The World and Everything in It: March 22, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. I'm Craig Riggall, and I pastor a wonderful congregation in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania where I live with my dear wife and four wonderful children. I listen to The World and Everything in It at 2X speed. I wonder how many of you are in the double speed World and Everything in It fan club. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Today on Culture Friday: abortion numbers have spiked up in the post-Roe world, and we’ll talk about governments wanting to make sure that you are both happy and well-informed.

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet definitely has some thoughts on that and he’ll be along in just a bit. Also today: even a quarter century after it first came out, The Matrix continues to resonate.

CYPHER: So you’re here to save the world. What do you say to something like that?

And two books that sort through the mixed spiritual legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

BROWN: It’s Friday, March 22nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Government funding package » On Capitol Hill, members of the House are expected to vote today on a government funding bill to avert a partial government shutdown.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries:

JEFFRIES: It’s a win for the American people that we are on the verge of avoiding a harmful government shutdown and meeting the needs of the American people.

But some Republicans say the $1.2 trillion dollar package unveiled Thursday does nothing to secure the southern border or to address Washington’s spending problem.

Texas Congressman Chip Roy:

ROY: This bill spends at a higher level than Nancy Pelosi. This bill continues the regulatory assault on American hard workers through the climate agenda by the radical progressive Democrats, and we do nothing to seriously unwind it.

The bill includes a 3 percent increase in defense spending over last year as well as $300 million in aid to Ukraine.

If it passes in the House, it will head to the Senate for consideration … ahead of a midnight deadline to avert a shutdown.

Blinken - Israel » Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Tel Aviv today meeting with Israeli leaders about the war in Gaza.

After meetings in Egypt Thursday, Blinken said work continues toward a possible cease-fire.

BLINKEN: The gaps are narrowing, and we continue to push for an agreement in Doha. There’s still difficult work to get there, but I continue to believe it’s possible.

Blinken today will also reiterate the Biden administration’s deep concern over Israel’s planned ground operation in the city of Raffah.

BLINKEN: That would be a mistake, something we don’t support, and also not necessary to deal with Hamas, which is necessary.

The administration will make that case more fully when a delegation of Israeli officials travels to Washington next week for high-level talks.

But that will be a tough sell. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Raffah is the last Hamas stronghold and to leave terrorist commanders and battalions alive in that city would be to lose the war.

Russian strike on Kyiv » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is renewing his appeal for more weapons and air defense systems to fend off Russian attacks.

ZELENSKYY: All the air defense provided to Ukraine keeps our cities and villages alive. But the existing air defense systems are not enough to protect our entire territory from Russian terror.

Russian missiles rained down on Kyiv Thursday for the first time in more than a month. Ukrainian forces say they were able to shoot down 31 missiles, but more than a dozen people were injured in the capital city.

DOJ Apple antitrust case » The Justice Department, 15 states and the District of Columbia are taking Apple to federal court. Their lawsuit accuses the tech giant of violating antitrust laws.

Attorney General Merrick Garland:

GARLAND: We allege that Apple has employed a strategy that relies on exclusionary, anti-competitive conduct that has hurt both consumers and developers. For consumers, that has meant fewer choices, higher prices and fees, lower quality smartphones, apps, and accessories.

Among the specific allegations: the DOJ says Apple uses its operating system to block new apps and cloud streaming services; degrades how Android messages appear on iPhones; and hinders rival payment solutions.

GARLAND: Apple has consolidated its monopoly power, not by making its own products better, but by making other products worse.

Apple says the lawsuit is wrong on both the facts and the law.

Biden Loan » President Biden says he’s waiving nearly $6 billion in student debt for public service workers. WORLD’s Christina Grube reports.

CHRISTINA GRUBE: Some 70,000 government workers will have their student debts cleared under the 2007 Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. That’s according to a White House statement on Thursday.

Public servants like teachers and firefighters who have made student loan payments for at least 10 years are eligible to have the remaining balance wiped.

The move is the latest election-year push to find legal means to erase student debt after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s mass loan cancellation plan last year.

For WORLD, I’m Christina Grube.

United Nations AI » All 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly have voted to approve the first UN resolution on artificial intelligence.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield:

GREENFIELD: Why should this body, with so many existential challenges on its plate, take on AI? And the answer is simple: AI is existential.

The resolution urges countries and organizations worldwide… to help to develop safety rules and guard against the “improper or malicious design [and] deployment” of AI.

But the resolution is nonbinding, meaning there is no way to compel cooperation.

Another key goal of the resolution is to use the technology to spur progress toward key UN goals like ending global hunger and poverty.

Former police officers sentenced in torture case » A federal judge has finished handing down prison sentences to six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who were convicted of breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two men.

The former officers, who are white, admitted to an hours-long assault of two black men last year.

They received prison terms ranging from 10 to 40 years.

But civil attorney Malik Shabazz is calling for more accountability.

SHABAZZ: Step up Rankin County, and show that you can put a new sheriff in office that has not presided over the blood and torture.

He said the crimes revealed a culture of corruption within the sheriff's department.

Menendez won’t run in primary » Embattled Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has announced that he will not run in his party’s New Jersey primary contest, but he has not ruled out a third-party reelection bid. Menendez had defied calls from within his own party to step down as he fights numerous felony corruption charges.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, how much The Matrix has aged in 25 years.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 22nd of March, 2024.

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

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

Time now for Culture Friday. And joining us is John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Good morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: Well, John. I'd like to begin with news this week from the Guttmacher Institute, I'm sure you saw it. And for the listener who may be unfamiliar with the group it began, Guttmacher did, began as a research arm of Planned Parenthood and now it's its own thing, still very much pro-abortion, but I've not really heard the quality of its research knocked. So, according to Guttmacher this week, the number of abortions in the U.S. hit the highest level in a decade despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade two years ago, and pro-life protections emerging in more than a dozen states. It says the overall number of abortions in the US annually rose beyond the 1 million mark. One other part of the research, Guttmacher said that nearly one in five pregnant women are now traveling out of pro-life states to have abortions, and that medication abortions are also becoming more common. More than 6 in 10 of the abortions in the U.S. last year were carried out with abortion drugs. So, John, do you quibble with the numbers? Do they surprise you? What's your thought?

STONESTREET: I don't quibble with the numbers. I mean, I think they could be mistaken here and there. I think they could be less reflective of a reality in which the numbers are really increasing. For example, you know, we've had issues in the past of all states reporting the number of abortions. You know, for example, in California it's not being required. And I don't think we had really gotten a handle on chemical abortions until it became such a central part of Planned Parenthood's financial model, which it is now. I don't doubt at all that the chemical abortion is now the new face of protecting innocent preborn life, confronting that. Because when moral decisions are privatized, when people are made not accountable or responsible to anyone outside of themselves, we will make immoral decisions. This is the state of the human condition. This is what it means to live in the wake of the fall. Hidden evil, evil in which we are allowed to hide when no one's looking, is evil that flourishes. And that is really the story of the sexual revolution. I think a lot of pro-life leaders maybe thought in the wake of Roe, and in the wake of, you know, some really important and good decisions made in the states, certain states and a pro-life decision, that America was more pro-life than it was. But at the heart, we're relativists. We're a, you know, sexually-broken, relativistic, internally-motivated and -turned culture. And that does not reckon well for the innocent among us.

EICHER: Do you think that the President and Vice President are on to something when they use an abortion clinic as a backdrop? I mean, exactly what you're saying here, John, that they would use an abortion clinic as a backdrop for a campaign event? I mean, maybe they know something we don't?

STONESTREET: Well, look, I don't know that it's as outrageous, given the actions of the Democratic Party and the Democratic convention over the last several years, the way that Democratic politicians have turned pro-lifers not into people they disagree with, but people that are evil, and that are actually doing harm to others. You can't be a politician in that party and be pro-life. I think the last one's gone, isn't it? Is there any left? I don't think there's any left. I think Manchin was the last one, right?

EICHER: I think so. I mean, there are groups, but you're talking about major candidates. And yeah, the answer is no.

STONESTREET: Yeah, they're irrelevant groups. They're groups that have absolutely no influence, you know. It's like the Washington football Commanders fan club, they have no impact on the fact that the team never wins, I mean, you know, they're irrelevant to where the direction of the program, you know, has nothing to do with that. And I think that basically, the Democratic Party has become more and more comfortable with saying the quiet part out loud. And for Kamala Harris to appear the way she did in front of this clinic is consistent with the actions. It's not all that outrageous. And this is why it's so confusing to some of us when some Christians want to make these parties morally equivalent. It doesn't fit the evidence.

BROWN: Okay. Well, let's talk about happiness, John. Ready? California has created something called the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes. It's a study group—stop giggling—it's a study group charged with figuring out what makes people happy. And as a state lobbyist said, “Government's role is to provide for its people. The goal of all public policy is to have happy citizens.” Now, is that really what the government is for, or does California have a god complex?

STONESTREET: Well, California has a god complex, and that was true before this story. You know, it's not the government's job. In fact the government actually can't do it. What the government really should do, though, because we do have a happiness deficit, and it's reached epidemic levels. When you talk about mental health crises and loneliness and despair and so on. And I, I do think, you know, when, for example, the World Health Organization—by the way, this is kind of the same story, a cultural story, of the World Health Organization declaring loneliness as a public health crisis, because it is. But you know, what's interesting is that the timing of this is a little bit funny. Just because we have had some really remarkable research reported on from the National Marriage Institute at the University of Virginia, Brad Wilcox's work, his book is out this week, and, you know, once again, all the research says that the happiest people in the world are married people. In fact, the happiest, happiest people in the world are religious, married people. And that's on a number of metrics: financial security, sexual satisfaction, you know, meaning, and all that sort of stuff. So if California really did want to address happiness, then what they would do is stop, you know, redefining and changing and getting in the way of and incentivizing against marriage, and they would figure out how to do pro-marriage policies. Because that is the only thing consistently that we know of, over the last 40, 50, 60 years that the research has been done. You know, opioids don't do it, sexual freedom doesn't do it, increased access to pornography doesn't do it, growing wealth doesn't do it once you're past a particular pretty low threshold. The only thing that grows happiness, apparently, is marriage. So, and family, so you know, I'm not saying single people can't be happy. Don't send me those emails. Of course, they can. Not everyone's called to this. But I'm just talking about this is what the data says. And so, that's what California would do if they really cared about it.

EICHER: You know, John, the purpose of government is not to make people happy, it's to stamp out misinformation, which leads me right to the Supreme Court. This week a couple of cases on government leaning on media, government leaning on business, and whether that is in or out of bounds with respect to our constitutional rights. Of course, the media one I'm personally most interested in. It's a case from my state of Missouri dealing with government interactions with social media platforms. We're gonna get into this pretty deeply on Monday in Legal Docket, so we're not going for the constitutional finer points. But from a layman's perspective, John, the government has awesome powers, frightening powers, and when it uses them in the name of fighting so-called misinformation, do you worry a bit about that? Or is the trade-off perhaps worth it to put some kind of official check on really, I mean, patently false information? What's your view on this?

STONESTREET: Well, it's just a ridiculous commentary right now, given we are just coming out of a 3-4 year period in which the government was the fundamental source of false information, at least according to the pandemic, and according to school lock downs, and so on. So if you again, I always say if you're not on X or Twitter, don't start, but if you are, check out Drew Holden's account this week, where he actually just went through and documented the headlines that were informed by the CDC and by left-leaning political leaders, basically saying anyone who does anything against the narrative about COVID actually wants to kill grandma. And you know, look, it was media misinformation, but it was misinformation from mainstream media outlets, and it was information that was coming from government sources. I mean, we've had the people themselves, now, admit, you know, well, we didn't know but we talked as if we did. You know, we have the the head of the teachers union, you know, saying “Oh, kids are resilient, they'll be able to bounce back learning-wise, you know, from these you know, lockdowns.” They have people saying people who want to open up schools, again, are actually racists that want to kill, you know, minority kids, when they're the ones that were most negatively and adversely affected by the lockdowns to begin with. Those aren't recoverable among vulnerable populations. They're just, you know, that learning is lost for that generation. And that learning in that generation is lost forever. When you just do the math and of course we have Francis Collins. How can you be like among the smartest scientists on the planet, and not distinguish between the Bronx and Billings, Montana?

EICHER: And going around to churches to spread that.

STONESTREET: And then, that's right, leaning on churches to do this. Look, this source of misinformation was the state. So, you know, what is it when the state then turns around and says, "I want to police the misinformation," especially when the same state officials sometimes are talking about how the freedom of speech is actually something that gets in the way … gets in the way of what? Of you controlling the false information, or you controlling information in general? Look, the trust level is low. So for them to jump into the game at this point, and try to, you know, be the arbiters of truth? Well look, they're not gonna, they're not gonna get a buy in from me, I don't think they're gonna get a buy in from a lot of Americans.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, March 22. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A movie from 1999 that still packs a punch.

Here’s movie reviewer Max Belz.

MUSIC: [Spybreak! by the Propellerheads]

MAX BELZ: It's been 25 years since Neo chose the red pill, freeing him from his simulated world and ushering him into the fight for reality. The Matrix has aged well. That’s in part because it broke new ground with its special effects, but also because it foresaw our digitally saturated world. And for Christians, the film drew uncanny parallels with the story of redemption.

MORPHEUS: You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo.

For those who need a refresher, the story goes like this: machines have taken over the world and trapped human beings in a computer simulation called the matrix to harvest their energy.

MORPHEUS: The matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.

But a band of renegades led by Morpheus are still moored to the real world and they long for the arrival of a messianic figure to free humanity from the machines. They recite the prophecies of old and the utterings of the Oracle.

THE ORACLE: It’s Latin, it means know thyself.

Morpheus plucks a computer hacker named Neo, played by Keanu Reeves.

MORPHEUS: This line is tapped so I must be brief. You are the one, Neo…

From his dubious work inside the matrix to return to the real and dying world. They will battle against the shape-shifting machines who stand in the way of human thriving.

The special effects stand up well after 25 years. Most notable are the action sequences featuring hyper-slow motion as bodies bend and bullets stop mid-flight.

NEO: I know Kung Fu.

MORPHEUS: Show me.

SOUND: [Kung fu fighting]

The breathtaking kung fu fighting in the movie was inspired by Hong Kong cinema.

When it was released in May of 1999, The Matrix concerned some people because of the violence in the story’s climax. But the movie also posed profound questions about the nature of human beings–what it means to love and what it means to give your life for another.

The movie speaks to our technological bondage. It suggests we float in a virtual reality that buffers us from the pure features of life. We need to pierce the fog to see the vivid colors and taste the flavors that fill our lives.

AGENT SMITH: Never send a human to do a machine’s job.

After The Matrix came out, “taking the red pill” entered common usage for seeing reality as it is. By rejecting false accounts that blind us, we recover what is true. This conflict is at the heart of the story.

MORPHEUS: You are a slave, Neo. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch.

This theme squares with the Apostle Paul’s words that human beings “exchanged the truth about God for a lie.” Our ultimate rebellion against God is trading true worship of him for counterfeit gods and a false sense of desire and purpose.

NEO: Why do my eyes hurt? 

MORPHEUS: You’ve never used them before.

But as The Matrix reminds us, even our perceptions need to be reborn. Neo is a classic Christ figure. He stands in the gap representing a new vision of humanity and giving himself for his fellow freedom-fighters, finding what was lost and binding everything together again.

The Matrix endures as a captivating story about the soul of humanity and it’s a classic man-versus-machine tale, alive with action, romance, and courage.

AGENT SMITH: Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet...and we are the cure.

In later installments, the full messianic saga comes to fulfillment, even if the other films are inferior to the original story. The movie is rated R, but its theme of discerning what is real will resonate with audiences for years to come.

MUSIC: [Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine]

I’m Max Belz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday March 22. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: debating the legacy of a Civil Rights leader. Here is WORLD reviewer, Emily Whitten.

EMILY WHITTEN: It’s been just over 60 years since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Christians continue to debate what it means for us today. That includes a recent article in Christianity Today by Justin Giboney which takes on the question of whether King was a Christian.

To go beyond the headlines of such a debate, I recommend two recent books. First, Jonathan Eig’s 2023 book King: A Life–the first major biography of the Civil Rights leader in over 40 years. Eig draws on hundreds of his own interviews as well as recently released FBI files to paint a fascinating portrait of King, whom he called a “Christian radical.”

For Eig, the I Have a Dream speech is an iconic moment in King’s “revolution” based “on Christian love, on nonviolence, and on faith in humankind.” Eig doesn’t weigh in on whether King was truly saved. Decades of one night stands and keeping a mistress cast some doubt on his profession of faith. Like Ravi Zacharias, King’s hidden sexual sin was terrible.

However, Eig says King did “agonize” over his sin at times, and in many ways he took Scripture seriously. Eig doesn’t address the question of whether King rejected all liberal theology later in life, but we do see some spiritual wisdom. For instance, King rejects an impersonal view of God common in liberal circles. King also taught Civil Rights protestors to love those who persecuted them. He clung to that Biblical principle, despite many who pressured him to embrace hate and violence.

The other book I recommend is The End of Race Politics by author and political pundit Coleman Hughes. Hughes doesn’t accept Eig’s view of King as politically radical–at least not in today’s terms. He argues from the conservative right that too many on the left remake King in their own image. That includes anti-racists like Ibram X. Kendi who promote a new kind of racism which Hughes calls “neoracism.” Hughes says, “Neoracists agree…that discrimination in favor of non-whites is justified” because of racism endured by people of color today and in the past.

In contrast, Hughes says Martin Luther King Jr. promoted colorblindness, the principle of treating “people without regard to race.” Hughes admits that King supported some “radical” policies like universal health care… and he strongly opposed the Vietnam War…”. But unlike neoracist radicals today, King never wavered on “the goal of transcending race.”

I suppose it’s likely that 60 years from now, if Christ hasn’t come back, Christians will still be debating Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy. For now, these two books can help us sharpen our thinking about what he got right and wrong. I’ll admit, I still don’t know if King was truly a Christian. But both Eig and Hughes saw his dream as deeply rooted in the American dream. And I’m grateful Christians know the One who can purify that dream and make it a reality.

I’m Emily Whitten.

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

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Addie Offereins, Mary Muncy, Todd Vician, Bethel McGrew, Onize Ohikere, Amy Lewis, Janie B. Cheaney, Daniel Suhr, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Collin Garbarino, and Emily Whitten.

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

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

And the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Our producer is Harrison Watters.

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

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

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

In the Gospel According to John, “Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world - to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’” —John 18:37

Worship with brothers and sisters in Christ in Church this weekend, and Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

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