context of those stories…making the images even more heartbreaking.

NEWSCASTER: The electricity’s gone. The internet’s gone. The Russians are coming. Mariupol awaits its fate.

Not everyone will be able to stomach the violence recorded in 20 Days in Mariupol.

But our second documentary, Beyond Utopia, tells a similarly harrowing story, without being quite as graphic.

AUDIO: [Speaking in Korean]

Beyond Utopia follows Pastor Seunguen Kim of Caleb Mission Church in South Korea and his attempts to help defecting North Koreans. One day, Pastor Kim gets a call from a contact in China saying he’s found a family of five North Koreans who’ve crossed the Yalu River. He wants to know if Pastor Kim will help them escape to freedom. Despite the danger of smuggling defectors through a communist country, Pastor Kim says yes and boards a plane.

Pastor Kim’s plan is to smuggle the family through China, Vietnam, and Laos, hoping to reach freedom in Thailand. If they’re caught before they get to Thailand, they’ll be sent back to North Korea, where the family will be tortured and executed.

But Beyond Utopia doesn’t just document stories of defection, it also reveals the current conditions in North Korea and how the country became what it is today.

HYEONSEO LEE: Everything you learned was lie and your country’s history was so fabricated and everyone around you was so brainwashed and the heroes you worshiped were actually monstrous villains.

I knew things were bad in North Korea, but I don’t think I realized how bad. It’s not just that the people are ruled by an oppressive tyrant who keeps them in poverty while pursuing grand plans to create weapons of mass destruction. The even greater tragedy is that the people actually believe the lies they’ve been told for generations. They really think the world outside North Korea is worse, and they really think Kim Jong Un is a benevolent leader.

HYEONSEO LEE: We were captured in a huge virtual prison.

Even the defecting Koreans in the film struggle with their own actions, reluctant to say anything against the dictator who’s oftentimes responsible for the deaths of their family members.

The evil of the North Korean dictatorship becomes more stark when we see the religious aura it’s crafted for itself.

BARBARA DEMICK: North Korea has basically plagiarized the Christian Bible.

The founder of the dynasty Kim Il Sung supposedly was able to turn sand into rice like Jesus turned water into wine. The government teaches that he could also walk on water. The birth of his son Kim Jong Il was attended by a shining star. It’s no wonder the government wants to keep the Bible out of the country.

Both of these documentaries are worth watching, but Beyond Utopia gets my highest recommendation. It’s a powerful tale about a pastor who makes great sacrifices to rescue others from darkness, lies, and death.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

BROWN: Both films — 20 Days in Mariupol and Beyond Utopia — are available to watch for free on the PBS website or mobile app.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, January 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, this month’s Word Play.

If–like some of us–you haven’t thrown away all your Christmas cards yet, WORLD commentator George Grant thinks you ought to give them at least one more look.

GEORGE GRANT: Sitting on a table in our home is a bowl filled with last month’s Christmas cards, holiday greetings, and year-end letters. Like the season they heralded, they’re festive affairs. Some are adorned with family photos, some with calligraphic benedictions. But many are illustrated with nativity scenes. The styles vary widely, from classic to modern, but in all of them there’s a recognizable artistic trope: halos. Realizing that got me to pondering.

Originally, the word halo was coined to describe a nimbus of radiant light. The term was used in both Classical and Koine Greek to portray the band of luminescence visible around the sun or moon caused by refractions in the atmosphere. In the Iliad, Homer employed the term to indicate the aura of glory around the heads of heroes in battle. The mythologies of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Persians often depicted a glimmering aureole surrounding their idols and gods—sometimes even their kings. The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was a monumental statue of the Greek god Helios. Soaring over 100 feet above the island’s harbor, he was crowned with a sunburst of light—copied millennia later for the Statue of Liberty.

By the time Christianity began to spread across the Mediterranean world, halos had become universal symbols of glory and majesty—but the earliest believers resisted using them due to their associations with paganism. By the beginning of the fourth century however, with the ascendency of a Christian culture, the idea of depicting the luminous grace of God began to make its way into popular art—particularly for depictions of the incarnate Christ.

Despite its antiquity, halo did not pass into common English parlance until the sixteenth century. Samuel Johnson’s 1723 Dictionary only offers a scientific definition of the noun. But by 1828, the definition was expanded to include a theological meaning illustrated from Isaiah’s prophecy, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

This is of course a theme picked up in the New Testament: Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” And, the Apostle Paul declared, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” Last month’s Christmas cards often limit halos to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. But in truth, all of us who have by grace entered the light from the darkness are haloed in glory.

I’m George Grant.

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

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Jenny Rough, Carolina Lumetta, Joel Belz, Erick Erickson, Onize Ohikere, Julie Spencer, Emily Whitten, Mary Muncy, Grace Snell, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Collin Garbarino, and George Grant.

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

Thanks also to our breaking news interns: Tobin Jacobson, Johanna Huebscher, and Alex Carmenaty.

And 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 Senior producer is Kristen Flavin and Paul Butler is Executive producer.

Additional production assistance from Benj Eicher, Lillian Hamman, and Bekah McCallum.

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, “For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God - his way is perfect, the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.” —Psalm 18, verses 28, 29 and 30.

Worship with 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.