The World and Everything in It: May 19, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Legal Docket: Can a single federal judge place a nationwide stop on the president’s executive order on birthright citizenship?

ALITO: All Article III judges are vulnerable to an occupational disease of thinking that “I am right and I can do whatever I want.”

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat: David Bahnsen is standing by and we’ll talk about Warren Buffet among other economic news.

And later the WORLD History Book.

BARRON: The issue at the Council of Nicaea, was the Gettysburg of Christianity. In other words, it was the decisive battle.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, May 19th. 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.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden diagnosed with prostate cancer » Former President Joe Biden is battling an aggressive form of prostate cancer that’s spread to his bones. Biden’s personal office put out a statement announcing the news Sunday… saying urinary symptoms triggered medical tests, which led to the cancer diagnosis on Friday.

The statement goes on to say the cancer appears to be hormone sensitive, which allows for effective management… and the former president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.

Former Biden White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield…

BEDINGFIELD: It is incredibly sad. It’s heartbreaking. I’ve… I’ve heard from a lot of folks… people who have worked for him for a long time who are sad, who are sending their best to him, who are feeling devastated by this news.

Veteran political consultant David Axelrod notes this news comes as Biden’s mental acuity near the end of his term, along with his initial decision to run for a second term, are under intense scrutiny.

AXELROD: I think those conversations are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now as he’s struggling through this.

In a social media post… Biden’s successor, President Trump, says he and First Lady Melania Trump are saddened by the news, adding -quote- “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

Cleanup underway in MO/KY/VA as tornado death toll climbs » People in the Central U.S. are digging through rubble and wondering when life might get back to normal… after a round of devastating tornadoes claimed at least 28 lives in Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia over the weekend.

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer…

SPENCER: This is going to be a long recovery because the destruction is truly phenomenal.

At least five people were killed in the St. Louis area, where the mayor estimates the property damage total to thousands of buildings at $1 billion dollars.

Most of the deaths were in Kentucky: at least 19 there. That state’s governor says a federal disaster declaration is in the works… and he’s gotten all the helped he’s asked for from the feds so far.

Forecasters say more severe weather could be in store for the country’s mid-section this week.

Russia drone strike ahead of Trump/Putin call » President Trump is hoping his direct intervention can break the logjam in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

The president is expected to hold a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin today, followed by calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders of various NATO countries.

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff tells ABC’s This Week…

WITKOFF: The president is determined to get something done here, and hopefully, um… If he can’t do it then nobody can.

Witkoff adds he thinks the president’s call with Putin will be very successful.

But for now, the reality on the ground is still grim. On Sunday, Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the start of the war, destroying homes and claiming at least one life.

Israel steps up Gaza offensive » Israel has launched a new offensive in Gaza, saying it needs to apply military pressure to secure the release of all the hostages Hamas is holding from its October 7th, 2023 terror attack.

Over the past few days, since the start of the escalation, the Associated Press reports hundreds have been killed in Gaza.

White House Special Envoy for Hostage Response Adam Boehler tells Fox News Sunday…

BOEHLER: If they want this barrage of attacks to stop, which all Palestinians do at this point, then they need to release the hostages.

Israel and Hamas are holding ceasefire talks in Qatar, but reportedly appear far apart. Israel says it’ll keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and sent into exile.

CA fertility clinic bomber expressed anti-life views » Investigators say the 25-year-old who bombed a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California over the weekend authored what they call “anti-pro-life” writings.

Guy Edward Bartkus left behind writings professing a sentiment that the world should not be populated.

Bartkus died when he detonated a car bomb outside the clinic. Four others were hurt. But all the embryos at the clinic were saved… thanks to a speedy response from firefighters, police, and FBI bomb techs, according to the FBI’s Akil Davis.

DAVIS: We were able to save all of the embryos at this facility. Good Guys one, Bad Guys zero.

Investigators say Bartkus tried to livestream the bombing, but the video didn’t upload. The explosion gutted the clinic, though clinic leaders say staff were safe and there were no patients inside.

GOP holds Sunday night session to get tax bill on track » House Republicans held a rare Sunday night committee meeting… trying to get their so-called big, beautiful tax bill back on track.

The House Budget Committee failed to advance the bill Friday. Despite the setback, House Speaker Mike Johnson tells FOX News he’s confident the full House will meet his goal of passing the measure by the end of the week.

JOHNSON: We’re on track, working around the clock, to deliver this nation-shaping legislation for the American people as soon as possible.

The bill would extend the tax cuts from President Trump’s first term plus add several new ones. But several House Republicans are concerned it spends too much money and doesn’t enforce new work requirements for Medicaid soon enough.

I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: Legal Docket. Can a single judge block the president’s move on birthright citizenship?

Plus, the seismic importance of the Council of Nicaea for Christianity… in today’s World History Book.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 19th day of May, 2025. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

The Supreme Court typically saves its most controversial decisions for the end of the term, late June, early July. And this year, it reserved its most controversial oral argument for last.

REICHARD: Right, the argument is the last one for this year and it came last Thursday. Three cases combined into one. All centered on a single question: Can the president end birthright citizenship? Meaning, automatic U.S. citizenship for children born in the country to illegal immigrants or to those holding temporary visas.

EICHER: President Trump says he can. His executive order suggests that he can … and so he did. But before the policy could take effect … three federal judges said he couldn’t.

Single federal district judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington state. Each one declared the order unconstitutional. Each one froze the policy not just for the parties that came into their courtrooms … but for the entire country.

President Trump’s legal team says, federal trial judges can’t do that. U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer at the Supreme Court:

JOHN SAUER: Such injunctions... prevent the percolation of novel and difficult legal questions. They encourage rampant forum shopping. They require judges to make rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.

In other words, let the lower courts duke it out, let novel ideas “percolate,” don’t short-circuit the process.

Sauer also pointed to Article III of the Constitution. In relevant part, that says judges are to resolve disputes for the parties actually before them—in legal language their job is to adjudicate “cases and controversies.” They’re not national policymakers.

Justice Clarence Thomas asked a practical historical question:

JUSTICE THOMAS: General, when were the first universal injunctions used?

SAUER: We believe that the best reading of that is what you said in Trump against Hawaii, which is that Werts in 1963 was really the first universal injunction. ….

THOMAS: We survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions.

SAUER: That’s exactly correct.

REICHARD: Then came a tense moment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly cut Sauer off. Chief Justice John Roberts then cut her off. Listen:

SAUER: We are not claiming that because we’re conceding that there could be an appropriate case—

SOTOMAYOR: Only a class—

ROBERTS: Can I hear the rest of his answer?

The court’s liberal wing homed in on access to justice. How can an illegal alien or child of one get relief without the nationwide injunction?

Justice Sotomayor was skeptical that class actions or individual cases would be fast enough. So she posed a hypothetical about guns:

SOTOMAYOR: So, when a new president orders that because there’s so much gun violence going on in the country, and he comes in and he says I have the right to take away the guns from everyone and he sends out the military to seize everyone’s guns—then we and the courts have to sit back and wait until every plaintiff whose gun is taken comes into court?

Sauer responded that courts can and do certify emergency class actions. He said immigrant advocacy groups can seek class status quickly—adding that courts could limit the injunction just to those affected, rather than applying it to everyone, including even people who are not part of the case.

EICHER: Justice Elena Kagan didn’t like that idea, either. She wondered: How in practical terms do you enforce a consistent rule of citizenship without some form of nationwide relief?

JUSTICE KAGAN: Does every single person that is affected by this EO have to bring their own suit? Are there alternatives? How long does it take? How do we get to the result that there is a single rule of citizenship that is the rule that we’ve historically applied rather than the rule that the EO would have us do?

REICHARD: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed harder. To her, the government’s position undermines the rule of law:

JUSTICE JACKSON: Your argument seems to turn our justice system into a catch-me-if-you-can kind of regime…. where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.

I would think we’d want the system to move as quickly as possible to reach the merits of the issue and maybe have this court decide whether or not the government is entitled to do this under the law. Wouldn’t having universal injunctions actually facilitate that?

But others on the bench saw danger in the opposite direction. Justice Samuel Alito said too much power in the hands of a single judge is risky:

JUSTICE ALITO: The practical problem is that there are 680 federal district judges. And they are dedicated and they are scholarly and I’m not impuning their motives in any way. But you know, sometimes they’re wrong. And all Article III judges are vulnerable to an occupational disease. Which is the disease of thinking that I am right and I can do whatever I want.

EICHER: He added that appellate courts are naturally restrained—judges there answer to one another. But a single trial judge? As Justice Alito put it: “A monarch in that courtroom.”

REICHARD: All of this debate leads back to a deeper constitutional question—one that didn’t get as much time in oral argument: What does the 14th Amendment actually mean?

Here’s what it says in 18 simple words: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.”

The language of the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868 … just after the Civil War. The 13th Amendment was the abolition of slavery. The 15th banned voting discrimination based on race. These are known as the Reconstruction Amendments. The goal was to make clear that former slaves and their children were citizens—reversing the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which said they weren’t.

EICHER: The debate is over five words in the 14th Amendment: “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

That's why this case matters. The Trump administration says children born to illegal aliens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States—and therefore not automatic citizens.

The other side says that interpretation ignores 150 years of precedent and plain meaning.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: The argument here is that the president is violating not just one but by my count four established Supreme Court precedents.

REICHARD: One of those rulings said that even if your parents are in the country illegally, if you were born here—you’re a citizen.

Sauer disagreed. He said the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was not written with illegal immigration in mind:

SAUER: Our primary contention is that the Citizenship Clause related to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens.

EICHER: Two lawyers took on the administration. Arguing for the 20 Democrat-led states against Trump’s executive order was New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum.  Arguing for immigrant-rights groups and five women pregnant with babies who have a lot riding on the outcome of the case … was Kelsi Corkran:

KELSI CORKRAN: The executive order's stripping of citizenship from U.S.-born children is contrary not only to the Fourteenth Amendment's plain text but also our common law history, this Court's precedent, a federal statute, and over a century of executive branch practice.

EICHER: But her argument assumes the citizenship question is settled. Sauer’s side kept pointing to historical context.

Feigenbaum, meanwhile, focused on the practical problems of a non-universal rule:

JEREMY FEIGENBAUM: Puts chaos on the ground where people’s citizenship turns on and off when you cross state lines. If ICE has initiated a removal proceeding when you live in Philly, and you move to Camden, I suppose the ICE removal is supposed to turn off at that point potentially because your citizenship status has changed.

REICHARD: Then came the elephant in the room: forum shopping. That is to say, lawyers picking courts where they’re most likely to win sweeping injunctions.

The numbers back it up. During Biden’s term: 28 universal injunctions. During Trump’s first term: 64.

EICHER: And this year, so far …

SAUER: Since January 20, district courts have now issued 40 universal injunctions against the federal government, including 35 from the same five judicial districts. This is a bipartisan problem that has now spanned the last five presidential administrations.

REICHARD: Sauer called it bipartisan, but others will see it differently:

They are likely to see a coordinated legal resistance to President Trump’s agenda.

EICHER: The numbers do suggest a pattern: 92% of the judges who blocked President Trump’s executive orders were appointed by Democrat presidents. And on the other hand, every single judge who blocked a Biden order was appointed by a Republican.

REICHARD: That’s a problem. Researching this piece, I came across an article in Bloomberg Law written by a retired U.S. District Judge. Paul Grimm is now a professor at Duke Law School.

So … I called him up:

GRIMM: There are mechanisms that could be put into place to help mitigate the forum shopping. You can make it so that you have three judge panels. You see that in election cases. So you could pass a law by Congress, and the House has already got a bill that they're looking at here on that, that says that if this kind of a case involving a nationwide policy by, you know, a president, that in order to do that, you've got to pick randomly three judges from three different districts across the United States, so that all, you know, two out of three have to agree in the ruling. You could do that. Some people have said you should only let appellate courts decide, that they should have the restrictive ability. …And if you had to have a random panel, like a three judge panel that they already use in some kinds of cases, and you made the selection be from different circuits, then you would really help to tamp down that ability of one judge to step in and make that kind of a change.

REICHARD: That’s a longer-term fix. But for now, it’s the Supreme Court’s move.

And ironically, some of the liberal justices who now defend universal injunctions didn’t always. Back in 2022, Justice Kagan said this at Northwestern:

KAGAN: You look at something like that and you think that can't be right that one district court whether it’s in you know in the Trump years people used to go into the Northern District of California. And in the Biden years, they go to Texas. And it just can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process.

I think most people agree that it can’t be right for one judge to do that. And I think the justices will sidestep answering whether children born to illegal aliens in the U.S. are citizens. I think they’ll hand down a narrow ruling that will limit universal injunctions in some way.

EICHER: And winding up today’s Legal Docket, the Supreme Court handed down two key opinions last week. Both of these deal with government use of force or authority and both draw important lines around what’s constitutionally allowed.

First is Barnes versus Felix. We dove deeply into this case back in February and we’ll link to that story in today’s transcript.

The case involved a fatal police shooting during a traffic stop. Barnes was the driver; Felix the policeman. Officer Felix shot and killed Barnes … after Barnes drove off with Felix standing on the doorsill of the car. Lower courts ruled in favor of the officer considering only the terrifying few seconds before he pulled the trigger. That’s known as the “moment of threat” doctrine.

REICHARD: But the Supreme Court unanimously said that’s too narrow. Writing for the court, Justice Kagan said judges need to look at the “totality of the circumstances.” Meaning, what led up to the moment of threat.

I mentioned the ruling was unanimous against the police officer’s position—and it was. But Justice Kavanaugh wrote a separate, concurring opinion—and Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett joined in. Kavanaugh wrote: “When a driver abruptly pulls away during a traffic stop, an officer has no particularly good or safe options.”

EICHER: Still, the ruling takes no position on whether the shooting was justified. It simply says courts cannot limit their review to a single snapshot.

The second case involves the Trump administration’s deportation policy … titled AARP versus Trump. That initialism might put you in mind of the well-known senior citizens’ group. But that AARP is not involved. Instead, it stands for an anonymized name of a person accused of membership in the foreign terrorist organization Tren de Aragua.

REICHARD: This ruling was 7-2 … and the court ruled against the administration.

Here, the Supreme Court blocked the removal of Venezuelan detainees under the Alien Enemies Act. The Court said such people have to receive notice and time to seek relief before deportation.

But the two dissenters Justices Alito and Thomas pushed back hard: warning that the court overstepped its bounds by intervening without jurisdiction … and by second-guessing urgent decisions by the executive branch.

EICHER: Both cases head back to lower courts to be considered with the new guidance the Supreme Court has given.

REICHARD: And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now. Good morning to you, David.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick, Good to be with you.

EICHER: David, I want to discuss your Dividend Café this week pegged to the retirement news about Warren Buffett. There’s a lot to be gained from studying Buffett and I want to leave time for that. So let’s begin with a lightning round on economic news from the past week.

And let’s open with the 90-day trade war pause between the U-S and China … we talked last week about the de-escalation and you wanted to look more deeply into the details … so what can you say this week … having read more and talked with people?

BAHNSEN: Well, what's interesting is that the announcement that came from Secretary Bessent from Switzerland right after we spoke last week on Monday morning didn't give a lot of detail. But it gave all the information I think that markets needed—which is, we're in a significant de-escalatory phase.

The president said, “Hey, I might lower 145% tariffs to 80%.” Then he ended up getting rid of them altogether—or keeping what was already on, the 10% tariff both countries have on each other, and then this 20% fentanyl deal. But other than that, he got rid of all of the tariff escalation he had done since April 2.

I do think that there's a lot of wood to chop as far as the various details that go outside of the tariff rate. What are they going to do to commit to certain new markets being opened? What are they going to do in terms of protecting intellectual property? Currency was not in any of the comments that Bessent made last week, so there's a lot to still be worked out.

But what is very clear to me is anybody who is hoping that on the other side of this we would be trading with China less, I think is going to be very disappointed. They may very well get a good deal and some improvement in terms. I think that that's a great thing to hope for.

But when all said and done, it looks like where they're headed is trying to increase bilateral trade, and that's a very different place than what the administration was talking about a month, month-and-a-half ago.

EICHER: So there was a big international trip with President Trump—lots of talk about deals and, anything you want to say about any of that?

BAHNSEN: In a lot of ways, it was a successful trip for the president—at least politically.

I am continually surprised, because some of the things announced I tend to be a fan of, and yet, I’m always a little surprised that some of the base for the president is a fan of.

You know, a lot of the economic nationalism and right-wing populism behind the popularity of President Trump, they don’t go with big international deals. (You’re going to do this for us, we’re going to do this for you. Expanding markets in Middle Eastern countries, let alone other countries like China we were talking about.) Yet, that’s the type of stuff the president’s doing. He does like deals, and he especially likes to announce deals. He announced quite a few things last week.

Of course, it’s very early to say where we’re headed on Russia / Ukraine—that seems to have hit another snag. The possibility of a deal with Iran that’s going to look a lot like the Obama administration’s deal with Iran, but maybe with more inspector accountability. That’s very interesting, and it could help the president’s goal of lower oil prices, although it’s certainly not going to make oil producers in Oklahoma and Texas happy.

So all that to say some of these things are going to be beneficial for the president, but they’re not necessarily going to be beneficial to some of the people who support the president.

EICHER: Finally, let’s step back from the swirl of markets and geopolitics to something deeper: namely, a reflection on calling, compounding, and what creates value over time.

David, you devoted your entire Dividend Café to an understanding of the famed investor Warren Buffett. Of course, it’s not new news that Buffett announced he’s stepping down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway—but I do think there are going to be in the months remaining before he actually steps away at the end of the year … numerous attempts to derive lessons. And I really appreciate yours—because you wrote not merely about Buffett’s wealth, but to what’s behind it—not just decades of disciplined investing, but something more profoundly human.

I’ll quote here from your piece: “Economics is the study of human action around the allocation of scarce resources, and human beings were created by God with tremendous capacity to do great things … [and in those things] there is a collective of inspiration, wisdom, resources, experience, and capability in human beings that can change our lives and careers.”

So when Buffett’s story is rightly told, it’s not only about financial capital—but also social and spiritual capital: networks, trust, mentorship, shared ideas. Or as you put it: “Information and analysis compound at one rate, but relationships and social capital compound at an even greater rate.”

Would you unpack that for us?

BAHNSEN: Yes, and I provided this caveat: so many things in Warren Buffett’s worldview are hostile to the Christian worldview. My point is that, believer or not, when you study Warren Buffett, you could focus on the incredible skill he had at securities analysis, his work ethic early on in his life, the ability to save and invest. Those are valuable lessons.

But what you also see is throughout decades upon decades of compounding, not merely of the money he accumulated, but of the relationships, connections, networks. This was a person in Omaha, Neb., developing thick networks in financial capitals like New York, technology epicenters like Silicon Valley, energy-producing parts of the country.

Again, whether it’s in the domain of politics or media or finance or technology, he surrounded himself with people and learned from them and had deep conversations.

There’s something to this idea of thick networks where it’s not just transactional. He’s not saying, “I want to befriend this person so that I can go do a business deal with him.” He’s befriending and learning from people with absolutely no agenda whatsoever. Then 17 years later, an opportunity organically presents itself, because that’s the way the world works—this organic, spontaneous reality. We do well to invest in relationships. We do well to learn from others, to contribute to others, not just to have people around us that teach us, but to be around others, teaching them, being a resource to them.

These things feed on themselves, and I think most of us know it. We can observe it, but Buffett just happens to be a person who any study of his life and career reveals he demonstrates it in spades.

I think it’s an important lesson for all of us within the Christian worldview to appreciate that it’s part of God’s created design, that this human social interaction is at the very heart of markets. Today they want to teach young people that markets are all math and science and computer inputs. Well, Warren Buffett says otherwise.

EICHER: And I think you do too, coming on each week, sharing your wealth with our listening audience. So I appreciate that. David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer at The Bahnsen Group. Do not miss his Dividend Café this week, all about Warren Buffett. David writes regularly for WORLD Opinions, and as I say, dividend-cafe.com. David, thank you so much. We’ll see you next week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, May 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today, the story behind the Nicene Creed.

This month … seventeen hundred years ago, a Roman Emperor invites hundreds of Christian leaders to meet together. The purpose? To debate… and hopefully come to a consensus on a doctrine splitting the church.

WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde has the story.

CALEB WELDE: Three centuries … have gone by since a man named Jesus walked the streets and countryside of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Jesus made statements like “I and the Father … are one.” … and, “whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.”

SPROUL: And, he says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

Theologian and apologist R.C. Sproul.

SPROUL: It’s because they understood what he was saying, that they took up stones to kill him saying this man, saying, this man, being a man, declares himself to be God.

Despite severe persecution, the disciples of Jesus spread the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven … and the church grows rapidly across the Roman Empire.

Many false teachings … test the faithful. In the second and third centuries, modalism begins to take hold. Basically the belief that the One God … takes on different forms at different times. So sometimes he’s the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Spirit.

A bishop named Arius attempts to refute this heresy by saying the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit do co-exist, but that the Son and Spirit were actually created. According to Arius, Jesus was made before anything else was made,

SPROUL: But he is not eternal. And because he's not eternal, he is not equal with God.

RC Sproul once again…speaking of Arius….who also asserted…

SPROUL: The Logos is lesser than God and greater than man. Because of his obedience, he is, quote, adopted by the Father as the father's son. He was not always the Son of God, but rather his sonship is something he virtually earns.

For centuries, Christians have believed in the full divinity of Jesus. But that doesn’t stop Arius’ ideas from spreading widely.

BARRON: To be fair to someone like Arias, he's a brilliant priest, preacher, they even say songwriter.

Robert Barron is a Catholic Bishop … and founder of Word on Fire Ministries.

BARRON: And he expressed his theological ideas in popular songs, so that people would sing them in public places and so on.

Emperor Constantine, who claims to be a Christian, is currently trying to unite … his empire.

BARRON: What was bugging Constantine, who wasn't particularly pious, but was, wait a minute, the thing I want to use to unite my empire, they're now fighting with each other. So I got to get these people united.

Constantine invites every Christian bishop … to Nicaea .. He wants them to hold a council to work out their differences. There are eighteen hundred bishops scattered throughout the Empire. Three hundred show up.

HUFF: Everybody at the Council of Nicea believed Jesus was God. It was just a question of what that meant.

Wesley Huff is director Apologetics Canada and a Biblical manuscripts scholar.

HUFF: They're seeing Scripture, and they're trying to figure out, okay, what language do we use to articulate what we're seeing.

In one corner was Arius, arguing that, because of the "begotten” language in the New Testament, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were created and not eternal nor equal with the Father. In the other corner was Athanasius … arguing Scripture is clear.

HUFF: The Father is described as Yahweh God, the Son is described as Yahweh God, and the Spirit is described as Yahweh God. We don't believe in three Yahwehs, right, only one Yahweh. “Hear Israel, the Lord is God. The Lord is one God.”

The council debates for two months. Finally, in August, they vote.

HUFF: And Arius, who voted for himself, only had two other bishops on his side. So it wasn't close. It was like 312 to 3.

The Bishops leave Nicaea with a common creed. More councils … would add to the creed and modify it some, but version one reads like this.

ED PHILLIPS: We believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages.

Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.

And He was crucified for us under Ponus Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So why … is this so important? Constantine may have had geopolitical goals, but the creed accomplishes much more than that. Not only does it clarify Christ’s divine nature, but it begins to define shared orthodoxy…and the Trinitarian foundation of the various branches of the Christian church.

HUFF: The Trinity is all there, right down to Jesus's baptism, where the father, you know, is heard from heaven, the Spirit descends. And then you have the Son being baptized. And then we're told to then baptize in the ‘onama’, the singular noun, name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. And so you have the one name, but then three persons are described.

BARRON: We think it's so important that every single week at our liturgy, we Catholics get up and say, Arius you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Right. He’s not just a high creature. He's God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God! Because he's one in being with the Father, He can save us. That’s why it matters.

SPROUL: He is the King of the universe, the supreme monarch, and there’s only one of them. Begotten, not made. Co-eternal and co-substantial with the father. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

For WORLD, I’m Caleb Welde. Audio courtesy of Ligonier Ministries, Wesley Huff, The Daily Wire, and Word on Fire Ministries.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: more on the recent HHS report on protecting minors from gender treatments. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

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: Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more. —Galatians 4:8, 9

Go now in grace and peace.

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