The World and Everything in It: March 11, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The war in Ukraine is testing the unity of Western allies. We’ll break down the changing U.S. and EU policies.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, Montana’s 16-year debate over doctor assisted suicide—where do lawmakers stand now?

DEREK OESTREICHER: Sometimes even the most principled legislators seem a little confused on this issue.

And a restaurant built on faith and perseverance.

YARITZA GALVEZ: My mom's determination of opening this place up comes from her believing that God has been with her always.

And later, WORLD Opinions’ commentary on whether it’s okay now to be a Christian conservative.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, March 11th. 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: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Ukraine » Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a U.S. delegation in Saudi Arabia today. They’re sitting down with Ukrainian leaders for talks aimed at working toward a peace deal in Ukraine.

RUBIO: We have to understand the Ukrainian position and just have a general idea of what concessions they’d be willing to make, because you’re not going to get a ceasefire and an end to this war unless both sides make concessions.

He said if the meeting goes well, it could influence President Trump’s recent decision to pause all U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

President Trump voiced cautious optimism about these talks. He said that up to now, Ukraine’s government has not convinced him that it’s ready to negotiate peace, but …

TRUMP: I think you’re going to have eventually, and maybe not in the distant future, you’re going to have some pretty good results coming out of Saudi Arabia this week.

The Associated Press reported Monday that the Kyiv delegation was set to propose a limited ceasefire today.

Rubio: 83% of USAID projects to be cut » Secretary Rubio also said on Monday that major cuts are coming … at the embattled USAID agency. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Rubio said after a thorough 6-week review of the agency’s spending, the Trump administration is scrapping 83 percent of USAID programs.

And the State Department will manage the remaining programs.

Critics say the administration is callously slashing vital foreign aid. But Rubio insists that the programs being cut do not serve — and in some cases actually harm — the national interests of the United States.

Trump officials say their probe found an agency that had been largely unaccountable, wasteful, and had strayed far from its mission.

The USAID was created by executive order in 1961 … to strategically distribute foreign aid … to advance U.S. foreign policy.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Musk on DOGE efforts » Rubio said he’s thankful for Elon Musk and the rest of the DOGE team for its work in identifying waste at USAID.

But of course, not everyone feels that way. One agency employee, who said she’s now out of a job, described it this way …

EMPLOYEE: Heartbreaking. I love the work that we do. I really care about it. I felt like we made a difference.

And that cuts to the core of the criticism of DOGE. Democrats say Musk and his team are destroying programs that make a difference across numerous agencies.

But Musk on Monday fired back. He said the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington has become the unelected fourth branch of government.

MUSK: The president is the elected representative of the people. And if the president cannot get things implemented as a reflection of the will of the people, then what we have is not a democracy, we have a bureaucracy. We have rule of the bureau, not rule of the people.

Musk claims the effort has thus far saved more than $4 billion dollars a day for taxpayers.

Trade war » The markets have been getting jittery about a mounting showdown with U.S. trading partners over tariffs.

The S&P 500 plunged Monday. But Republican Congressman Tom Emmer said:

EMMER:  The markets are going to have all kinds of different things going on, but yes, we are going to stay the course because this country's future depends on it. Why should Americans not have free and full access to markets around the world when we give all of those other folks access to our markets right here?

President Trump is planning reciprocal tariffs starting April 2nd. Those will vary from country to country to match whatever tariffs each individual trading partner has placed on U.S. goods.

Separately, the president has already imposed some tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico. 

Government shutdown vote Tuesday » The House could vote today on a six-month stopgap funding bill that Republicans just unveiled … that would avert a government shutdown this week.

Every House Democrat is expected to oppose it, including Minority Whip Katherine Clark:

CLARK:  It's all part of the same plot to give Elon and the billionaire class a tax break at the expense of what families in this country need.

But House Republican Conference Chair, Congresswoman Lisa McClain argues:

MCCLAIN:  It continues to fund needed programs such as Medicaid, social security, pay raises for our military. I don't understand why the Democrats won't join us on that.

Democrats want language inserted that would limit the power of DOGE to audit government spending.

Congress has until Friday to agree on a funding bill to avert a shutdown.

Israel latest in process » Israel is expressing some concern over direct talks between U.S. officials and Hamas amid a push to reach a new ceasefire deal.

U.S. Presidential Envoy for Hostages Affairs Adam Boehler explained …

BOEHLER: The reason that I met with Hamas like that is because I'm a big believer in dialogue. And I think the meetings with Hamas gave me some hope.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Israel has agreed to send a delegation to Qatar to join Gaza ceasefire talks. But he insisted that if there is to be a ceasefire, Hamas will have to go.

MENCER: Returning to the reality that preceded the murderous attacks of October 7th, 2023, is simply not an option for Israel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he doubts whether Hamas is serious about negotiating in good faith.

He called out the terror group for demanding massively lopsided exchanges of hundreds of Israeli prisoners for a handful of Hamas hostages.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: shifting international policies signal a growing divide over how to end the war in Ukraine. Plus, how one family uses food from home to bless others in their new home.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 11th of March.

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

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

First up … the war in Ukraine.

Last week, President Donald Trump stopped weapons shipments to Ukraine saying he wants to see more progress toward peace.

EICHER: Meanwhile, the European Union and several member states are stepping up with billions of dollars in aid and defense spending. The plans aren’t final, but they do signal a shift toward Europe taking more responsibility.

Joining us now to talk about it is Maria Martisiute. She’s an analyst with the European Policy Centre and has worked both with NATO and the EU. She joins us this morning from Brussels.

REICHARD: Maria, good morning.

MARIA MARTISIUTE: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

REICHARD: Well, we're so glad you're here to talk about this. The U.S. froze arms shipments to Ukraine, as we know. How prepared was the EU to step in with more funding and military aid for Ukraine?

MARTISIUTE: Well, EU has been providing aid to Ukraine over the past years, collectively in the form of European Union aid, as well as bilaterally at member states level. Now, of course, it was expected that Trump might take certain reckless actions, if I can say so, in order to exert more leverage and pressure on Ukraine and on Europeans, so Europe was preparing for any kind of unexpected, unpredictable actions of this kind. Countries have stepped forward with additional packages of aid, the Nordics in particular, but also by the UK, by Germany, and others are under preparation. Now of course, it has a very significant material impact in Ukraine, because it translates into a lack of Ukraine's ability to fight Russia back. And what I would like to add in this conversation is the hold of intelligence, perhaps is even more significant short immediate term, because that translates on the ground in the cost of lives, in terms of deaths of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

REICHARD: Could you go into more detail about the intelligence that's been halted?

MARTISIUTE: So as far as I'm aware, America has stopped sharing intelligence information with Ukraine, which is absolutely key for Ukrainians to defend themselves, but also for Ukrainians to know where potential targets could be. Ukraine has, over the past years, relied predominantly, not exclusively, but predominantly, on American intelligence. So this caused some of the deadliest days over the weekend and last week, because Russia has exploited the situation in order to advance and become more aggressive towards the Ukrainians. 

REICHARD: I do want to revisit your characterization of what President Trump has done as “reckless.” Some see this as his “art of the deal” —putting pressure on where he can to reach a peace agreement and also recoup some of U.S. dollars already spent for Ukraine’s defense? What do you say to those people?

MARTISIUTE: There's indeed different ways of looking at it. On the one hand, you could say that perhaps this, these are just tactics, because he's indeed trying to show leverage. He's he's, he has significant bargaining power, because Europe, including Ukraine, is very much dependent historically, on the U.S. when it comes to military security domain. But at the same time, you know it's important to look at what consequences are on the ground and whether you really need to resort to tactics which eventually cost lives. And this is where I think that you know it is confusing to Europeans, whether it is really necessary to take such measures and without in a prior notice, whereby you know if you are switching your own intelligence, perhaps other intelligence could then step in, but at least you should know about it in advance. So the way it looks as if it is, you know, kind of helping or facilitating or aligning more with Russia, or at least appearing so. It's not clear what is the long term objective of America.  It is quite suggestive that it seems to be undermining, rather than helping bring parties to the table.

REICHARD: Ukrainian president Volydymr Zelenskyy says he’s wary of a peace deal because he says without adequate safeguards because he says Russia will just invade again. But if the U.S. were to gain mineral rights in Ukraine, do you think that would help achieve peace because then the U.S. would have a stronger tie to Ukraine beyond just giving them money?

MARTISIUTE: Absolutely. Thank you for raising this. I do think this mineral deal is mutually beneficial for America and for Ukraine. It is important to cooperate with America. It is Ukraine's and Europe's ally, and it's important to show how what contribution Ukraine and Europe could make and economic domain is very important, not least because Trump also very much comes from the area of, you know, bargaining and making deals. So I think having Americans working on the ground in Ukraine could also provide significant economic security, so to say, or act as a deterrence. However, from the way that Russian foreign policy and military policy has been developing, Putin is really, first and foremost, an actor in a military sense so to say. This is why having troops, or having Article 5 of NATO extended to Ukraine, or having American troops, besides just economic imperatives, would be so important, because ultimately, what Ukraine and Europeans are trying to achieve is that the ceasefire translates into a lasting, sustainable peace, and it is important to ensure that Russia does not utilize ceasefire time in order to reconstitute, strengthen itself and come back and strike later.

REICHARD: Let’s segue now to the EU itself. There are a lot of political dynamics that affect the EU’s unified stance to support Ukraine. What would you say are the biggest challenges there?

MARTISIUTE: Well, the greatest challenge of all right now is time. Trump really seems to be wanting a quick deal on Ukraine. I think the timeline is to reach a deal around Easter time, and this creates a lot of pressure for Europe, because Europe is trying to better provide for its own defense and security, including with Ukraine. Another challenge is, of course, well, to make sure that the negotiations and that the peace agreement that we would get would be just and lasting. Because it seems that Trump perhaps wants to get some kind of deal and brush Ukraine off the table, and then focus on bigger geopolitical issues which he probably sees as more important. From America first perspective, such as China.

REICHARD: Final questions here, Maria. Think of five years from now. How do you think these policy decisions now are going to end up in the EU, U.S., and Russia?

MARTISIUTE: Oh, well, in Europe, we are preparing for the worst case scenarios that U.S. might change its mind when it comes to, for example, upholding Article Five within NATO. Worst case scenario is also such that perhaps after a ceasefire is achieved, Russia would potentially launch another attack, for example, next year, against Ukraine, or perhaps even test NATO and EU countries. So we have to be prepared for that from a military standpoint, but also our civilians have to be prepared. So there's gradually more and more engagement with the civilian populations in order for them to explain to them the risks and threats that Europe is facing, and to educate and train them in from the preparedness point of view, in case there are such emergence as crisis or war.

I am an optimist. I would like to very much think that it would be possible to find a deal between the United States, Russia and Ukraine and Europe, the one that would be just and lasting and a compromise that would take on board the most important red lines of those who are victims to this war.

REICHARD: That ends it on a more positive note. Maria Martisiute is a Policy Analyst with the European Policy Centre.

Maria, thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it.

MARTISIUTE: Thank you for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the fight over assisted suicide.

Nine states and District of Columbia have legalized doctor-assisted suicide. Medical professionals practicing there are allowed by law to prescribe deadly drugs to terminally ill patients who want to die.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But back in 2009, Montana’s highest court created a legal loophole for doctors to assist. Lawmakers have wrestled with the issue ever since, and pro-life advocates warn that emotion can obscure principle around the sanctity of life.

WORLD’s Leah Savas reports.

AMY REGIER: With that, we will open the hearing on House bill 637. [GAVEL] Representative, open when you’re ready.

DARLING: Thank you Madam Chair and members of the committee.

LEAH SAVAS: That was the start of an emotional hour and a half in a Montana House of Representatives committee the last week in February.

DARLING: I have the great honor of presenting to you the Montana patient and physician protections and Care Act.

Representative Julie Darling’s bill proposed to officially legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill Montanans. More than 20 members of the public spoke at the 7 a.m. hearing. Many supporters cited the suffering of loved ones as their reason for backing the legislation.

DORIS FISCHER: I speak today for myself and for my spouse, who died of Lou Gehrig's disease ALS back in 2009. Dick suffered such pain. In the end, he died without the peace of mind that the option of medical aid in dying would have offered him.

DAVID COOPER: My wife of 53 years, was a strong, energetic, community minded person. She was diagnosed with ALS, a 100% fatal disease. On a zero to 10 scale, she rated her pain at 13. She died in 2023.

But opponents also had personal connections to the issue. Montana Lieutenant Governor Kristen Juras was the first to speak against the bill and shared that two of her grandchildren have cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic disorder that affects the lungs.

KRISTEN JURAS: My grandkids, most likely, are going to face a lung transplant. I want everyone to come alongside of them and not give them the option of saying, just don't go through the pain, don't go through the suffering.

She cited the most recent national statistics that show that Montana has the highest suicide rate in the country. The state has ranked in the top five for at least a decade.

KRISTEN JURAS: This state has consistently adopted a policy opposing suicide in any form. You cannot say that suicide is not appropriate in these situations, but is allowable in other situations. It sends a message that life doesn't matter in some instances, but it does in others…

Among the others who spoke against legalizing assisted suicide was Derek Oestreicher, chief legal counsel at the Montana Family Foundation. He didn’t share any personal stories in his testimony but later told me about his own experience.

DEREK OESTREICHER: I watched my own father pass away from from cancer, and it was very painful, and there was a lot of suffering, but I know personally, I am grateful to have had that time with him in those last moments. I think that that was important for him and for me.

Oestreicher said all the emotions rolled up in this debate make it complex—and sometimes hard to predict how someone will fall on the issue.

DEREK OESTREICHER: It really is an issue that transcends political ideology. So it doesn't necessarily matter if you're Republican or Democrat on this issue, because when you think of end of life and whether or not you're being compassionate, or whether or not you've had a loved one that's that's gone through a difficult passing, a lot of those personal feelings and experiences are brought to that issue.

Representative Julie Darling, the bill’s sponsor, is herself a Republican.

JULIE DARLING: You may ask, why I am bringing this bill, as it's not a subject matter that a Republican legislator would typically support, and with the permission of my nephews, I'm going to tell a story my little sister, Jackie Lee Nelson.

Her sister Jackie died from breast cancer last year. Jackie scheduled a date to take life-ending drugs but died the day before.

JULIE DARLING: I firmly believe that Jackie was able to let go that week due to the plan and choices she had set into motion. That plan met, she would not suffer, and her loved ones would not watch her suffer. Medical aid in dying is not a partisan issue. It's a freedom of choice, and with that, I request a do pass.

That appeal gained her support from another Republican when the committee voted on the bill two days later. Here’s Representative Tracy Sharp ahead of the vote.

TRACY SHARP: I'm very I'm anti abortion. For this particular bill, which I know there's a sanctity in life and all that, but I just can't vote to deny all the people that we heard, something that I would want for myself. For me, it would be too hypocritical. I would like to die with dignity. I just I feel very strongly about that, and that's why I will be supporting this bill.

He voted with every Democrat in the committee to advance the bill. During the hearing, he wasn’t the only Republican who appeared to be open to the legislation. But every other Republican in the committee ultimately voted against it. That killed the bill.

The committee is scheduled to consider the assisted suicide issue again later this month. It will be taking up a bill the Senate passed in February that proposes to close the legal loophole for assisted suicide that the state Supreme Court created in 2009. Similar bills have failed each session since that ruling, even though Republicans have consistently held a majority.

DEREK OESTREICHER: Sometimes even the most principled legislators seem a little confused on this issue.

Oestreicher said his organization is trying to help lawmakers see past the emotional appeals and to the pressure legislation like this could put on vulnerable, sick people.

DEREK OESTREICHER: So it starts out under the guise of compassion, but really it's, it's just another name for euthanasia for people that certain members of society consider a burden. It's not the right way to approach life as a precious gift, and it's really playing God in a very, very dark way. I think.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Okay, this one is all about the audio.

What you’ll hear is a toddler playing with an old cellphone, but one that was able to make a certain kind of phone call. Let’s listen in.

SOUND: [Dial tone, phone ringing]

OPERATOR: Moore 9-1-1. What’s the address of your emergency?

BENNETT: What?

OPERATOR: Hello? Moore 9-1-1.

BENNETT: [Toddler gibberish, hangs up]

So that really goes nowhere and the call cuts off. But the little guy persists. He calls back.

SOUND: [Phone rings]

OPERATOR : Hello?

BENNETT: Emergency … donuts.

OPERATOR: Donuts? I want donuts!

BENNETT: Emergency. Donuts.

The operator tried getting Mom on the line—that wasn’t happening.

So instead, the dispatcher sent backup. Not with sirens but with snacks.

A black-and-white showed up with a sweet delivery from Dunkin’.

Turns out, old phones can still call for help. And sometimes, it comes glazed and sprinkled.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 11th.

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

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Chasing the American dream—one recipe at a time.

For many immigrants, that dream means moving to the land of opportunity and building a better future through hard work. And for more than a third of immigrant-owned businesses, that means food.

REICHARD: Today, WORLD reporter Jenny Rough will introduce us to a family from El Salvador who make family recipes to support the family.

JENNY ROUGH: Yaritza Galves loves her mother’s cooking.

YARITZA GALVEZ: Think of it kind of like a tortilla puffed up. And then we stuff it with cheese.

Especially pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador—a small country in Central America where her parents were born.

YARITZA: So it’s made out of corn base. And it brings mozzarella cheese. And usually the traditional ones would bring pork or chicken or beans.

Her family makes thousands of pupusas each day.

GONZALO GALVEZ: I’m going to say, at least 3,000.

That’s Yaritza’s dad Gonzalo. But sharing this authentic homemade recipe has long been the idea of Yaritza’s mom, Isui.

Yaritza’s family owns Pupusa 503 Salvadorian Kitchen in Charlotte, North Carolina. And by family, I mean family. Yaritza’s parents and uncle partnered up to open the business.

YARITZA: The partnership between my uncle and my mother is wonderful and it works. The girl that came out there, she's my cousin. My aunt, which is sister to my mother, is in there. But anybody up here is also like my brothers, sister, or cousin.

As a boy, Gonzalo lived in a region of El Salvador that was so remote, there were no cars. To get anywhere, he walked.

As a girl, Isui didn’t even realize other places existed outside El Salvador. When she finally learned of America, she heard the streets were painted gold and believed it.

Gonzalo and Isui legally immigrated to the United States in the 1990s, separately. A few years later, they met through a friend at a Spanish-speaking evangelical church.

After they married, cooking became Isui’s passion. Here’s daughter Yaritza:

YARITZA: She loves to cook and that’s her love language to show to other people.

Gonzalo used to leave $20 on the table before he left for work. Isui spent it on groceries and experimented with dinners.

GONZALO: It was my wife’s dream. She used to tell me, it can be a tiny, tiny one, but I want to have and run my own restaurant. I want to share with customers all these great dishes ideas that I have.

Yaritza says her mom’s decision to put family first delayed her dream.

YARITZA: She kind of took a step back and she raised us. She became a stay-at-home mom, and my mom saw for us to finish school, finish high school.

Growing up, Yaritza witnessed her mom’s faith in God as she waited for him to make a way.

YARITZA: My mother is a woman of prayer. My mom's determination of opening this place up comes from her believing that God has been with her always and would help her reach her dreams.

Husband Gonzalo agrees.

GONZALO: She had no doubt God was directing her in this.

When an opportunity finally arrived in 2020, the circumstances seemed terrible.

YARITZA: We opened mid-COVID.

Restaurants were shutting down, not opening up. But the Galvaz family trusted God’s timing.

YARITZA: It was like very chaotic around us, and in the world, and it was a huge learning curve because we had a pandemic, plus opening up a new restaurant, which we have never done before. But I honestly think just because God knew when the time was going to be, it just all fell into place.

In the kitchen, the cooks work in perfect rhythm.

SOUND: [Chopping veggies]

Some women chop, slice, and grate veggies, meat, and cheese.

GONZALO: Everything here is like homemade cooking. So everything is very fresh.

Another chooses the stuffing options—

KITCHEN COOK: Frijole, frijole.

—and mixes the ingredients into a dough ball.

GONZALO: So these are corn flour tortillas.

SOUND: [Patting dough]

Next, she pats the dough into a flat circle until it looks like a pancake. A little oil—

SOUND: [Pupusa sizzling]

—and onto the griddle it goes.

Flip it once and then it’s ready to eat.

GONZALO: You cut into the pupusa, you grab a piece of it, then add some of the cabbage salad on top, grab some of the dipping sauce and eat it all together.

The family’s faith is evident. Praise music plays in the background. A copy of the 10 commandments hangs on the wall. Yaritza’s grandfather, a pastor, has handwritten Bible verses from 1 Kings 19:8 and Acts 27:34.

YARITZA: Which both speak about food and how unique and special it is to share food.

Yartiza says some customers push back against the Christian atmosphere.

YARITZA: Maybe you guys should switch up the music, or the sales would skyrocket if you had alcohol in here. Or if you would play soccer on the TV on the weekends.

But that’s not the ambiance the family wants. On the drink menu: horchata, a milky blend of spices and seeds.

GONZALO: Sesame seeds.

SOUND: [Gonzalo scraping sesame seeds]

No alcohol, even though in general, it’s a huge part of restaurant culture.

YARITZA: I think one of my mom's favorite things is that, you know, in the Bible it says that God's like a God of order and peace and you know, he likes when things are in order and when things are well-mannered. And they just try and really maintain it very family friendly, and make sure the ambiance in here is always maintained at the highest level of purity we can.

Isui’s had so much success with her first restaurant, she’s now busy at her second, 20 miles away. Her pupusas, clearly a hit.

SOUND: [Bag rustling]

YARITZA: So [speaking Spanish] two chicken and cheese.

Yartiza adds her mom takes no credit for the success.

YARITZA: She would never be like, it’s my cooking that’s bringing people. Because she knows that God has given us this blessing.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough in Charlotte, North Carolina.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 11th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Quick error correction from yesterday! We inadvertently misidentified the lawyer representing an inmate on death row. Her name is Anne Fisher. 

For years, we’ve been told that faith and politics should stay in separate lanes.

WORLD Opinions managing editor Andrew Walker says it’s time to rethink this.

ANDREW WALKER: I came of age at a time in American evangelicalism where putting distance between conservative politics and Christianity was a very, very popular trend. The assumption was that an association with conservative politics would repel potential converts. The rallying call was: “God was neither a Republican nor Democrat.” Thus arose “Third Way” evangelicalism…

Enlightened Christianity stood above all earthly politics, which is true insofar as Christianity is a transcendent judge of all earthly political regimes. Advocates of this approach believed less-partisan Christianity would be more successful at evangelizing unbelievers. There was also the injection of ambiguity, the mistaken idea that left and right were equally an affront to God’s apolitical kingdom. During this era of evangelicalism, the highest aspiration for a culturally learned evangelicalism was that the well-known liberal elite would come to this depoliticized faith, thus lending to Christianity a sort of cultural legitimacy that many strove for.

There are positives to commend in this approach. There are ways that partisanship can become too much. Christian faith, after all, is not about temporal gain or power. It is fundamentally about redemption and union with Christ. But nearing age 40 as I am, I want to make peace with something that my late-twenty something faith would have tried to resist: It is really OK to be a politically conservative Christian and not be embarrassed about it. Just own it.

This permission slip came to me after the new Pew Religious Landscape Study was released last week. This study is the unofficial gold standard of American religious demography. One important data point stood out: If one identifies as a Christian, there is a far higher likelihood that one has what is considered “conservative” politics in our context. The reverse is also true: The more one identifies as politically liberal, the less likely one is to identify as Christian. A lot of further analysis could be offered, but I want to challenge one common line of critique: that it harms Christianity when Christians are too intertwined with the Republican Party. The study shows the exact opposite. In fact, one could potentially see how conservative politics may be an on-ramp to Christian belief while liberal politics may be an off-ramp to Christian belief.

There are parallel belief structures between conservatism and Christianity making them share an affinity without being synonymous. Conservative belief structures have an architecture that resembles patterns of Christian belief. Despite what critics say, this is not simply a matter of a person politicizing his or her faith. Rather, the species of conservatism and Christianity share a genus in prioritizing transcendence, objective moral law, ordered liberty, and natural institutions like family and nation. Conservatism can be a gateway into Christianity. It’s our job as Christians to open those gates and not leave them merely with the political architecture, but the fullness of the Christian faith and a relationship with God through Christ.

The Pew study suggests that our evangelistic efforts may be more fruitful when directed toward those with conservative inclinations rather than those steeped in progressive ideology. While evangelism should be occurring in both directions, the data point from Pew suggests that much of Third Way evangelicalism’s fascination with politically liberal elites has led us to miss a harvest more amenable to Christian truth claims with those on our right. This is another way of saying conservative beliefs that Christians have may be a form of pre-evangelism for those who have conservative convictions but not the Christian faith.

Maybe we should not apologize for being conservative Christians after all.

I’m Andrew Walker.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: The growing push to dismantle the Department of Education. How serious is that idea? And, a rodeo wrangler who dodges rampaging bulls while taking on eternal questions. 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 Bible records that: “When [the crowd] found [Jesus] on the other side of the sea, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.’” —John 6: 25-27

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.