The World and Everything in It - June 9, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Japan and South Korea are close neighbors who share many of the same values. But they’re not exactly allies.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: We’ll tell you how that’s changing.

Also gas prices. We’ll find out when we might expect them to come down.

Plus representatives of the Christian Reformed Church in America meet later this week in Michigan. On the agenda: a debate over human sexuality.

And the lack of originality in this year’s commencement speeches.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, June 9th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Good morning!

BROWN: Time for today’s news. Here’s Kent Covington.

1. House lawmakers hear testimony from Uvalde survivors, families » Lawmakers on Capitol Hill heard gut-wrenching testimony Wednesday from survivors and families affected by the Uvalde school massacre.

And just a word of caution: This story may be disturbing for young ears.

Speaking by video, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo said she used the blood of a classmate to play dead.

CERRILLO: He shot my friend that was next to me, and I thought he was going to come back to the room. So I grabbed a little blood and put it all over me.

She called 911 using the phone of her deceased teacher and pleaded for help.

Nineteen children and two teachers died when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire inside Robb Elementary School on May 24th. Kimberly Rubio’s daughter was among them.

RUBIO: Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to my testimony thinking I can’t even imagine their pain, not knowing that our reality will one day be hers, unless we act now.

It was the second day House lawmakers heard testimony on recent mass shootings.

Debate continues in Washington over how to respond.

The Democrat-controlled House voted on Wednesday to raise the minimum age to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. The vote was largely down party lines.

SOUND: They yeas are 228. They nays 199. The title is retained.

That was part of a package of new gun measures in the House.

Most Republicans say new gun restrictions won’t help and will only infringe on the rights of lawful citizens.

But negotiators in the Senate say there is some common ground in trying to address mental health issues and possibly on a national red flag law and tighter school security.

3. Armed man arrested for threat to kill Justice Kavanaugh » Police in suburban Washington D.C. arrested a man on Wednesday who said he planned to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Officers found 26-year-old Nicholas John Roskeman carrying a gun, a knife, and zip ties near Kavanaugh's house in Maryland.

He is charged with attempted murder.

According to an affidavit, he told police he planned to break into Kavanaugh's house and kill him. He said he was upset about a leaked Supreme Court draft ruling that indicated the court may soon reverse Roe v. Wade.

He also said he was upset about recent mass shootings and believed Kavanaugh would vote to loosen gun control laws.

2. Vandals firebomb New York pregnancy center » Meantime in upstate New York, a pro-abortion group appeared to claim credit for firebombing a pro-life pregnancy center this week. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Flames rose from a brick building early Tuesday morning that housed the Christian nonprofit group CompassCare.

Someone reported a fire at the facility near Buffalo around 3 a.m. The blaze left the building temporarily unusable.

It is the latest in a series of attacks on pro-life facilities since the leak of the high court’s draft ruling.

Investigators found graffiti on the side of the CompassCare building with the words “Jane was here.”

That appeared to be a claim of credit by a pro-abortion group calling itself “Jane’s Revenge.”

That group’s motto is “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.” And police in Asheville, North Carolina found those words spray painted on a vandalized pregnancy counseling center on Monday.

And last month, a pro-life group in Wisconsin found its headquarters firebombed, reportedly by the same group.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

4. Berlin man drives into pedestrian school group » In Germany, a man drove his car into a group of students and teachers on a school trip on Wednesday wounding more than a dozen and killing at least one teacher.

American actor John Barrowman witnessed the aftermath.

BARROWMAN: The police presence is unbelievable. They are clearing out the area and it was cordoned off. I heard the bang and the crash when I was in a store and then we came out and we just saw the carnage.

The students were visiting Berlin from a town in central Germany. Authorities say six of the injured were in life-threatening condition, and three were seriously hurt.

Police said the driver was a 29-year-old German-Armenian man who lived in the city. He sped into the group at a street corner and crashed into a shop window about a block later. Investigators believe he did it intentionally but have not suggested a motive.

5. Gymnasts file $1b settlement against FBI for Nassar case » Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and McKayla Maroney are among 90 women suing the FBI over its handling of sexual abuse allegations. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has more.

LEIGH JONES: The women say the bureau failed to take sufficient action after they reported sexual abuse allegations against USA Gymnastics sports doctor Larry Nassar.

USA Gymnastics took allegations against him to two separate FBI field offices within a 9-month span more than five years ago. But neither of those offices opened a formal investigation.

Months later, Michigan State University police arrested Nassar while he was a doctor at the school. He pleaded guilty in 20-17 to committing sexual abuse and is serving decades in prison.

The Inspector General later found that the FBI mishandled evidence and violated bureau policies.

Combined, the women are seeking $1 billion dollars in damages.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: new alliances in Asia.

Plus, the lack of wisdom in commencement speeches.

This is The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Thursday the 9th of June, 2022.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up, a new era for Japan and South Korea.

Increasing aggression from North Korea and China has made the other nations in Asia— understandably— uncomfortable. But it’s also driving them to overlook bad blood in the name of self-defense.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Two months ago, South Korea’s newly elected but yet-to-be inaugurated president, Yoon Suk Yeol, sent a delegation to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Its mission? To help improve relations between the two nations.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Korean, music]

At Yoon’s inauguration last month, Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, returned the favor.

These two exchanges between dignitaries might seem unremarkable. But they could make a remarkable difference for the entire region.

Christine Kim is a professor of international studies at Cedarville University who lives in South Korea. She says Japan and South Korea have had a terrible relationship for longer than the United States has even existed.

KIM: So Japan invaded Jo-Sung Korea in the 1592 as a way to conquer the Ming dynasty of China, because Korea was located between Japan and China. Although Japan failed to take over a weaker but strongly resistant Koreans in the seven year long war at the time, it caused serious damage in the land and the people and left long lasting scars and the psyche of the Korean people since then.

Nearly two hundred years later, Japan once again invaded Korea. And by 1910, Japan had basically annexed the peninsula.

KIM: And its colonization of Korea and colonial rule are generally described as one of the most brutal ones in history. The Japanese occupation is characterized by discrimination, various attempts to eliminate Korea's traditional culture, and exploitation of people and resource.

One of the worst manifestations of this colonial exploitation was Japan’s enslavement of up to hundreds of thousands of Korean women to serve as so-called “comfort women” for the Japanese army.

KIM: Korea was liberated only with the victory of the allied forces in 1945. And Korea was split into two halves, the South occupied by the United States and the North occupied by the Soviet Union. Until 1965, Japan and Korea didn't have any formal diplomatic relations.

Since then, the two countries have forged an official relationship. But it’s marred by bitterness over Japan’s historical mistreatment of Korea—especially surrounding the “comfort women”—and fears that history could repeat itself. They’ve also had territorial disputes over islands, and other, smaller disagreements.

But that sour relationship looks like it’s starting to sweeten.

Bruce Klingner is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He says that for a long time, regional security has suffered from South Korea’s bitterness toward Japan.

KLINGNER: We tend to think of South Korea and Japan as separate geographically. But if you look at a map, Japan, the long archipelago sort of curves under South Korea, so if you just do a straight line, flight trajectory of a North Korean missile flying south, it could hit South Korean targets, U.S. bases in South Korea, Japanese targets that are south of South Korea. So we're all in this together.

But up to this point, South Korea hasn’t been willing to work with Japan and the United States to address that situation.

KLINGNER: Because of these historic differences. South Korea has refused to integrate its missile defense system into the U.S.-Japan system. And so what that's like is a baseball coach telling three outfielders I don't want you talking to each other. Even though we know that if you're out there catching a ball and your, your two other outfielders have a different angle of view, they can tell you, Oh, it's gonna go over your head, move back, even though you think you're going to catch the ball.

But newly elected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol appears ready to start using a new playbook.

KLINGNER: What he has said and he's only been in office about three weeks, but he said that their strategic ambiguity is dead, the fence sitting of please don't make us choose between our security partner Washington and our trading partner, Beijing. Yoon is saying an improved and stronger alliance with the United States will be the foundation for South Korea's Foreign Policy outreach towards North Korea and China. So we'll have to see what steps Yoon is actually willing to take. But again, at least he's saying the right things.

And Japan also seems ready to take a new approach.

KLINGNER: With Japan, again, we're seeing a positive trend under this Prime Minister and his predecessors of, of doing more. The problem with Japan is everything is glacially slow…

Klingner says a better relationship between South Korea and Japan won’t come overnight, but it’s moving in the right direction.

KLINGNER: So I think right now, you know, the alliances and the relationships the US has with Japan and South Korea are positive, and I think will continue to be so. That doesn't mean we're going to solve North Korea or China. But at least we're all, as all three ships are facing the same direction.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It--perpetual pain at the pump.

New record highs for gas prices are becoming a near daily occurrence in the United States. The average price as of Wednesday $4.96 per gallon! That is up almost 30 cents from just one week ago, 64 cents from a month ago, and almost $2 dollars a gallon more than we were paying at this time last year!

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: So what’s driving the record high gas prices? And will we see sanity restored anytime soon? Joining us now to help answer those questions is Jack Spencer. He is an energy and environmental policy analyst and a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Jack, good morning!

SPENCER: Good morning, thank you for having me today.

BUTLER: Thanks for being here. Well, gas prices were already on their way up before the war in Ukraine. And I'll ask you about the other factors shortly. But why don't we start there? Clearly, we saw costs rise more sharply after the conflict began - gas was just a little over $3.60 per gallon in late February. So help us understand why this has impacted the oil and gas market as drastically as it has.

SPENCER: Sure, well anytime you have a geopolitical conflict like what you're seeing in Ukraine, we tend to see gas prices spike. That's not unusual. What makes this unusual or more difficult to recover from is that so many of the Biden administration policies have made it difficult for gas and oil markets to adjust. And that really, that's what we want to happen. So we see prices fluctuate in gas and oil markets all the time. And whenever you give, whenever policy allows for development and production to increase as prices increase, thereby adding supply into the marketplace and bring prices back down, that's what you want to happen. But that's not what we have now, because we have so many frictions, what I call frictions within the system. So you don't have any countervailing supply to come into the market that allows prices to moderate.

BUTLER: You mentioned President Biden, of course, he campaigned on moving America away from fossil fuels. In what ways have the Biden administration's energy policies affected gas prices?

SPENCER: A lot of ways. For one, things like renewable fuel standards and CAFE standards, and at the refinery level, they force the refineries to to do certain things that cause prices to increase. Those though, have been around for a while, and Biden supports those. Some things that are unique to the Biden's policies, though, are the broad anti and that it's the broad anti energy agenda that he supports. And what that causes is the gas and oil industry not to make the investments that they need to make in order to bring more supply into the marketplace. So when President Biden speaks out of one side of his mouth, as prices are rising about things like well, we're opening up leasing, we're doing this and doing that. It's really irrelevant almost, because out of the other side of his mouth, he's saying, well, we want to shut you down over the long term. And gas and oil production, just like any large industrial activity isn't something you just flip on and off with a switch - it takes large investments over years in order to maintain supply. Now, that being said, it's also true that oil markets are forward looking. So if President Biden said, you know, had an address this evening and said, Look, I was wrong about my war on conventional energy. We are truly going to open up supplies, we are truly going to push through the permits, we are truly going to do all of the pro energy things that heretofore I've stopped, then you would see prices come down rather quickly because energy markets would see future production coming online. And that would have an impact on gas prices very quickly.

BUTLER: Well, here's an impossible question for you to answer. I'm going to ask it anyway though. Any idea when we'll see prices come back down?

SPENCER: That is an impossible question to answer, but I'll give it a shot. I do think that we will eventually see prices moderate some because of the behavioral response from people to use less gas and oil. And that will result in a resettling of prices at a baseline that is likely lower than where it is now. You also will get in the near to mid term, additional production from producers around the world that will help ease some prices. Those though, will not be will not be long term and will contribute to that settling at a new baseline of what people can expect prices to be over time. So I don't know if that settling baseline price is going to be where it is today, a little bit higher or a little a lot higher, or a little bit lower. That I can't predict. But I think we will see a stabilization at some point that we can understand to be the new normal.

Now that, that being said, I don't think that's where we end up as a country. I don't think that what President Biden's trying to do is sustainable over time. And I don't think that people will stand for it. So I do think that given all of the energy resources we have in this country, given that our entire economy depends on them, and given the massive cost that it will wreak on the American public, if we stay on this path, that future politicians, maybe not President Biden will make the reforms necessary so that we can return gas and oil prices to a level that we're used to having.

BUTLER: We've been talking with Jack Spencer today. Jack thanks so much for your time this morning.

SPENCER: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Most Americans have at some point stood with their ball caps over their heart while listening to the national anthem performed at a baseball game.

Usually, someone is singing the The Star-Spangled Banner. On occasion, they might perform it on an electric guitar or even a violin. But this has to be a first.

At an Oakland A’s game this week, musician Caroline McCaskey sat behind home plate with a violin bow but she did not have a violin.

Her instrument? A saw.

Dads in attendance said afterward that the performance was certainly a cut above most acts. And now most everyone can say they saw something they’d never seen before!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 9th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: homosexuality and the Christian Reformed Church of America.

Later this week nearly 200 delegates are gathering at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the CRC annual synod.

On the agenda is a closed session to consider a report affirming the church’s historic position on human sexuality. The CRC must also decide whether or not to take action against individual churches or leaders who teach contrary views.

Recent WORLD Journalism Institute graduate Zoe Schimke has our story.

ZOE SCHIMKE, REPORTER: The C-R-C expects to vote sometime next week on its Human Sexuality Report. If it passes, it would allow the church to maintain and enforce traditional doctrines of human sexuality, throughout the denomination.

The 175-page report covers three categories of sexual sin. But easily its most controversial component is its statement that homosexual practice of any kind is unbiblical and unacceptable in the CRC.

CHRISTOFFELS: The confession is clear. The Catechism is clear. It forbids all unchastity.

Lee Christoffels is a retired pastor and a denominational official in one of the CRC’s church courts.

CHRISTOFFELS: We want to be Orthodox, not because we think we're better than everybody else. But because we believe that's God's calling for us to be faithful to the confessions. For which we've signed up.

The report is a response to a perceived leftward drift in the CRC on questions of human sexuality. CRC progressives say it’s not loving to exclude same-sex-practicing congregants from church life.

One leading voice is Leonard VanderZee, a CRC theologian in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He argues that conservatives misunderstand condemnations of homosexuality spelled out in the book of Romans. This is from a recent online talk.

VANDERZEE: We are talking about people who love God, and who have a natural and persistent same sex orientation. If we are not talking about the same people that Paul is talking about, how can we apply the same condemnation that Paul applies?

CRC pastor Rev. Rich Braaksma argues in another online talk that the report is wrong in its interpretation of the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality.

BRAAKSMA: “The report says ‘Scripture is clear’ over 80 times! If it’s so clear, why do we disagree? Maybe Scripture isn’t, and never has been, interested in fixing this problem for us with easy authoritative answers from on high by pundits who say ‘it’s clear’ like a writ-large ‘God said it, I believe it, that settles it.’”

Two summers ago, a large congregation in the CRC ordained as a deacon a woman in a same-sex marriage. That despite the CRC’s official position that homosexual relations are “incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture.”

Neland Avenue CRC in Grand Rapids says it's the only local CRC church body to ordain a person in a same-sex union. It takes the CRC’s official position as pastoral guidance it chooses not to heed. In a letter to members, Neland Avenue cited “years of careful, prayerful discernment” that led to its decision to ordain—not to discipline—the church member.

The conservative CRC official Christoffels says Neland Avenue is way out of line.

CHRISTOFFELS: We have a covenant for office bearers, in which the office bearers say ‘we agree with these teachings. And if we disagree, we promise to tell the church about it and properly ask for a revision.’ So if they believe Scripture teaches something else, then they're supposed to bring that out, which is exactly what Neland Avenue CRC did not do.

Kurt Monroe is pastor of First Christian Reformed Church in Sioux Center, Iowa. For him, this issue is about far more than just church technicalities.

MONROE: It's pitted as a justice versus truth thing, right? So the progressive side will say, you're not loving. And and I want to say, No, you cannot be loving if you don't tell humanity the truth about who we are as male and female.

If the CRC adopts the Human Sexuality Report, that would give “confessional status” to the view that homosexuality is sinful. It would then have equal weight with the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechisms—and the church could take action against anyone who teaches or practices heterodox views.

Arguments against adopting the report say that it limits an individual church’s freedom of conscience—and that it might split the CRC. Monroe says he understands that.

MONROE: Oh, absolutely. The - it's always a call to unity. But to call it a unity is to what, what are we actually united in? Or what are we united for? And if we're not united in Christ, I think the call to unity has to be a union in Christ. But that means the content, yeah, you read through Paul's letters, there's an actual specific content, the doctrine. So yeah, we're unified but certainly at the expense of, of doctrine and the expense of sound doctrine.

Ron Rynders is a congregant in Monroe’s church who thinks the only way his local church can remain within the CRC is for the denomination to adopt the report—the HSR, as it’s known.

RYNDERS: You know, as a person in the pew. I very much think that if the human sexuality report gets rejected, it doesn't leave us an option.

Monroe and his conservative contemporaries hold that it is better to be divided by the gospel than united in error, and a test of the theory is coming in the next few days.

MONROE: And I think that there won't be very many people in the congregation that disagree. That we as a congregation cannot stay at home in a church that doesn't accept the HSR.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Zoe Schimke in Sioux Center, Iowa.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Here’s commentator Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: What tops many family’s schedules in the month of June? Weddings. Vacations (and how to pay for record high gas prices if you're driving). And graduations.

Time was when many commencement speeches at major universities highlighted America and its values and what graduates could expect in the future. In recent years, they have become a political capstone on the progressive ideas imposed upon them in their classes and textbooks.

While schools occasionally invite a token conservative or Republican, most speakers hold liberal political beliefs and promote activist causes. This year has been no different.

Major universities, while giving lip service to "diversity," don't actually believe in diversity of opinion.

Perhaps the most troubling of this June's commencement addresses was not just the main speaker at Harvard's Law School commencement, but a prominent and soon-to-be powerful and influential person who attended.

The main speaker was New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Her preferred topic appeared to be “LGBTQ-plus.” She bragged that her deputy is an “openly gay man.” She also touted her country's approval of same-sex marriage and its progress on “climate change.” This presumably is supposed to inspire graduates to embrace her views, if they don't already share them. Why wouldn't they after what they've been taught, watched what is promoted in the media, and endured the peer pressure of like-minded students?

Among those attending the ceremony was Supreme Court Justice-designate Kentanji Brown Jackson. When Prime Minister Ardern reached the part in her address in which she referenced New Zealand's ban on “military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles,” Jackson applauded.

As Congress debates which if any weapons to ban, this issue could come before the Supreme Court. It was inappropriate for Jackson to seemingly telegraph her opinion in advance. Notice how the justices never applaud at a president's State of the Union Address. That should be Jackson's model.

What a contrast between Ardern's remarks and another commencement address delivered at Harvard on June 8th, 1978 by Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His speech drew the ire of some faculty and The New York Times editorial page, because it didn't fit in with their ideological perspectives.

While Solzhenitsyn called Western systems "best," he indicted the West for its lack of courage: "A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course, there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life."

Later he added: "Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?"

Solzhenitsyn was a modern prophet. I cannot say the same for the commencement speakers college students hear today.

I’m Cal Thomas.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday.

And, a new kids movie that appeals to parents’ nostalgia. We’ll tell you whether it’s worth having the whole family watch.

Plus, Steve West catches up with a 1990’s CCM artist.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

'If we say we have fellowship with [God] while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.' (1 John 1: 6-7)

Go now in grace and peace.

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