The World and Everything in It - October 15, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Parents around the country are attending school board meetings in larger numbers than usual voicing concerns. Administrators are trying to shut down dissent.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: That’s ahead on Culture Friday.

Also a new movie about pain, loss, and the grueling search for peace.

And Myrna reviews the Newsboys’ latest recording project.

BROWN: It’s Friday, October 15th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington has today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden touts progress in fight against COVID-19 » President Biden on Thursday highlighted progress in the fight against COVID-19.

BIDEN: Daily cases are down 47 percent. Hospitalizations are down 38 percent over the past 6 weeks.

He added that case rates are down in 39 states.

The CDC reports that about two-thirds of the U.S. population has now received at least one shot and 57 percent are fully vaccinated.

The president’s remarks came as an FDA advisory panel on Thursday considered whether millions of Americans who received the Moderna vaccine should get a booster shot. Regulators are also reviewing Johnson & Johnson’s request to authorize boosters. Biden said he expects a final decision within the next couple of weeks.

BIDEN: If they authorize the boosters, this will mean all three vaccines will be available for boosters.

Judge blocks United Airlines from suspending employees over vaccine » The president also called once more on the millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated to get the shot. And he praised private companies that are implementing vaccine mandates for their workers.

But a federal judge has put one such mandate on hold. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: For now, United Airlines cannot put unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave for seeking medical or religious exemptions from the mandate.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas, granted a restraining order this week in favor of employees who are suing over the requirement.

Lawyers for the employees and the airline agreed last month that United wouldn't put the workers on unpaid leave. But the judge wrote that the agreement will expire before he can rule on the merits of the matter. He said that would leave “hundreds of workers” at risk of being put on indefinite unpaid leave … or forced to get a vaccination that violates their religious beliefs or medical restrictions.

The restraining order expires Oct. 26.

The suing employees are seeking to turn the case into a class-action lawsuit. United says about 2,000 of its 67,000 U.S. employees asked for exemptions.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Jobless claims fall to pandemic-low for second straight week » The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits fell to its lowest level since the pandemic began for the second straight week.

The Labor Department says new claims dropped about 11 percent to 293,000 last week.

Unemployment applications have fallen steadily since last spring as many businesses, struggling to fill jobs, have held onto their workers.

The decline in layoffs comes amid an otherwise unusual job market. Hiring has slowed in the past two months, even as employers have posted a near-record number of open jobs.

At the same time, Americans are quitting their jobs in record numbers, with about 3 percent of workers doing so in August.

At least 46 dead in Taiwan fire » At least 46 people are dead after a fire Thursday in Taiwan. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The flames began rising from a mixed use commercial and residential building in the port city of Kaohsiung.

A column of black smoke rose over the 13-story building, which was home to many poor, elderly and disabled people.

Witnesses said they heard something that sounded like an explosion at about 3 a.m. when the blaze erupted in the lower floors of the dilapidated building. The structure once housed a movie theater, restaurants, and karaoke clubs, but those lots were all abandoned.

It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze. Throughout the day, first responders pored through the wreckage and recovered dozens of bodies. At least 14 people later died at the hospital.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Christian-Muslim violence turns deadly in Lebanon » AUDIO: [Gunfire]

Clashes between Christians and Muslims turned deadly in Beirut on Thursday.

At least six people died and 30 more were injured in a firefight.

The Muslim militant group Hezbollah organized a demonstration along with an allied group to protest the judge leading an investigation into last year’s port bombing.

A Christian political group staged counter-demonstrations, carrying large crosses through the streets.

Both Christian and Muslim groups said rooftop snipers from the other side began gunning them down. The gunfights then spread through nearby Christian neighborhoods.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland extended condolences from the United States on Thursday.

NULAND: We join the Lebanese authorities in their call for calm and deescalation of tensions.

Stray bullets struck some residents in their homes while masked men shot machine guns in the streets.

The Lebanese army deployed troops to counter the shooting and evacuate residential areas.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Culture Friday.

Plus, something that’s ahead but not immediately straight ahead.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, October 15th, 2021.

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

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

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.

BUTLER: The political race to watch right now is the governor’s race in Virginia and in a recent debate, the Democratic candidate, and former governor, Terry McAuliffe, had this to say about activist parents and school boards.

MCAULIFFE: I’m not gonna let parents tell the schools and take books out and make their own decisions. So, yeah, stopped the bill that. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. Y’know! I get really tired.

“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” That’s what the candidate for governor in Virginia said. Sorry for all the crosstalk in that audio clip, politicians tend to talk all over one another.

But as we’ve discussed before, there’s some real pushback from parents about what’s going on in the public schools, from Covid restrictions to curriculum. And so now we have pushback against the pushback.

Isn’t this the debate that we need to have?

STONESTREET: It's a debate that not only we need to have, it's a debate that is long overdue. I mean, look, there's something here that we have to reckon with and all of this, I think it's fantastic that parents all over the place are standing up and pushing back on school boards about what is being taught to their kids in terms of American history in terms of bad ideas about identity, behavior, behaviors, all kinds of things, but one has to ask, didn't just take a little bit too long. I mean, listen, there were very damaging ideas that were being foisted upon the younger generation. For decades now. And even more recently, in one particular school district in Virginia, I think, look, and I'm on record talking about what I think is the deep inherent problems of critical race theory. I understand the response to my arguments in which people say it's not really a worldview, it's just a tool. I don't find that compelling, critical race theory, acts like a worldview, talks like a worldview, treats everyone as a worldview would. So in my mind, it is a worldview. It functions like a worldview. But the fact that, you know, so many parents are up in arms about critical race theory, in the school district, but we're not up in arms, in terms of the dramatic ways that the school, the school board, the curriculum, required books and teacher training, and everything else was undermining how students thought about their own bodies and their own, you know, biological sex. You know, in other words, the advance of the this transgender agenda, was even more aggressive last year, than CRT has been this year. And I think it's worth asking, What is it about us that responds to this and not that? All that to say, look, Terry McAuliffe 's statement here is I think he actually believes it is the progressive vision of the world, that children actually belong to the state. And not the parents. This has been a long debate. This isn't the first time you know, two sides have had this competing debate. But by the way, schools have acted like their own kids for a long time now. And it is not true. The state is not able to raise children. For the record, the state can't do airport security either. But the state is not able to raise children. And this is a fundamental question of worldview, what's wrong with the world whose job it is to fix it? And it's an alarming thing. And look, if you ever doubted that this is what a left leaning, secularist, agenda actually promotes, well, now you have it from the horse's mouth.

BUTLER: I want to ask you about the news that the attorney general of the United States has directed the FBI to develop “strategies” for dealing with aggressive disruptions at school board meetings. Some people say the school boards are under attack, but others say parents are now under attack and bringing the prospect of the feds coming down on them for speaking up seems like it will have a chilling effect. What do you say about that?

STONESTREET: Well, it's completely outside the jurisdiction of the FBI, if we don't even get into the inconsistencies of this action. In other words, what the FBI chooses to investigate or target and what they don't and, you know, comparing the scope of what really is a danger and a problem, you know, mean, no one was saying, look, we're going to investigate people who are following politicians, federal politicians, in the bathrooms, like what happened with Kristen Sinema last week, but we are going to talk about how people talk at school board meetings, you know, that listen, there's a big inconsistency here. But there's also a jurisdiction issue. The FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it does not belong in local school board matters. This does, however, tell you what a progressive vision of education is that it belongs to the federal government, that local control even at the state level, is not the way it should be done, that this should be done from on high from the, you know, the cultural ruling elites, and this is crazy. School boards are under state jurisdiction, this if there is an issue and by the way, I will say that, you know, there have been examples of parents out of control, certainly no parent should become violent on this. No parent should be going to a school board member's home and having this sort of conversation, certainly not protesting or anything like that. That stuff is flat out wrong. This is not the jurisdiction of the federal government. So therefore, it's not the jurisdiction of the FBI. This is a power grab, and it's where the federal government does not belong.

BROWN: Moving to another story. We’ve discussed the declining fertility rate in this country, but I just saw a statistic that as of 2019, we reached a new low in the United States—lower than the previous low when we’d fallen below the replacement rate back in 1976—three years after Roe v. Wade, interestingly. But the shocking 1976 fertility rate was 1.76. In 2018, it hit 1.73, lowest-ever, followed by 2019, a new low 1.71 with projections that it will fall still further.

I heard you talking on your Breakpoint podcast about some couples who say that they’re not wanting to have children for reasons of combating climate change. Obviously, people have lots of reasons for not wanting to have children, but how alarmed are you by the big drop in the fertility rate in this country?

STONESTREET: Oh, I mean, listen, demographics is destiny. It's just kind of basically the case. The falling birth rates in the Western world predate climate anxiety, they predate COVID-19. They predate a lot of things which suggests that really they're rooted in our changing ideas about sexuality, marriage, and children. It's rooted in our fundamental ideas about issues of work and retirement, whether work is a good thing or work is a necessary evil to get to retirement and what is going to get in the way of that and so on. It is  deeply rooted in our understanding of what is the good life. Is the good life to live for something bigger than myself or is the good life to get what I want while the getting is good? You know, to use terms that were once devised by the founder of the sociology department at Harvard University Pitirim Sorokin, are we a sensate culture, a sensate people living for the senses and immediate gratification? Or are we an ideational society living out of bigger ideals and ourselves, what we think about life and the world and the meaning of life and the meaning of our society is going to be reflected in what we do, including what we do with sexuality, what we do with marriage, what we do with children. And so yeah, this is a really big problem. I'd also say, too, that climate anxiety, though, is real. I mean, you're hearing young people basically say they will not have children until the climate crisis is solved. And you see what's kind of latent in there, latent in that is this assumption that humans are the problem to be solved, and too many humans have too many problems. But what we have seen since the population bomb predictions were so deadly wrong, is that humans aren't the problems to be solved, humans are themselves able to offer the solutions to deal with the problems that we face. This will be one of the most significant trends in this historical time period is the plummeting of the population replacement rates.

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

STONESTREET: You bet. Thank you very much. 

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Now Myrna and I are tea drinkers, but perhaps you’re like the millions of people around the world who need a little coffee perk-up each morning to get the day started.

Last month, one coffee drinker in Harrison, Australia, ordered his daily coffee from Wing. That’s a drone delivery service.

AUDIO: [Sounds of drone, crow cawing]

On this particular morning, anxious for his coffee delivery, Ben Roberts started videoing the drone as it got closer. He could almost smell the coffee when a murderous crow suddenly swooped in!

AUDIO: [Sound of drone rotors straining]

The bird grabbed the back of the drone mid-air with its talons while pecking at it with its beak. The attack lasted for about 10 seconds before the crow flew off—leaving Ben’s coffee delivery intact.

But he and his neighbors are going to have to find a new way to wake up in the mornings, at least for a little while. As Wing has temporarily grounded all delivery drones in the neighborhood.

They’re waiting to hear from the local ornithologist—that’s a bird expert—to make sure the territorial crow won’t be interfering with any more deliveries.

I guess this story goes to show just how raven-ous crows can be till they’ve had their morning coffee.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 15th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a parent’s worst nightmare.

It’s hard to imagine losing a child. Harder still to imagine sitting across the table from the parents of the person responsible. A new movie coming to theaters today plunges audiences into that painful reality, but it offers hope in the midst of darkness. Here’s reviewer Sharon Dierberger.

SHARON DIERBERGER, REVIEWER: Mass takes place in a small-town Episcopal church. And the heart of the action, if you can call it that, happens in the church’s sparse basement meeting room. Children’s colorful tissue paper artwork covers a window. A crucifix hangs on an otherwise blank wall. Piano melodies drift down from the sanctuary above. And church workers are preparing the room for visitors:

Church worker 1: How many people are coming?” 

2nd worker: “There’ll be four of them.” 

Mediator: “Richard, Linda, this is Jay and Gail Perry.”

Jay: “Thank you for agreeing to meet us.” 

Linda: “You’re welcome.” 

Mediator: “I’m going to leave you alone. Let me know if you need anything.” 

The four sit awkwardly around the table. Tension builds. We begin to wonder what this meeting is really about, sensing a past tragedy. Finally, 35 minutes after the film’s purposeful—but agonizingly slow start—we learn what’s thrust these couples together. The film’s trailer includes this scene so it’s no spoiler:

Gail: “Tell me about your son.” 

Linda: “What would you like to know?” 

Gail: “Everything. I want to know everything.” 

Richard: “Why?” 

Gail: “Why do I want to know about your son? Because he killed mine.”

Six years earlier, Richard and Linda’s son inexplicably went on a mass shooting spree at school. Among others, he killed Gail and Jay’s son. A mediator has arranged the meeting for the four to talk by themselves. They’re all still struggling to make sense of what happened.

The dynamics between the parents are excruciating and believable. They address topics most of us would prefer to avoid, and yet probably think about whenever a school shooting happens. The conversation fluctuates between accusations, defensiveness, explanations, memories, disbelief, and questions. Here they are, wrestling to understand why one son went off the rails:

Jay: “Bipolar disorder, depression, mania, ADHD, possible schizoaffective disorder.” 

Richard: “None of that is psychopathy. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Jay: “If you take the medical records with the criminal report, which now finally we have the full report, don’t you have to weigh the evidence, the facts of what he did, with your personal relationship history with him?”

Linda: “He became those things. He wasn’t always those things.”

Camera angles mostly zero in on troubled, expressive faces. And the narrative doesn’t get any help from flashbacks. The entire story emerges through powerful dialogue, with no orchestral score playing behind.

Each character emotes differently. Gail says the least, but hits the essence of every point quickly—and gradually, her hard attitude softens in one of the film’s most poignant moments.

Her husband, Jay, keeps reminding her they aren’t there to interrogate or be vindictive—but he’s the one whose self-control cracks. Richard heaps guilt on himself for his son’s actions. And Linda, an introspective, hurting, and obviously loving mother, agonizes over how her sweet baby boy grew to be a murderer.

Here they are still grappling for answers:

Linda: “We’re not denying what he did or who he became.” 

Jay: “I can’t help but hear you blame a not abnormal child.” 

Richard: “He was my son. I can’t remove my feelings from our history or his records.” 

Jay: “I’m not asking you to. I’m saying what he did, his capacity for murder was probably potentially there a long time before anyone could have known.” 

Richard: "You think you can attach one word to something in order to understand it. To make you feel safe. Well, I won’t say it. I don’t believe it. It’s not simple. It’s everything you cannot see.”

Mass is not a happy family movie you’d naturally gravitate to. It’s difficult to watch. And it includes brief swearing, hence the PG-13 rating. It’s intense, but it’s not dark. Script-writer Fran Kranz, in his directorial debut, creates a realistic, sensitive portrayal of suffering. Top-notch, nuanced acting compels the audience to vicariously live the parents’ grief.

Despite no tidy ending, the film includes several surprising turns that show the meeting was worth it. One even suggests the possibility that several of the wounded parents may turn to the Source of true hope and healing.

I'm Sharon Dierberger. 

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 15th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. The four-time Grammy nominee Christian rock band, Newsboys recently released their latest album. Myrna, you listened to the new project, and talked with two of the band members.

BROWN: I did, and our conversation started with this song.

SONG: GOD’S NOT DEAD

MYRNA BROWN, REPORTER: In 20-14 lead singer Michael Tait, drummer Duncan Phillips, keyboardist Jeff Frankestein and guitarist Jody Davis, turned those three words into gold. One year later, the song, God’s Not Dead, became the Newsboys first platinum single, hitting the 1 million mark. Talk about a hard act to follow! The Newsboys have released seven other projects since then. Tait and Phillips say this latest album was five years in the making.

MICHAEL TAIT: Everytime you make a new record, you’re reapplying for your job. Because you are not guaranteed or promised (That’s right, that’s right) that people that bought the last one are going to be feeling this one.

SONG: STAND

I’m gonna stand in a world that’s breaking / Stand for a truth unchangin’ /

Stand is the Newsboy’s latest offering. The album’s title track starts with a musical and lyrical twist, which makes the song stand out.

SONG: What kind of heart do I have in my chest? / Does it beat for my Savior, or just for my flesh?

The lyrics are bold and piercing while the song’s instrumentation is soft and mellow. A subtle reminder of how Jesus can be both the Lion and the Lamb and how we as Christians are to be wise as serpents yet gentle as doves.

Funky guitar chops provide a head-bopping introduction to the first song on the 10-track album.

SONG: MAGNETIC

Soon as I open my eyes / It’s the same voice on the inside / Already so heavy / Weighing on my soul

Magnetic is a composition Tait co-wrote that describes God’s love.

MICHEAL TAIT: My uncle had a machine shop when I was a kid, Duncan. And there were these little metal shillings or shavings. And I remember my brother and I were sitting there with this magnet, and seeing how close we could get before the magnet would pull these shillings to them. And I thought that’s an analogy of God’s love for us. God’s love is always drawing. It’s always pulling.

Not a bad illustration, but like most analogies, it doesn’t quite capture the complexity of God’s working.

On the music side, with its retro-80s vibe, the energetic Magnetic resembles the Newsboys oldie-but-goodie song, Crazy. What’s missing however, is what the stadium-packing youth group fans of the 90s would call the band’s edginess, often wrapped in witticism. Part of that transition is likely due to how the make-up of the band has changed over its three-decade history. Newsboys started as a clean-cut pop/rock garage band in 1985 by four Australian teenagers. John James did most of the lead singing back then.

SONG: SHINE

The late 90’s was the Peter Furler era… full of guitars with loops, synthesizers and sound effects. Furler, also a band co-founder, was the band’s frontman until 2009.

SONG: BORN AGAIN

2010 ushered in the Michael Tait era.

MICHAEL TAIT: Peter Furler, you know a bald caucaisan man from Australia with an accent. Then they get this braided hair, chocolate boy from D.C. So, it was a bit of a hot mess at first.

Certainly more than previous projects, Stand takes the Newsboys even further into the mainstream pop music realm and beyond. You can hear it in songs like the reggae-inspired, Ain’t It Like Jesus.

SONG: AIN’T IT LIKE JESUS

Ain’t it like Jesus / To flip the situation / Ain’t it like Jesus / Zero limitations

SONG: BLESSINGS ON BLESSINGS

And the gospel-infused Blessings on Blessings takes me back to my childhood choir stand days.

At the end of the day, Stand is a solid pop record for listeners who are embracing the new era of Newsboys. And for older fans...there’s probably still enough passion and vocal swag in this project to please. After 36 years in the Christian music industry, Tait and Phillips say that’s the musical tension they live with. 

MICHAEL TAIT: You got to keep your ear to the ground man. You got to keep things fresh. Because like anything else people want to move on. You know. And they will. They will. They’ll move on real quick.

DUNCAN PHILLIPS: It’s kind of easy to make another record of the last successful one. That’s easy. But to really dig deep and say ok we had a lot of success, we sold gold or platinum or whatever it is. That’s great. But recognizing that music is changing constantly, the fans are changing constantly.

Thankfully, we serve a God who is immutable and only what we do for Him will stand.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Time now to thank the talented team that made this week’s programs possible:

Mary Reichard, Nick Eicher, Kent Covington, Katie Gaultney, Kristen Flavin, Sarah Schweinsberg, Kim Henderson, Steve West, Onize Ohikere, Emily Whitten, Joel Belz, Josh Schumacher, Cal Thomas, Sharon Dierberger, and Myrna Brown.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz are our 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.

Jesus said, For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of His father with the holy angels.

May your heart be open and ready to hear from God’s word this weekend as you 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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