The World and Everything in It: October 13, 2025

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Legal Docket: Regulating professional conduct or censoring speech … A showdown at the Supreme Court:

BARRETT: Can a state pick a side? It's not that the medical community says we just don't know. It's that there are competing strands.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat … a new skirmish in the trade wars.

And the WORLD History Book…marking 75 years of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

RIGNEY: Suppose that the son of God became incarnate in a fantasy world full of talking animals in the way that he had really become incarnate in this world as a human. What would that be like?

REICHARD: It’s Monday, October 13th. Columbus Day. 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: It’s time now for the news with Kent Covington.

SOUND: [Hostages Square cheers]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Expected hostage release » Sounds from Hostages Square in Tel Aviv as the crowd gathered there received word of the first 7 Israeli hostages set free this morning.

They were released into the custody of the Red Cross. Their health condition was reportedly “normal” by initial assessments.

Those 7 Israelis, held by the Hamas terror group for two years … were the first of 20 surviving captives set to be returned home as part of a ceasefire deal.

Alana Zeitchik is a relative of Israeli hostage David Cunio. She said David's young kids would finally get to know their father.

ZEITCHIK:  Their initial reaction to him coming home is, has been shock. You know, they were in captivity, um, at three years old and now they're five. So they've celebrated two birthdays without their dad.

After the hostages are freed, Israel is ready to release about 2,000 Palestinian detainees and receive around 28 dead hostages.

Many Palestinians are also celebrating as the gunfire stops … and humanitarian aid surges into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

President Trump was set to visit Israel and Egypt today after … days after Hamas accepted phase one of his administration’s peace plan.

Ukraine latest » President Trump is warning Russia that he may send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles … if Moscow doesn't settle its war there soon.

He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday …

TRUMP:  I might say, look, if this war's not gonna get settled, I'm gonna send them tomahawks. I may say that Tomahawk is a, an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon, and honestly, Russia does not need that.

Moscow expressed “extreme concern” over that possibility.

Trump’s comments came after a phone call earlier Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

China trade » President Trump is also trying to open the door for more talks with China — after threatening to slap a 100-percent tariff on Chinese goods beginning in November.

The move follows Beijing’s surprise decision to tighten export controls on rare earth minerals — vital for cell phones, electric cars, and military equipment.

President Trump remarked on Friday:

TRUMP: We said, where did that come from? It was just, that was out of the blue, right out of the blue. 

U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer says Washington quickly reached out to arrange a call, but China declined to take it.

Trump over the weekend remarked on social media—his words … “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine. Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it.”

White House warns of deeper cuts amid shutdowns » The federal government shutdown is now nearly weeks old … and still, no end in sight.

The top Democrat in the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says there will be no deal to reopen the government …

JEFFRIES:  If Republicans continue to refuse to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

He says Democrats are fighting to keep healthcare costs from going up for many Americans.

President Trump and GOP leaders at the Capitol say they’re willing to negotiate on Obamacare tax credits and other concerns … but only if and when Democrats agree to pass a clean funding bill to reopen the government.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson added …

JOHNSON:  We have hundreds of ideas, literally on the table to fix healthcare, to make it more affordable for the American people … to make access more available and to in increase the quality of care.

Meantime, Vice President JD Vance is warning of deeper federal cuts, the longer the shutdown goes on. Hundreds of thousands are already furloughed.

And in a court filing on Friday, the White House said well over 4,000 employees would soon be fired.

But the White House and Pentagon have shifted emergency funds to ensure military paychecks continue without interruption.

Nor'easter hits east coast » Powerful winds and heavy rains are still battering much of the East Coast this morning … as a nor’easter affects numerous states from the Carolinas to New England.

Frank Pereira with the National Weather Service warned on Sunday … that in some areas, the worst was yet to come.

PEREIRA:  We are expecting wind gusts in excess of 50 miles an hour, uh, near the coast especially. Um, and with that, uh, there is the, uh, significant potential for scattered power outages and damages, uh, resulting from those winds.

New Jersey declared a state of emergency over the weekend … where forecasters predicted up to 5 inches of rain in some parts.

Authorities placed New York City, Long Island and part of Westchester County under a coastal flood warning and wind advisory.

Sixteen killed in Tennessee explosion » Authorities in rural Tennessee are combing through the charred remains of an explosives plant … trying to determine the cause of a blast over the weekend that killed more than a dozen people.

Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis:

DAVIS:  We have notified all 16 families of those people, uh, that we feel, uh, was involved in this situation, this tragedy.

The explosion was felt for miles left a smoldering wreck of twisted metal and burned-out vehicles at the Accurate Energetic Systems plant. The munitions plant supplies and researches explosives for the military.

ATF special agent Tyra Cunningham said authorities are dedicated to ensuring …

CUNNINGHAM:  That if criminal activity is involved, those responsible will be held accountable, and if it was accidental, that lessons have been learned to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

Investigators are combing the charred property foot-by-foot searching for possible evidence.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a free speech showdown at the Supreme Court on Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat looks at a new skirmish in the trade wars.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 13th day of October, 2025. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Legal Docket.

Last week, the showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over what’s speech versus what’s conduct…. between a licensed counselor and a client who’s a child.

EICHER: Six years ago, Colorado passed what’s known as a SOGI law … S-O-G-I … an acronym for sexual orientation and gender identity.

This particular SOGI law bars licensed counselors from performing any counseling / that has the aim of helping young people get comfortable with the body God made for them. That’s unlawful.

What is lawful in Colorado is for a counselor to affirm a child’s desire to be the opposite sex. Colorado calls that simply regulating professional conduct.

REICHARD: Kaley Chiles is a licensed therapist and a Christian. She says the ban violates her free speech rights under the First Amendment, because her work is nothing but speech.
So the question is this: when words themselves are the treatment, does the government get to decide which words to say?

EICHER: Jim Campbell represents Chiles.

JIM CAMPBELL: This law prophylactically bans voluntary conversations, censoring widely held views on debated moral, religious, and scientific questions….the State of Colorado would allow a 12-year-old without their parents' consent to enter into counseling that would go the opposite way on these issues of gender identity and sexual orientation, but if that same 12-year-old with their parents' consent want to seek counseling in the opposite direction, the kind that my client would provide, they are not able to do that.

EICHER: Justice Sonia Sotomayor made the argument that nobody’s been prosecuted under this law. In her view, there has to be a credible threat of prosecution to count as chilling speech.

But that argument has never really carried the day: Colorado has already lost two high-profile First Amendment cases at the Supreme Court involving SOGI. In 20-18, the court found in favor of Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop. And two years ago, the justices again ruled that Colorado could not compel a website designer to create speech she disagreed with. Justice Sotomayor dissented in both cases.

REICHARD: Even so, the liberal justices focused less on free speech and more on professional regulation. Listen to this exchange between Campbell and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:

JUSTICE JACKSON: I’m just unclear as to whether or not you’re categorizing her therapy as a medical treatment?

CAMPBELL: I don't believe that we are categorizing it that way, but I don't think it matters because the First Amendment depends on the difference between speech and conduct, not on the difference between treatment and non-treatment.

REICHARD: Justice Jackson kept at it: 

JACKSON: But I guess it seems very odd that you could have two scenarios where you have two licensed professionals both attempting to provide treatment to an individual, say, for the same issue, that you know, the person says, I’d like to live consistently with my biological sex. I feel that I’m not doing that. I’d like your help. Medical Professional A treats that "condition" with medication. Medical Professional B treats that condition with talk therapy.

REICHARD: The counselor’s lawyer responded these are two different fact scenarios, dependent upon what the patient or client desires. 

EICHER: Defending the law, Colorado’s Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson. The state argues the law only regulates a narrow category within a licensed profession:

SHANNON STEVENSON: A healthcare provider cannot be free to violate the standard of care just because they are using words. And a state cannot be required to let its vulnerable young people waste their time and money on an ineffective, harmful treatment just because that treatment is delivered through words… . Petitioner asks you to enjoin a bipartisan law passed by 25 different states, but she did not put one single piece of evidence into the record, not a single expert, not a single study, not a single mental health professional willing to endorse conversion therapy, and there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

EICHER: The state leaned on medical consensus and professional standards to define what’s safe for patients.

But the counselor’s side countered that the studies the state relies on are flawed—based on activist assumptions, not sound evidence.

CAMPBELL: All of those studies relied on biased sampling, self-reporting, they conflated aversive techniques with voluntary counseling, they did not isolate licensed counselors, and they did not purport even in their own study to prove causation.

EICHER: Justice Samuel Alito looked to history to show that medical professionals aren’t always as authoritative as the state claims:

JUSTICE ALITO: Your argument depends very heavily on the standard of care, which I take it is defined by medical consensus. Is that correct?

STEVENSON: That’s correct.

ALITO: …I mean, the medical consensus is usually very reasonable and it’s very important. But have there been times when the medical consensus has been politicized, has been taken over by ideology?

STEVENSON: We have no facts about that in this case, but I — I wouldn’t disagree that that’s possible. And I think it’s a really —

ALITO: — isn’t it a fact that it’s happened in the past?

STEVENSON: I think that’s —

ALITO: Three generations of idiots are enough?

REICHARD: Justice Alito’s reference is to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes … who once offered the view that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” It’s from a 19-27 case called Buck v. Bell … which upheld a Virginia law that allowed compulsory sterilization of people the state deemed “feeble minded.” That was the consensus at the time. Justice Alito gave another example of medical “consensus.”

ALITO: Was there a time when there were many medical professionals who thought that every child born with Down syndrome should be immediately put in an institution?

STEVENSON: I — I don’t know that, Your Honor.

REICHARD: Backed into a logical corner … the lawyer for Colorado let her lawyer instinct kick in. She skirted Justice Alito’s historical analogy and reframed state law as modern and evidence-based. If she hadn’t, then her opponent surely would use it to his advantage. As in, “see the danger in state-controlled professional speech? It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.”

Justice Sotomayor took a more tenuous route, posing a hypothetical about eating disorders, but Campbell spotted the false equivalence. Listen to this:

SOTOMAYOR: A state tells dietitians don't encourage anorexic patients to engage in more restricted eating, all right? I don't think the state has to provide a study to show that that advice is not sound. Do you agree?

CAMPBELL: Justice Sotomayor, I think that might be true, but that's because that kind of hypothetical is very different than what we have here. In that --

SOTOMAYOR: So explain the difference.

CAMPBELL: …..later…. if what the state is getting at is a statement by a professional that's telling someone to harm their body, that's a different category.

REICHARD: The state nimbly tried to distinguish the facts here as “special context:”

STEVENSON: …if you go to a life coach or you go to someone else, they’re not licensed by the state. You’re not expecting them to be complying with standards of care. You have a different expectation. When you’re going to see a licensed healthcare professional who owes you fiduciary duties, your expectations are different. You’re expecting information that is complying with the standard of care…

EICHER: ….arguing that the requirement of a license transforms speech into professional conduct. A tough sell, given that the high court has already rejected the idea that professional speech has less First Amendment protection.
That led Justice Amy Coney Barrett to press the state’s lawyer: was Colorado’s position really viewpoint discrimination?

JUSTICE BARRETT: Can a state pick a side? I want to be very clear. It's not that the medical community says we just don't know. It's that there are competing strands, and some states like, say, Tennessee, which was the state at issue in Skrmetti, pick one side. Colorado picks another side. Your position is that rational basis applies?

EICHER: That’s key … because rational basis is the easiest level of judicial review for a state law to survive. So score one for Colorado … but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. That position has the state walking right into a trap. Namely: the state would be saying in essence that even if the law is viewpoint discrimination, that’s okay.

Which is not a strong argument.

So the state hedged, saying what really matters is the standard of care. But Justice Barrett would not be deterred:

BARRETT: …just answer that question.

STEVENSON: No. Our view is that that would not be the right rule here…

REICHARD: Just answer the question …Yikes! And when she did … it left a tougher level of scrutiny the state has to satisfy. The Supreme Court’s already said content-based regulation of professional speech has to meet strict scrutiny standards of judicial review.

Colorado’s Solicitor General Stevenson must have been feeling the knot tighten…and then Justice Alito brought it all back around to stark, contrasting scenarios:

ALITO: One viewpoint is the viewpoint that a minor should be able to obtain talk therapy to overcome same-sex attraction, if that's what he --or he or she wants. And the other is the viewpoint that the minor should not be able to obtain talk therapy to overcome same-sex attraction, even if that is what he or she wants. Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination.

REICHARD: Justice Kagan seemed to be in vigorous agreement with him:

JUSTICE KAGAN: …that seems like viewpoint discrimination in the way we would normally understand viewpoint discrimination.

EICHER: A conservative justice and a liberal justice, in agreement.
So for an outside perspective, we asked Washington producer Harrison Watters to call up to Eugene Volokh, a leading authority on the First Amendment. Volokh says the lower courts have muddied the issue:

EUGENE VOLOKH: But I think it's a mistake for a court to say, as the lower court did, that this isn't really speech, it's just conduct. That just sounds to me like an argument by relabeling. And I wanted to urge the Supreme Court to resist that path of just saying this isn’t speech, it’s conduct.

EICHER: If the high court accepts that logic, Volokh warns that other kinds of expression could lose First Amendment protection too.

REICHARD: I think that’s highly unlikely; I do predict free speech will win out. A unanimous vote would be unifying… .but more likely we’ll have one or two liberal justices in dissent.
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: It’s time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bahnsen Group, and he is here now. Good morning to you.

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

EICHER: Trade tensions flared with China again this week. Beijing announced sweeping new limits on rare-earth exports—metals essential for everything from electric vehicles to fighter jets.

Moments after that surprise announcement, President Trump hit back: He threatened a 100% tariff on Chinese goods effective November 1st, along with new export controls on key U.S. software.

By the end of the day … markets turned a modest rally into a plunge. 

Analysts say both sides are testing leverage ahead of a possible meeting later this month between President Trump and President Xi Jinping—which may not happen, and that may be part of the strategy.

But David, China controls about 90 percent of global rare-earth processing. How did we get here, and what does that imbalance mean for American manufacturers?

BAHNSEN: Well, that is a very complicated subject that is the subject of a lot of debate. I mean, fundamentally, how things like this happen is certain countries do possess natural comparative advantages. The bigger issue is with the natural advantages in place, what countries have done to address their own needs over time. It’s important to say that what China announced was not limits on orders, but controls, essentially requiring licenses for some of these exports—I mean, some of the very same exact things that the U.S. has done with different products and with different trading partners.

I think what really bothered the President was that it came off as sort of a flex from China. And it’s been my position for some time that as we’ve seen the way these negotiations have been playing out between the U.S. and China since April, that what the President really wants is not to limit trade with China, but to have the kind of cosmetic victory that he likes. A big headline that, you know, shows some better markets being opened, better terms, and accrues to the cosmetic favor of the U.S. And I think that China putting out that word about the requirement of a license and so forth, it kind of undermined that appearance of a victory, and it spoke to China’s leverage in this matter.

And then the President defaulted to what he had previously considered his leverage, which was that he was going to go put 100% tariffs on these imports from China. And I got to say, I would be really surprised if China believes that the President is correct, that he has that leverage. Still, I don’t believe China thinks that those tariffs at this point hurt them anywhere near the level that they hurt the US. So we will have to see how this plays out. But I imagine that it’s just going to be a bit of jockeying back and forth regarding who does have leverage and who’s going to get more of an appearance of the upper hand.

But it’s also a surprise to me that it hasn’t happened earlier. I mean, the fact that we’ve gone six months where it’s been a pretty straight line of progress—in the deal in 2018 and 19, there were a lot of hems and haws and pauses and backups. And this is largely, and you saw this with the TikTok deal a month ago and other things, it’s largely just kind of moved along. And so the fact that there has been a sort of pump fake here isn’t a surprise to me, but what I think people need to prepare for is that it just isn’t true that the US has massive leverage over China here.

EICHER: Given that neither side’s moves take effect right away—the Chinese set December 1st, Trump November 1st—does that delay create room for a diplomatic off-ramp?

BAHNSEN: There’s all sorts of opportunities for off-ramp, and there’s—as we’ve seen this entire time—there’s also ample opportunity to find out all the exemptions, carveouts, and waivers. And so we’re living in such an incredible time of sort of presidential discretion about things that it’s impossible to know what will and will not play out, because it’s filled with caveats. But yes, you are correct. There’s plenty of time, and it’s all done by design. I mean, both sides are giving each other time to go churn knobs here and try to, you know, jockey for a slightly better position.

What is not going to fundamentally change in 15 days or 45 days is that China has rare earth minerals that the United States wants to and needs to buy, and that’s going to be part of this ultimate transactional outcome.

EICHER: Let’s turn to the federal budget. The Wall Street Journal analyzed the government’s fiscal year, which ended September 30th, and concluded that not much really changed administration to administration—early months under Biden, later months under Trump. How do you assess the year overall and the performance of the government’s finances? How do you analyze it?

BAHNSEN: I analyze it by saying that it’s all shameful, and it doesn’t matter who’s president. We’re dealing with budgets passed by Congress that are budgeted to spend way more money than we bring in. And that was true in the prior administration. It’s true in this administration. It’s true of, I think, 63 of the last 65 years, or something like that. So all of it is shameful.

But there are certain things that can be a bit better than expected from the vantage point of the budget, meaning better-than-expected collections. And there was a lot of that in the last fiscal year, that capital gain tax revenue outperformed expectations. There’s been some degree of these tariff revenues that have come in, but then we’ve also spent more than expected in interest expense and some other things. But yeah, when you net it all out, all we’re talking about is whether or not the deficit is going to be a trillion and a half or two trillion. I mean, these are just barbarically bad numbers.

EICHER: Alright, let’s talk about the government shutdown. This morning we enter Day 13—already one of the longest in recent decades.

The administration appears to be handling this one in a pretty aggressive way. I’m interested in the guy who’s become a focal point—and that’s budget director Russell Vought. For a couple of years between administrations, Vought wrote for WORLD Opinions. I want to go back to a piece he did for us about the debt-ceiling debate a few years ago. In that column, he argued that Republicans ought to use every bit of leverage they have to impose fiscal discipline.

Now he’s back at the Trump OMB and using that leverage—carrying out what he calls reductions in force: about four thousand federal employees laid off at agencies like Treasury, Health and Human Services, Education, and HUD. He’s also frozen billions in projects in Democratic strongholds such as New York and Chicago.

The stated goal is to cut waste, but the practical effect is to make the shutdown hurt and pressure Democrats to come to the table.

So David, is this really about political leverage … or is it about long-term economic efficiencies?

BAHNSEN: No, I don’t think that the issues that Russ is doing are necessarily leverage in trying to bring the shutdown to an end. I think that what they are is that Russ genuinely believes that he can find some inefficiencies that he can now get rid of that he normally wouldn’t have had statutory authority to do, but by nature of the discretion that comes to him during a shutdown, the Democrats teed up the opportunity for him to do it. I’m sure you’re right that some of it is him looking to extract pain, but I also believe some of it is fundamental—that he wants to, you know, use the old Rahm Emanuel idea of not letting a crisis go to waste.

These are sort of Doge 2.0 opportunities for Russ. But, you know, again, the Democrats are confident that these types of things politically will accrue to their benefit, because they’ll be perceived by the public as retaliatory and unnecessarily cruel. And how the politics of it all shakes out, it’s a little unknown. But, you know, Nick, ultimately, the way this thing’s going to end is whichever side believes they need the political advantage of ending it around the subsidies from Obamacare.

And that’s what’s most interesting. I’m pretty sure what’s going to happen is the Republicans are going to give the extension of subsidies, and President Trump has already kind of hinted at that. Some of the more MAGA-oriented people in Congress have talked about doing that, and these are extensions that took place during the COVID era that were supposed to be temporary, that we all know never stay temporary. But my guess is that then Republicans will do it and want to get credit for doing it, the Democrats will then want the credit that they got the Republicans to do it, and both sides will end up, you know, having their own fight about who wants to take a victory lap. But I think that subsidies around Obamacare are going to end up being the issue. And candidly, I’ll be shocked if there are Republicans that hold the line here.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer at The Bahnsen Group. He writes regularly for WORLD Opinions, and at dividend-cafe.com. David, thanks, have a great week.

All right, thanks so much, Nick. Good to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, October 13th. 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. Finally today, the WORLD History Book. Seventy-five years ago, a simple wardrobe opened into a world of talking animals, mythical creatures, and a lion on the move. Here’s WORLD’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: The first sentence of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe comes in like a lamb:

MICHAEL YORK: Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy…

C.S. Lewis was a masterful storyteller, but that just might be the most uninspired sentence in all his books…however, the same cannot be said about the dedication printed a page before…written to Lucy Barfield—daughter of fellow inkling Owen Barfield—she’s believed to be the inspiration for his character bearing her name.

Lewis writes this:

MICHAEL YORK: My Dear Lucy, I wrote the story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it.

For the first-time reader, it’s a delightfully clever dedication. But for those who come back to the book a second time—it contains more of Narnia than the story’s first sentence. It’s a Narnian apple seed that becomes the portal to another world.

YORK: And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass in the door…

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was originally published in the United Kingdom on October 16th, 1950…released a month later in the U.S. …introducing children to a memorable cast of characters and a land where it was always winter, but never Christmas. And where a lamppost sprouted in the forest.

YORK: As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter patter of feet coming towards her. And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post.

In an essay on writing, Lewis explains where the idea came from. He says it all started with a mental picture of a faun carrying parcels and an umbrella in a snowy wood. It popped into his head when he was 16 years old. He said that once he turned 40, he thought: “Let’s try to make a story about it…”

YORK: And so Lucy found herself walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives.

Lewis said when he began writing he had no idea where the story would go…but once Aslan came bounding into it—in Lewis’s words: “He pulled the whole story together…and soon pulled the six other Narnia stories in after Him.”

YORK: None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different…

The world of Narnia seems a hodgepodge of images from Lewis’s life, and fairytale fragments he’d grown up hearing. Lewis’s friend and fellow inkling J.R.R. Tolkien disliked the story…but over the last 75 years, he’s been out voted.

JOE RIGNEY: I just love them as they are, including for all of the reasons that JRR Tolkien hated them…

Joe Rigney is Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College and author of Live Like a Narnian, Christian Discipleship in Lewis’s Chronicles…

RIGNEY: Let's throw Father Christmas and a witch and these kids… let's just throw them all together in this mishmash and make a story out of it. And Lewis said, “I'm just going to put all the things I like and I'm going to make a really, really good meal.”

In another essay on writing, C.S. Lewis explained his approach this way… “I wrote fairy tales because the Fairy Tale seems the ideal Form for the stuff I had to say.” According to Lewis, it allows the truth to sneak past the defenses of religious obligation.

RIGNEY: I’m supposed to love God. I’m going to try really hard. And he thought that fairy stories could steal past the watchful dragons. It could sneak around that inhibition and that obligation that freezes feelings. And it could kind of get in behind it.

Many casual readers misunderstand Lewis’s intent…seeing the Christian imagery of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as allegorical. But Lewis said he was doing something very different…what he called a “supposal.”

RIGNEY: And he basically said … suppose that the son of God became incarnate in a fantasy world full of talking animals in the way that he had really become incarnate in this world as a human. What would that be like? So that was a question, but it's … not just about this world. It's a separate world that you have to go into and live there for a while and soak in it with the goal that when you would come back, you would have been changed, altered, transformed by breathing that Narnian air…

Rigney doesn’t remember the first time he read the story of Aslan, the White Witch, and the magic wardrobe…but he says he knows it planted important seeds.

RIGNEY: It’s worth pointing out how Gospel centered the story is. Despite the fact that Edmund is a rotten stinker who deserves every bit of the judgment that's coming to him through the witch … that Aslan's merciful and rescues him and then dies for him and sacrifices for him … And so just that theme of glad-hearted sacrifice that the winter is now past and the spring has come and forgiveness is offered and redemption, that's fundamental to this story and one of the reasons why it resonates so strongly 75 years later.

So how did Lucy Barfield respond to her Godfather’s fairytale? She read it for the first time at age 13…a year before it was published. She assured Lewis that she wasn’t too old at all and that she understood Narnia perfectly…but she found she needed to return to it many times as an adult.

The year of Lewis’s death, Lucy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis…a condition that confined her to a hospital bed…and eventually trapped her inside her own body.

In the final years of her life, Lucy’s brother Jeffrey would visit her and not just read to her from Lewis’s books…but also many letters from fans of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She is reported to have said: “What I could not do for myself the dedication did for me. My Godfather gave me a greater gift than I had imagined.” Jeffrey later said that the letters gave her great joy…and in his words, “were received with wonder as snow-flakes in the desert.”

The Chronicles of Narnia have been translated into sixty languages and sold more than 115 million copies…and those who have visited Narnia are rarely the same.

YORK: : And the professor who was a very remarkable man didn’t tell them not to be silly, or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story. “Yes of course you’ll get back to Narnia some day. Once a king in Narnia, always a king in Narnia.” And that is the very end of the adventures of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. The audio excerpts of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are read by Michael York from the audio book available on Audible. I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: October 14th … a national day of remembrance for Charlie Kirk … what would’ve been his 32nd birthday. We’ll set the commemoration in historical context. And, more on the Middle East peace deal and life after the war. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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, “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish…’” —Isaiah 44:24, 25

Go now in grace and peace.

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