The World and Everything in It: March 8, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi. My name is Jim Angel, and I live in Derwood, Maryland with my beautiful wife Janet and four cats. I am a retired choral director and listen to WORLD right after listening to my daily scripture readings. I trust you will enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Today on Culture Friday: worldview, word choices, and getting IVF right starts at home.

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet joined our World Journalism Institute class this week in Asheville and the students brought the questions.

Also today, Kung Fu Panda 4 and a new movie from the director of Sound of Freedom, a film called Cabrini:

AUDIO: I need an orphanage with more room. Where my children can be children.

And George Grant. Such a mensch! He’s going to schlep over to the mic and schmooze with us. Yiddish today on Word Play

REICHARD: It’s Friday, March 8th. 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: Time for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

AUDIO: Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: State of the union / Gaza port » President Biden walking to the podium last night before what was — in the words of some observers — a State of the Union address unlike any other.

Republicans and Democrats alike abandoned the traditional decorum of the event.

The president’s address sounded at times a lot like a campaign speech, repeatedly jabbing former President Trump without mentioning him by name.

SOUND (Montage): Now my predecessor … and my predecessor … my predecessor and some of you here …

Republican lawmakers sometimes interrupted the president with boos or shouts.

BIDEN: My predecessor failed in the most basic presidential duty that he owes to the American people, the duty to care.

MEMBER: Lies!

While Democrats occasionally interrupted him with chants of four more years.

AUDIO: Four more years! For more years!

President Biden, of course, touched on a wide range of topics from underscoring the need to provide more military aid to Ukraine — which drew applause from both sides of the aisle … to abortion, which did not.

For reversing the Roe v Wade decision, he scolded conservative Supreme Court justices seated at the front of the chamber, who sat stone faced, as they must.

The 81-year-old president also tackled concerns about his age.

BIDEN: I know it may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while.

He said the important thing for a leader is not his age, but having new ideas.

SOTU Republican response » Alabama Sen. Katie Britt delivered the Republican response. The 42-year-old lawmaker described the president’s speech this way:

BRITT: The performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I’ve been alive.

During his speech, Biden laid the blame for the border crisis at the feet of Republicans … for rejecting a Senate border security bill. But Senator Britt shot back …

BRITT: minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, he halted construction of the border wall, and he announced a plan to give amnesty to millions.

While the president said the state of the union is strong and growing, Britt argued that it is less prosperous and less safe as a result of Biden’s policies.

Laken Riley Act » Hours before the president took to the podium, the House passed a bill aimed at forcing a crackdown on migrant crime.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 251. The nays are 170. The bill is passed.

Nearly 40 Democrats joined all Republicans in backing the bill.

GOP Congressman Tom McClintock said the bill,

MCCLINTOCK: Would require this administration to detain illegal aliens who commit theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting, something simply refuses to do.

The bill is known as the Laken Riley act in honor of a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered last month while on a morning run.

The suspect in that case was in the country illegally. He was arrested for illegal entry, but then released inside the United States.

Sweden officially joins NATO » It was once thought unthinkable, but Sweden has officially joined the world’s largest military alliance.

The Nordic nation has been known for its longstanding neutrality since World War Two, but on Thursday Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was time to choose a side on the world stage.

KRISTERSSON: Sweden is, as was mentioned now, leaving 200 years of neutrality and military non-alignment behind. It’s a major step, but at the same time, a very natural step.

Like its neighbor Finland…Sweden moved to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken praised the move and offered his congratulations:

BLINKEN: This is a historic moment for Sweden. It’s historic for our alliance. It’s historic for the transatlantic relationship.

Finland joined NATO last year.

Uvalde report » A new report on the Robb Elementary School shooting put no blame on local police officers.

Officials in Uvalde, Texas presented the findings after a monthslong investigation ordered by the city.

Former Austin police detective Jesse Prado worked on that investigation and pointed to a lack of communication and training.

PRADO: I don’t believe they’ve ever been to any extensive breaching classes. I don’t believe — well, they had not practiced since before COVID.

The report defended the actions of city police despite acknowledging a series of rippling failures during the response.

But Kimberly Mata-Rubio, the mother of a 10-year-old victim, said officers put their own safety above that of the students.

RUBIO: You said that it was best, that there was no way to go in. It was for their safety. It was not for the safety of children. How dare you?!

Several family members of victims walked out in anger midway through the presentation.

The 2022 mass shooting left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Disney proxy fight » A proxy battle at Disney is heating up with strong culture war implications.

Investor Nelson Peltz and former Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo are vying for seats on Disney’s board of directors. And they’re making their pitch to anyone with Disney stock ahead of the annual shareholder meeting next month.

The pair fielded questions during a Q&A Thursday with one shareholder asking about restoring safe, family-friendly content at Disney. Rasulo said when he was the company’s CFO,

RASULO: People saw the Disney name on a movie, they never asked the question that the shareholder’s asking — Can I take my family to this movie, and are they going to have a good time, and am I not going to have to go home and explain what was going on?

Over the past couple of years, Disney shows and movies aimed at kids have contained overt pro-LGBT themes including a lesbian kiss in 2022 Buzz Lightyear movie.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has conceded that the company’s activism has become too overt. But Peltz says it should go away entirely.

PELTZ: When people go into a movie, they want to escape. You don’t want to hear about all of the issues of the day.

Peltz and Rasulo also expressed concern that Disney parks are overpriced, and that executive pay is not aligned with the shareholder returns.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, this month’s Word Play.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Friday the eighth of March, 2024.

Thanks for joining us for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for culture Friday. Joining us is John Stonestreet, the President of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. John, good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: Well, John, I am among this year's World Journalism Institute Mid-Career class in Asheville, North Carolina this week. We are in the classroom, several students submitted questions, and I've invited them to step right up and ask. So let's jump in. And we will begin with Herschel Forester of Garland, Texas.

HERSCHEL FORESTER: John, how would you answer someone who says “If you have Biblical worldview, then you're biased, you can't be objective”? WORLD produces sound journalism grounded in facts and biblical truth. How would you contrast that approach with other news sources that produce sound journalism, grounded in facts, but stop short of grounding their journalism in the Bible as the source for ultimate truth?

STONESTREET: Well, I think the easy answer is that everyone’s grounding their writing, their journalism in something. In other words, no one’s coming at this from neutral ground. No one’s coming at this without a worldview. I think it was Francis Schaeffer, who said, “To be human has to have a worldview.” It doesn't mean that everyone’s aware of their worldview, right? Doesn’t mean that if you walk up to someone on the street and said, “Hey, what's your worldview?” They’d probably think you’re weird and run away from you, unless you were in Asheville. Asheville is kind of weird, so they kind of liked that kind of stuff. But in the rest of the world, not so much.

But if you stop people in the street, and you said, “Hey, you know what's right and wrong, and how do we know? What's the real problem with the world? Who are the good guys? Who were the bad guys? Or where did everything come from? What do you think it's all about, what's worth loving, what do you love more than anything?” You ask those kinds of ultimate questions, everyone's going to have an answer. And everyone's going to have a set of assumptions. And these are beliefs that you don't normally think about, but they're beliefs you always think with. And that is really at the heart what a worldview is. It's the beliefs you think with not necessarily the beliefs that you think about. Sometimes we realize what those beliefs are. But for a lot of us, it's like contact lenses. They're in, they're shaping how we see stuff, but we're not looking at them, we're looking through them. And we can forget we even put them in that morning.

So, I think the best way forward there is to point out that no one's neutral. Everyone's coming from some sort of bias. Everyone's coming from a set of assumptions about life in the world. Now those assumptions might be true, they might be false, they may negatively impact how you tell the story. They may positively impact how you tell the story the same way that glasses do if we are all wearing prescription glasses. That prescription might help us see the world war clearly. It might keep us from seeing the world clearly. And so that's why we have to go back and examine them.

EICHER: All right, John, Ladisa Onyilioogwu of Loganville, Georgia is next, and she has a question for you.

LADISA ONYILIOOGWU: In our journalism discussions here, we have talked about the influence of the Associated Press. And one of our conversations was around AP's annual style book and usage guide. And it's right there where I see a lot of bad cultural influences begin to take root—so much of the transgender language as a most recent example. I just think of Ephesians chapter 4:14, and human cunning craftiness in deceitful schemes. John, I’d love your advice for Christian journalists on how to deal with this craftiness in the newsroom and remain faithful to Christ.

STONESTREET: Yeah, I love the question, and I can't tell you how much I agree. And this is where our postmodern friends get it right: the power of language to really create reality. Where they get it wrong, is saying that all of reality is a social construct of human language. Humans have that creative ability because we are made in the image and likeness of God, but ultimate reality comes from the language of God. So you read in Genesis chapter one, that language is at the root of reality, but it ain't ours, it's God's language that is. And we do have kind of creative power as well. And that can be creative power to lead people towards truth or away from truth, to lead towards a proper understanding of who they are or away from it. And so when it comes to some fields, journalism being one of them,

I think Christians have to be fierce defenders of true language and fierce opponents of false language. And so don't compromise on language, don't give in there. This is the Alexander Solzhenitsyn "live not by lies" call that he gave his fellow Russian citizens before he was exiled from that nation. You don't have to show up to every rally. You don't have to rant and rave and get angry about everything. But just don't say things that aren't true. That's just going to be a, you know, kind of the first commitment of a Christian.

I think the other thing is not just don't say what's not true, but encourage people to define the terms that they use, so that you can help them point to the ideas that are being smuggled in, maybe that they don't even know. You know, I think that question, “What do you mean by that?” is probably the most powerful question that you can have in your back pocket. And highlighting where definitions are being smuggled into stories, particularly when those in power do it. I think that's all stuff that's worthy of being highlighted, whether true or false. You know, I think that's going to be a task of truth-tellers, like, like journalists are, or should be.

The other thing I would say in all this is that bad ideas can be really sticky. And they oftentimes are really sticky, because they're reinforced by power, not by truth. And so you're gonna have to pay a price for fighting for words. That's going to be inevitable. You know, you might call it the theology of getting canceled, the theology of getting fired, or whatever. But you're going to have to be willing, I think, at some time to take the shot that is going to come if you are a truth teller in an age like ours. So yeah, those are, those are the two things that come to mind there. Good question.

EICHER: Yeah. Yeah, agreed. All right, John, the last question we have time for: this is Angela Harris. And she is from Raleigh, North Carolina.

ANGELA HARRIS: You've talked a lot about IVF in recent weeks, and I've heard you talk about how unpopular pro life positions are. My question is, how can a Christian be salt and light when discussing IVF with our neighbors?

STONESTREET: Yeah, that's a great question. And a shout out to Raleigh, particularly my friends at Prime Barbecue. Have you had Prime Barbecue yet, there outside of Raleigh?

HARRIS: I have not. It's on my list of places to go. But haven't tried it yet. I hear they run out if you don't get there in time.

STONESTREET: They run out. Yeah, no, it is. I know there's some Texans in the room there that probably rolling their eyes. But you just I'm telling you, this is as good as anything you'll get in Texas.

EICHER: Hey, John, actually, there is another student from Raleigh, who attests to what you're saying.

STONESTREET: There we go. Good, good, that's true. So I just want to give a shout out. And Nick, you need to make sure that makes the edit into the final cut there.

Hey, listen, IVF is a really difficult thing, because the cat is so far out of the bag. And I think that when it comes to these sorts of confusing moral issues, we need to be salt and light inside our own homes, inside our own churches, having a catechism that actually is big enough to address the moral implications of Christian truth.

The other thing that we're never going to be able to do without it is that we've somehow got to teach the doctrine of the image of God in its fullness. And I think right now, if you went from church, to church, to church, and you just said, “Hey, everybody, fill in the blank. Humans are made___” And everyone would say together "image of God." And then we'd say, “Well, what does that mean?” And then you'd hear a lot of crickets. Because I think it's become really a matter of Christian trivia. It's something we like to trot out when it has something to do with something we believe in. But really wrestling with the full implications of what it means to be made in the image of God, what it means to be made in the image of God, male and female, what it means to be made in the image of God, male and female that become one flesh in the sanctity of marriage, and the kind of the sacred implications that that has for human relationships. And our catechisms are not keeping up, our catechizing is not keeping up with the ethical dilemmas. In fact, our ethics aren't keeping up with the ethical dilemmas, the church is not anywhere close on this.

It's going to have to start inside our own house, I guess, I would say, before, we're going to actually be able to say the hard thing out loud. That doesn't mean we don't say the hard thing out loud right now. It's just going to be a lot harder. We're gonna, people are gonna look at us, like, we're crazy. But I'm used to that. I mean, when you talk about the sacredness of human sexuality, you know, basically trying to unravel to some level, the implications for marriage and sexuality in our public lives, of this idea that humans are made in the image of God, Christians look at you like you're crazy, you know?

I think we can see this, for example, in recent conversations about should Christians attend a same-sex marriage? That was a big controversy over the last couple weeks. And I think what's interesting is what that whole thing revealed is that there's still an awful lot of Christians who believe that a wedding is a party. So why wouldn’t you go to a party and celebrate somebody's happiness? But what if a wedding is something else? What if a wedding is a reflection of some of these implications of being made in the image of God, male and female? Now, now we're talking about something other than a party. And the ethical analysis has to be a whole lot more robust. That's what I think is missing in the process.

EICHER: Good discussion. John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center. He’s host of the Breakpoint podcast. John, thank you.

STONESTREET: You bet, thanks a lot.

EICHER: And let's all say thanks to John.

AUDIO: [Class clapping and saying thanks] 

STONESTREET: Thanks, everybody. 

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, March 8. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: checking in on the movies now in theaters. Last weekend, Dune: Part Two became the first big hit of 2024 raking in more than 82 million dollars domestically.

EICHER: This weekend, a couple of new movies hope to overtake Dune. Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino to tell us about the films Cabrini and Kung Fu Panda 4.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Last year, director Alejandro Monteverde made a name for himself when his Sound of Freedom became the surprise hit of the summer. Now he’s back with another Angel Studios film about the intrinsic dignity of all people. Cabrini tells the story of Francesca Cabrini, the Roman Catholic nun from Italy who founded hospitals and orphanages at the end of the 19th century.

FRANCESCA CABRINI: Open your eyes. See everything. This is who we’ve come to serve.

The pope sends Mother Cabrini to America and charges her with alleviating the suffering of the poor Italian immigrants who have flocked to New York City. But she must overcome innumerable obstacles in her mission. The need is great but her resources are few. Neither the church nor the city government seem interested in giving her the support she needs.

CABRINI: I need your help. I need an orphanage with more room where my children can be children.

Italian actress Cristiana Dell'Anna plays Cabrini with the right mix of heartfelt compassion and steely determination. David Morse and John Lithgow also give solid performances as some of the men who are less than enthusiastic about her mission.

On the whole, Monteverde and Angel Studios have produced a movie that rivals any Hollywood biopic in its production values. The sets and costumes communicate the grime and the glamor of New York at the end of the 19th century, and the cinematography and the lighting effects are excellent. Monteverde adds to the realism by filming many scenes in Italian adding English subtitles.

CABRINI: [Speaking Italian]

But Monteverde seems to have taken another cue from Hollywood when portraying the story’s religious aspect. He keeps things pretty vague. For a story about a Roman Catholic nun, there’s surprisingly little talk about God or religion. Cabrini speaks about her vision of building an “empire of hope,” but it’s couched in terms of personal ambition rather than a divine calling, and the “hope” she refers to seems to be the alleviation of poverty rather than an eternal hope in the gospel. Jesus remains invisible in the film. Even when Cabrini quotes a familiar Bible verse about Christ, she conspicuously leaves out his name.

CABRINI: You can do all things… all things in Him who strengthens us.

The movie’s focus isn’t really faith, but rather the dangers of prejudice. Monteverde highlights the plight of the Italian immigrants, and it seems the Mexican director is using it to remind us of the contemporary situation at America’s southern border. He wants Cabrini’s story to teach us that all God’s children are entitled to dignity.

Cabrini is rated PG-13 for some heavy themes, but our next film is aimed at families looking for something to entertain the kids.

Kung Fu Panda 4 continues the adventures of the loveable, guileless Dragon Warrior. Jack Black returns as kung fu master Po, and this time he’s facing one of his biggest challenges. Letting go.

SHIFU: Oogway chose you as his successor, and now you must choose yours.

PO: Master Shifu, I finally found something I’m good at and now you just want to take it away from me?

Po is expected to step down as the protector of the Valley of Peace and assume the mantle of spiritual leader… a job that involves spouting proverbs rather than fighting bad guys.

But a new threat requires him to put off finding a successor. The Chameleon, voiced by a menacing Viola Davis, plans to use her shapeshifting powers to take over the world. To help him find the Chameleon, Po enlists the help of Zhen, voiced by Awkwafina, a street-smart corsac fox with larcenous tendencies.

ZHEN: Well then. Come and get it.

PO: No! No, no, no, no… Don’t come and get it.

BOAR: Destroy them!

If you’re familiar with the other installments in this 16-year-old franchise, you’ll know exactly what to expect from Kung Fu Panda 4. It’s rated PG for its martial-arts action and some mild rude humor. There’s also some babble about eastern spirituality. Folks who haven’t seen the previous installments might wonder why Po has two dads, but there’s no LGBT agenda here. One is his adoptive father, and the other’s his biological father with whom he was reunited late in life.

PING: Li, would you please show a little backbone?

LI: I’m sorry, but bravery was never really my specialty.

Other than using some cool dynamic camera techniques, Kung Fu Panda 4 doesn’t break any new ground. In fact, the trope of having the old hero pass the mantle off to a young girl is wearing pretty thin with me. But that said, it’s still an entertaining movie and will certainly please fans of the franchise.

Perhaps the thing that’s most amazing about Kung Fu Panda 4 is that DreamWorks spent much less than half of what Disney spends on its animated movies. This movie is better than Disney’s recent films, and unlike Disney, DreamWorks will certainly turn a profit with this family-friendly entertainment.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Friday March 8. 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. Up next: WORLD commentator George Grant with his monthly schtick, Word Play.

GEORGE GRANT: The February issue of the New Criterion includes a short story by the legendary filmmaker Woody Allen. Though it often features poetry, book reviews, and serious literary criticism, Allen’s “Breakfast Special” is the first ever piece of fiction in the publication’s forty-two-year history. That unprecedented editorial decision, along with the swirl of controversy surrounding the author, has created something of a media ruckus. But what caught my eye was Allen’s deft use of language.

The tale centers on the experiences of a character named Murray Tempkin. He is described as “a slim, bespectacled thirty-year-old writer, who on a good hair day resembles a scientist or an intellectual but should the weather turn humid looks more like some kind of meshuggener.”

I had never run across that term before. It turns out, meshuggener is a Yiddish word meaning “foolish,” “daft,” “outlandish” or “crazy.” What a great word.

Yiddish has gifted modern English with a whole arsenal of colorful expressions. A Germanic dialect, originally spoken by Central European Jews, Yiddish is a linguistic stew with Hebrew, Slavic, Germanic, and Latin roots.

My father grew up in a German Catholic neighborhood in the Midwest. Nevertheless, he often used Yiddish words like chutzpah, glitch, klutz, and schmuck. He referred to his nose as a schnoz, to a sales pitch as a schpiel, to knickknacks around the house as tchotchkes, to junk as schlock, to complaining as kvetching, and to midday snacking as noshing.

And speaking of food, Yiddish words like bagels, blintzes, borscht, kosher, lox, matzah, and schmear often appear in our cookbooks, grocery aisles, and restaurant menus.

I learned dreidel from Don McLean’s American Pie album, schlepping from I Love Lucy reruns, schlemiel from the sitcom Laverne and Shirley, golem from J.R.R. Tolkien, and shrek from the cartoon character voiced by Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers.

Oy veh! Who knew we had so many Yiddish words in our everyday parlance?

Mazel tov!

I’m George Grant.

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

David Bahnsen, Daniel Suhr, Emily Whitten, A.S. Ibrahim, Onize Ohikere, Addie Offereins, Janie B. Cheaney, Hunter Baker, Myrna Brown, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Collin Garbarino, and George Grant.

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.

MARY REICHARD, 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, Mary Muncy, 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.

The Psalmist writes: “Let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him! Let all the upright in heart exult!” —Psalm 64:10

I hope you’ll 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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