The World and Everything in It: March 31, 2026

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MARY REICHARD, HOST:  Good morning!

More American troops in the Middle East—as the U.S. looks for its next lever to force Iran to the table, short of a full-scale invasion. We’ll talk with an expert.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, a mother’s warning about the dangers of social media for kids.

And, Gen Z’s dating rut. We’ll have a report.

Later: How sound shapes the way a congregation worships.

MORGAN: You’ve got the music and then you’ve got spoken word right next to each other, and usually they want pretty opposite things acoustically.

And WORLD commentator Bethel McGrew on the criminalization of Christian speech in Europe.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, March 31st. 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: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump threatens Iran w/obliteration if no deal in a week » President Trump is threatening devastating damage to Iran’s infrastructure if that Middle Eastern nation doesn’t reach a deal soon to end the U.S.-Israeli air campaign Operation Epic Fury.

In a social media post, the president said great progress is being made in peace talks with Iran while also threatening that the U.S. will completely obliterate Iran’s power plants, oil wells, and possibly even plants that supply drinking water if a deal to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz isn’t in place shortly.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt:

LEAVITT: This remains a truly once in a generation opportunity for the regime to make a good deal with the United States, permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions, and stop acting as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

Trump says he’s negotiating with the speaker of Iran’s parliament, though the speaker denies the talks. A few days ago, the president said he’d hold off on bombing key Iranian infrastructure until April 6th, and there’s no indication that date has changed.

While Trump says negotiations are moving in the right direction, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman has a different view, calling the peace proposal from the White House “excessive, unrealistic, and irrational.”

SOUND: [Sirens, blast]

Meantime, more retaliatory strikes from Iran and its proxies on key infrastructure of Israel and other U.S. Middle East allies Monday as the U.S. and Israel blistered Iran with fresh strikes of their own.

Middle East allies like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait are urging the U.S. to continue Epic Fury until Iran’s leadership or behavior has changed significantly. They say Iran hasn’t been weakened enough yet.

The U.S. is preparing to possibly send in ground troops for special, targeted missions short of a full ground invasion, like seizing Iran’s oil facilities or enriched uranium.

FBI: Michigan synagogue attack inspired by Hezbollah » The gunman who plowed his truck into a synagogue in Michigan earlier this month was inspired by the Islamic terror group Hezbollah. That’s the finding of the FBI.

RUNYAN: We assess this attack to be a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan.

That’s FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyon.

The gunman, a Lebanese national who entered the country in 2011 as the spouse of a U.S. citizen, drove his truck into the building while it served as a daycare. He ended up killing himself after exchanging gunshots with security.

Investigators have found he planned out the attack beforehand, searching online for where he could find large gatherings of Jews in Michigan, and had also posted anti-semitic sentiments online.

Children were inside the synagogue at the time of the attack, but they were all okay. 30 officers did need treatment for smoke inhalation.

TSA workers get paid, airport lines ease » Transportation Security Administration -TSA- workers finally started getting paid for the first time in a month and a half Monday. And as they did, those long security lines at America’s airports got a whole lot shorter.

TSA falls under the Department of Homeland Security -DHS- and is caught up in a political stalemate over DHS funding. TSA Officer Aaron Barker says he didn’t receive his full back pay yet, but anything coming in right now helps.

BARKER: This morning I did receive a deposit into my account, as many of my colleagues have… That money is needed in order to get some sense of normalcy back to officers’ everyday lives.

Hundreds of TSA workers quit and large numbers called in sick over the past few weeks, leading to very long lines at airport security checkpoints.

Monday, those lines were generally way down. At Houston’s main airport, the wait went from about four hours over the weekend to roughly 10 minutes Monday.

Controversy with other DHS agencies responsible for immigration enforcement and border patrol sparked the standoff. After two U.S. citizens died in confrontations over immigration raids this year, Democrats are refusing to fully fund DHS unless there are reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, and Customs and Border Patrol.

GOP meets, fails to pass DHS bill, not planning to return » The lack of a DHS funding deal isn’t keeping lawmakers on Capitol Hill from their Easter recess.

The Senate met for 31 seconds Monday, giving Republicans the theoretical possibility of passing a House bill via unanimous consent that would’ve funded DHS for two months.

But Democrats squelched such a political maneuver, making sure Senator Chris Coons of Delaware was there as a watchdog and the Senate recessed without voting.

COONS: Just in case a Republican member showed up and said, ‘I ask unanimous consent that we fund ICE and Border Patrol, or that we adopt the House bill, I was there to object.

Republicans argue the reforms Democrats want -like barring agents from wearing masks and making them prove their identity- would make those agents less safe.

Now, both chambers are on a two-week Easter recess. The White House is still urging the Senate to come back to try to pass key priorities like DHS funding. President Trump says he’ll host an Easter dinner for lawmakers if they do.

Student shoots teacher, self in Texas school » A 15-year-old student shot a teacher, then fatally shot himself at a high school near San Antonio Monday morning.

Another student at the school, Jesse Garza, described the scene to KSAT-TV:

GARZA: All I know is that there were three to four gunshots. It sounded like, it sounded like a table slamming down. And then I heard someone scream… Everyone just like ran out the back, to the bus area.

The gunfire rang out at Hill Country College Preparatory High School in the city of Bulverde. Medics took the teacher to a hospital nearby. No official word on the teacher’s condition, or on what exactly led to the shooting.

Afterward, school officials took students to a middle school nearby to reunite with their parents. Classes at the high school are canceled today, but counselors will be on hand if students or families need to talk.

And I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: A former Special Forces officer on the balancing act the U.S. is trying to pull off in Iran. And later, why Gen Z appears to be dating less often than previous generations.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 31st of March.

You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

First up on The World and Everything in It. America’s new options in Iran.

Over the weekend, the U.S. deployed more troops to the Middle East, bringing the number of troops near the ground to more than 50,000.

This comes as the President threatens more strikes on Iran’s energy sector if the country’s new leaders do not negotiate the end of its weapons programs.

TRUMP: We're doing extremely well in that negotiation, but you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them, and then we always have to blow them up.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about the operation is retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mike Nelson…he’s now Chief of Staff for the University of Pennsylvania’s Washington, D.C. office. He previously served in the Middle East with U.S. Special Forces.

Mike, good morning.

MIKE NELSON: Good morning. Thanks for having me here.

REICHARD: Well, let's just start with what the U.S. has accomplished so far. How far have the U.S. and Israel gotten to achieve its four military objectives? And I believe that's destroying Iran's missile program, sinking its navy, ending its nuclear program, and then halting its support for international terror.

NELSON: For the purposes of your question, I think it's important to focus on two of those: destroying the Navy and destroying the ballistic missile capability. And at one point in time, the President had kind of expanded that second one to destroying the industrial base that allows them to produce some of these missiles. To answer that, United States Central Command has been incredibly effective, as well as the Israelis, at targeting these military capabilities that the Iranians had prior to the beginning of the conflict, and have been severely diminished since. The key problem, I think right now is those last two of the four that you specified that the President enumerated before—ending the nuclear program and a lack of support for the regional proxies—short of truly removing the regime and the people who would make the decisions to sponsor both of those programs, this is going to require some kind of agreement from the Iranian regime that they are going to end those activities, or agree to some kind of negotiation where we have some kind of verification of that. So there's going to be either a changing in what we determine the end state of this operation is, or some kind of need to ramp up the pressure, both militarily and diplomatically, so that the regime eventually capitulates.

REICHARD: What do we know about Iran's lethality these days? On Friday, 12 Americans in Saudi Arabia were wounded in an Iranian strike. So what do we know?

NELSON: The regime does not want to capitulate. The regime is choosing a path of resistance rather rather than concession, and to that end, they are using different levers that they have at their at their disposal to achieve some kind of pressure back towards us. We saw in the initial days that they kind of lashed out with some of their ballistic missiles around the region with not very good effects, they were able to, unfortunately kill several U.S. service members in Kuwait, and then we've had several casualties since then. We also saw that they've been able to target key capabilities like the E-3 aircraft that was destroyed in Saudi Arabia just over the weekend. So the Iranians are trying to be creative, they are trying to resist. I think they may be trying to entertain certain kinds of non-standard and asymmetric attacks to try to achieve some kind of pressure against us.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about options. The Pentagon says sending 2500 additional Marines and around 2000 Army paratroopers gives the US more options. What are those?

NELSON: The first thing I think we should get out of the way is we are not necessarily talking about a repeat of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2003, large scale invasion of Iran. The President may be considering options for specific capabilities that he wants to bring to bear in the campaign, and those are largely, I think, can be binned in three different categories. The first one, right now, through our air and maritime campaigns, we've brought some amount of leverage and pressure against Iran, but not enough to change their calculus. So the President may be looking at the next lever to try to increase that pressure, to make them change their decisions. So that would be the kind of thing we've heard talked about with the seizing of Kharg Island, this is a significant hub for their oil trade, and removing that seizing it could increase the pressure and try to make them compelled to agree to some of the things that the President has said he's wanted in the end state. The second option would be something to try to remove some of the Iranian capabilities that they're using to try to fight against us. So we've seen the Iranians try to use missiles, fast moving boats and drones to interdict maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, so potentially using the Marines or other forces to clear out the littoral zone just in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz to push back Iranian capability project power against maritime traffic. And then the third option, which I think is being discussed, and you can see this from some of the specialty capabilities that are being deployed, is a raid to secure the enriched uranium that we know was left over after Midnight Hammer from last summer. This will require excavation, securing, moving thousands of pounds of this stuff onto aircraft and exfiltrating it so some kind of multi day, or up to a week long raid by specialized forces that would secure that material and remove it so that the President can say now we've also removed the remaining nuclear material that could be used for additional enrichment or weaponization.

REICHARD: You know, the strategy here looks to be a mix of lethal force and diplomacy, very Trumpian in its approach. You might say, What do you think it's going to take to really force Iran to the table?

NELSON: The regime now probably believes that they are in a fight for their own survival, and whatever conditions they're going to agree to have to be something that allowed them or they're going to seek conditions that allow them to very quickly determine a new deterrent capability to replace the ones that were lost. So I don't think that short of some kind of truly verifiable agreement, I don't think we're going to end up with a regime that is more compliant and willing to work with the coalition of nations. I think we're going to end up with a regime that is probably more resistant in the long term, and looking for some way to try to ramp up capabilities, either those that were destroyed, to replace those, or find some new deterrent.

REICHARD: Mike Nelson is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel…and chief of staff for Penn Washington. Mike, thank you so much for taking time with us today.

NELSON: Thank you for having me again.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: parents keep the pressure on social media companies. This story contains details of a young person’s self harm. We’ll resume in a moment.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Last week, courts in California and New Mexico ruled that social media companies harmed young people and showed that social media platforms can be held responsible under certain conditions.

EICHER: Combined, the courts hit Meta with penalties and damage awards totaling about 400 million dollars. That’s a drop in the bucket of the company’s more than one trillion dollar value… but the wins open the door for thousands of similar lawsuits already in the works.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy talked to one mother waiting to bring her daughter’s case to court.

MARY MUNCY: In 2022, Cheryl McCormick Brown’s 16-year-old daughter committed suicide after being bullied online.

McKenna shared the family’s strong Christian faith. She volunteered at her school in Tampa, Florida, and was a hockey player.

BROWN: She traveled just about every weekend for practice and games and played at the highest levels of competitive hockey. She was a goalie, which she was fearless in many ways, she was resilient in many ways, which, you know, I certainly recognize some irony there.

She also used Snapchat and Instagram just like her friends.

BROWN: We thought the platforms were safe, you know, they came with the phone, you know, and she was of age.

The summer before McKenna’s senior year, Brown says she became more withdrawn… She was constantly tired and constantly on her phone.

BROWN: We’d think that we’d go to bed, and that she was going to bed up in her room, and she’s tired the next morning like she was, you know, was on her phone.

Brown says that summer, McKenna got caught up in some “teenage boy drama.” People in her school tried to humiliate her online. Calling her names and accusing her of “stealing a boyfriend.”

BROWN: Trying, and I can quote, “trying to leave her without a single friend.”

Brown believes social media algorithms contributed to McKenna’s death by pushing content that reinforced her negative thinking, and she says the design of the platforms kept McKenna from coming up for air.

BROWN: The infinite scroll, the constant notifications, the algorithms pushing that content that it was all designed to be, to target kids that were younger than were even allowed to be on the platform.

But social media companies—and some libertarian policy groups—dispute that.

HUDDLESTON: When we look at these particular proposals around young people, I think we have to ask two questions. First, would these actually make the situation any better?

Jennifer Huddleston is a Senior Fellow with the Cato Institute. She says parents have always been concerned about what their kids are viewing, whether that’s video games or comic books. But different kids have different needs, and parents should be the ones choosing what they use. Not the government.

HUDDLESTON: The second though is, what does this mean for all users of the internet?

Any new laws must either affect all of social media or use some kind of age verification.

HUDDLESTON: We have to think, not only what does this mean for tech companies, but what does this mean for users, and what does it particularly mean for those users who in a more traditional media ecosystem might not have had the same opportunities.

Brown thinks any harm that might come from these laws is worth it.

After McKenna died, Brown filed a lawsuit with the Social Media Victims Law Center—the same firm that just won a case against Meta and YouTube in Los Angeles.

In that landmark case, a 20-year-old identified in court records as “KGM” said social media use as a child harmed her mental health, and that social media companies deliberately designed products to target vulnerable children.

The jury found that YouTube and Meta were negligent in their platform design features and awarded KGM three million dollars.

When Brown heard that KGM won her case in California, she cried.

BROWN: We know that the risks are real, and now that they’ve been proven in court that has a lot to do with feeling seen and feeling validated.

During the trial, KGM’s lawyers pointed to an internal Meta document showing the company wanted to hook children young and keep them through their teenage years. In one message, a Meta employee called Instagram a “drug” and the company’s role that of a “pusher.”

It also revealed several internal studies that were not previously made public. One showed millions of users under the minimum age of 13 were on the platform in 2015, another showed that parental controls failed to keep children off the platform.

BROWN: This case wasn’t about one bad person online, it was about systems that connect kids to harm. And yes, parents should be involved, and need to be involved, but they can’t do it alone.

Brown hopes this court decision will give Congress and states momentum to regulate social media platforms’ design.

Brown has been advocating for one bill called the Kids Online Safety Act. It overwhelmingly passed in the Senate in 2024 but stalled in the House. It’s being reconsidered this term.

For now, Brown’s lawyers are waiting to bring her case until a few other bellwether cases are litigated.

She says she and her family have learned a lot since McKenna’s death.

BROWN: That’s why we’re trying to be transparent with McKenna’s story and to help other families and prevent other kids from, you know, turning to the same outcome.

It’s a caution Brown says she wishes she’d heard herself, before it was too late for her daughter.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in Tampa, Florida.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next: Are Gen Zers dating less?

Last month, the Institute for Family Studies released the results of a survey about dating. They interviewed more than 5,000 young adults … and found that most had either not been on a date in the past year or had only gone on just a couple of them.

Researchers say this may mean a future with fewer marriages.

WORLD’s Juliana Chan Erikson has the story.

JULIANA CHAN ERIKSON: Wish Shao is a 22 year old graduate student who wants to get married and have kids one day. She says that makes her an outlier among her peers.

WISH SHAO: When I brought it up to my cohorts, like, oh, you know what? I want to be a mom one day. I really don't mind becoming a housewife. I think it's a very honorable job. They all just stared at me, like, what? How can a PhD student say that?

But Shao says it’s hard to find someone to date, even in her college town.

SHAO: It seems like people don't want to try. They want to put in, like, minimal effort to give it a shot.

A survey by the Institute for Family Studies seems to echo Shao’s observations. The Institute surveyed 5,275 young adults between the ages of 22 and 35 about their dating habits. It found that 74 percent of women and 64 percent of men had never been on a date or only dated sporadically in the past year.

Some say Gen Z is putting off dating because Americans are putting off marriage. According to U.S. census data, the average American woman is 28 at her first marriage. Men are nearly 31. Fifty years ago, women were 21 and men 25 at their first wedding.

Experts say older Americans likely felt pressure to stay on the same life track as their peers when it came to dating and marriage.

Lisa Anderson is director of young adults for Focus on the Family.

LISA ANDERSON: You saw this play out in churches where, you know, if you weren't, if you weren't finishing college and going into the young marrieds group, there wasn't really anywhere for you to go.

But Gen Z, not so much. Anderson says that without the pressure to marry, young adults are left with lots of options, but no clear direction.

ANDERSON: Dating can be fun, but to what end? So without having, like, a story arc around dating and where's this actually going, it just leaves a lot of young adults saying, you know, I could take it or leave it, or maybe it'll hit me.

Young adults also admitted they don’t have dating skills. Only 36 percent of the respondents said they felt confident reading social cues. Forty five percent also said they’ve passed up dates after too many bad experiences.

Josiah Dolan is a 22 year old college student in Colorado Springs. He told WORLD that guys get conflicting signals about how a modern man should behave. That makes it hard to ask a woman out.

JOSIAH DOLAN: We don't want to make the wrong move, we don't want to upset anybody and I think that sort of resilience, that confidence and that outgoingness of what a male should be in a relationship, kind of definitely takes a hit.

Meanwhile, Shao says young women like her often set their sights too high.

SHAO: All my friends, they are very pretty girls and highly achieved. But, yeah, including myself, we have kind of like high expectations that we don't really see day to day around us.

Several young adults blamed dating apps for taking the joy out of the process. Reports vary, but anywhere from a quarter to a half of young adults use dating apps. But usage is declining among Gen Z.

ASHLEIGH BISHOP: Dating fatigue is definitely something that's on, on the minds and the forefronts of many people within the dating sector.

Ashleigh Bishop is with the Online Dating and Discovery Association. She admitted that users complained about spending more time swiping than actually going on dates. But she says companies are already coming up with solutions.

BISHOP: Apps that are introducing AI, almost like Wingman, you know, they're coming in their partners, they're helping you have better conversations, not to replace you, but to give you prompts or ways to have or start a conversation.

Some dating app users say they’re skeptical. Marco Gonzalez is a 25 year old engineer in Milwaukee. He uses Hinge, a popular dating app.

MARCO GONZALEZ: If you went on a date with somebody, like, on the date, for example, you're not gonna like, whip out your phone and be like, hey, Wingman. Like, what do I say next?

Still, that hasn’t stopped him from using the dating platform. That’s actually how he found the woman he’s currently seeing.

GONZALEZ: I actually met her through Hinge, believe it or not, which is, I think it's funny that all my attempts in person did not work, but somehow the Hinge one is working pretty well.

I asked Gonzalez what his expectations are, and he said he’s aiming high.

GONZALEZ: Yes, that is my hope. That is my hope, to be married.

Researchers from the Institute for Family Studies say some people just need help learning how to date. They encourage young adults to get training, like through dating boot camps and counseling. They also say it’s good to remind everyone about what Gonzalez already knows: the whole point of dating is to find someone to marry.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Juliana Chan Erikson.

NICK EICHER, HOST: At Philadelphia International Airport, just like everywhere else, travelers are expecting very long lines.

But on National Cheesesteak Day in Philly, the longest line wasn’t at security. It was lunch.

Organizers set out to break a Guinness World Record — lining up more than 1,200 cheesesteaks end to delicious end inside the terminal.

LEJEUNE: So today we accomplished that goal here in Philadelphia.

Once the record was certified, the sandwiches went to travelers, airport staff, and a group that could not be more deserving.

EMPRIC: Once the record was certified, the sandwiches went to travelers … airport staff … and a group that could not be more deserving.

Finally, a long line you don’t mind getting into.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 31st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the art and science of church acoustics.

Music in church can spark strong opinions. But before style comes something more basic: how the room actually sounds.

WORLD’s Jenny Rough reports on how acoustics shape what we hear and how we worship.

SOUND: [Honking horn]

ANDY MORGAN: So we’re at the corner of East 91st Street and Lexington Avenue.

JENNY ROUGH: Andy Morgan lives and works in New York City. A place he describes as very, very loud.

SOUND: [Noise of New York]

That’s the last thing most people want to hear in church. And although churches do consider acoustics, it’s usually too late.

MORGAN: It’s usually after the design is already done that they sort of come back and say, okay now what do we do about the acoustics and the sound system?

Morgan is an acoustics consultant. He designs indoor spaces to enhance desired sounds and reduce obtrusive ones

MORGAN: Every time I tell a Christian what I do, they almost always tell me, Oh, I got to this great church, and we just built this new building, and we love it all, except the acoustics are terrible!

He worked on Redeemer East Side, a presbyterian church on the Upper East Side As soon as we step inside, the city sounds disappear. Even the church lobby is quiet.

SOUND: [Subway approaching]

MORGAN: One of the main subway lines is right outside. We don’t want to hear that.

And inside, you can’t, thanks to deliberate design choices.

When he planned the sanctuary, he had to keep in mind that this particular church offers a mix of services.

MORGAN: In the morning, they do a traditional service.

SOUND: [Organ music]

MORGAN: So there’s an organ, so they do mostly hymns.

Organs tend to require large open spaces. Think of a historic cathedral.

MORGAN: You want a highly reverberant space where the sound really echoes around and you feel like you’re enveloped in that organ sound.

But the evening service is totally different—

WORSHIP LEADER: Hey. How you all doing? Welcome to worship. [Singing Desert Song]

MORGAN: They’ve got a great gospel band here.

And that required other needs.

MORGAN: You want a really nice sound system and a really dead room. So you just hear exactly what’s coming out of the speakers without the room changing it.

Morgan had to consider how to create a space where both those styles sound good.

MORGAN: The walls in this room are all fabric, but most of them actually are on hard plywood backing. So it looks fuzzy [knocks walls] but acoustically it’s hard. So some of these panels selectively have different material behind them to absorb sound, fiberglass insulation.

Morgan has always liked music. After college, he took a job with a company that specialized in acoustics for concert halls, theaters, and opera houses. Then, seven years ago, he started his own firm.

MORGAN: And part of the reason is because I wanted to do a lot more work for churches.

Churches present a unique challenge. In concert halls and theaters, the sound has to go only one way: out from the performers to the listeners.

MORGAN: In a church it’s different because the people in the pews are actively participating. We have to think about the people in the pews hearing each other. That’s part of why we still get together and do corporate worship even though we could watch it online, right?

Another layer of complexity? The emphasis on preaching and liturgy.

MORGAN: In a church, you’ve got the music and then you’ve got the spoken word right next to each other and they both have to sound good, and usually they want pretty opposite things acoustically.

Morgan has worked with all sorts of denominations. Some have big choirs, others guitars, or drums, or no instruments at all.

Redeemer East Side purchased what used to be an apartment complex.

JOSH RIDER: So New York is a vertical city.

That’s Josh Rider. He’s the architect who worked with Morgan.

RIDER: So you have to build a church that used to be an apartment building into a vertical rectangle. And so you’re really seeing the edges of the property line on each side.

The two say this project was ideal because they were involved from the start. That enabled them to integrate the acoustics into the design and hide elements behind the walls.

Rider realized he could maximize the seating by turning the pews diagonal and adding a balcony on only the right side.

RIDER: And you can actually see the congregation in the balcony. They’re not behind you. It makes for a much more intimate experience.

But that presented another challenge because it made the sound asymmetrical. Morgan made adjustments so people would hear the same thing in their right ear as their left ear.

Churches that can’t afford to buy a building, often rent.

Morgan also worked with Exilic, a church that leases space within an office building. Sound travels slowly, so by the time the sound from the stage reached the back of the room, it was muddy. Morgan worked his audio magic to add speakers and delay sound coming from some of them by milliseconds for the perfect fix.

MORGAN: The sound from here and there moved together. They create what you call a cohesive wavefront.

Morgan says, historically, church design has always been intentional. Whether it’s the altar table for communion, the baptistry, the pulpit, or the cross. Likewise, a thoughtful soundscape brings a space to life. And Rider adds that in a church, that’s especially significant.

RIDER: And really that you could be here in stillness and serenity. It’s about how can the space support a deeper connection with the being we’re all worshipping.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough in New York City.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. There’s a pattern emerging across Europe—with recent court cases putting speech and religious expression to the test.

Here’s WORLD commentator Bethel McGrew.

BETHEL MCGREW: In 2019, Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen posted a Bible verse on social media, questioning her church’s support for a Pride event. That post triggered a years-long legal ordeal.

Authorities eventually dropped charges over the tweet—but not before digging up something else:

RÄSÄNEN: There became more and more criminal complaints about my writings… about the booklet that I had written 20 years ago… Male and Female He Created Them.

That pamphlet, outlining a traditional Christian view of homosexuality and the harmful effects of normalizing it, would become the basis for a so-called “hate speech” conviction. A court has now ordered the Christian lawmaker to pay fines, along with the conservative Lutheran bishop who helped her publish the pamphlet. They are considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In Europe more broadly, this is not an isolated case, as bureaucrats weaponize laws against so-called “conversion therapy” to crack down on the free expression of basic Christian doctrine.

In Iceland, a Catholic priest—Fr. Jakob Rolland—is under investigation for explaining church teaching during a radio interview. He made a careful distinction between same-sex attraction and same-sex behavior, urging repentance before receiving communion. Even this gentle answer was enough to trigger a complaint, with the possibility of jail time in his future.

A member of parliament went so far as to say Icelandic society “has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.”

Meanwhile, in Malta, a Christian man named Matthew Grechs spent three years in court—for sharing his own testimony about leaving the gay lifestyle on a radio program.

He was ultimately acquitted. But listen to how he describes the cost:

GRECHS: We won. The court has decided in our favor… but this law dragged us through a three-year process—for a simple conversation.

And even in victory, his warning is clear:

GRECHS: This law… is a weapon in the hands of activists… used to target any dissenting view around sexuality and gender.

Seventeen court appearances. Years of legal pressure, not just for Matthew but for the radio presenters who aired his testimony. Even when cases like this end happily, the process is the punishment. The message is clear: Some views may be expressed freely in the public square. Others may not.

In all of these cases, the conflict is disingenuously framed as protecting the dignity of sexual minorities. But it is traditional Christians who are pushed to the margins, in the name of “standing for the marginalized.” The game is zero-sum. One side will be normalized while the other is stigmatized.

But not without a fight. As Fr. Rolland in Iceland put it: “I must fight for the Lord. If we don’t speak up. No one does.”

For WORLD, I’m Bethel McGrew.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: We’ll talk about birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court on Washington Wednesday. And, helping kids understand the full story of Holy Week. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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, “Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.” —Deuteronomy 4:33-35

Go now in grace and peace.

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