The World and Everything in It - November 5, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

A big week in politics—we’ll talk today about the trends in culture that likely drove the most-watched election day in Virginia

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about it on Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

Plus a new movie about persecution and forgiveness.

And Ask the Editor: tips on how to disagree agreeably.

BROWN: It’s Friday, November 5th. 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: Time now for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: OSHA unveils rules on Biden’s vaccine mandate » If you work for a company with 100 or more employees, the federal government says you’ll need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 4th or get tested weekly.

The Biden administration issued new rules for its vaccine mandate on Thursday. Some economists are concerned that some employees may quit rather than comply, with companies already struggling to fill jobs at the start of the holiday season.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters …

PIERRE: If you’re asking like if we think the rules impact supply chain, the answer is no, we don’t think that it will.

But the administration did push the start date back by one month till after the holidays. The original date was December 4th.

OSHA, the agency that oversees workplace safety, issued nearly 500 pages of regulations Thursday. They detail how companies, and federal workers and contractors should comply with President Biden’s order.

The rules say companies must mandate masks for unvaccinated employees starting Dec. 5.

The rules would impact tens of millions of U.S. workers.

More than two dozen Republican state attorneys general have threatened legal action. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday …

DESANTIS: This is not consistent with a government of limited and enumerated powers. There is no general police power. There’s no power to mandate on the American people from the federal government.

Companies that don’t comply with the rules face stiff fines. The regulations do not apply to those working from home or in outdoor jobs.

Russian analyst who was source for Steele dossier arrested » The FBI has arrested a U.S.-based Russian analyst who helped fuel unverified allegations against former President Trump. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Igor Danchenko faces charges of lying to the FBI. The arrest stems from special counsel John Durham's ongoing investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.

That probe ultimately turned up no credible evidence to support allegations of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Danchenko aided former British spy Christopher Steele in compiling what would come to be known as the “Steele dossier.”

Democrats paid Steele to look for connections between Donald Trump and Russia. And the FBI used information from Steele to get a surveillance warrant to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide.

The indictment says Danchenko falsely denied a relationship with a longtime Democratic operative and supporter of Trump's 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

He’s also accused of fabricating details of a phone conversation that he said showed a—quote—“well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Britain clears COVID-19 drug for use » Regulators in the U.K. have given the green light to a new oral COVID-19 treatment.

The antiviral pill called Lagevrio is manufactured by Merck. British regulators cleared it for emergency use to treat adults who test positive for COVID-19 and have at least one risk factor for severe illness.

The drug targets the enzyme that the virus uses to reproduce. It then puts errors into the virus’s genetic code to help prevent severe infection. The agency said it extensively reviewed the DNA mutation and agreed it does not pose a risk to humans. But some independent experts say questions remain about its safety for certain patients.

Early studies from Merck showed the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID by half.

U.S. regulators plan to consider the pill next month.

Unemployment claims reach new pandemic low » The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits fell to another pandemic low last week. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has more.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: Unemployment claims fell about 5 percent to a total of 269,000.

Jobless claims hit a peak of more than 900,000 in early January, but have fallen fairly steadily ever since. And we’re now moving close to pre-pandemic levels of around 220,000 a week.

Overall, 2.1 million Americans were collecting unemployment checks last week. That was down from 7.1 million a year earlier.

The U.S. government will release its closely watched monthly jobs report today.

Economists believe employers added 400,000 jobs in October. That would be more than twice the jobs added in September. But the United States is still 5 million jobs short of where it stood in February of last year before COVID-19 struck.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

Rescuers continue search after building collapse in Nigeria » Rescuers are still digging through the rubble of a high rise apartment building that collapsed in Nigeria earlier this week as hopes of finding more survivors are dimming.

The new luxury apartment building in the city of Lagos was still under construction when it crumbled to the ground on Monday. As many as 100 people were working at the site.

As of Thursday evening, officials had recovered 36 bodies. Rescuers pulled nine survivors from the debris on Tuesday but none since.

Officials don’t know how many people are still trapped inside the rubble, but that number could be more than 50.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: changing attitudes toward education.

Plus, tips for how to disagree with us.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, November 5th, 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. I want to welcome John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. 

Morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning.

EICHER: I know you were following the Virginia election, and I want to talk about the big issue of the contest, which seemed to be education. We’ve talked a little about this before, the potency of this topic: Here are some numbers, to quantify it a bit. Brad Wilcox—a UVA sociologist—wrote in The Wall Street Journal: In September, voters who said education was the No. 1 issue for them preferred the Democrat by a margin of 33 points. By election day, that 33 point lead not only evaporated, it gave the Republican a 9 point margin, a 42 percent swing in a matter of weeks. That’s a pretty violent shift.

STONESTREET: And you can very much kind of mark when it started to shift and shift violently. It was when the governor basically brought back in to the statewide conversation, a debate that goes to back to the beginning of civilization, which is whether or not kids belong to their parents, or they belong to the state, when he said that parents had no place at school board meetings, and they shouldn't have any say in deciding the education of their kids. And look, you know, he tried to recover, he tried to talk about it being out of context, but you played the whole clip. And it was pretty clear. But I think it was a perfect storm, there was a couple other things happening as well. Virginia was very, very locked down in its response to COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. And you also had kind of a, I think, a growing discomfort with not only the questions of education when it comes to race, but when it comes to the LGBT stuff, that's, that's something that people need to understand, you know, the LGBTQ activism in the Loudoun County School Board, which, of course, was the microcosm of the whole state, they had been very aggressive on the LGBTQ stuff kind of infiltrating that into the school and into curriculum. I mean, years ago. And, you know, that was kind of brought to a head when parents who had had the opportunity during COVID, to kind of listen in to what was happening in the classroom at a rate that they never had before, had a closer view of the sort of books, the sort of resources, the sort of lessons that their kids were being confronted with. And then that statement from the Governor, I mean, it was a done deal. And then if it could have gotten worse, what happened with the Loudoun County School Board, covering up a sexual abuse that happened from a 15 year old boy dressed in a skirt, and then actually not only going after the dad of the girl, but then turning around and portraying him as a domestic terrorist. I mean, you know, but at the end of the day, if you get down to the very root of it, it's whether kids belong to the state or whether kids belong to parents and there's only you know, I know that, you know, the critique is that a lot of parents have, have basically outsource the education of the kids to the state for a really long time. But apparently there's a line and that line was crossed by the state of Virginia.

BROWN: Now, the Democrat in this Virginia race was really trying to play up the racial divide, but one of the other shocking turns of events in the election was victory for a Jamaican immigrant by the name of Winsome Sears, the first black woman elected Lt. Governor. She’s a U.S. Marine who is a proud patriot. She ended her victory speech with a rousing, “Thank you, Jesus!” and she had this to say about racial harmony. Let’s have a listen.

SEARS: There are some who want to divide us and we must not let that happen. They would like us to believe we are back in 1963 when my father came. We can live where we want. We can eat where we want. We own the water fountains. We have had a black president elected not once but twice, and here I am, living proof.

And she criticized those who would divide us by race. Isn’t that, after all the divisiveness we’ve had of late, exactly what we need to hear?

STONESTREET: You really couldn't have written the script any better. Just a groundbreaking historical when in so many different ways, and it doesn't count because she's a conservative, it doesn't count because she's a Republican in many minds. There was just so many ways that the candidacy of  Youngkin was compared to Trump and therefore put into the category of white supremacy and there was just so much there and then you have Winsome Sears, this remarkable woman.

You know, Jamaican immigrant. I lived in Jamaica for a year and the strength of Jamaican women is legendary. I mean, just, you know, and the faith, the connection. And as soon as I heard that, that was her descent, I knew immediately she was a believer, because there's a strength of faith that comes out of this community. And it by the way, and undercuts the narrative, that the deepest part of who we are is our race or ethnicity. Clearly the deepest part of this woman's identity is her faith or belief in God, her convictions that come out of that and shape her political views. And she has no you no problem kind of mixing that with with her faith and even grounding it. And then you add in the Marine part on top of that, and that her husband is a Marine, a man this. I mean, that's, I mean, what a powerhouse. And it's just so interesting that so many people and I would have to say even though I'm a Virginia native, haven't grown up there haven't lived there for a while. But, you know, I was just unaware of all the details here until she won. And that just tells you so much about how this whole narrative around this election was so hijacked, and you know, kind of retrofitted to fit the narrative of the Trump years. And that's a disservice of the media. And when you hear her speak, when you if you go back and listen to her speech, you just realize, Look, she's defined by an intelligence, a courage, a winsomeness, which makes her, you know, name all the more appropriate. That and a faith that's so much more important, you know, to who she is and who she's become than the typical narrative allows. So I'm excited. I think she's got quite a future in the political space too. In Virginia, we'll see what happens next.

EICHER: Yeah, John, glad you said that. I can’t count the number of times you’ve said, if I’m getting this right, ‘You can’t be winsome enough.’ But I guess Winsome can be winsome enough.

STONESTREET: I stand corrected!

EICHER: So it was one of these historic nights, election night, and then you had an African-American moderate Democrat elected mayor of New York—Eric Adams, former cop—wins on a tough on crime message and that leads to my last question before we go: Any thoughts on the defund-the-police movement? If anywhere that might’ve been an issue that would’ve really caught on, I think it’d have to be Minneapolis. But it didn’t: voters there rejected it pretty resoundingly, with 56% voting against the defunding ballot measure. Thoughts on where the defund movement stands right now?

STONESTREET: Well, I'm glad you brought up the New York Mayor race, because that's probably a more resounding defeat for the defund the police movement, you know, per se, even though it wasn't a ballot initiative, but it was really a choice between candidates and and this was a guy who clearly ran on the fact that he was going to be tough on crime. Now, look, I think that there's a whole lot of how we should do policing that should be up for debate, and we should go after this. But but but here's the deeper issue. And it goes to what Chuck Colson said, is the choice between the conscience and the constable, you cannot have freedom unless you can govern yourself, you will either be governed by your conscience or the constable. If you try to defund the police, it will work in a utopian society where people are, you know, highly motivated to do the right thing. We've seen historical times and places in which the police force did shrink, but it shrunk out of necessity, not out of protest. It shrunk because people were governing themselves. The famous example here is Victorian, England, and London and what took place there with the social reforms of the Claphams, and Wilberforce and so on. You know, you can see stories when Christianity really catches on and really changes inner city drunkenness and things like that. You can see that in South America, you can see that even in certain times and places throughout American history. We are not a society governed by the conscience. So any attempt to get rid of the constable is going to be temporary. It's not going to be a permanent solution. It's not a real it's not a real thing. It will actually create an awful lot of hurt and pain for people in the meantime, because it's it's this is the choice: you either govern yourself internally, with the conscience, with faith, with family with social institutions. are outside the state or you have to be governed by by force by the outside by forces of the state. And so to try to lower the enforcement from the outside, at the same time you're lowering the enforcement from the inside. The math doesn't work. And I think that's what we're seeing. And I think we're gonna see a really big pushback and the pendulum go completely the other direction during the midterms. The elections of this week were only a preview of that.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Eileen Ash just celebrated a milestone birthday. And as those who know her would tell you, she just might be the world’s most interesting woman.

Ash played international cricket for England for 12 years. She also worked for MI6, the British spy agency, for 11 years, during and after World War II.

And as recently as last year, a yoga teacher.

ASH: Slide forward so you’re up, down on your tummy. That’s it.

In 2019, Lord’s Cricket Ground recognized her as the oldest living international cricketer.

That’s important because the birthday she celebrated was her 110th.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, November 5th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: faith on screen.

A new film tells the powerful story of Sabina and Richard Wurmbrand—it’s titled Sabina: Tortured for Christ, the Nazi Years. Perhaps you don’t recognize the names, but you’ve almost certainly heard of the organization they founded: Voice of the Martyrs.

EICHER: The film is based on Sabina Wurmbrand’s classic book, The Pastor’s Wife. But reviewer Emily Whitten says the film project doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the book.

EMILY WHITTEN, REPORTER: Sabina Wurmbrand’s autobiography, The Pastor’s Wife, happens to be one of my favorite books … of all time. So, when I heard her story would be the focus of a new film, I was eager to check it out. Here’s a short clip of the trailer in which Sabina meets her future husband, Richard.

CLIP: I want the same things every girl wants. And then a little bit more. I want you to meet someone. Who? He’s every bit as ambitious as you. Who’s this? She is my niece, Sabina Oster.

The film will be in theaters for three nights: Nov 8th, 9th, and 10th. And it definitely has its merits. For one thing, the heroes of the film are just that—true heroes. Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand suffered imprisonment for their faith while in Communist Romania after World War II. They eventually emigrated to the West, and they founded what’s known today as Voice of the Martyrs—an organization serving persecuted Christians around the world.

Sabina serves as a prequel to the 2018 Voice of the Martyrs film, Tortured for Christ. That earlier film is told through the eyes of Richard Wurmbrand, and it portrays the couple’s witness for Christ under Soviet rule.

CLIP: We loved the Russians so much that we risked everything to bring them the gospel.

In Sabina, though, we go back to a time before World War II. We see how the Wurmbrands met and married, and afterwards, how they became Christians, even as Nazis took over their country. This time, Sabina Wurmbrand tells their story to German soldiers hiding on their property from the Soviets.

CLIP: My name is Sabina Wurmbrand. And I am a pastor’s wife. That is the last thing I ever thought I would be.

Both Sabina and Richard are played by Romanian actors. That gives their accents and the movie more credibility than many other Christian movies. The film also uses authentic quotes and paraphrases from Sabina’s book, reflecting her poetic but direct way of speaking. Here’s one such narration after the Wurmbrand’s wedding.

CLIP: In those days we cared very little about God. Not very much about other people. We didn’t want children. We wanted pleasure.

Before their first year of marriage runs out, though, Richard contracts tuberculosis. He goes to a sanatorium for a year to recover and there he finds Christ. It takes Sabina a little longer to overcome past prejudice she felt as a young Jewish girl living in Romania.

CLIP: Dirty little Jewess...If that is Christianity, we should want nothing to do with it.

Once both Wurmbrands see the light, God begins to use them in remarkable ways. They form a close-knit church with their once isolated, racist neighbors. They work with other Christians to save Jews threatened by the Nazis. Sabina’s ability to forgive the Nazis as Christ forgave her is put to the test by the film’s climax.

CLIP: [YELLING, CRASHING OBJECTS]

Unfortunately, the storytelling and cinematography leave a lot to be desired. Characters often seem isolated and one dimensional, and the plot feels forced. Worst of all, many important scenes disrupt the flow of the film. For instance, just before Sabina’s conversion, the camera flits from one closeup of a characters’ eyes to another. I assume the director hoped to show Sabina’s confusion, but the approach left me confused and emotionally unengaged. Those misfires, along with an uneven musical score and soundtrack, undermine the film’s many positives.

Sabina: Tortured for Christ, the Nazi Years is rated PG-13, partially because of violence by soldiers. We also see disturbing but powerful black and white images of the Holocaust that do add context. Beyond that, prior to their conversion, we watch the Wurmbrands drink, smoke, and dance fairly provocatively.

AUDIO: [DANCE MUSIC]

At one point later on, a non-Christian married couple tries to pick up other partners at a bar. Because of these mature themes, parents might want to let younger kids sit this one out.

My bottom line for adults: skip the theater presentation of Sabina. Instead, listen to the audiobook version of The Pastor’s Wife. It contains profound theological truths, anti-Communist insight, and human drama, all conveyed in well-crafted prose. Here’s a short clip of the audio version read by Sadie Alexandru.

AUDIOBOOK: Few guessed that a new and more lasting tyranny had begun. Certainly I did not know we had just set out on a road which led to prison and would be marked by the graves of friends.

Some men might prefer Richard’s classic book, Tortured for Christ. Whichever book you read, when Sabina finally hits streaming platforms, I hope you’ll watch both Tortured for Christ films at home, judging for yourself what’s great and not so great about each of them.

I’m Emily Whitten.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, November 5th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. In a moment, Ask the Editor for the month of November. But first—a quick programming note. On October 21st, Senior Editor Mindy Belz announced her time at WORLD was coming to an end. For 30 years, she’s been the eyes and ears for so many WORLD readers and listeners—and her colleagues—because she kept front and center the concerns of Christians in the Middle East.

BROWN: WORLD’s Emily Whitten interviewed Mindy for the September Classic Book of the Month. We ended up only using a small portion of that conversation. So this weekend, we’re sharing a much longer version of it to mark the end of Mindy’s tenure at WORLD. You’ll find that in The World and Everything in It podcast feed on Saturday.

EICHER: Time now for Ask the Editor. Here’s executive producer Paul Butler with some tips for how agreeably to disagree with us.

PAUL BUTLER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: We frequently ask you for feedback. And just to be clear, we want to hear more than praises and “attaboys” — but also your concerns and disagreements. Frankly, it helps us improve.

In September, a pastor wrote this criticism:

One of my deacons suggested I listen to your podcast years ago and I took him up on it. At the time you were doing a good job but I’ve noticed the continual slipping from a Christ centered podcast to a pop culture, left leaning podcast with a “Jesus twist...”

A month earlier, another listener wrote this:

I use[d] to listen to your podcast but unsubscribed today. You are not unbiased in your reporting...

These are hard things to read. But Solomon writes in Proverbs 27 verses 5 and 6: ​“open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. ​​Faithful are the wounds of a friend…”

So that got me thinking, how can we invite better disagreements? Here are some suggestions on how to be critical while at the same time honoring our unique relationship—based on a shared faith in Christ.

In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul encourages believers to walk worthy of their calling with humility, meekness, forbearance, and striving for unity—all marks of Christian charity.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul explains that love—among many other things—suffers long, and does not behave rudely. It is not provoked. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

So we’re called to both love one another and strive for unity in the Spirit. So how we might do that practically as listeners and podcasters who follow Christ but sometimes disagree?

First, believe the best. We are to remain open-hearted toward one another. Of course, we are to test everything by the word of God as the Bereans did, but we shouldn’t look at each other with constant suspicion.

Second, be gracious and respectful. Write unto others as you would wish to be written to.

Third, focus more on what was said than what wasn’t.

Fourth, seek to mend, and not tear down. Make an appeal as to a brother or sister.

Fifth, brevity. Three to five hundred words keeps the criticism specific and prevents piling on.

Sixth: avoid threats. Sometimes we get emails that end like this one:

I'm not just trying to be an angry critic...however, I encourage you to offer a public retraction of this segment. Until I hear that I will encourage our church to stay away.

Now I understand that convictions run deep, but there may be more productive ways to communicate how strongly you feel about a story or issue—at least at first.

Finally, remember the law of love.

When you do these things, the correspondence will be like iron on iron, sharpening and strengthening, not dulling or weakening.

Earlier this year, a long time reader and listener wrote a concise critique of a podcast segment. She thoughtfully laid out her position on why we got it wrong. She concluded this way:

“This was the first time I was disappointed with WORLD, so I can easily move beyond this and will continue to read, listen, and watch. I simply felt unsettled...compelled to send this feedback.”

She then ended by thanking us for considering her perspective and she affirmed our mission and vision for “trustworthy Christian journalism.”

Now that’s charity. That’s humility. That’s believing the best. And that’s endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And I think it’s a pretty good example of how to disagree.

I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to thank the dedicated team that made this week’s programs possible:

Kent Covington, Mary Reichard, Katie Gaultney, Kristen Flavin, Emily Whitten, Steve West, Onize Ohikere, Josh Schumacher, Janie B. Cheaney, Jill Nelson, and Cal Thomas.

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.

And thank you, because your giving makes possible independent Christian journalism.

The Bible says: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

May you give thanks this weekend as you hear from God’s word and gather together with His people.

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

Go now in grace and peace.

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