The World and Everything in It: July 2, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is brought to you by people like me. Hi there. My name is Paul Civerolo. I'm a retired attorney. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico with my lovely wife. We have two married sons and three grandchildren. My favorite part is the theme songs that introduce each segment of the show. Hope you enjoy today's program!

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Good morning! The Supreme Court says presidents have legal immunity for official acts, a big win for former President Trump. We have analysis. 

NICK EICHER, HOST: Mary Reichard is standing by, and she’ll break down the Idaho emergency abortion decision. Also, how states are using opioid settlement funds. And later, the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. We’ll hear a variety of voices, including those old enough to remember.

GEORGE WILLIAMS: Now, I thought the Civil Rights bill in ‘64 was great. But since that time, my thoughts have changed drastically.

BUTLER: It’s Tuesday, July 2nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: SCOTUS » Washington is sharply divided over the Supreme Court’s historic ruling Monday on presidential immunity.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy says the court got it right.

KENNEDY: The Constitution and common sense demonstrate that the Justice Dept. can’t prosecute a president, not criminally, for an official act. It can for a personal act.

But Democrats, like former Obama adviser Van Jones, say the court is giving presidents too much power.

JONES: What is Trump going to do? If Trump gets elected, and there’s this idea that he can get away with even more stuff, that’s really, really, scary for the public.

But what the ruling means for Donald Trump remains to be seen. We’ll have much more on that later in the program.

Bannon reports to prison » Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is now serving a 4-month prison sentence. He reported to prison on Monday, but he did not go quietly.

BANNON: I am a political prisoner of Nancy Pelosi. I’m a political prisoner of Merrick Garland. I am a political prisoner of Joe Biden and the corrupt Biden establishment.

Bannon was found guilty in 2022 on contempt of Congress charges. He was charged for defying a subpoena by the House panel that investigated the Capitol Riot and for refusing to provide certain documents to that panel.

House Republicans sue Garland for Biden recordings » The House of Representatives has also found Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. But the Justice Department that Garland leads said it would not prosecute him.

Now, House Republicans are suing. Speaker Mike Johnson:

JOHNSON: All the House Republicans are in 100% agreement that we have to be aggressive in enforcing the subpoenas of the House. This is about our Article One authority in the Constitution, and we cannot allow the Executive branch to defy that.

The House voted along party lines last month to hold Garland in contempt for refusing to turn over recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The interview centered on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.

The House Judiciary Committee lawsuit against Garland asks the courts to enforce their subpoena and reject the White House’s effort to withhold the recording.

Hurricane » Hurricane Beryl tore through the southeastern Caribbean yesterday leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Vichelle King is a shop owner in Barbados:

KING: Right now, I am really heartbroken because this is a lot of work. This is more than a week’s work here. We must bring out everything first and and use a shovel and take all the sand out and then to wash it out.

The Category 4 storm was fueled by record warm waters and was the earliest of its kind to form in the Atlantic.

Winds in excess of 130 miles per hour ripped off roofs in St. Vincent, tossed debris into streets, and snapped banana trees in half.

There were no early reports of any fatalities.

U.S. military heightens security alert at European bases » The U.S. military has heightened its security alert level at European bases.

The Pentagon is reportedly asking service members to be more vigilant and keep a lower profile due to a combination of threats across the region.

A Pentagon official would not say whether bases in the Middle East or other regions are also on higher alert.

State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters:

PATEL: We of course closely monitor and evaluate threat information and adjust our security and operating postures accordingly. We have a pretty strong track record of adjusting swiftly when needed.

The Associated Press reports that the threat level has been raised at European bases to the second-highest of five levels.

But Patel said it is business as usual at State Dept. facilities.

Christian man sentenced to death » A court in Pakistan sentenced a Christian man to death for allegedly insulting the Muslim faith. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: In August last year some residents claimed that they saw two Christian men tearing pages out of the Quran while writing insults on other pages.

A short time later, a mob of Muslim men burned dozens of homes and churches in the city of Jaranwala. Terrified Christians fled their homes to safer areas. Police arrested more than 100 arson suspects, but it’s unclear if any were convicted.

Newly condemned Christian defendant, Ehsan Shan, was not among those accused of defacing the Quran. But he allegedly reposted pictures of those defaced pages on his TikTok account. And for that, he has been sentenced to die.

His lawyer said he is appealing the decision.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: The Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. Plus, the legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This is The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 2nd of July, 2024.

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

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

First up, Supreme Court decisions in cases about presidential immunity, and Idaho’s abortion law.

This is the busiest time of the year for our friend and colleague Mary Reichard. But, Mary, thanks for slogging through page after page of these monumental decisions. Obviously, let’s start first with the presidential immunity case.

MARY REICHARD: Right, this is the one everyone was waiting for.

The question was whether the court would weigh in on this: does the former president enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for events following the 2020 election. The answer: it depends.

The indictment against President Trump alleged that he conspired to overturn the results. And the majority six justices agreed immunity attaches only as to “official acts.” It’s a novel question, and the lower courts here had not analyzed President Trump’s alleged conduct.

The high court’s opinion makes clear that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers. He is also entitled to a presumption of immunity for official acts and none for unofficial acts.

I called up Daniel Suhr for some deeper analysis. He’s an attorney, court watcher, and writes for WORLD Opinions.

DANIEL SUHR: The bottom line is we're going to have to keep waiting, Mary. That this opinion really provides just a framework for some important legal questions, but it doesn't resolve the core question that I think the news headlines are focused on: what's next for President Trump? And the answer is that it's going to have to go back to the trial court for some fact finding.

Once the decision came down some headlines veered into hysteria: “Supreme Court Embraces Presidential Dictatorships” probably takes the cake. Yet, this opinion is predictable for a case of first impression: it takes time to apply the rule that presidents are immune from prosecution for some acts but not others.

SUHR: The reality is that we ask the president to do a lot of things simultaneously. That he is the head of state, he's the head of government, he is the head of his political party. He may be a candidate for reelection, and he's doing all of those jobs all in one human being when he's sitting in the Situation Room deciding the most important questions of war and peace.

That goes for any president, including President Barack Obama who cannot be charged for murder after he ordered drone strikes. Or President Biden for letting the southern border be overrun by the millions.

The Supreme Court was clear, too, that courts cannot inquire into the president’s motives while dividing official from unofficial conduct. To do so would invite mere allegations for political purposes. To take an example, in 1998 President Bill Clinton approved missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan, in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal.

SUHR: And the question is, was he doing it to distract from his own political problems? His affair that he was having? Well, were you doing that because they were a threat to the United States, or were you doing that to create a news story that would distract from Monica Lewinsky and impeachment?

One thing I noticed in the dissenting opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, seeming hyperbole, and not the customary respect for the majority. Sotomayor wrote that, “The president is now king, above the law” and ended “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” And she did not write, “respectfully dissent,” as is the usual.

I asked Suhr about this.

SUHR: It’s also their responsibility to model the kind of healthy disagreement, respectful disagreement, that we need more of in our democracy. We hear all the time about the ethics of Justice Alito or the ethics of Justice Thomas. I'd love to hear more talk about the ethics of some of the other members of the court in modeling a respectful collegiality that gives the American people a positive example of being able to disagree without being disagreeable. We need more of that in our politics, not less.

In practical terms, this decision delays things. Aside from Trump's convictions in New York over record keeping, this and other prosecutions are likely put off past the election.

That’s good news for him, but…

SUHR: The bad news for President Trump and the American people is that process will play out beyond Election Day, right? This is going to continue to hang over his head. It's going to continue to hang over our politics, just like what happened in New York, just like what's happening in Georgia. Unfortunately, we're just not able to move on as a country from what happened.

For our second case today, we’ll return to last week’s decision in Moyle versus United States. Here, a law in Idaho criminalizes most abortions. The Biden administration brought a legal challenge to that state law, arguing it is preempted by a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. It says hospitals that receive medicare funding must offer “necessary stabilizing treatment” to pregnant women in emergencies.

So the legal question was whether federal law preempts Idaho’s law protecting the unborn?

I called up a lawyer who filed a friend of the court brief in support of Idaho, John Eidsmoe. He’s senior counsel of the Foundation for Moral Law.

JOHN EIDSMOE: Neither a victory nor a defeat. The media has portrayed this as though now that abortions are taking place in Idaho, it's clearly a defeat for the pro life movement, but that's not what happened at all.

What happened was a DIG- dismissed as improvidently granted. The court split 3-3-3 with Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch wanting to uphold Idaho law; with Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown-Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor wanting to invalidate it; and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts preferring to send it back to federal district court on procedural grounds.

But what changed since the time the court accepted the case for review?

EIDSMOE: What they said was that the positions of both sides had evolved somewhat. The Federal was now willing to recognize that their statute does allow for physicians who have conscientious objections to abortion to not perform them. Idaho acknowledged that its law might allow abortions for the health of the mother in circumstances that were not life threatening, and since the positions of both sides evolved, the court said it needs to go back to the federal district court for a thorough trial on the merits.

Justices Alito and Jackson both wrote that they wouldn’t have dismissed the case, though for different reasons. And cultural side note here: In Justice Jackson’s partial concurrence and partial dissent, she used the phrase “pregnant people” or “pregnant patients” in lieu of “pregnant woman.” No other justice did that.

That’s it for today. More tomorrow. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Reichard.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Opioid settlements.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled against the owners of drug company Purdue Pharma. It held they cannot be shielded from lawsuits related to overprescribing opioids.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Here’s a bit of background on the case: Purdue Pharma made and marketed the prescription painkiller OxyContin. But in 2007, it started facing lawsuits alleging the company knowingly downplayed the likelihood of addiction. After that, company owners, the Sackler family, began removing assets from the company.

BUTLER: The company declared bankruptcy in 2019 and agreed to give billions of dollars to those harmed by the opioid crisis. That was in exchange for shielding the Sacklers from any future lawsuits. But in the 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court said that because the Sacklers had not filed for bankruptcy themselves, they cannot be shielded under bankruptcy law without permission from those who might sue.

EICHER: The justices say that the bankruptcy system is supposed to allow debtors to settle their debts… And since the Sacklers didn’t participate, they cannot use it to settle a potential debt. That sends the parties back to the negotiating table.

BUTLER: But that isn’t the only case major companies have settled over the opioid crisis. Over the past few years, Walmart, CVS, and Johnson & Johnson have settled for billions of dollars. And in recent weeks, states have started receiving those funds. What are the regulations on the opioid funds and how are states using them?

WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: LIFEHouse Sober Living is a house and program in Indiana for women in recovery. It applied for a share of the state’s opioid settlement funds. Casey Johnson is a resident who just got out of prison in March. She was there for dealing drugs.

CASEY JOHNSON: I had a job within a week of getting out and coming here.

She works at Goodwill and it’s her first job ever, but without a license or car, she relies on LIFEHouse Founder Amy Chaudion to help with a lot of her daily needs.

AMY CHAUDION: We can't feed them spiritually until they're physically taken care of, and so that's usually our high priority is getting their physical needs met, getting them to the dentist, getting them food stamps and insurance.

The opioid settlement funds could help with some of those things, especially transportation costs.

CHAUDION: They get out of jail and they're like, left to their own devices, and they don’t have a car to get to work or recovery meetings or any of the things, so they end up going back to the same old things.

Indiana is set to receive nearly a billion dollars in opioid settlement funds over the next few years, a fraction of the around $50 billion dollars companies are dolling out to people harmed by the opioid crisis. And that doesn’t include potential settlement money from the Purdue Pharma case.

So as the first installments start coming in, officials across the country are trying to figure out what they can and can’t do with it.

DANNY SCALISE: What we've looked at is we want to prevent future overdoses, prevent future addiction issues.

Danny Scalise is the Director of Public Health for Burke County, North Carolina. The county is in the Appalachian Mountains and has seen high rates of opioid-related deaths compared to other North Carolina counties.

SCALISE: At the same time, we realize we have a lot of people here who are already suffering. So how do we balance taking care of people who are currently suffering with preventing people who might get to that suffering? And it's a tough balance.

Most states have applied to be part of a long list of settlements. The states will receive different amounts of money based on which settlements they’re a part of and a formula involving opioid overdose death rates, prescription rates, and population.

So, for example, out of one $26 billion dollar settlement, North Carolina will receive $750 million over the next 18 years. The settlement requires states to use the vast majority of the money to fight the opioid crisis, but they have a lot of freedom in how those dollars are spent.

North Carolina is distributing nearly all of it to counties and municipalities based on how opioids affected them.

SCALISE: We're trying to build things that aren't going to need settlement funds for their entirety.

But not all states are alike.

West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rates in the country. A quarter of its nearly a billion dollars in settlement money will go to local governments. The rest will go to a state-run foundation that will distribute the money through grants.

Tennessee has the second-highest overdose death rate. It has appointed a council to distribute 65 percent of its funds with the remaining funds going to counties.

So with billions of dollars on the line, what kinds of programs will be most effective in helping those hurt by opioids?

TIMOTHY ALLEN: About 50 percent of people abuse substances on a monthly basis.

Timothy Allen is board-certified in addiction medicine and is doing a fellowship in pediatric and adult psychiatry.

ALLEN: The 50 percent who don't use, don't understand the 50 percent who do use, and vice versa.

Allen says spending money on things like a billboard with a syringe under a red circle with a slash through it won’t work.

ALLEN: If you had people were trying to struggle with obesity, would you put pictures of donuts up on billboards and then put a big red circle and a slash? Well, no, that'd be advertising.

Allen says you can’t scare an addict, but there are things that work.

He says any funding going towards preventing drug use will require caring for people on an individual basis—helping them find something better.

ALLEN: That requires a lot of dedication, and it's not as simple as slapping up a billboard and saying, ‘knock it off.’ And so it takes a lot more societal will to see those things change, if you want to change drug use.

Back in Indiana, Chaudion started LIFEHouse in 2016 after recovering from her own addiction to heroin. She wanted to give other women the safe space and support they would need to succeed. For Johnson, that meant helping with transportation and life skills.

CHAUDION: She's spent most of her adult life in prison, so having that funding to be able to give her the space and then have the resources to get her to a job. It is huge. But we could never do it without those funds.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in Hamilton County, Indiana and Burke County, North Carolina.

NICK EICHER, HOST: I’ve seen some crowded elections in my day, but here’s one for the history books. Toronto voters recently had to choose from among 84 candidates. And in a first, this has got to come as zero surprise to you: one candidate received precisely zero votes.

HAMEL: Everyone agrees not to vote for me.

And with a name like Félix-Antoine Hamel, you’d expect someone to choose him, but no one did. He didn’t even vote for himself because he couldn’t. He’s from Montréal, and this was a Toronto election.

Reasonable question, why was he running?

Turns out he was one of 77 recruited by the Longest Ballot Committee which pulled the stunt to call attention to what they say is a weakness in the system.

So Félix-Antoine Hamel shouldn’t take it personally, and in this interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company he didn’t. He spun it better than any seasoned politician.

HAMEL: When I saw the result. I was like, well, I am the true unity candidate.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, July 2nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Equality for all.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many credit the act with wiping away the last traces of America’s shameful heritage of slavery. As well as opening doors of opportunity.

Still, others question whether the historic legislation has lived up to its promise. WORLD’s Myrna Brown brings us the story from three generations and perspectives.

SOUND: [TV blaring and curling iron clicking]

MYRNA BROWN REPORTING: Mary Morris is the owner of Morris Beauty Salon. While one of her clients is lulled by the rhythm of the old school curling iron…the other two catch up on their favorite soap opera.

AUDIO: Victoria getting married. Did you know them when they were married? Uh-uh…

SOUND: [Electric razor]

As 88-year-old Morris puts the finishing touch on 69-year-old Tyana Morrissette’s curls, I open my laptop, press play and instantly take them back 60 years.

AUDIO: My fellow Americans, I’m about to sign into law the Civil RIghts Act of 1964…

Each woman immediately recognizes the voice and vintage footage of former president Lyndon B. Johnson. On July 2nd, 1964, Johnson sat behind two microphones and spoke to a wounded nation.

TYANA MORRISSETTE: I remember when we had gotten home from school and there was a special report. I remember this on television.

Morrissette says she was 10 years old when her entire family gathered around their black and white RCA to watch President Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act into law. The bill banned discrimination in the workplace, public accommodations, and federally funded agencies.

TYANA MORRISSETTE: There were tears. We were excited about it but at the same time sad about some of the issues that we knew were going to happen.

MARY MILLS: Yeah, right. You know, you still had whites in control.

LUCILLE JACKSON: We were known as second class citizens.

MARY MILLS: Exactly!

Decades of so-called “separate but equal” left 81-year-olds Mary Mills and Lucille Jackson with little confidence in the new law.

MARY MILLS: It was a good speech he made trying to get everybody together…

LUCILLE: And it was something that they wanted to hear.

MYRNA TO LADIES: Did you believe it? I didn’t. I did not believe it.

AUDIO: [Dishes clattering, water running] Morgan’s got dance Saturday and Sunday…

Ricardo Woods lives about 15 miles from Morris Beauty Salon. He’s reviewing the family schedule around the kitchen bar with his wife and two teenage daughters. Woods wasn’t even born when the landmark legislation outlawed segregation in public places like restaurants, hotels, and public schools. But the 46-year-old does remember when his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi finally caught up….more than two decades after the law was enacted.

RICARDO WOODS: I went to segregated schools until I was in the sixth grade. The beginning of my sixth grade year, we were going to integrated schools and that was the first time that I ever went to school with more than one person who didn’t look like me in my skin color.

Despite the slow start, Woods says he and his family have benefited from the Civil Rights Act. They live in an affluent golf-club community. His wife Tina is a bank executive. And he’s a partner at his law firm.

RICARDO WOODS: When I came in it was because there was pressure from corporate America to have diverse lawyers. Now, did I work really hard? Did I outwork most of the interns? Sure I did. But at the end of the day, my opportunity came because of the call to action, which was a call for increase in diversity, which ultimately affirmative action. You have to go out and find somebody who’s black or brown and give them an opportunity. That doesn’t happen without the Civil Rights Act.

Both 15-year-old Morgan Woods and her 17-year-old sister Danielle say some of their classmates seem baffled by their parent’s accomplishments.

MORGAN WOODS: A white friend might be surprised that our parents are this successful. But it’s also black friends, too.

DANIELLE WOODS: I had one of my friends come over and she was like, oh my gosh, Danielle. Like, I was so surprised. I didn’t expect this from black people. I know she didn’t mean it in that type of way to be offensive, but it was saddening that she, I guess, felt that we couldn’t have this life.

AMBI: [Radio station]… Talk, from both sides of the Bay… …one minute…

Across town, inside a tiny studio of a 50,000-watt radio station…

AUDIO: 30 seconds…

…an engineer sits in front of a broadcast console and gives conservative talk radio host George Williams a countdown.

AUDIO: Here we go…[announcer] It’s time for the George Williams show…

77-year-old Williams dropped out of high school the year the Civil Rights Act passed. He joined the Marines and fought in Vietnam. After four years of active duty and a stint with the National Guard, the Alabama native began working in law enforcement. That led to a two-decade career as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

GEORGE WILLIAMS: Now, I thought the Civil Rights Act in ‘64 was great. But since that time, my thoughts have changed drastically.

For one, Williams rejects any notion that the Civil Rights Act helped advance his career as a federal agent.

GEORGE WILLIAMS: It was my willingness to get engaged and do what I had to do in order to qualify. Civil Rights didn’t help me on that.

Williams also questions the legacy of the law.

GEORGE WILLIAMS: The Civil Rights bill hurt the blacks. In our neighborhoods we had black stores, motels. We lost that. Now we have foreigners in the black community who own everything.

The retired vet blames the Civil Rights Act for the decline of black-owned businesses in black neighborhoods. A subject he often brings up on his radio program.

AUDIO: [Radio commentary chatter]

AUDIO: [shampoo bowl] ooh, that’s hot…

Back at the beauty parlor, Mary Morris is at the shampoo bowl with her last client. Nearly every inch of her renovated salon is covered with pictures of models from the ‘80’s, showcasing fancy hairdos. But one photograph from that era stands out. Morris is standing next to former Alabama governor George Wallace. The picture was taken after Wallace surprisingly re-appointed Morris to the state’s Cosmetology and Barbering Board.

MARY MORRIS: I never thought he would because he was a segregationist from his heart. And when he signed that picture of us, he said, “To my friend Mary Morris, Best wishes.”

Morris says even a law as far reaching as the Civil Rights Act could never wield that kind of power.

MARY MORRIS: God changed his heart. So I don’t care how high you are in power. You are not higher than the almighty power of God. So, that’s what I look at now…things that’s going on now. But God!

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Mobile, Alabama.

EICHER: Myrna’s cover story on the Civil Rights Act is the lead feature in this month’s WORLD Magazine. She also produced a companion piece on today’s episode of WORLD Watch, our video news program for students. We've posted links for both in today’s transcript. 

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, World Opinions Commentator Daniel Darling on how a trendy lifestyle for young men compares with the Bible’s model for masculinity.

DANIEL DARLING: A recent column in the Guardian explores the rise of self-described “Sigma males.” The columnist describes these men as lone wolves who make their own rules, get up early for punishing workouts, and “shun conventional career paths.”

Some of the content in these online spaces is helpful, such as tips on exercise, diet, and finance. But often these pursuits become rabbit trails that lead to a twisting of masculinity into something that often celebrates misogyny, racism, and what Carl Trueman labels, “crudity, verbal thuggery ... and the frictionless kindergartens of social media bubbles.”

The rise of “Sigma” males doesn’t come in a vacuum. For too long, many of our institutions have subtly undermined the moral formation of young men. Radical feminism that has depicted men as either bumbling moral midgets or toxic monsters. The rapid decline of marriage and church attendance has left generations of boys without any commendable models of masculinity. In the absence of wholesome models of masculinity, some Christian young men are retreating to these perpetually online embattlements, where they are imbibing a syncretistic mixture of Christianity and barbarism.

But the Christian story in Scripture has the answer for the redemption of young men. It reminds us that a fallen Adam will either shrink back in passivity or move forward in violence without the divine intervention of the Second Adam. In Christ, we not only see a model of masculinity that offers both a weeping friend and a crusading warrior, but a Savior who can turn corrupted male hearts into good men.

Paul tells his protégés, Timothy and Titus, that good leaders are, “temperate, not quick-tempered, sober, hospitable, respectable, not greedy, holy, above reproach, a good steward of his family (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1).” At the same time, he urges godly men to “stand firm in the faith (1 Corinthians 16)” and to “fight the good fight (1 Timothy 6:12).”

This kind of rich, Biblical vision for manhood is less thrilling than the social media warriors and YouTube provocateurs might portray. But real men aren’t flexing for Instagram because they are too busy reading to their children, driving the family minivan to church, coaching a youth sports team, or working with their hands to provide for the ones they love.

The most masculine man I know—my father—has never once posted a workout video and wouldn’t know Andrew Tate from Andrew Jackson. He offered something better: a real man who got up early every day and went to work, involved his family in the life of the church, and was faithful to my late mother. I’ve realized his life is a gift that many young boys never had. And thus they search for masculinity in the fever swamps. But they could find a better alternative in the church. Timothy found a spiritual father in the Apostle Paul, and young men today who lack godly biological fathers would benefit from Christian mentorship.

America has a manhood crisis that only Christianity can solve. So while we warn of the dangers of faux masculinity models, let’s not shy away from boldly presenting to our boys the goodness, and the responsibilities, of being men.

I’m Daniel Darling.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Big developments in the 2024 presidential campaign. We’ll talk about the implications of former President Trump’s Supreme Court win and the calls for President Biden to step aside following his debate performance. What does it all mean for November? That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

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 the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” —Psalm 1: 1, 2

Go now in grace and peace.

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