The World and Everything in It: March 24, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. My name is Chris Mann and I’m a 1999 graduate of the World Journalism Institute, and yes that would be the alpha class, when Nick Eicher’s hair was darker and my hair was more. 24 years later I still get to do what I love as a full-time writer here in Fort Wayne, Indiana where my wife and I raise our three girls and six boys. Now if you’re interested in WJI, log on to WJI.world and apply today. The deadline is March 31. I hope you enjoy today’s program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Nick, you had dark hair?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Once upon a time.

BROWN: Today on Culture Friday: educational equity or educational segregation?

EICHER: Also restroom privacy in public schools and incremental pro-life gains at the state level. We’ll talk about all that with John Stonestreet.

Plus WORLD reviewer Collin Garbarino reviews two Disney plus offerings in the Star Wars franchise.

And a preview of some weekend listening possibilities from WORLD.

BROWN: It’s Friday, March 24th. 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, Anna Johanson Brown with today’s news.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, NEWS ANCHOR: World Athletics Council » The World Athletics Council will no longer allow men who identify as women to compete in women’s track and field events. The council says it is trying to protect fairness in women’s sports.

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe:

SEBASTIAN COE - The majority of those consulted stated that transgender athletes should not be competing in the female category.

The World Athletics Council announced the new rule yesterday. It is the main rulemaking body for the sport of track and field.

COE - Many believe that there is insufficient evidence that trans women do not retain an advantage over biological women and want more evidence that any physical advantages have been ameliorated before they are willing to consider an option for inclusion into the female category.

The International Swimming Federation banned men who identify as female from competing in women’s sports last year.

Wyoming abortion » A Wyoming state judge is considering whether abortion should be defined as healthcare. He blocked a law yesterday that protects babies in almost every case.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Wyoming’s constitution says residents have a right to healthcare. But lawmakers enacted a new law earlier this week that defines an unborn baby as a human… making abortion the ending of a life—not healthcare.

The judge put a two-week stay on the law while he deliberates, but it could be extended.

Meanwhile, court documents released yesterday say a woman accused of setting a Wyoming abortion center on fire has confessed.

Police say she set the fire last May and police arrested her earlier this week.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Tik Tok » Congress is considering whether TikTok needs more regulation in America.

Lawmakers from both parties accuse the Chinese-owned social media company of inappropriately using data from American accounts.

Congressman Troy Nehls:

NEHLS - We know the dangers. They're out there. Everybody knows, you all know the dangers that it poses to our children. And many Americans agree. Here it is. Half of our country's states are already banning the app on the government devices.

But TikTok CEO Shou Chew testified before a Congressional committee yesterday, saying the company is not sharing information with China.

CHEW - We will protect the U.S. user data and file it all from all. Our foreign access is a commitment that we've given to the committee.

Some have also criticized the app as harmful to children.

Biden Canada » President Joe Biden is in Canada once again today. WORLD’s Anna Mandin has more.

ANNA MANDIN: This is Biden’s first official trip north of the border since taking office.

He will meet with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa … and deliver an address to Parliament today.

Both leaders are expected to discuss North American trade and supply chains, defense cooperation, and climate change. Their meetings will also address immigration and additional support for Haiti and Ukraine.

Biden and the First Lady will also attend a gala during the two-day visit … before catching a flight back to the United States tonight.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Mandin.

Parent speech hearing » A House judiciary subcommittee met yesterday to discuss whether the Biden administration misused its authority … to silence parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hearing is in response to a 2021 Department of Justice memo that compared actions taken by frustrated parents to domestic terrorism threats.

The founder of Parents Defending Education Nicole Neily spoke at the hearing.

NEILY: Parents have a constitutional right to assemble, to speak, to petition their government for a redress of grievances. But sadly, the airing of these concerns is now viewed by elected officials as violent, offensive, or hateful.

The DOJ memo reportedly directed federal, state, and local law enforcement to investigate parents.

The department claims it has only investigated reports of intimidation and threats of violence aimed at school board officials.

Attorney General Merrick Garland added that the department supports free speech and the right to protest.

School Shooter » The manhunt for the suspected shooter of two faculty members at a high school in Denver is over. The shooter was found dead by authorities yesterday.

The 17-year-old apparently wounded the faculty members as they patted him down for weapons in the school’s office area, a safety precaution because of previous behavior.

Here’s one student from the school:

STUDENT: As soon as we have to start hiding, and I figure out it’s not a drill, I start to think, what if I’m not gonna make it tomorrow?

This mom says she’s worried about sending her child back to school.

MOTHER: I feel sick every day sending my kid to school, and how do we move forward after this?

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock says that when classes resume, the school will be staffed with two armed officers for the rest of the year. Other high schools in the city will also be staffed with officers.

Ukraine Children » Some Ukrainian children deported to Russian-controlled territories are reuniting with their families in Kyiv.

Swedish ambassador to the United Nations Anna Jardfelt is calling for the release of all deportees:

ANNA JARDFELT - Ukrainians, including children who have been forcibly displaced to territories temporarily under Russian military control and deported to the Russian Federation, must be allowed to return safely.

The Ukrainian government says Russia has kidnapped or deported more than 16,000 children since the war began. Russia describes the deportations as a humanitarian project.

ZAKHAROVA: [Speaking Russian]

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticizing the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the kidnappings.

I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

Plus, heading back to a galaxy far, far away.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s the 24th day of March 2023.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I'm Myrna Brown. It's Culture Friday!

Joining us now is John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. John, good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

BROWN: So you hear that music, pomp and circumstance. It won’t be long before soon-to-be graduates will be robed and walking. It's tradition! But here's something unusual I want to call your attention to: Grand Valley State University in Michigan hosts what school leaders call its annual “cultural graduations.”

Here's what that looks like separate graduation celebrations for Black, Asian, Latino, Native American and LGBTQ students. Separate but equal, I guess, ahem.

There's also a main commencement ceremony—six in total!

The college says the celebrations align with the university's commitment to building a culture of educational equity.

But I wonder if it’s not doing the opposite. These separate graduation events seem regressive and unnecessarily divisive for students. Strikes me as almost bringing back educational segregation. But what do you think?

STONESTREET: Well, I think it does. And I think this sort of thing inevitably devolves into more and more and more separation, and then more and more ways of comparing cultures and comparing these identities to one another, and then morally prioritizing them. So what happens when, you know, the Native American cultural graduation still wants to have boys be boys and girls be girls or, you know, maybe the Asian one does, and the LGBTQ group finds that to be morally repulsive? Now it's going to be impossible to not morally rank these different groupings on campus. And of course, that's exactly what critical theory does. It's not just a hyperextension of these groups as groups, it's also a moral reckoning of these groups. And, you know, you're you're in the in group until, until you're not. You're super woke until you're not woken up. And, you know, this is just a kind of a recipe for disaster. It's also directly antithetical to celebrating academic achievement. This is particularly true because you're having then a group of students that are being separately recognized because of who they choose to sleep with. I mean, what does that have to do with overcoming any racial bias or ethnic discrimination, things that are often claimed as justifications for this sort of separation into groups? And so it is, I mean, but the snakes going to eat its own tail. This is an unsustainable path forward. This is, you know, really what you get in a postmodern mood and this form of it a critical theory, mood, it always breaks apart, everything falls apart, things are to be deconstructed, nothing is to be built. And what a sad thing to do to a group of graduates, I also wonder, you know, what this is going to do to university pride in the years to come. So, you know, let's come back together here in 15 years and see how the donations are coming in. And because you know, that this has plagued colleges for years I mean, you know, it's a you think this is a good idea now, let's see what happens when it's time for the alumni to give.

BROWN: Truth be told.

EICHER: Well, John, from WORLD’s Sift news: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill this week that will protect schoolchildren from having to use restrooms with students of the opposite sex. The law takes effect in July. It applies to multi-stall washrooms and locker rooms in public and charter schools from kindergarten through 12th grade. Schools must provide accommodations, such as single-person bathrooms, for students who say they’re transgender.

OK. What I read was from WORLD’s newsroom.

If I took the lede from The Associated Press,  goes this way: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law prohibiting transgender people at public schools from using the restroom that matches their gender identity, the first of several states expected to enact such bans this year amid a flood of bills nationwide targeting the trans community.

Point is, that’s how most people receive news like this. These protective laws are cast as mean, punitive, targeting. And you’ll always find a family of some troubled young person, very sympathetic, not a drag performer or a predator, and you kind of lose in the court of public opinion. How do you make the case for laws like these when the deck is stacked against you?

STONESTREET: Well, yeah, I think there is a mistake. If we think that everybody, you know, kind of within this T-movement, are activists and are sexual predators. It's also a mistake to assume that there are no activists and there are no sexual predators. But when you're coming, specifically talking about what's happening in schools, you are dealing with an awful lot of confused people. In fact, we know, Nick, that since 2015, there's been a dramatic shift. And because we know that there is an actual difference between men and women and between boys and girls, this is a significant shift, and makes this something that demands even more of our careful consideration. Prior to 2015, the vast majority of people seeking to transition were men seeking to be women. Since 2015, and this is reports out of the Tavistock clinic closing this is reports that we have seen from this whistleblower there at the Washington Medical Center, that it's girls, younger and younger and younger, hoping to be boys. We know that these aren't girls seeking to be sexual predators in other bathrooms. These are girls who have been told to hate themselves, they have been fed a constant diet, sometimes like an IV in the form of their phone, harmful and poisonous messages over and over and over again. And yet, if we have any sort of illusion that because that's the majority, that there won't be a whole bunch of perverted men trying to take advantage of this, then we have are selectively choosing to ignore the stories that we continue to see. And we were told this never happens. Until then it it does. This is huge. This is the challenge that we find ourselves in. So we're dealing with a bunch of early adolescent girls, that's who this is going to impact. But it has to be done. Because we have to tell them what is true, we have to teach them what is true. And again, there can be accommodations I think made that are loving and caring and just, and respect the fact that a lot of the challenge here has to do with anxiety, it has to do with mental illness and depression, without coddling and feeding into the destruction. What we also know too, and this is a bit more anecdotal, but we're hearing more and more stories from de-transitioners. That it really what it took was someone looking at them in the eye and telling them the truth. This is particularly true when you're talking about someone dealing with some sort of internal disorder, and not an issue of sexual perversion. And listen, that's what's so hard about this, this is an issue that's all over the place. It's an issue that has left the building in terms of the bounds of rationality and reason. And so you actually have to take it. So I think I think that what Governor Sanders is doing is courageous, and it's the right thing to do and more states need to do it. It's a loving thing to do with the vast majority of victims in that state, which are young girls who have been taught to hate their bodies, young girls who were the victim of a new misogyny, and that's what needs to be uncovered. And we don't need to accommodate the misogyny in order to care and and have empathy for these troubled and broken young women. We need to love them and treat them as young women and tell them the truth.

EICHER: Alright, and I want to mention the born-alive pro-life bill. It passed overwhelmingly in the Kansas House. We’ll see what happens in the Senate … if there’s enough margin to override a veto by the Democratic governor. We’ll see. But the point is, Kansas came right out of the Dobbs Supreme Court ruling and went for complete protection for all the unborn and wound up losing. Now we’re back to inch-by-inch battles like this. Not saying right or wrong. But it does feel like, as Yogi Berra would say, deja vu all over again.

STONESTREET: Yeah, we're still in a stage where we still need an incremental strategy. This hasn't moved because of Dobbs from an ability to win small victories to get everything we want at once. What it's moved is from a national level to a state level. That's the only move that's taken place. And I think what we have seen, there's a real you are here moment, I think that's happening for the pro life movement. And I've been wondering about this for years, particularly when all of these poll numbers would come in all over the place. Right. You know, one group is flaunting polls telling us that this is the most you know, pro-life generation that we've seen in our lifetime, especially the young people. And another poll would say no, most young people would want to keep Roe in place and that that especially applied to us wishy-washy, you know relativistic Gen Xers who can't decide what we want. I think what we have to reckon with is that this conversation about life and about at-risk women and the issue of abortion is being had all of these conversations are being had in a context of a thoroughgoing 100% commitment to relativism, that we do not want to say something is absolutely right and wrong for all people at all times, that we do want to continue to look inside. We do want exceptions for our own behavior. And until we reckon with that, then these kinds of all or nothing ballot initiatives probably aren't going to land the way we want them do.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks, John!

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Two weeks ago, the clock started for Nathan Firesheets at Disneyland Paris.

NATHAN FIRESHEETS: Ride number one in the books.

Firesheets set a goal of riding all 216 rides across the 12 Disney theme parks scattered around the world...in just 12 days...including travel. Think Jules Verne meets Mickey Mouse.

Firesheets spoke with Orlando's FOX 35 about his Disney Global Ride Challenge:

FIRESHEETS: The parks are the easy part. The travel logistics. That's, that's what the hard part is.

Since March 8th Firesheets has been to Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea, the two parks in Anaheim, plus Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

FIRESHEETS: A lot of the enjoyment of this for me is figuring out how do all those pieces fit together into this giant puzzle of a trip to make it all work.

This weekend Firesheets successfully completed his 12-day trip around the global magical kingdom with his final stop in Orlando. We don’t know how much he spent on the trip. But something we do know: he learned the fun way that “it's not such a small world after all.”

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Friday, March 24th.

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

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: we travel to a galaxy far, far away. Here’s WORLD Arts and Culture Editor Collin Garbarino to talk about what’s new this month in the Star Wars universe.

MUSIC: [THE MANDALORIAN THEME]

COLLIN GARBARINO: Disney’s Star Wars films have been on hold for a few years. But the studio has been pumping out a steady stream of series for Disney Plus. March has proved to be a televisual bonanza for Star Wars fans with new seasons of both The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian. But is more always better? Or are these new episodes just good enough?

The Bad Batch is an animated series that takes place between the fall of the Republic and the destruction of the Death Star. It features a group of rogue clone troopers who refuse to support a totalitarian regime.

ECHO: But there are others out there who need our help. We’ve seen what the Empire is doing throughout the galaxy. We should be doing more.

This series is for the die-hard fans. It chronicles the rise of the imperial bureaucracy, connecting the dots between the prequels and the original films.

COMMANDER CODY: Tell me something, Crosshair. This new Empire… Are we making the galaxy better?

CROSSHAIR: We’re soldiers. We do what needs to be done.

COMMANDER CODY: You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions. Our own choices. And we have to live with them too.

I’m going to keep watching this one. I appreciate how the series emphasizes personal responsibility and contains an implicit distrust of big government.

Season three of The Mandalorian is also airing this month. This season begins where the 2022 show The Book of Boba Fett left off. The Mandalorian, also known as Din Djarin, has been excommunicated from his people for violating the Mandalorian Creed.

ARMORER: Din Djarin, have you ever removed your helmet?

DIN DJARIN: I have.

ARMORER: Then, you are a Mandalorian no more.

DIN DJARIN: How can I atone?

ARMORER: According to Creed, one may only be redeemed in the Living Waters beneath the mines of Mandalore.

DIN DJARIN: But the mines have all been destroyed.

ARMORER: This is the way.

Right from the start, they’ve got my attention. Atonement? Redemption? Being baptized in Living Waters? Well, this is an interesting development.

The Star Wars franchise usually subjects fans to the Jedi’s hokey religion that feels like a cross between eastern mysticism and Roman stoicism. This Mandalorian battle creed emphasizes adoption and redemption. Those ideas might sound vaguely Christian, but it’s different because Mandalorians imagine redemption and atonement as things they must accomplish for themselves. They save themselves.

This Mandalorian view of atonement actually seems to reflect Rabbinic Judaism more than Christianity. Much of the Star Wars mythos mirrors the Roman Republic’s transition to Empire. I’m wondering if the destruction of the Mandalorian homeworld is meant to mimic the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple. In both, an empire destroys a homeland cutting a people off from their faith.

DIN DJARIN: The Creed teaches us of redemption.

ARMORER: Redemption is no longer possible, since the destruction of our homeworld.

Another fascinating aspect of this third season is watching the interaction between the Mandalorian fundamentalists and those who have a more liberal interpretation of the Creed. Perhaps this sensitive approach to religion shouldn’t surprise us. Showrunner Jon Favreau was born to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. I’m really interested to see how this plays out.

Even though I enjoy these series, I have to admit the franchise has seen better days. The Mandalorian especially has some structural problems in the storytelling. The first season was phenomenal—a dusty space western that felt both familiar and entirely fresh. That first season was so good as a complete story, I sort of wish Favreau would have let Mando retire.

GREEF KARGA: Now as I was saying there’s a beautiful parcel available right down here by the flats.

DIN DJARIN: I appreciate the offer, but I have some matters to look after.

GREEF KARGA: Oh, I’m confused. I thought you had completed your mission, but you’re still running around here with the same little critter.

DIN DJARIN: It’s complicated.

It’s not really complicated. Disney needs to keep churning out hits. What better way than to add more seasons of its most popular TV show? But as the show drags on, it loses some of what made it special.

Mando’s not really a loner anymore and most of the dusty space westerness has disappeared. Instead of being a self-contained story in a different corner of the galaxy, Disney has succumbed to the temptation to integrate the series with the Skywalker Saga. I like Star Wars, but I’m pretty tired of Skywalkers.

DIN DJARIN: Being a Mandalorian’s not just learning about how to fight, you also have to know how to navigate the galaxy, because you never know where you might be headed next.

Wherever Star Wars is headed next, it needs to be somewhere new. Viewership for each series has dropped since 2019 when the first season of The Mandalorian became must-see TV. It’s hard to say how much is franchise fatigue and how much is fans simply not being able to keep up with the glut of new shows.

One thing is clear from Disney’s financials. These series aren’t paying the bills. Expect CEO Bob Iger to slow down on Disney Plus shows and prioritize getting Star Wars back in theaters. But Disney has nothing in the theatrical pipeline, so don’t expect it to happen soon.

MUSIC: [THE MANDALORIAN THEME]

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: weekend listening.

A couple months ago we introduced you to one of our newest sister products from God’s World News: Concurrently, the News Coach Podcast.

EICHER: Just a minute ago we heard from Collin Garbarino. He’s a regular contributor to this program reviewing books, movies, and streaming series. Well, this week he put on a different hat and was a guest on the latest episode of Concurrently along with WORLD reporter Juliana Chan Erikson.

BROWN: A few weeks ago news coach Kelsey Reed received a question from a mom wondering how to help her kids discern fact from fiction on the internet.

EICHER: To tackle this question, cohosts Jonathan and Kelsey talked with Collin and Juliana—all of them parents who’ve tackled this subject in their own homes. In case you missed it, here’s a short excerpt of their conversation:

COLLIN GARBARINO: We need to be continually asking ourselves—as we're researching hard questions—we need to continually be asking ourselves about our own bias in, in these things.

Even a simple Google search is designed for confirmation bias because Google wants to give you the thing you ask for, right? It doesn't want to give you the thing you didn't ask for. And so if I'm worried about my health and I type “dangers of caffeine.” Google is going to give me what I wanted, right? And that's going to…I'm afraid maybe caffeine is not good for me. All of a sudden, Google is going to inundate me with information about the dangers of caffeine.

JULIANA CHAN ERIKSON: And so you will believe that you have cancer.

GARBARINO: And so you believe in and, and so maybe this is just a helpful tactic for some of our listeners. Maybe you should Google…every time you Google one thing, Google the opposite of that thing too, to get the other side because we, because we sometimes naively assume that if I type “dangers of caffeine,” Google will give me a balanced list of results. It's not, it's going to give me what I ask for. The library search tool was designed to help you find books, right? Google search tool is not designed to help you find information, it's designed to sell ads.

BROWN: That’s Collin Garbarino from this week’s Concurrently episode. It’s live now. You can listen by subscribing to Concurrently wherever you listen to podcasts or listen online at wng.org.

EICHER: And one other program available this weekend. On Wednesday night WORLD Opinions hosted a discussion on critical theory: Albert Mohler, editor of WORLD Opinions, along with managing editor Andrew Walker, and WORLD Opinions contributor Carl Trueman held a serious discussion on the roots of critical theory and how it diverges from biblical truth.

MOHLER: In the middle of the 19th century, along came Karl Marx. He was absolutely convinced that this ruthless critique of all that exists, that it would lead to an uprising of workers and eventually a communist revolution and the arrival of the new communist man and the energies of Marxism were increasingly directed towards what we would now call critical theory.

TRUMAN: In recent years of course, critical theory has pretty much hit the headlines, particularly in terms of critical race theory, but also in terms of things like gender theory and, and post colonialism. So many of the impulses within humanities departments in higher education at the moment, fall under the broad rubric of critical theory.

EICHER: Great conversation and we’ll release an audio version of that right here in this podcast feed on Saturday. If you want to see it, and see it right now, head to our website and we’ll have a link in today’s transcript.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, March 24th. 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. We’re a week away from our listener feedback segment for March … just a quick reminder in case you have any suggestions or corrections to send our way. You can record your thoughts with your phone and send those along to us at editor@wng.org.

BROWN: We wrap up this week by welcoming another new commentator from our digital platform, WORLD Opinions.

Calvin Robinson is a British broadcaster, political adviser, and commentator.

He’s also a deacon in the Free Church of England.

EICHER: This past February, the state sanctioned Church of England voted to allow the blessing of same-sex relationships. While many in the U.K. cheered, the response around the world wasn’t so positive. Here’s Calvin Robinson.

CALVIN ROBINSON, COMMENTATOR: The Church of England seems to be having somewhat of an identity crisis. The governing body of the church voted to allow the blessing of same-sex relationships. This has caused tidal waves in the wider Anglican Communion, the vast majority of which maintains the traditional Christian view that marriage is between one man and one woman and that sex outside of marriage is sinful.

The wider Anglican Communion has now renounced the Church of England or CofE as having broken communion with orthodox provinces by teaching a false gospel, thus becoming apostate.

The question now arises, what is Anglicanism without the Church of England?

Anglicanism, as the name would suggest, is an English expression of the Christian faith. When the English spread Christianity around the world, we shared the Anglican tradition post-Reformation. After Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox, Anglicanism is the third largest communion in the world.

A group of Anglican church leaders called primates met in 2008 at the Global Anglican Future Conference (or GAFCON) over concerns of what they called a rising “false gospel.” They were concerned that the Episcopal Church in the United States was departing from biblical teaching.

Today, GAFCON represents over 35 million active Anglicans around the world. For perspective, there are only 13 million Anglicans in the United Kingdom.

Why is any of this important? Well, provinces of the Anglican Communion in what is known as the Global South, including Africa, South America, and most of Asia, attend GAFCON. Those Global South provinces represent around 75 percent of the Anglican Communion, and they are both orthodox in doctrine and quite concerned about changes in the Church of England.

In a statement released immediately after the announcement regarding same-sex blessings in the CofE, the Global South said it would be attending GAFCON this year and that the “Church of England has now joined those Provinces with which communion is impaired.”

Further still, in a February 20 announcement, Global South primates said the Church of England has “disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic ‘Mother’ Church” because of these same-sex blessings, which they politely call “innovations.”

The Global South insists the CofE has “chosen to break communion with those provinces who remain faithful to the historic biblical faith,” meaning it is not the Global South leaving the CofE, but the CofE leaving the Anglican Communion.

Stunningly, this judgment is extended to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, leader of the Anglican Communion. Global South primates said they could no longer recognize Welby as the “‘first among equals’ Leader of the global Communion.”

The Global South and the rest of GAFCON will meet in April to further discuss the future of the Anglican Communion. Praise God, the Holy Spirit is working throughout the communion, and the orthodox primates have cast aside the growing heresy of false gospels in the West.

Here's hoping that Anglican leaders in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the United States repent and return to “the historic faith passed down from the Apostles.” We must pray that the Church of England will once again be faithful to “the historic biblical faith expressed in the Anglican formularies.” Otherwise, it will follow the other liberal churches into the dustbin of history.

I’m Calvin Robinson.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who helped put the program together this week: Jenny Rough, Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Carolina Lumetta, Lee Pitts, Whitney Williams, Joel Belz, Onize Ohikere, Janie B Cheaney, Jill Nelson, Brian Basham, Addie Offereins, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, and Collin Garbarino.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Lynde Langdon, Steve Kloosterman, Lauren Canterberry, Mary Muncy, Josh Schumacher, Anna Mandin, and Elias Ferenczy.

Making their debuts this week, a special welcome to Calvin Robinson and Lindsay Wolfgang Mast!

And thanks also to 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 with production assistance from Anna Johansen Brown, Lillian Hamman, Benj Eicher, Emily Whitten, and Bekah McCallum.

Paul Butler is our Executive Producer.

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 says, On the first day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You should not do any ordinary work. It is a day for you to blow the trumpets and you shall offer a burnt offering, for a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

Numbers chapter 29 verses 1 and 2.

Remember to worship the Lord this weekend with your brothers and sisters in Christ! Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.