The World and Everything in It - May 14, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Is the Roman Catholic Church headed for schism? German priests are openly defying Rome over same-sex marriage.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Culture Friday.

Also today, a new movie for teens that offers a little positivity, if not exactly perfection.

And the woman behind today’s most popular worship song.

BROWN: It’s Friday, May 14th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: CDC relaxes mask guidance » The CDC says it’s time to take one giant step back toward normalcy. Director Rochelle Walensky said Thursday,

WALENSKY: Once you are fully vaccinated, two weeks after your last dose, you can shed your mask.

For the most part.

The agency’s still asking everyone to wear a mask in certain crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, and hospitals. But it says fully vaccinated Americans don’t need their masks in most indoor settings, and they don’t need them outside even in large crowds.

President Biden celebrated the news in the Rose Garden.

BIDEN: This is a great day for America in our long battle with coronavirus.

The CDC says those who are not fully vaccinated should continue to wear masks indoors.

The easing of mask guidelines comes as more Americans are getting vaccinated, and new cases and COVID-19 deaths continue to drop.

Pipeline once again flowing, but fuel shortages persist » President Biden also announced on Thursday ...

BIDEN: This morning, Colonial reported that fuel is beginning to flow to the majority of the markets that they service.

The disruption of Colonial Pipeline caused long lines at gas stations in the Southeast due to distribution problems and panic-buying. Many stations ran out of gas.

The pipeline delivers nearly half of the fuel consumed on the East Coast, and while it’s up and running, it will take several days for deliveries to return to normal. In the meantime, gas is being delivered by truck and rail.

Hackers locked up the company’s computer systems on Friday, demanding a ransom to release them. And some media reports state that the company paid millions of dollars to regain control of its systems. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to those reports on Thursday.

PELOSI: We don’t want people to think that there’s money in it for them to threaten the security of the critical infrastructure of this country.

President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday meant to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity defenses. The order will require all federal agencies to use basic cybersecurity measures, like multi-factor authentication, and require new security standards for software makers that contract with the federal government.

Unemployment dips as debate rages over unemployment aid » The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to just over 470,000 as more employers reopen for business. That’s the lowest level since the pandemic began.

The news comes as debate rages over enhanced unemployment aid, which has provided an extra $300 weekly during the pandemic. Many say it’s causing a shortage of workers.

But White House Press Jen Psaki again emphasized on Thursday …

PSAKI: That’s not, we have not seen that as a widespread driving factor in people not going back to work.

Some suggest Friday’s drop in new jobless claims bolsters the position of the White House.

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many businesses are not convinced. Job openings are still at their highest level on record, and many employers complain they can’t find enough workers.

Mike Lish operates D.lish Hamburgers in Spokane, Washington.

LISH: I really think what it is right now, is it’s just as easy to stay home and bring home that much money as it is to go to work.

More than a half-dozen Republican governors plan to end enhanced unemployment aid in their states next month.

McDonald’s raising pay to attract more applicants » Desperate for workers, McDonald’s is serving up pay raises, hoping to attract more applicants. WORLD’s Leigh Jones reports.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: McDonald's on Thursday said it will phase in pay raises for workers in its 650 company-owned stores reaching an average of $15 an hour by 2024. Entry-level employees will make $11 an hour. The company is also urging its 14,000 franchised restaurants to make the same changes.

McDonald’s and Chipotle are some of the latest companies to follow Amazon, Walmart, and Costco in boosting wages, in some cases to $15 an hour or higher.

Also on Thursday, Amazon said it will pay new hires $17 an hour, as it seeks to add 75,000 new workers. It’s also offering a $100 bonus for new hires who have been vaccinated.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

Hamas continues rocket fire as Israeli airstrikes continue » Hamas sent a heavy barrage of rockets deep into Israel on Thursday as Israel pounded Gaza with more airstrikes and shells.

Israel also called up 9,000 more reservists who could be used to stage a ground invasion.

In another potential escalation, at least three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon toward Israel, an attack that threatened to open a new front in the fighting.

The hostilities intensified despite mediation efforts by Egyptian negotiators who held in-person talks with both sides.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said once again that the United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks. But he added,

BLINKEN: We are working hard to encourage all sides to stand down, to de-escalate, to return to calm.

The U.S. Defense Department has flown about 120 personnel out of Israel as a safety precaution.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: trouble brewing in the Catholic Church.

Plus, the Nigerian songwriter who penned the breakout hit of 2020.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, May 14th, 2021.

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

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

Liberal Catholics in Germany are ramping up the pressure on Rome. This week, they defied the Vatican by openly performing blessings of same-sex unions in churches, recorded and streamed online. It appeared to be aimed as a response to a Vatican communique back in March prohibiting such blessings— that God “cannot bless sin.” Progressive priests in Germany have scheduled about 100 of these ceremonies around the country, seemingly daring the Vatican to respond.

BROWN: American Conservative writer Rod Dreher weighed in on the German campaign of disobedience, predicting church authorities will do nothing about it before concluding, “These are the last rites of a dying liberal national church.”

EICHER: It’s Culture Friday. John Stonestreet is here. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

John, good morning!

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning!

EICHER: There’s another church-related story I want your comment on. It’s from the United States basically involving a mainline church denomination that has been trending pretty strongly away from orthodoxy on questions of human sexuality.

But what’s significant about this dispute in the Catholic church is that for all the liberalism of Pope Francis, he’s kind of hemmed in by official church teaching. He doesn’t have a lot of freedom here.

I’ve read several different accounts on this. But for those of us non-Catholics, let’s begin with, how significant is this latest confrontation?

STONESTREET: That's a great question. And maybe we should get a Catholic in order to answer that question. But I do think that this is the central question of our time.

This issue is significant. Let me just tell you why it's significant for Christians, and not for Catholics in particular, but in general, Christians. Because if one thinks that this is a question about morality, one is missing the story here. Certainly, there is a moral element to the story. Much of the sexual revolution has involved a moral revolution, whereas things that were considered wrong are now considered right and vice versa. But all of the moral shifting that has taken place over the last couple of generations in culture is a actually the fruit, not the root. The root is a much more fundamental shift. A shift in cosmology—what kind of world do we live in? And anthropology—what kind of creatures are human beings?

Now, that's a huge question for a culture to answer. It's an incredibly important question for a church or for a Christian to answer—because in a Christian worldview, the information on those issues, the nature of reality, and the nature of humanity, that that's not information that we, you know, self determine. That's not information that we even discover. That's information that's revealed.

It's striking that the first couple chapters of Genesis which were given to the children of Israel that had spent an entire season of slavery, hearing, you know, wrong things about God, wrong things about reality, and wrong things about themselves. That the first three chapters that they get from God is to clarify who God is, what kind of world they live in, and who they are. I mean, that's really what Genesis one and two is. It's a theology of cosmology and an anthropology in that order. And you can just read through Genesis one and two and find that.

So if the church then or church leaders suddenly decide to change morality here, what they're actually changing is a cosmology and an anthropology. And at this point, you're missing a biblical worldview in the first two chapters of Genesis. You're missing anything that can be identified as Christian, right off the bat from the very beginning. And that's what I think many people miss is that they think, "Well, you know, does God really care that much about who I sleep with?" That's not really the question. Where this issue is, does God really care about who he created us to be? And the Biblical answer to that is a pretty dramatic, yes.

EICHER: How do you see this ending? How do you think it should end?

STONESTREET: Well, you know, the thing about hierarchical churches—and nothing is more demonstrative of this than the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church—you have change that happens very, very slow. And sometimes that's a good, because the church has survived heresies in the past and the church has survived false teachers and bad popes and bad archbishops and bad representatives. And, you know, the church has survived this throughout history. And I think that's, you know, there's a faith in that that's reflected in the structure of how these things get resolved. At the same time, this isn't difficult. This one should be settled very quick. tThere should be a quick pronouncement from the papal office. The question is, will it happen? I'm not sure.

EICHER: I mentioned before we got into this that I had another church story for you. A colleague posted a link to a story about the first-ever transgender bishop named in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Now the ELCA in its official statements seemed to show some respect to traditional theological views on human sexuality. But at the same time, it long ago ordained LGBTQ clergy. Back in 2013 it named an openly homosexual bishop, and now a transgender bishop—another first.

And so this goes to the heart of my question about this. What’s the right reaction to such a story? Do you shrug your shoulders and say, this is totally expected? Or is this a major concern to push back against?

STONESTREET: Well, in light of the previous story, I want to ask what's going on with Germany? I don't want to shrug my shoulders, but I will say that it's totally expected. I, you know, we've been rehashing this idea. Several years ago, on a breakpoint commentary, I made an argument that anytime you have seen someone in the evangelical space—and I wouldn't put the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in the evangelical space, which I know is somewhat of a denial of its name—but anyone that you hear... And this was at the time where there's some high profile evolvings on, you know, same sex marriage or the morality of committed sexual relationships between people of the same sex or whatever. That when you hear that, when you hear a theologian or a church or a some sort of institution that has famously evolved, they will have already evolved on other issues. In other words, they had already changed their minds about things, particularly the the authority of Scripture, the sufficiency of Christ, and the sinfulness of humanity.

In other words, you know, those three opinions, I mean, obviously, the church has a spectrum of views on a number of things, but when it comes to the the authority of Scripture and the sufficiency of Christ and the reality of sin, you know, that's pretty mainstream beliefs. So anybody that caves on marriage and on sexuality has already caved on those things. And I think that's been true for a while.

I'm curious about how long it will be true. And I think that's absolutely the case with the ELCA. I mean, ELCA is already fudged around on, you know, those other doctrines for a long time, which is really saying something, since their history goes back to, you know, Luther. That has a lot, you know, that tells us so much about how denominations evolve and so on.

But it's an important story to watch because we have been in this season in which the compromise on Scripture and Christ and sin has led to a compromise on these moral issues. I'm curious to see whether that will reverse itself. In other words, that will start, and but we've seen some more high profile, you know, recent insta-blogger-gram sorts of, you know, celebrity types in evangelical world—do you like what I, you know, that's, I just made that word up, Nick—but you've seen them that their first announcement of evolving of some kind has started with sexuality, and is that leading? So it's not unexpected, and it absolutely should be pushed back on. And it should be seen in light of a larger compromise. And kind of that fundamental question that started this whole mess thousands of years ago, you know, "Did God really say this?" And so much can be traced back to that.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson center, host of the Breakpoint podcast, and creator of neologisms! John, thanks.

STONESTREET: Haha. My pleasure. Thanks so much.

NICK EICHER, HOST: After getting ahold of his mother’s Amazon account, a 4-year-old in New York City managed to purchase a healthy supply of his favorite food.

Well, okay, maybe “healthy” isn’t the right word.

He bought 51 cases of frozen SpongeBob Popsicles.

The order cost little Noah Bryant’s mother Jennifer more than $2,500 dollars.

And that was a little more than the social work student and mother of three had budgeted for popsicles. But Amazon refused to accept a return of the nearly 1,000 SpongeBob Pops.

But the story has a happy ending. One of Bryant’s fellow students created a GoFundMe fundraiser to help the family. By May 7, internet users had contributed nearly $13,000.

Bryant says she’ll set aside the excess money for Noah’s education.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, May 14th.

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

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Encouraging you if you’ve never given before to make a first-time gift to support our work here. Because during this month, whatever is your first-time gift becomes a second- and third-time one as well.

What do I mean by that? So glad you asked.

Remember, we have longtime supporters who decided to honor WORLD’s 40th anniversary by providing a triple match of any gift by any new giver up to 40-thousand-dollars. So in other words, if you can give $100, one family has committed to giving a hundred more and another family another hundred. So your hundred becomes a three-hundred dollar gift!

So if you find this program helpful and you feel like you can support us, then just visit wng.org/donate to make your first-time gift of support today.

EICHER: Right, this is different from the end of fiscal year funding drive we’re doing next month where we ask our regular supporters to help us hit our budget goal.

Well, anyone can be part of that campaign. But typically, it’s our regular supporters who make that happen for us. What we like to do the month before is encourage those who’ve never given before to make their first-time gift of support.

And the matching program is a specific recognition that we do this together. No one expects anyone to go it alone. This is a team effort. So if you have the ability and you want to help strengthen the work we do here and ensure that we can continue it, as Myrna says, pay a visit to wng.org/donate. We’re grateful for whatever way you can support us. Thanks!

BROWN: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Emily Whitten joins us today with a review of The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, now streaming on Amazon Prime. She says the film isn’t perfect, but it may be a good choice for teens and families looking for an entertaining movie.

EMILY WHITTEN, REPORTER: The first thing you need to know about The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is that you’ve seen this movie before. Think Ferris Bueller Day’s Off meets Groundhog Day with a side of Lala Land to spice things up.

I’ll let the handsome hero of the film, Mark—played by Kyle Allen—introduce the plot. He’s talking here to his best friend, played by Jermaine Harris:

CLIP: “Listen, we’re stuck in a time loop. You, me, everybody. The same day’s repeating over and over again. Like in Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow. Except only me and this girl Margaret know about it. But you won’t remember any of this because your brain keeps getting erased.” “Oh.”

So, yeah, Mark has been stuck in the same day for who knows how long. Long enough that when he wakes up each morning on the same summer day, he can predict when the toast will pop out of the toaster and when to catch the glass knocked off the table. He’s an astute reader of sci-fi books, so Mark does have a few questions about what’s going on and why—but mostly, he’s just having a lot of fun.

Viewers will, too.

CLIP: OPENING SCENE MUSIC

As the opening credits roll, Mark hops on his bike and zooms through his hometown streets. He cues a lawn sprinkler. He grabs a cup of coffee on top of a car, takes a swig, and hook shots it into a passing garbage truck.

The message here: Mark’s perfected his repeating day, well, except for the cute girl at the pool. No matter how he tweaks his approach, she still won’t go out with him.

CLIP: “Would you wanna hang out later?” “I’ve got something.” “Well, thank you for your time.”

Enter Margaret, the love interest, played by Kathryn Newton. She’s the girl learning to drive, bashing her car into other cars in the pool parking lot. Turns out she’s aware of the time loop, too.

CLIP: “Woah. Ok. I thought nobody else knew.” “Welp. Somebody does.”

After some work to win her over, Mark finally has a friend to share his day with. Soon, they point out to one another all the “perfect things”—the quirky, funny, inspiring things—they’ve discovered in this day, in their town.

CLIP: I mean, think about it. Most of life is junk. Just filler. And then there’s these moments when all the randomness turns into something perfect.

Eventually they set out to find—and make—more of these perfect moments together. A lot of the moments surprisingly involve kindness: They help someone find lost keys and keep a man from being hit by bird droppings. They never reach the level of Mother Teresa with all their good deeds, but it’s a joy to see them express God-given delight at helping others.

Mark is a wanna-be art student. And unbeknownst to Margaret, he draws a map of all the perfect things in their repeating day. Soon, Margaret discovers his secret.

CLIP: “It’s a work in progress.” “You made a map of everything, the whole day.” “All the perfect things.” “It’s really good. Maybe you should go to art school.” “This is gonna sound stupid, but sometimes I think if I stare at it long enough, I’ll find something, like a pattern. I never do.” “That does sound pretty stupid.” “Woah, ok.”

The map becomes a critical element in the plot, bringing a bit of sci-fi magic to the ending. It may not make a whole lot of sense outside their fictional world, but like the clothes and soundtrack inspired by the 80s and 90s, it fits in a way.

Near the end of the movie, there’s a reveal that puts the entire story in a new perspective. It gives weight to the characters, and it shows that these teens aren’t just playing at life. Like Peter Pan, they wrestle with whether they want to grow up and face the imperfect things in their future.

CLIP: “We’re free, from getting older, from going to school, climate change, cancer, pink eye, Instagram.” “What about all the things we don’t get to do?” “Like what?” “Like grow up or I don’t know, be an astronaut? We’re saying goodbye to the rest of our lives. We’ll never do anything that takes longer than 16 hours.”

The theme of living for others comes back again in the climax, especially for Mark.

CLIP: I thought it was a love story and I was the hero. But it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t my story at all.

Director Ian Samuels says he hopes viewers will come away inspired.

IAN SAMUELS: There’s so much negativity in the world. In politics and in internet interactions. I really hope that people take a minute to just reflect on all the tiny perfect things that are around us all the time. And if everybody would do a little bit more of that, that would be a great thing.

That’s not to say this is a perfect movie. It’s rated PG-13 for a reason. A few times characters use foul language or crudely joke about sex outside marriage. And a couple of times, Mark and Margaret drink alcohol while alone together. That said, in terms of physical contact, this film is quite restrained. We only see one passionate hug and kiss, and it’s not graphic.

Mark is right: he’s not the hero of his story. But only Christians know the real hero of every story—Jesus. If we want to live a life of courage and kindness, he’s the only map that will get us there.

That makes this light-hearted rom-com a bit like bubble gum—mostly light and sweet, but good to chew on.

I’m Emily Whitten.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, May 14th. 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. Coming next: The writing of the well loved song. The title, Way Maker!

The Gospel Music Association named it Song of the Year for 2020. That same year Christian Copyright Licensing International, the group that monitors how often a song is used in church worship, ranked Way Maker number one.

BROWN: Way Maker has been recorded by nearly a dozen Christian music artists. But only one of them can say, “I was there when the song was written.” Let me tell you her story.

MYRNA BROWN, REPORTER: In 2020 that familiar chorus was proclaimed from hospital parking lots...

NEIGHBOR: Come on let’s declare it, way maker, miracle worker…

...neighborhood cul-de-sacs...

MEN SINGING: Promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who You are.

...countless church pews...

SONG: SINGING IN PORTUGESE

...and sold-out arenas around the world.

SINACH: I actually sang it for the first time in 2015 in South Africa...

The Nigerian-born singer/songwriter known as Sinach remembers the day she says God gave her those lyrics—42-thousand feet in the air.

SINACH: It was a long flight. I was having a conversation with the Lord. So I was able to write down the things he was talking to me about.

The second of seven children, 49-year-old Sinach lives in Lagos, the southerwestern part of Nigeria. Her mother was a teacher and her father, a civil servant. Both shared their love for music with their children.

SINACH: So I grew up listening to a lot of music and being exposed to books, a lot of books, reading.

That, she says, is how she became interested in songwriting.

SINACH: So when people ask me why do I write so well, I tell them that my mum made me read so many books, and poetry was one of my good things. It translated to writing songs.

SINACH SINGING WAYMAKER

Although it was written six years before the pandemic, Sinach says she understands why Way Maker became an anthem for hurting people in 2020.

SINACH: So the song says, "You are here, here moving in this place." So the assurance of God’s presence was what was needed at that time.

But this isn’t the first time Contemporary Christian Music has been a balm to a weary world.

PAUL BALOCHE: I have seen songs take off like that in the last 30 years…

Paul Baloche has recorded hundreds of songs, including Christian classics like Above All and Open the Eyes of My Heart.

PAUL BALOCHE: I think of when Shout To The Lord, that’s quite familiar to us now, but the first time we heard, “Never cease to worship you…Shout to the Lord all the earth,” it was like, just hands in the air. Hallelujah! We could go down the last 20 years and kind of pick about every two years. It’s like, ‘Ah, here’s another one!" I think Way Maker has been that song for this season in the church around the world. It’s fascinating and beautiful and marvelous to watch it happen.

But how exactly does it happen? How does one song become one of the most recognizable melodies in the world?

PAUL BALOCHE: Not to cop out, but I would say that is such a mystery. The Bible talks about like the word holy means other than. And it feels like it was birthed by the Spirit. And you can take another song with maybe scripture lyrics and a similar chord progression, and a pretty similar melody maybe and ask, "Why doesn’t that resonate?" So that’s the beautiful mystery in all of this.

While some aspects of songwriting are inexplicable, Baloche says songs still share a common anatomy.

PAUL BALOCHE: There are the elements of a song, such as your melody, your lyric, your chord progression, your groove or rhythm if you will. One principle I talk about a lot is to make sure all the elements of the song work together to enhance the feeling of the message. So when you look at Way Maker, there’s such an authenticity , a sincerity, a prayer-like quality about it. Not something that feels like it was contrived or constructed by some songwriters in a Nashville writing room.

Baloche says that lack of convention is refreshing.

PAUL BALOCHE: I think a lot of us writers from America were blessed to see a song rise up from the church in Nigeria. So I think there’s been a longing in our hearts for the global church to rise up in their indigenous language and their culture.

SHORT MONTAGE OF WAY MAKER IN SPANISH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, THAI

Since its recording, Way Maker has been translated into more than 50 languages.

SINACH: It’s very humbling. Very humbling. It just shows me that it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. When God wants to use you, He can use anybody.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It really does take a dedicated team to put this program together and deliver it to you each morning. And what a team we have!

Thanks are in order:

Ryan Bomberger, Anna Johansen Brown, Janie B. Cheaney, Kent Covington, Katie Gaultney, Kim Henderson, Onize Ohikere, Bonnie Pritchett, Mary Reichard, Sarah Schweinsberg, Cal Thomas, and Emily Whitten.

Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz are our audio engineers. Leigh Jones is managing editor. Paul Butler is executive producer. And Marvin Olasky is editor in chief.

And you! You’ve made it possible for us to bring Christian journalism to the marketplace of ideas. Thank you!

The Bible reminds us: “… be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us …”

Have a great weekend, and worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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