The World and Everything in It: October 14, 2022

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Good morning!

Christians are often at odds with the broader culture, so why are we tempted to look to it for affirmation?

NICK EICHER, HOST: We will ask that question of Andrew Walker today on Culture Friday.

Also today, a preview of upcoming movie attractions.

And Steve West introduces us to a Christian poet who was a very late bloomer.

BUTLER: It’s Friday, October 14th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BUTLER: Up next, Kristen Flavin with today’s news.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Parkland Reax » Family members of slain high schoolers are reeling after a jury refused to sentence Nikolas Cruz to death. In 2018, Cruz killed 17 people at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Anne Ramsay is the mother of one of the students who was killed.

RAMSAY: After spending months and months, listening and hearing testimonies, and looking at the murderer, his composure, I believe justice was not done. The wrong verdict was given out today.

Tony Montalto’s daughter also died in the massacre.

MONTALTO: And the monster that killed them gets to live another day. This sentence fails to punish the perpetrator to the fullest extent of the law.

Cruz is set to be formally sentenced in November to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Family members will be able to testify at that hearing.

Social Security » Social Security benefits are going up by nearly 9 percent. It is the biggest cost of living adjustment to the program in about 40 years.

Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Kilolo Kijakazi

KIJAKAZI: If you get social security benefits, the higher amount takes effect with your first payment in January 2023.

Recipients could get an estimated $145 more a month, which could mean extra food and gas money.

The Social Security program serves about 70 million people. The annual Cost of Living Adjustment helps it keep up with rising inflation.

The boost will also be combined with slightly lower Medicare premiums.

The announcement comes just weeks before the midterm elections in which the high cost of living is a top issue for voters.

Connecticut Police Shooting » In Bristol, Connecticut, families are mourning the loss of two police officers in a shootout. Authorities are saying a suspect might have lured the officers into an ambush.

State police Sergeant Christine Jeltema.

JELTEMA: When officers arrived they were immediately met with a suspect outside of 310 Redstone Hill Road shots were fired fatally wounding one officer on scene.

The shooting follows multiple instances of violence against police officers over the past two days, including a recent shooting in Philadelphia that wounded three officers.

Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould.

GOULD: To our fallen officers' families we will never forget the sacrifice your loved ones have made. We are here for you and we will continue to be here for you.

54 police officers have died this year in the line of duty, 62 died in total in 2021.

January 6th Hearing » The House select committee on January 6th will subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify.

At a hearing on Thursday, members discussed Trump’s state of mind in the days leading up to the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Congressman Adam Kinzinger…

KINZINGER: At times, President Trump acknowledged the reality of his loss, although he publicly claimed that he had won the election. Privately, he admitted that Joe Biden would take over as president.

Protesters stormed the building on the day Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 election.

In an interview with Fox News Thursday, Trump called the committee’s work a partisan witch hunt.

Inflation » The Labor Department’s inflation report showed that overall consumer prices rose by 8.2 percent in September, year over year. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Consumers are paying higher prices at the pump and the grocery store after the cost of food and energy jumped by almost 7 percent.

The report said inflation rose slightly faster from August to September than July to August.

That sets up the Federal Reserve for another interest rate hike—probably by another three-quarters of a point.

Thursday’s report represents the final U.S. inflation figures before the Nov. 8 midterm elections after a campaign season in which spiking prices have been on voter’s minds.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Ukraine Update » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe agrees that Russia is a terrorist state.

The designation comes after Russia launched missiles and kamikaze drones at targets across Ukraine. Russia says it is taking out Ukraine’s military and infrastructure, but Ukraine says the strikes are hitting civilians.

The United States and other Western countries have promised to provide more advanced air defense systems for Ukraine

ZELENSKYY: [Ukrainian] 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also accused Russia of sending untrained civilians to the front lines as soldiers, saying that Russia was using human beings as “cannon fodder.”

AUDIO: [Russian]

Meanwhile Russian citizens are recounting an attack on the city of Belgorod, Russian state TV says that Ukraine is now firing missiles at the city, which rests on the border between the two countries.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: Culture Friday with Andrew Walker.

Plus, Hollywood’s upcoming theatrical releases.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s the 14th day of October, 2022.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. It’s Culture Friday!

Joining us now is Andrew Walker. He’s a professor of Christian ethics and apologetics at Southern Seminary and managing editor of WORLD Opinions.

Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW WALKER, GUEST: Hey, good morning, Paul and Nick. Good to be with you, as always.

EICHER: Andrew, I loved your WORLD Opinions piece by Bethel McGrew’s on Kanye West. I’ll place a link in the transcript. It’s just good writing and good thinking. But I’d like to use it as a jumping off point to talk about what happens when a massive celebrity like Kanye West says something we kind of agree with—in this case, recently, on pro-life issues.

So I’m seeing the value of talking with an ethics prof here, but what is it about us that we derive so much validation from a person who’s a celebrated artist expressing views more or less in line with my own? And this happens in reverse, too. When the celeb is out of step with my views, I’m quick to dismiss it.

But talk about why we need this validation.

WALKER: Now, that’s a good observation. It’s such a fascinating moment for us to reflect upon on multiple levels. I think one of the things we want to say is that a lot of Christians often see themselves as the weird ones. We feel as if we’re out of step with culture, and so when someone from the towering heights of culture identifies as a Christian it kind of paves over what I call like the perennial evangelical inferiority complex. It shows we’re not actually so culturally backwards as the culture tells us that we are.

Even still, in these types of moments, there needs to be a lot of caution exercised, I think. For one we should celebrate whenever a celebrity comes to faith or is overt in sharing how critical their faith is for them. But at the same time, we also need to be especially tentative and not just assume that because they’ve come to faith that they are therefore mature Christians. I mean, there’s an argument here from when Paul talks about coming to faith. What does he do [as a new Christian]? He kind of goes off for a long time and prepares himself for ministry in a place of solitude. I think there’s a healthy pattern for us to reflect upon here.

I don’t think we should question someone’s faith necessarily. I don’t want my faith questioned; you don’t want your faith questioned. What we should do is take this “wait and see approach” and observe how they are maturing in their faith. We have to understand that if they are immature Christians, they’re probably going to say some immature things. We can’t expect that these immature Christians all of a sudden are capable of writing systematic theologies.

But at the same time, we don’t want to make them out to be Christian celebrities. The best thing for Kanye West is for Kanye West just to be an everyday Christian, and not for culture hungry Christians to impute all of their desires for cultural approval onto Kanye West. Let Kanye West be Kanye West, and be the Kanye West Christian that he calls himself without us trying to affix all of our cultural hopes and aspirations on him.

BUTLER: Well Andrew, one of the reasons why we talk with you and John Stonestreet each week is because we want to wrestle through some of the challenges facing our society, our churches, our families. But the scriptures also tell us to meditate on those things that are true, and noble, and just, pure, lovely, of good report and so just a little different question this morning for you. What sort of things are you thinking about today that fit that category? Praiseworthy things going on around us?

WALKER: That’s such a great question. A few things come to mind. I think first and foremost—and I say this cautiously—it seems to me that we really have turned a corner past COVID. I know it seems like we have been saying that for the past six months, or even for the last two years. But here we are: It does seem as though life really has returned to normal in all parts of the country. And so we should just rejoice at that reality.

Another thing I think that I would see optimism in is the growth of classical Christian education nationally. That gives me great hope. Christians are always asking the question of how we can transform the culture. One of the ways you transform the culture is by transmitting culture to the next generation. And one of the the reasons classical Christian education is so important when it comes to that transmission is that it takes the very best of the Western tradition and tries to pass that on. And so much of the Western tradition has been bound up with Christian history.

My family is heavily invested in classical Christian education. My wife is a classical Christian educator herself. We see the impact of this on our community, on our children. And I see stories about this replicating all over the nation. I think this is just a really healthy thing to be happening in the culture: That we’re not automatically deferring education to the state. But I think we’re starting to get really entrepreneurial in creating opportunities through education for a robust Christian culture that cares about the common good and loving our neighbor.

The last thing I would say is—to borrow from Brad Littlejohn’s column— when we look at the hurricane that happened a couple of weeks ago— not to make light at all of the severity of the hurricane as far as the loss of life and of people’s dwellings—things weren’t as bad as they could have been. We can agree that this is one of those moments where the government actually operated like we hope government would work. And this is one of those moments where I think the federal government and Governor DeSantis actually acted upon the best interest of their citizens. Now, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do. And I’m sure there’ll be a lot of hiccups. Sure. But it’s not often we get to say that our government did something good. And I think this is one of those instances where we can say they did.

EICHER: Andrew, I want to point our attention to a scientific breakthrough, something WORLD’s Liz Lykins recently wrote about. It’s a new study out of Iceland that seems to indicate doctors might soon be able to look at a person’s blood plasma and place a pretty good estimate on his or her lifespan. I’m sure there are some positive things that could come out of that knowledge, but honestly my mind goes to how it would be harmful—from a privacy standpoint, from a mental-health standpoint.

Now, I don’t expect you to know about this study, but again, as a jumping off point, it reminds me of something that seems common and that’s the idea of ethical considerations as an afterthought.

Don’t we see this a lot, and I’m not talking about just here in this case, but where the science gets way out in front of the ethics?

WALKER: I think these are those types of moments where you’re right: The science can move faster than the ethics. And we have recently seen this type of incidence in Canada. Just in the past week, a physician from the Quebec College of Physicians speaking to a joint committee in Canada was recommending euthanasia: Not just for the elderly, but for newborns as well. So for those newborns who have severe deformities, this physician recommends euthanasia as government policy. I think this is tragic. And I think it’s gonna be hard to put this genie back in the bottle, because whenever euthanasia regimes tend to come into effect, the criteria justifying its use only tends to expand over time. So this is just one area where the science can kind of move faster than the ethics.

Another area to look at is the transgender issue. A lot of people may not notice this if they’re not studying it closely, but practitioners of transgender medicine are kind of backpedalling as far as the standard of treatments that they’re recommending for individuals with gender dysphoria. And I think this speaks to the reality that the practice of medicine has moved ahead of the ethics of medicine, and also ahead of the philosophy of medicine. If you’re paying attention to what’s happening—especially in Western Europe—you’re seeing the fact that even in socially affirming environments that are very, very progressive, medical procedures and medical practices are recommended now that contradict established medical practices which were recommended just a few years ago.

I think this speaks to the reality that when you try to reject nature—when you try to play fast and loose with the body—and you don’t have good principles and good philosophical and ethical principles to protect the medicine, then the medicine can do great damage to the body. And it’s happening in real time. And the horrifying thing about this is that we’re going to have a whole cast of victims that will be experiencing long term repercussions of the actions of these progressive voices in medicine. I’m hopeful that in the long run that we will see a return to normalcy, but it’s not going to happen. And we’ll be seeing a lot of heartache happening in the process.

BUTLER: Andrew Walker is professor of Christian ethics and apologetics at Southern Seminary and managing editor of WORLD Opinions. Thanks, Andrew!

WALKER: Thank you.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Friday, October 14th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Paul Butler.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a preview of what you can expect in theaters this fall and winter. Here’s arts and media editor Collin Garbarino.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Movie theaters usually experience a little lull between the summer blockbusters and the holiday season, but this year it’s worse than usual. The last three months have seen paltry box office sales. There just hasn’t been much worth watching.

But Hollywood hopes the crowds start coming back to see a slate of high-profile films featuring familiar faces and familiar stories.

Georgia: Let’s talk gameplan. As much as this will pain us both, we have to call a truce to make this work.

David: We have to be in lock step.

Georgia: No meanness.

David: Arguing.

Georgia: We speak as one.

David: Exactly right.

Next weekend Ticket to Paradise opens. And Universal Pictures hopes it will scratch our itch for nostalgia. Rom-com veterans George Clooney and Julia Roberts play a divorced couple who join forces to convince their daughter to abandon her plans to marry what they see as an ill-suited match.

Georgia: When do we start?

David: Right after we see Lily. We tell her the wedding is off and bring her home.

Georgia: You know whenever we say don’t to Lily, she just hears do. I say we go in, 100 percent there for her, in all ways. Just supportive and loving, and that’s how we trick her into dumping Mr. Seaweed.

David: That’s interesting. Now, I’m thinking about a Trojan Horse sort of thing. We make her think we’re okay with the wedding, and once we’re in, we get her to end it herself.

Georgia: That’s literally what I just said.

David: I don’t remember anything about a Trojan Horse.

And no movie season would be complete without at least a couple of superhero films, right?

Also opening next weekend is DC comics, Black Adam.

Dr. Fate: Black Adam. What have your powers ever given to you? Nothing but heartache.

Black Adam stars Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam—a five-thousand-year-old Egyptian with almost limitless superpowers. He’s also a little cranky.

The movie also introduces the Justice Society of America, and we’ll see Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate. Black Adam is usually an enemy of the comic book hero Shazam, who got his own movie in 2019. But don’t expect to see the two superhumans duke it out anytime soon. DC wants to let Johnson do his thing a while before making a crossover film.

Black Adam: Now I kneel before no one.

If anything can pull the box office out of its slump, it will be audiences’ returning to the African nation of Wakanda on November 11th for Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

The original movie is No. 6 in all-time domestic box-office revenue. It starred Chadwick Boseman as Prince T’Challa, the Black Panther. But Boseman died of colon cancer in 2020. Marvel decided not to recast the role of T’Challa, instead letting the character die with Boseman. In an interview on the Tonight Show Boseman’s co-star Letitia Wright talks about what it was like to make the sequel without him.

Letitia Wright: I feel, for me, it’s a beautiful contribution to Chadwick’s legacy. I feel like it’s a love letter to him. I know every day that I went on set, I focused my energy on—on each scene to dedicate it to him. I wanted to dedicate excellence to this film so that he could be proud.

Besides exploring the aftermath of T’Challa’s death, Wakanda Forever will introduce the antihero Namor, the Sub-Mariner and his kingdom under the sea.

Also next month, Disney releases its new animated feature Strange World.

The movie follows the adventures of a father, son, and grandfather who brave the perils of a colorful, yet dangerous, land of beauty and weirdness.

President: Our entire world is in grave danger. I need you to come with me on an expedition.

Searcher Clade: I’m not my father. He was the explorer.

President: I know you were just a kid when he went missing, but now you’re all we got.

It’s nice the movie’s not a sequel or reboot of something we’ve seen before. But families will likely want to steer clear of Strange World. This movie will feature Disney’s first openly gay teen romance. Earlier this summer Lightyear tanked at the box office after word got out it featured a lesbian kiss. We’ll wait and see if Strange World experiences similar results.

And speaking of strange worlds, Avatar: The Way of Water debuts December 16th.

The original Avatar came out way back in 2009, and it still holds the record for worldwide box office revenue at almost three billion dollars. This sequel was supposed to show up in 2014, but director James Cameron kept delaying the film until he could get it just right. Supposedly, we’re supposed to get an Avatar movie every two years until 2028. I won’t hold my breath.

Speaker: I Know one thing. Wherever we go… This family… Is our fortress.

So far, the biggest movie of 2022 has been Top Gun: Maverick. And if you’re looking for more aerial action, you might be interested in Devotion which arrives in theaters November 23rd. It’s based on a true story about two naval aviators during the Korean War. One’s black, and one’s white.

Tom Hudner: What do you want me to do?

Brown: Just be my wingman.

Hollywood’s banking on fantastic superpowers to bring back the box office, but I’m looking forward to this real story about men of courage who exemplified what loyalty looks like when you never leave your wingman.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

BUTLER: If you’d like to get more reviews and entertainment news from Collin, you can subscribe to his weekly newsletter called Muse at wng.org/newsletters.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, October 14th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. Next up: hope for those who haven’t found their calling just yet. WORLD’s Steve West tells us about an author whose first poems weren’t published until she was in her 80s.

HOPPLE: You are the one who made us

You silver all the minnows in all rivers

You wait in the deep woods

To find the newborn fox cubs

And unseal their eyes.

STEVE WEST, REVIEWER: That’s my WORLD colleague, Claire Hopple, reading Anne Porter’s poem, “The Birds of Passage.”

…You walk alone in the wild royal darkness

In the heavens above the heavens

Where no one else can go….

Porter published her first book of poetry in 1994 at the age of 83. Born in Sherborne, Massachusetts in 1911, Porter wrote poetry throughout her life. In this 2011 interview, she describes the encouragement she received from an uncle in early childhood.

PORTER: “He would sit me on his lap and write down my poems….He was very supportive. There would be poems about Spring beginning: “I beg you sweet rosebud, I beg you arise/ Come lift up your head and open your eyes 

Porter went on to study at Bryn Mawr and Radcliffe Colleges. She married early to painter Faircloth Porter, and they settled on Long Island, where they raised five children. Most of her adult life, she focused on raising her kids and supporting her husband’s career. But after his death, she published her first book of poems which became a finalist for the National Book Award.

Many of Porter’s poems reflect family life. In this poem titled “Music,” read by WORLD’s Kelsey Reed, Porter begins with a memory of her mother.

REED: When I was a child


I once sat sobbing on the floor


Beside my mother’s piano


As she played and sang


For there was in her singing


A shy yet solemn glory


My smallness could not hold 

Unlike many modern poets, Porter’s sobbing doesn’t end in despair. Instead, it points her to God and his work in our lives. Here’s Suzanne Rhodes, the current poet laureate of Arkansas.

RHODES: In “Music,” she writes, we were made for Paradise as deer for the forest. And so she's has this double sided vision, where she perceives both transcendent realities, as well as present earthly realities

The natural world also plays a big role in Porter’s poetry. Sometimes she focuses on the beauty around her Long Island home. Other times she recalls summers spent on Great Spruce Head Island in Maine, a private island owned by her husband’s family. But her simple, concrete descriptions of real places and things anchor her poetry and make it more accessible. Rhodes points to “The Birds of Passage.”

RHODES: You wait in the deep woods to find the newborn fox cubs and unseal their eyes. That's such a glorious, beautiful, exquisite language unseal the eyes. And so you can just see God's intimate relationship with his creation. And you can see. Her astounding attention to the created world.

Porter wrote in the margins of her life, with a household swirling around her. She also wrote in a social scene in which atheism and Marxism were popular. She did struggle with her faith early on, later converting to Catholicism. But faith in Christ remains at the heart of many poems like “A Short Testament” which works as both confession and prayer. Here’s a short clip of that poem read by WORLD’s Jonathan Woods.

WOODS: Whatever harm I may have done


In all my life in all your wide creation


If I cannot repair it


I beg you to repair it.

And then there are all the wounded

The poor, the deaf, the lonely and the old

Whom I have roughly dismissed

As if I were not one of them.

Where I have wronged them by it

And cannot make amends

I ask you

To comfort them to overflowing

Rhodes says she finds that poem deeply moving.

RHODES: She realized that she can't make amends. And so often we feel like we've done things that we can't, we can't undo. And so this is a prayer that is worth printing out and putting on your wall because it reminds us of God's grace, and the mending that he does in our souls.

Porter isn’t equally clear on every theological or doctrinal point. She wrote her poems over many years at different places on her spiritual journey. But Christian readers will find much to appreciate in her book Living Things, still in print today.

In a world broken by sin, Anne Porter helps us slow down and pay attention, to be still and know that just as our God cares for the sparrow that falls from the tree, he cares for us.

You can hear that in the closing of her poem, “The Birds of Passage.”

HOPPLE: When the storks of Europe

Stretch out their necks toward Egypt

From their nests on the chimney tops

When shaking their big wings open

And trailing their long legs after them

They rise up heavily

To begin their autumn flight.

You who speak without words

To your creatures who live without words

Are hiding under their feathers

To give them a delicate certainty

On the long dangerous night journey.

I’m Steve West.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who put the program together this week: Kent Covington, Jenny Rough, David Bahnsen, Mary Reichard, Myrna Brown, Emily Whitten, Kristen Flavin, Onize Ohikere, Amy Lewis, Janie B Cheaney, Bonnie Pritchett, Carolina Lumetta, Kim Henderson, Cal Thomas, Josh Schumacher, Mary Muncy, Anna Johansen Brown, Andrew Walker, Collin Garbarino, and Steve West.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And thanks also to the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz. Production assistance from Lillian Hamman and Benj 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: Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12-13 ESV)

Remember to worship alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ this weekend. God willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.