The World and Everything in It - November 19, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today: religious liberty and the death penalty, saving the American man, and quantifying deaths from despair

NICK EICHER, HOST: We will talk about it on Culture Friday.

Also today: a new movie about the man behind two of the greatest tennis players ever to swing rackets.

And Word Play for November. Today, George Grant considers what we miss when we oversimplify.

BROWN: It’s Friday November 19th. 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: Unemployment claims fall for seventh straight week » The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits fell for the seventh straight week. The Labor Dept. says new applications dipped by 1,000 last week to a pandemic low of 268,000.

The four-week average of claims, which smooths week-to-week volatility, also fell to a pandemic low of roughly 273,000.

That means jobless claims continue to edge toward their pre-pandemic level of around 220,000 a week.

Pfizer, U.S. ink $5 billion deal for possible COVID-19 treatment » The Biden administration has inked a deal with Pfizer to buy millions of treatment courses of its new COVID-19 pill. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The U.S. government will pay Pfizer more than $5 billion for 10 million treatment courses of its COVID-19 pill paxlovid.

It is not yet approved for use in the United States. Pfizer asked the FDA on Tuesday to authorize emergency use of the pill. The company recently reported that the treatment cut hospitalizations and deaths by 89% among high-risk adults who had early symptoms of COVID.

The FDA is already reviewing a competing pill from Merck and will hold a public meeting on it later this month.

The U.S. government has already agreed to buy about 3 million treatments for Merck’s drug.

President Biden said the treatments could be—quote—“another critical tool” to “accelerate our path out of the pandemic.”

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kritsen Flavin.

Oklahoma governor grants clemency, hours before scheduled execution » Just hours before Julius Jones was set to be executed, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. The state was scheduled to execute Jones at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Jones, now 41 years old, was 21 when he was charged with the murder of an Oklahoma City businessman in a carjacking. State attorneys said the evidence was overwhelming against him. Investigators found the murder weapon with Jones’ DNA on it in his home. Jones claimed a friend framed him.

His case garnered international attention after a 2018 documentary reported accusations of racial bias and misconduct in his trial.

More than 6 million people signed a petition to spare his life.

Christian florist settles lengthy religious freedom case » Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman is ending her long religious liberty battle, opting to settle and retire, rather than continue the legal fight. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has that story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Stutzman said she is “at peace” with her decision to retire. By doing so, she avoids violating her conscience and she also avoids what could have been millions of dollars in legal fees.

The Alliance Defending Freedom announced Thursday that the 77-year-old Washington florist settled with the ACLU to end its lawsuit against her.

The case stems from Stutzman’s decision to decline to arrange flowers for a same-sex wedding nearly a decade ago.

Over the summer, the Supreme Court declined Stutzman’s appeal after the state high court ruled against her a second time.

Stutzman has agreed to withdraw her rehearing request to the Supreme Court and to pay $5,000 to Rob Ingersoll, one of the people who sued.

She intends to retire from Arlene’s Flowers and sell the shop to her employees.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Belarus temporarily moves migrants » In Belarus, soldiers have reportedly escorted most of the migrants amassed at Poland’s border to a nearby warehouse.

State-run media reported that Belarusian soldiers escorted the migrants to a heated warehouse to escape the cold. Migrants inside say authorities are providing mattresses, hot water, and meals but not enough.

The UN’s refugee agency said roughly half of the estimated 7,000 migrants are women and children. At least 12 have died in the past week in clashes with Polish border guards.

Belausian leader Alexander Lukashenko claims Belarus will try to convince the remaining migrants to return to their home countries.

Several European Union nations accused Lukashenko of “weaponizing” the migrants, funnelling them to the Polish border in retaliation for EU sanctions.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the struggle of boys to become men.

Plus, the value of weighty and glorious language.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, November 19th, 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. It’s Culture Friday. We want to welcome John Stonestreet. He’s the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning.

EICHER: John, the Supreme Court is considering a case involving the death penalty in a way that touches on religious liberty. Our colleague Mary Reichard at the beginning of this week dove into the legal details, and it’s worth a listen to Monday’s program. But I wonder what you think about the issue, the question about whether a condemned man has a First Amendment right to have a pastor with him, laying hands upon him as he’s executed.

I can see the religious liberty issue and I can also see the technical issues of interfering with the state’s obligation to carry out justice. How would Chuck Colson have come down on this question?

STONESTREET: Well, I do have to say that I appreciate the question. What do you think Chuck Colson would have said about this because I certainly get a lot of emails informing me what Chuck Colson would think about all kinds of issues since taking over the Colson center. Usually it's the exact opposite of whatever I had just said or whatever I just done. On the death penalty itself, Chuck Colson went back and forth. It was never about whether or not there was biblical justification for the death penalty. I think that much is clear. 

On this particular issue, I think we have to allow religious liberty all the way up into the point of natural death. There's no question on that. I mean, of course, religious liberty is not a right that has no boundaries. So for example, if someone's religion encourages child sacrifice, there's a clear boundary there where, you know, your religious liberty cannot infringe on the rights of somebody else, you know, at that same level to that same degree, laying hands on during an execution process, obviously, that has implications for what method is being used to carry out the execution? And that's going to be a question that has to be answered and could potentially carry with it a restriction of religious liberty, but to have the right to acknowledge one's faith all the way up to the moment of death. I do think that's what the Constitution guarantees and I think the right to have a pastor with him or her, or a religious leader, religious figure of some kind, that's a no brainer, that should be part of the religious liberties that people enjoy. And someone who is convicted of a crime certainly has to give up various freedoms depending on the level of the crime, the level of conviction, the level of the sentence. I don't think that one forfeits complete religious liberty, even in the most heinous of crimes. This is not what Christians believe certainly, about where religious conscience fits in to life, that we do something that is beyond God's forgiveness. That's one of the things that we absolutely don't believe so. It's difficult because now you're talking about a question of degrees you're talking about the method of execution you're talking about all of those sorts of things that play into this religious liberty isn't unlimited however, it is guaranteed to all of us including those who are on death row.

BROWN: Well, I know I'm not a man—very clear on that—but as the mother of two young men, I do want to talk about masculinity. Specifically, the crisis of masculinity as described this week by WORLD Opinions contributor Samuel D. James. In his article on How to Save the American Man, he mentions the emerging generation of young men failing to graduate, failing to work, failing to marry.

I know you were complimentary a week or so ago about a baseball pitcher who left the game—and left a huge pro contract on the table—to go tend to his family. And I’m just wondering, that story certainly was the exception and not the rule. Do you see more signs of hope like that or fewer?

STONESTREET: Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing story about Buster Posey, one of the greats of our day catcher for the San Francisco Giants retiring early for family reasons and pointing to that, but there's also something else at work and that is his faith. Let me just be clear, a major league baseball in and of itself is not enough to make someone a man. What you have in Buster Posey's situation is other factors, faith and institutions of faith formation. That's exactly the feature of American society that gives me less hope than more in terms of your question. Here's what I mean. Government institutions cannot form masculinity. This is the task of pre governmental institutions, especially the family, especially houses of worship and religious communities, especially other organizations that are what folks have rightly called mediating structures, those things that help mediate between individual citizens and the big government. Probably the dominant headline of the last, I don't know, six decades is the increasing observation of these institutions that have served this purpose, one need to point only to the Boy Scouts. I mean, good heavens, how many young men became young men, because of the influence of the Boy Scouts, working alongside of churches working alongside of parents, but what we've had is churches becoming less important in the lives of families, families becoming less important, Dad figures, things like that. And now the Boy Scouts not even sure exactly how to proceed and a culture that doesn't have the clarity that you have, you know, you're clear that you're not a man, and that your sons our culture is not so clear about that. All of this points back to whether we have the other institutions, the other forces in our lives, the other entities within society that helped develop character. So Buster Posey story seems to be a one off. It's not a one off, there are others. But it this sort of thing never happens, and certainly doesn't happen systemically, unless, unless there are strong institutions that can lead us that way. And the headline of our culture over the last several decades is these institutions becoming less and less significant and American life and the government or the state taking up more and more of the air in the room, that doesn't bode well for the formation of masculinity or femininity in any sort of long term life giving way?

EICHER: John, here’s a story that came out midweek, quantifying a bit more what we’ve heard anecdotally. Carolina Lumetta reporting for WORLD in The Sift: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an estimate … that [more than 100,000] people in the United States died of a drug overdose between May of last year and April of this year. The number represents [a year-on-year] increase of nearly 30 percent. The death toll rose in all but four states: Kentucky, Vermont, and West Virginia reporting increases of more than 50 percent. The new estimates place the number of deaths from overdose close to deaths from diabetes, which is the seventh most common cause of death in the country.”

Just released…

STONESTREET: Well, it fits into the category of shocking but not surprising. I mean, those numbers should always shock us. If they don't shock us, then there's something wrong with us, but they shouldn't really surprise us this is fits into the category of what I have called a pre existing condition of COVID. Something that predates the pandemic. And now you have these factors of hopelessness, meaninglessness, addiction. I'm too far into the miniseries dope sick on Hulu, which is not something I can necessarily recommend. But it is something that will keep you up at night in terms of the opioid epidemic, the opioid epidemic in particular came from and the guilt of pharmaceutical companies, especially Purdue pharma, throughout all of this, this is not just one thing, it's everything and it created this perfect storm that existed pre COVID. Now add to COVID lockdowns, isolation, looking at too many screens, looking at too many reverse cameras, seeing yourself all the time not having any accountability and anyone else. You know, there's no other way this math was gonna work out. We have a culture of meaninglessness. This also, by the way, is a direct result of the loss of these institutions. The institutions that point us beyond ourselves, point us to higher powers point us to larger realities points to truth beyond our own happiness. The church does that the family does that the Boy Scouts have done that in the past. And those things become more and more obsolete. And even school itself becoming less and less tethered to truth and reality telling people to look inside. Everything on our culture points, people inside, but inside is empty inside is nothing. And so word is how is this going to work out any other way. So, you know, these were the numbers that are starting to emerge that we feared we had hoped, really beyond any sort of rational hope that they weren't true. But we really shouldn't be surprised now that these numbers are coming in as bad as they are.

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

STONESTREET: Thanks so much.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Officials in Anchorage issued a warning on Wednesday that volcanic ash could rain down on Alaska’s Kodiak Island—about 250 miles to the southwest.

The ash is from the Novarupta volcano on the Alaskan Peninsula. The actual eruption was quite a number of years ago, but it was a big one and a long one—three days—with ash reaching as high as 100,000 feet.

And officials say strong winds in the vicinity of Katmai National Park kicked up the loose volcanic ash, sending it toward Kodiak Island.

Now, I said the eruption known as Novarupta was years ago. And that’s true, but quite an understatement: the eruption happened in the year 1912!

Talk about a delayed reaction—something that happened before the transcontinental telephone line—now has its own internet site.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, November 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: King Richard.

You no doubt know who the two queens of tennis are: Venus Williams and Serena Willams.

They have reigned over the sports world for two decades. The fairytale of their success is an inspiring story of raw talent, hard work, and determination.

But it turns out, it’s not really their story at all.

WORLD Reviewer Collin Garbarino will explain.

RICHARD: I got these two great tennis players. All we need is a club. Everything to go from prodigy to pro.

COLLIN GARBARINO, REVIEWER: King Richard, debuting today in theaters and on HBO Max, isn’t just another sports biopic. It’s an inspiring movie about what it takes to become exceptional—or rather who it takes. Will Smith gives a brilliant performance as Richard Williams, father and coach of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams. The film shows audiences the lengths to which Richard went to ensure his girls became superstars.

COACH: The chances of achieving the kind of success that you’re talking about is just very, very unlikely.

RICHARD: Okay, you making a mistake, but Imma let you make it.

There’s no mystery about how the movie ends. Even people who don’t follow sports know that Venus and Serena will dominate the tennis world. This movie is about the journey, and it reminds us of the importance of both determination and familial love.

Richard had a plan for his daughters’ tennis careers before they were even born. In fact, he wrote it all down in a 78-page document he shared with anyone who’d listen. His dedication to the dream is as impressive as Serena’s skill at swinging a racket.

RICHARD: What you think?

COACH: Nobody’s taking that bet. Tennis takes expert instruction. It takes families with unlimited financial resources. It’s like asking somebody to believe you’ve got the next two Mozarts in your house.

Richard and his wife Brandi raise five daughters in a small house in Compton. All five children are squeezed into one tiny bedroom. Richard and Brandi work hard at their jobs, but they don’t have money for expensive tennis lessons or court fees. The parents train the girls themselves on a rundown public tennis court with substandard rackets and used balls early in the morning and late at night, rain or shine.

BRANDI: They not going to Wimbledon like this. Not with you and me on those raggedy courts.

RICHARD: We just got to stick to the plan. We got champions in the other room.

Lack of resources isn’t the family’s only struggle. Local gang members harass Richard and his girls during practices. Racial slurs hurled during those encounters earn the film a PG-13 rating. And neighbors call the authorities because they think the Williamses place too many demands on their children.

RICHARD: What’s going on? Everybody okay?

BRANDI: They got a call. Said there was trouble in the house.

RICHARD: Okay, okay. Well, you all need to look around?

SOCIAL WORKER: It’s a little wet for practice, don’t you think? Don’t the girls have school work to do?

BRANDI: They do their homework. Tunde’s first in her class, Lyn and Isha are too.

RICHARD: Now I don’t even mind you saying we hard on these kids. You know why? Cause we are. That’s our job, to keep ‘em off these streets. You want to check on the kids? Let’s check on the kids. We got future doctors, lawyers, plus a couple of tennis stars in this house.

Richard wants to escape Compton, but he wants to help his black community as well. The film asks viewers to dream big and work hard, but it also carries a message about how marginalized people deserve to be seen and heard.

RICHARD: This next step you ‘bout to take, you not just gon’ be representin’ you. You gon’ be representin’ every little black girl on earth.

VENUS: I’m not going to let you down.

RICHARD: How could you?

Richard eventually convinces professional coaches to take a chance on his girls, but he continues to struggle with belonging. The further he gets into the predominantly white world of tennis, the more concerned he becomes. The Williamses experience some racism as they start to play in junior tournaments, and Richard becomes appalled by the attitudes and expectations he sees from other parents.

RICHARD: It’s okay. They just not used to seeing good looking peoples like us.

Despite the hard work, Venus and Serena radiate joy. And Richard wants to ensure his girls embrace childhood while they navigate the pressures that come with being tennis prodigies.

When the girls become proud of their skills, Richard admonishes them to keep their hearts clean. When other coaches pressure the girls to follow a path that might lead to burnout, Richard pulls them out of tournaments.

COACH: Every American player got good following this path.

RICHARD: We gonna do this a different way.

COACH: You pulled them out of juniors. You pull them out of practice. You do it constantly.

RICHARD: I’m trying to look out for my kids.

COACH: You’re looking out for yourself.

Richard takes the family down a different path, partly motivated by his maverick tendencies. But he’s also partly motivated by sincere religious conviction. The Williamses are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and while the film doesn’t dwell on that, it portrays their faith with sensitivity.

Fundamentally, King Richard isn’t about tennis or the pursuit of excellence. It’s a moving film about the importance of fathers. Richard’s own father abandoned him, so he wants to be a father who stands between his kids and the world. Richard has his faults, but the film shows our love is more powerful than our failings. And the sacrificial love of a father can change the trajectory of his children’s lives. Becoming a champion isn’t merely about hard work; sometimes it’s about the family who loves you.

RICHARD: Venus Williams, who is your best friend?

VENUS: You, Daddy.

RICHARD: Serena Williams, who is your best friend?

SERENA: Venus. Then you. Then you after Venus.

RICHARD: That’s unbelievable.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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

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

Maybe you’re a longtime listener, but not yet a first-time giver. And if I’ve described you, this is for you.

November is the month when we ask those who’ve never given before to consider supporting our work.

Putting together a program like this is no small thing and that’s why we need your help to keep this program coming your way.

EICHER: Well, that’s right and we realize it’s no small thing to make financial gifts. We realize family budgets are tight and getting tighter. We’ve all been feeling price inflation these days. We get it.

But here’s our answer to the problem of inflation: A matching gift. Maybe you heard, but it bears repeating: One longtime supporting family has pledged a dollar-for-dollar match—all the way up to $40,000. So if you give $50, the matching gift will inflate that, times two, and turn it into a $100 gift and that way we can put inflation to work for you instead of against you.

BROWN: That’s the kind of inflation I think we can all get behind! Love that.

So would you visit wng.org/donate and make your first-ever gift of support? The web address, wng.org/donate.

Please give what you can and help ensure that we’re able to continue bringing this program to you every day.

EICHER: Speaking of inflation, the November Word Play makes an argument for word-inflation—sometimes adorned, embellished, dare we say, inflated language is the right call. Here is George Grant!

GEORGE GRANT, COMMENTATOR: Simpler is not always better. To be sure, good communication demands the elimination of grammatical clutter, jargon, purple prose, and obscure or ostentatious vocabulary. Editors, teachers, and grammarians regularly remind us to “Lighten the cognitive load;” “Eliminate excess;” “Boil everything down to an elevator pitch;” “Describe it so that an eight-year old can understand it;” “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” And they’re right. Whenever possible we ought to keep our sentences short and sweet, utilizing words our readers and listeners won’t have to Google to understand.

Whenever possible. Sometimes though, it’s just not possible. Every so often, simplification ends up being over-simplification.

Take the word whosoever for instance. Admittedly, both antiquated and complicated, the word is nevertheless, very nearly indispensable as a pronoun and an adverb. It was likely first coined by William Tyndale in 1535 for his translation of the New Testament. Taken from the Old Saxon term qua-so-quiddity, Tyndale’s elegant solution to a syntactical muddle then became standard usage. Shakespeare inserted it in his 1595 performance of Richard II. And of course, the word makes regular appearances in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible:

Jesus said to His disciples, “Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24). And again, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). The Apostle Peter declared on the day of Pentecost, “It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

Most modern translations simplify whosoever to whoever. Alas, that simplification is an over-simplification. Whoever is merely an expansive form of who, and while it can still be used as a pronoun and an adverb, it lacks both the emphatic comprehensiveness and the lyrical expressiveness of whosoever.

Thomas Carlyle understood this. Writing long after the King’s English had been relentlessly modernized, he declared, “This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.”

Sometimes, weighty and glorious concepts demand weighty and glorious language, lofty language, embellished and adorned language. We do well when we ensure that medium and message match.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:25).

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Indeed, simpler is not always better.

I’m George Grant.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to thank our team:

Mary Reichard, Kent Covington, Katie Gaultney, Bonnie Pritchett, Julie Spencer, Whitney Williams, Onize Ohikere, Janie B. Cheaney, Lauren Dunn, Kim Henderson, Cal Thomas, Collin Garbarino, and George Grant.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Carl Peetz and Johnny Franklin are the audio engineers who stay up late to get the program to you early! Leigh Jones is managing editor. Paul Butler is executive producer. And Marvin Olasky is editor in chief.

A special thank you to you because your giving makes possible independent Christian journalism. Again, if you’ve never given before, November’s the month for you to become a brand new donor, please this month join the army of more than 10-thousand others who give on a regular basis to keep all of our journalism strong and supplied.

The Bible says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

I hope you’ll worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ this weekend.

Lord willing, we’ll meet you back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace

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