The World and Everything in It: November 19, 2024

PREROLL: Nearly 30 years ago, the violence known as "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland officially came to an end. But peace doesn't always mean reconciliation. I'm Jenny Lind Schmitt. In a few minutes I'll have the story of a man once driven by hate, who now preaches love and forgiveness found in Christ. Stay with us.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The US has agreed to supply longer-range missiles to Ukraine. But what changed in the Biden Administration for that to happen?

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Also today, we consider how young men voted in the recent election, and why.

WARREN: It's not surprising that, you know, young men just don't care about the Democratic Party, because the Democrat Party doesn't talk to them.

Plus, we‘ll meet a missionary to Africa who spent time in prison after being accused of aiding insurgents.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, November 19th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

REICHARD: It’s time now for the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Russia response to Ukraine long-range authorization » The Kremlin is warning that the White House and NATO allies are stoking the war and escalating global tensions. That comes after President Biden gave Ukraine the green light to start using US-provided missiles to strike deeper inside Russia.

PESKOV: [Speaking in Russian]

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the outgoing Biden administration is—quote—“adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions.”

But U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller shot back:

MILLER:  It has been Russia that has escalated the conflict time and time again. And that includes just in the recent month when Russia recruited the deployment of more than 11, 000 North Korean soldiers who are now on the front lines in Kursk.

The Russian army has been staging military assets and launching attacks from deeper inside Russia — out of the reach of Ukrainian forces until now.

Germany and Finland are investigating after discovering a severed undersea cable between the countries through the Baltic Sea.

The two countries say it raises suspicions of sabotage. The foreign ministries of the two countries said in a joint statement that the damage comes at a time that “our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

Netanyahu: counter-attack hit Iran nuke component » Israel says its retaliatory strike against Iran last month hit a key target. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed to Israel's parliament on Monday that the attack hit a specific component of Iran's nuclear program.

But the prime minister says the strike only served to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon … not derail it.

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency warned last week that Iran is moving close to developing a nuclear bomb.

The Israeli air strike last month followed Iran’s massive missile attack against Israel weeks earlier.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Rocket attack in Israel » Meanwhile…

SOUND: [Rocket strike]

At least half a dozen people were injured in the town of Ramat Gan in central Israel after a rocket attack from southern Lebanon.

Israeli medical officials initially said their wounds were caused by shrapnel resulting from a rocket interception but:

SARGEROF: [Speaking Hebrew]

Speaking there, Tel Aviv's district police chief tells reporters that there was no interception and that one of the town's buildings suffered a direct hit by the rocket.

Border, deportation plans » President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that upon taking office, he will declare a national emergency regarding the border crisis, and that he intends to use military assets to address it.

His soon-to-be border czar, Tom Homan, explained:

HOMAN: If we use DOD, then they'll be used to do non enforcement duties, such as transportation, whether it's on ground or air, infrastructure, building intelligence.

Trump has promised that finding and deporting criminals and national security threats will be the administration's first priority.

Laken Riley suspect trial » Homan also expressed anger as testimony resumed in the trial of the man accused of murdering 26-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley in February.

The suspect, Jose Ibarra, entered the U.S. illegally two years ago.

Homan said if President Biden had not dismantled Donald Trump’s ‘remain in Mexico’ policy …

HOMAN:  He would never have been released in the United States. If President Trump was president, and he did get in the United States, and he got arrested in New York for a crime before he committed this murder, he would never have been released to the street. He would have been turned over to ICE. So this administration has blood on their hands.

After being charged with a crime in New York City and then being released … Ibarra was reportedly granted a taxpayer-funded flight to Atlanta months before Riley’s death.

Biden seeks funds for disaster aid » President-elect Trump says former Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy is his choice to be transportation secretary. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years. He was a member of the Financial Services Committee and was chairman of the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019 and is co-host of a show on the Fox Business network.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: young men turned out in record numbers to vote in this year’s election. We’ll hear from a few of them what was important to them. Plus, the story of one man’s dramatic conversion that filled a once hateful heart with love.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 19th of November.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

As mentioned earlier, Russia warned against the use of missiles supplied by the US for Ukraine to use to strike inside Russia.

Joining us now to talk about it is Robert Peters. He researches nuclear deterrence and missile defense for the Heritage Foundation.

REICHARD: Bob, good morning.

BOB PETERS: Good morning.

REICHARD: We spoke with you a couple months ago when Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelenskyy first appealed to NATO countries to let Ukraine use western missiles to strike targets within Russia. The answer then was no. But on Friday, President Joe Biden changed his position and said yes to that request. Why did he change his mind?

PETERS: Well, it's hard to say. There's not a lot of strategic logic for making the change at this point that is radically different from where we were two months ago. So it's difficult to assess why President Biden reversed a decision that's been in place basically since the start of the war, other than perhaps he's looking at it as that he's got two more months in office and he's going to do what his heart feels is correct. And in two more months, it's you know, any escalation dynamics are not going to be his problem. But I don't really see the strategic logic for reversing course.

REICHARD: Well, I'd read that one possible reason was that Russia put 10,000 North Korean soldiers on the ground. Could that have factored in?

PETERS: I doubt it. I mean, it's possible, but I mean, those North Korean soldiers are pretty poorly trained. They're basically being sent to the front to serve as cannon fodder against Ukrainian forces. I'm not sure that even Kim Jong-un is expecting a great many of them to come back alive to North Korea.

REICHARD: You’ve warned before that we can only go so far before Putin is forced to respond. Do you think this change in policy could provoke that response?

PETERS: So the problem is that we've got a bit of a boy who cried wolf that's going on with Putin and he's brought this on himself. And so it's just it's really hard to say. What I would say, though, is that while Americans want Ukraine to win and it's in America's interest to degrade Russian combat capabilities so that they're not able to threaten our NATO allies, it's not America's interest to get into this to see nuclear weapons used in Ukraine. From purely American interest perspective, Ukraine is not worth, you know, a limited nuclear war in Europe.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about the best and worst case scenarios that’ll come from US involvement like that.

PETERS: So from an American perspective, the best case scenario is that lifting the restrictions on long range fires has some modest improvements on the battlefield for Ukraine and they're able to stop the Russian advance or at least slow the Russian advance or perhaps bring Russians to the negotiating table, which I think is actually the ultimate goal. No matter what the odds are. I wouldn't give it that great odds for that happening. That's the best case scenario from an American perspective.

Worst case scenario is that the Russians could say, “I've had it, this is far enough, the Americans aren't listening. I need to use, I don't know, small number, less than six low yield nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine to get the attention of the Western capitals, which clearly are not listening to me.” That's the worst case scenario.

REICHARD: Meantime is the US depleting its own missile supply?

PETERS: Yeah, so the answer to that is yes, we are. We're almost empty on our own long range fires.

REICHARD: A new Trump administration is transitioning back into power. What does this decision by the Biden administration mean for President-elect Trump?

PETERS: Well, so it's going to create a dilemma for president-elect Trump in that he's either going to have to continue with the restrictions that the Biden administration has placed, which now includes these lifted restrictions on the employment of long range fires deep into Russia. Or he's going to have to reverse course and say, no, no, we're going to reimpose restrictions on the Ukrainians, if he does that, if he does the latter and reimpose restrictions, it'll cause consternation amongst some allied capitals in Europe and it'll certainly cause consternation in Kiev. If he continues and says, well, I think President Biden, as he was going out the door, made the right decision to lift the restrictions, he risks courting, potential Russian escalation against Ukraine itself. So he's got a dilemma that he's going to have to figure out as soon as he gets into the Oval Office.

REICHARD: Is there an aspect of this you think is underreported that Americans need to understand?

PETERS: Yeah, I think Americans need to know that, you know, while both Russia and the United States have nuclear arsenals and, you know, they're credible and they're effective and they're viable, Russia has about 2000 non-strategic nuclear weapons that are ranged to hit targets in Western Europe.

We got rid of most of our non-strategic nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War. Russia held on to theirs. And they did that because I think they see their conventional forces as being weaker to those that the United States and our NATO allies. But the reason why he kept them was for scenarios like this in which their army is losing on the conventional field of battle and they're being humiliated. And they see that nuclear weapons could be a way for them to snap victory out of the jaws of defeat. And we shouldn't dismiss the potential that Putin could say, you know what? Some very small, low-yield nuclear weapons, smaller than what the United States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, is a way to change the course of the war decisively in my advantage. And we could see a situation in which Russia does use nuclear weapons to try to end the conflict on terms that they deem acceptable. And I think that we're too dismissive of the Russian nuclear threats, and that's a dangerous thing to do.

REICHARD: Bob Peters is a research fellow for the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security. Thanks for joining us this morning.

PETERS: Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Young men and the election.

Donald Trump gained support in almost every key demographic in this month’s election. One of the most notable was with young men, under age 30. In 2020, only 41% of that demographic voted for Donald Trump. This year? That number jumped to more than half to 56%.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: I wanted to know more about that swing and why it happened. Here’s what I found out.

FOX NEWS: “We can now also predict that Vice President Harris will win New Mexico…”

As election results rolled in on November 5th, it came as little surprise that voters ages 18 to 29 pulled the lever for Kamala Harris. Some polls prior to the election had put her up over President-elect Trump by nearly 30 points with that group.

Audio from Harris supporters on election day:

LINDSAY CRABTREE: I want my women's rights.

KATLYN JOHNSON: I like having my healthcare not being tampered with. I'm a firm believer in abortion rights and women's rights.

BENJAMIN BROWN: As long as she can speak coherently and doesn't constantly insult people I'm cool with it

But what surprised many people was how far off those predictions ended up being. The Associated Press reports Harris won just 51% of under-30 voters, to Trump’s 47%. Compared to 2020, it’s a roughly ten point shift on either side.

Michael Coulter is a professor of political science at Grove City College who says that swing is noteworthy.

MICHAEL COULTER: Typically, the youth vote is clearly strongly and more strongly for the Democratic candidate. This is the narrowest margin in that youth vote group in to my knowledge, maybe ever, but it's been certainly a long time.

Coulter notes that the swing among young men was even more dramatic. While 60% of young women voted for Harris, under-30 men went the other way by nearly as much.

COULTER: For young men, and I think this may be one of the more important stories of the election, is that 42% of that group voted for Kamala Harris and 56% for Donald Trump and and that's what you have in the young men, you know, ages 18 to 29 it's a complete switch.

Coulter says young men are usually a less reliable voter bloc, yet they turned out– and favored Trump. Why?

ALEXANDER WARREN: It's not surprising that, you know, young men just don't care about, the Democratic Party, because the Democrat Party doesn't talk to them.

That’s Alexander Warren. He’s 22, and the president of the College Republicans at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. He says college students do notice practical issues like the economy. They may not be looking at mortgages, but they realize how much it costs to, say, go out with friends.

Additionally, he says they notice the effects of illegal immigration and crime , too. Audio from WSB-TV in Atlanta.

NEWSCAST CLIP: Breaking news: the man who police say killed Laken Riley could be booked into the Clarke County jail at any minute…

Warren says it hit home for many of his peers when Laken Riley was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant at the University of Georgia earlier this year.

WARREN: I think people are going to be emotional over that, rightfully so. And that, I think, really motivated a lot of young people in Georgia, because, you know, if that could easily be any one of them.

Warren thinks Trump appealed to young men for a couple of reasons. One was his communication style.

WARREN: I think a lot of people just appreciate his bluntness. I would say that that's a big factor. They like that he just tells it like it is, you know, he's not very, he's not a polished guy.

Another part of Trump’s appeal? His willingness to engage with young men.

Unlike Harris, Trump actively reached out to young men. He talked to some of the most popular podcast hosts today: former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, podcaster and comedian Theo Von. He spent nearly three hours talking to Joe Rogan, who has the number one podcast in the country. Media Monitor says Rogan’s listener base is 71% male, with an average age of 24.

Nicholas Giordano, who teaches political science at Suffolk Community College in New York, says he understands why young men would feel drawn to that.

NICHOLAS GIORDAN: Well, it's simple actually, because young men, and men in general, have been demonized.

He says the young men he sees on college campuses feel disaffected, underappreciated.

GIORDANO: The Republican Party has made significant overtures, saying that, hey, listen, we do believe that they're men and women, and both play vital roles in our society, that we need both of them in order to succeed, and I think that males are gravitating towards that message.

It’s a message that seems to have been successful in 2024–but will these same young men retain their affinity for conservative politics? Michael Coulter at Grove City says it’s possible this will be more than a passing blip.

COULTER: Yeah, well, one of the things that is incredibly important part of American political life is when people form partisan attachments. And there is a fair amount of data that shows that this younger period is when you shape your partisan attachment and it sticks with you. People change. But I would expect most of these younger male voters, to stay Republican for at least a couple of election cycles, if not more. And and so the the Democrats are gonna have to figure out, like, if they want to win, they do need to find a way to better appeal to to younger male voters.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Up next, from prison to freedom.

Last year, an American missionary pilot was arrested and jailed in Mozambique for several months.

The charter company is part of the Mission Aviation Fellowship in Mozambique. It offers humanitarian aid. But officials accused the pilot of aiding a terrorist group. We’ve been following the story. Here’s WORLD’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: On November 2nd, 2022, missionary pilot Ryan Koher prepped for an uneventful cargo flight into Northern Mozambique, just like he’d done many times before.

RYAN KOHER: I got to the airport with the two South African men and they had all of the goods in their cars. I put the goods through security like at any airport, through the scanner and metal detector and all that stuff.

A government agent noticed vitamins and asked for their permits. Koher and the two men didn’t have the proper paperwork.

RYAN: He held us. Goods never made it to the airplane.

Within a few hours, what began as a simple misunderstanding had escalated to something much more serious.

RYAN: And I think that turned into the idea that we could be flying these vitamins to the enemy in the Northern province. The decision was made to take away our passports and phones and bring us to the police station.

MAF Mozambique flies in and around parts of the country where insurgent groups operate. One group of particular concern pledged allegiance to ISIS and killed more than 4,000 people—displacing nearly one million others.

So when Koher and the other two men could not produce the required permits needed to travel into that area with the goods they had…the missionaries ended up in jail.

Back home, Annabel Koher and their two boys had no idea what was going on.

ANNABEL KOHER: I was trying to get a hold of Ryan during the day because I knew that he was supposed to be flying back home and I just wasn't able to get ahold of him. I just assumed this was one of those things that can happen sometimes in other countries where he would be brought in for questioning. They would get past it and then they would release him. It's something that you are prepared for as a missionary. So I wasn't terribly concerned at that point.

But turns out there was cause for concern…Ryan spent the next two days in a local police holding cell. Then after a hearing, he was moved to the city jail. A couple days later he was moved yet again to a state prison. One week later, on November 16th, 2023, he was put into solitary confinement at a high security prison while government officials continued to investigate the case.

RYAN: At that point, I just surrendered and I said, “Lord, I just trust you with what's going to happen. And, you know, I may not make it out of this, but I know that your plans are good for me.” And, you know, I prayed that He would be glorified through the situation.

Koher says God answered his prayer and granted him favor with the administrators and guards.

The prison fed him only once a day—like the rest of the inmates—but they allowed the mission to bring Koher additional food and material needs. Annabel and the kids prepared to return to the states. She was able to get some clothes and a New Testament to Ryan before she left.

RYAN: So I started reading the Bible through those first few nights in that jail. We read Psalm 91 and it was just super encouraging. It's like water to my soul at that point, the hope and just the lamenting and the longing and, you know, just God being good and through the whole thing.

God’s word sustained Koher during his four months behind bars:

RYAN: I read through the Bible about twice. The scripture really came alive.

Koher was not allowed to speak with his family, but they did correspond by letter.

The US government got involved behind the scenes and the mission eventually found a lawyer willing to fight hard to prove Koher’s innocence. All the while, Mozambique never officially charged him. They seemed to be slow walking the case.

RYAN: They held me in jail for as long as they could before they had to let me out without pressing charges. And then they kept me in the country as long as they could without pressing charges as well.

Koher was released on March 14th, 2023. As he left the prison, he called Annabel. It was the first time they’d spoken for more than 50 days.

ANNABEL: So that was pretty awesome and surprising. Just to see his face and the boys were next to me when that happened. And they were like, “okay, so like why isn't he here?” Because they're like, “he's out, so let him be home now.”

But Koher was unable to leave the country. The government still had his passport.

Finally, last autumn, Koher was allowed to leave and reunite with his family in the US. For much of the past year, the Kohers have lived in Nampa, Idaho as Ryan worked at MAF headquarters…awaiting a final decision about his case.

Last Friday, one of Koher’s team members from Mozambique approached him in the hangar. She handed him her phone.

RYAN: And on the phone was an email saying that the case was dismissed and the whole legal process was coming to a close.

Closed. Without charges. Ryan’s name has been cleared.

RYAN: So we plan to return in February or March next year after our daughter is born. She's due in a couple of weeks in early December. There was never a point where we didn't want to go back. Early in the detainment process, the Lord reminded me that I just need to forgive like Christ forgave us and to love them instead of, you know, closing the doors all the time.

Ryan and Annabel Koher are confident that it's safe to go back. And the mission agrees.

ANNABEL: The boys have been asking ever since we left the country when we get to go back to Mozambique. It's home to them and it's home to us. So we're excited to go back.

Koher seems remarkably unshaken by the whole ordeal. He says he’s ready to just get back to work, though he adds he’ll be much more careful about paperwork moving forward.

RYAN: Yeah, it's just gonna be a life experience. [LAUGHS] And, you know, if there is any danger ahead, which there could be, there's always unknowns, and could be a different situation that comes up. But, you know, we trust that God will be with us through whatever situation arises, just like he has been so far.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Here’s an unlikely story of lost, then found.

Frederick Morgan Perigo was on a family vacation in Barbados. Somehow his treasured graduation ring for McMaster University class of 1965 came off in the ocean.

Perigo searched for the ring, but eventually he had to give up.

Fast forward nearly a half century later, and what do you know? A professional free diver named Alex Davis was trying out a new underwater metal detector:

ALEX DAVIS: I see this shiny gold band sticking out the sand, and my eyes just kind of lit up. I had a little brief moment where I kind of did the whole Lord of the Rings, Smeagol, you know, precious after seeing that.

Davis marveled at the timing:

DAVIS: I mean, I was born in 1990. I'm 34 years old, and I'm like, that ring has been lost longer than I've been on this planet.

Undaunted, Davis tracked Perigo down with just the school name, year, and initials engraved on the ring. And here’s the best part: he shipped the ring just in time for Perigo’s 83rd birthday.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Shorely providential!

REICHARD: It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 19th.

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

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A change of heart.

Nearly three decades ago, Northern Ireland’s 30 years of conflict came to an end with the Good Friday Agreements. But that country still grapples with the need for reconciliation as change comes about through Brexit and demographics.

MAST: In all that turmoil, God brought about some miraculous change and transformation.

WORLD’s Europe Reporter Jenny Lind Schmitt brings us the story now of a man from Belfast who is still working to reconcile.

DAVID HAMILTON: See the two cell windows?...My cell was that second one…

JENNY LIND SCHMITT: David Hamilton is deaf in one ear, and he walks with a limp. Those are leftover marks of a very different, very violent life long ago when his white hair was jet black. At the gates of Crumlin Road Prison, Hamilton points over the wall to the prison cell where God saved him.

HAMILTON: So that’s the start of going into the Protestant area. Then you drive over this Bridge, and from here up then, it’s Republican.

Hamilton grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. When he was 14, a bunch of his buddies told him they couldn’t be friends anymore because he was a Protestant and they were Catholic. They beat him up and threw him in the river.

HAMILTON: See them railings and fences? All that was because people would come across and throw petrol bombs into these houses.

Hamilton joined a gang terrorizing Catholics in his neighborhood, smashing windows and setting schools on fire. At 19, after a few stints in jail, he joined the most feared paramilitary group: the Ulster Volunteer Force— the UVF.

HAMILTON: And I thought if I'm going to do this terrorism I'm going to do it right. So I asked to join that group.

With the UVF Hamilton robbed banks, set churches on fire, and built bombs. Eventually, after a bank heist, police raided his house … arrested him … and sentenced him to ten years.

Several years into his prison sentence, he found a Bible tract on his bunk one night. Hamilton threw it away. But as he made a cup of tea, something unusual happened.

HAMILTON: And I'm sitting on the bed drinking my tea, and it was as suddenly as that. I heard a voice said to me, “David, it's time to change. Become a Christian.”

He tried to brush off the thought, but it kept returning. He started thinking of all the close calls he’d had. Once, a bomb that he’d planted detonated early. It blasted him out into the street, covered with broken glass, but he’d walked away unscathed. Another time, an IRA-man tried to assassinate him.

HAMILTON: But as he got up to me, he just went like this. And he pulled out a gun and he put it up to my head. So I immediately grabbed his arm, pulled his arm down, but he shot me three times and I was lying on the ground when he leaned over to me, and he put the gun down to my head like this. And when he pulled the trigger, the gun jammed.

He had always credited his good luck. Now he wondered if it was God who’d protected him.

HAMILTON: Was that God? I was overwhelmed by it all because I thought nobody could explain that? Why would God be interested in a terrorist? And spare my life. I'm still overwhelmed by it.

He tried reading the Bible in his cell. Prisoners kept them because the thin paper was good for rolling cigarettes. He couldn’t understand it. His cellmate made fun of him and told him that he couldn’t become a Christian because he was too bad of a person.

HAMILTON: But that night in jail I said to myself, “If God has kept me alive. He could change me. He could change me.” And I wanted to change more than anything. That was the desire in my heart at that moment. I says, “God, you've kept me alive. Will you change me and take away all this evil and bitterness that I have in my heart?”

He waited until his cellmate was asleep.

HAMILTON: …and I knelt down on my bed and prayed and asked the Lord Jesus to come into my life.

The next morning, he told his cellmate who in turn told the other prisoners on the block. They all mocked him.

HAMILTON: Have you joined the God Squad? And here's me, “Yes, I have.” And then. “Are you a Christian?” I says, “I am.” “Who was Cain's wife?” I said, “Mrs. Cain. What does that mean?” I knew nothing about the Bible. But you know what? I did know I had a joy and a peace in my heart.

That was January 1980. Hamilton learned later that on the day of his sentencing years before, his despairing mother poured out her heart to an older relative, saying her son was a hopeless case.

The woman, Mrs. Beggs, said that God has no hopeless cases and promised to pray for him everyday.

HAMILTON: And the old woman said, “Mrs. Hamilton, don't cry. I'm going to pray and ask God to change your son…” So I tell people, “It's not my fault I'm a Christian. That old woman's to blame! She put me on her wanted list and started praying for me.”

Hamilton spent the rest of his sentence studying theology. He was filled with love for the Catholics on the other side of the conflict, and he became friends with ex-IRA men who had also been saved.

When Mrs. Beggs heard of Hamilton’s conversion, she started praying for his future ministry. After his release, Hamilton became a pastor. He and other ex-paramilitary men began touring Northern Ireland to preach the gospel. But not everyone was happy about this reconciliation work. Paramilitary groups made several attempts on his life.

HAMILTON: But that's when they said to me, "You're on a hit list. You're going to get it if you don't stop all of this."

He moved his family to England and pastored there for decades.

Recently he retired back to Northern Ireland. It’s a different time, and the old troubles and tensions are not what they once were. But Hamilton says there is still too much separation between communities. So he tells his story whenever he can.

HAMILTON: Well, there’s still walls on the heart, you know what I mean? That need to be removed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, co-belligerents.”

This month marks the 15th anniversary of “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience.” Nearly 150 leaders from various Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions signed the declaration. Eventually, more than half a million individuals added their signatures. 

REICHARD: WORLD Opinions contributor Nathan Finn says perhaps there is something we can learn from the effort today.

NATHAN FINN: The Manhattan Declaration focuses upon three issues that were under assault in American society in 2009: the sanctity of every human life, a Biblical understanding of marriage, and religious liberty for all people. The statement addresses these issues from the complementary standpoints of Scripture, the Great Tradition of Christian doctrine and ethics, and human reason. In addition to a brief exposition of these priorities, the declaration issues a call to action.

The original signers confessed: “We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.”

Since the rise of the religious right in the mid-1970s, many evangelicals have been willing to engage in strategic “co-belligerency” with non-evangelicals to promote socially conservative values in the public square. The Manhattan Declaration proved an important moment in the history of evangelical co-belligerency for two reasons. First, it brought together a wide variety of professing Christians with common concerns. Second, it focused Christian activism on three interrelated issues that are under constant assault in an increasingly post-Christian society.

The Manhattan Declaration proved controversial in some quarters. Many evangelicals bristled at the assumption that the traditions represented shared a common understanding of the gospel. This is a reasonable concern. Evangelicals and Catholics remain divided on the key issues that first divided Christendom in the 1500s, including how best to understand the doctrine of salvation. However, evangelicals should appreciate opportunities to work together with Catholics to promote authentic human flourishing in a decadent society. The same could be said of the Eastern Orthodox.

One need not formally affirm The Manhattan Declaration to agree with its intent: to unite self-professing Christians in a common cause in defending life, marriage, and liberty. If anything, the past 15 years have proven just how prescient the declaration was in its interpretation of American society. The document correctly identifies the threat posed by progressives who reject a Biblical worldview, redefine constitutional freedoms, and are committed to compelling universal affirmation of their vision for American society.

Social conservatives have suffered their share of losses since 2009. The Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling in 2015 declared a constitutional right to homosexual marriage. Pride Month has become a staple of the summer and the high point of the neo-pagan liturgical calendar. Business owners who refuse to celebrate homosexual marriage have had their religious freedom threatened repeatedly by LGBTQ activists and progressive judges. Numerous states have passed laws enshrining a constitutional right to elective abortion. Congressional Democrats are committed to passing the Equality Act as well as passing legislation to legalize abortion at the federal level.

But there have also been victories. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving the legality of abortion in the hands of the states. Some states like Florida, have moved in a more pro-life direction. For the most part, courts have protected the religious freedom of those who dissent from LGBTQ orthodoxy. Courts have also proven to be hesitant to normalize transgenderism in high school and college athletics. Most importantly, the 2024 presidential election represented a resounding defeat of woke identity politics. While that is not the same thing as a societal affirmation of social conservatism, it does present a prime opportunity for evangelicals, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox to make a fresh case for life, marriage, and liberty.

The Manhattan Declaration reminds us that strategic cobelligerency remains an important part of Christian social action. Social conservatives should continue to work together to promote authentic human flourishing in a nation that is prone to forget the Biblical worldview that, however imperfectly at times, has profoundly shaped our history and contributed to our national identity. More importantly, evangelicals especially should commit to praying for a gospel-centered spiritual awakening, trusting that the Lord of all nations can bring renewal to our nation.

I’m Nathan Finn.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow on Washington Wednesday: FEMA has been under fire for its response after hurricanes Helene and Milton. We’ll check in on the emergency response hearings happening this week. And, turning cornfields into classrooms. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

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