The World and Everything in It: October 21, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Political ads aren’t known for telling the truth. But some are worse than others.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, Myrna, I think you found the very worst one and we’ll talk about it today on Culture Friday.

Also a review of a Christian rom-com from PureFlix.

And Word Play with George Grant.

BROWN: It’s Friday, October 21st. 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: Now news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: British PM » In London, Conservative “Tory” party leaders are looking for a new prime minister after Liz Truss announced Thursday that she’s stepping down. Truss told reporters…

TRUSS: We’ve agreed that there will be a leadership election to be completed within the next week. This will ensure that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.

She was labeled a lame duck leader after her economic plan rattled the markets and Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt tossed it out.

She announced her resignation after just six weeks on the job, but she’ll remain in office until a new leader is in place.

As her party considers her replacement, the leader of the opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer, is calling for a new general election.

STARMER: We can’t have a revolving door of chaos. We can’t have another experiment at the top of the Tory party. There is an alternative, and that’s a stable Labour government.

Among the rumored possible replacements for Truss is Boris Johnson, who resigned as prime minister in July amid multiple controversies.

Iran » U.S. officials say Iranian troops have been on the ground in Crimea supporting Russia’s drone attacks in Ukraine.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby:

KIRBY: Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground and through the provision of weapons that are killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

Kirby said “a relatively small number” of Iranian troops have been on the ground in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters …

PRICE: We’re concerned that Russia may also seek to acquire advanced conventional weapons from Iran. That includes, potentially, surface-to-air missiles.

Thursday’s announcement comes as the Biden administration continues efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

But Kirby said hopes for restoring that deal anytime soon are fading.

Pentagon to reimburse for abortion travel » The Biden administration has announced that the Pentagon will pay the travel costs of service members and their dependents who seek an abortion in another state. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued an order outlining the new policy, using federal taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion travel.

It also sets privacy guidelines, prohibiting commanders from discouraging a subordinate from ending a pregnancy.

It builds on initial reaction by the Pentagon in June after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. The Defense Department said at the time that it would continue to allow medical leave for service members who choose to travel for abortions.

Austin directed the services to implement the new policy by the end of this calendar year.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Biden stumping in Pennsylvania » President Biden has been leaning heavily on abortion as a campaign issue with Election Day less than three weeks away.

But on Thursday he stumped in Pennsylvania, touting bipartisan infrastructure spending.

He spoke in front of a Pittsburgh bridge that partially collapsed just hours before Biden visited the city last January.

BIDEN: This is just one of 2,400 bridges across the country that are being repaired just this year because of this law.

Out of roughly $1 trillion in spending, about $40 billion is dedicated to bridges.

Biden also hopes to boost to Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman. The Democrat is locked in a dead heat with Republican rival Mehmet Oz.

Record deaths at border » A record number of migrants have died at the U.S. southern border over the past year. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Officially, about 750 migrants have perished trying to cross the border since last September. But the actual number may be higher as not all deaths at or near the border are accounted for.

CNN reports that the bodies of migrants who died trying to cross the border are being stored in refrigerated containers in Maverick County, Texas. That’s because a local funeral home has run out of space.

Border officials have reported a record surge of border traffic with more than 2 million migrant encounters over the past year.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

CDC adds COVID vaccine to child immunization schedule » The CDC will likely add COVID-19 vaccines to its child immunization schedule very soon.

A panel of CDC advisers voted unanimously Thursday to add COVID shots to a list recommended vaccines.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to adopt the recommendation. That would add the shots to formal lists of recommended vaccines—alongside shots for polio, measles and hepatitis.

But state and local officials don’t have to accept those recommendations. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis immediately assured residents of his state …

DESANTIS: School districts are not mandating this choice. So we will make sure that your freedom to make those decisions on behalf of your kids remains intact.

The CDC does not have the authority to mandate shots nationally.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Culture Friday with Andrew Walker.

Plus, a Hallmark romance in a faith-based film.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 21st of October, 2022.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio today! Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Culture Friday!

John Stonestreet’s out this month with a big travel schedule and we’ll hear from him again in November. But 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 Nick, hey Myrna.

BROWN: Andrew, I want to call your attention to a campaign ad with an outrageously, fictitious storyline. It portrays police officers coming to a home and serving an arrest warrant on a mom … seeking to arrest her for an abortion, guns drawn, sobbing children, just an over-the-top portrayal.

This scene of a family dinner violently interrupted has been played several million times over social media:

[CLIP]

Again, the whole thing is make believe, but what’s interesting is that in real life there are arrests related to abortion, but they’re of pro-lifers.

WORLD’s Leah Savas reported earlier this month on the growing list of pro-life activists, snatched from their homes by FBI agents, facing federal charges for their involvement in peaceful, pro-life demonstrations.

Andrew, coming back to that ad, what it seems to be getting at is the notion of pro-life abolitionists who do want to bring punishment to bear on women. Where does that fit on the overall anti-abortion/pro-life spectrum?

WALKER: Well, Myrna, I think we should begin with a clear understanding that we’re living in an election cycle, which means that we have individuals who are highly motivated to take the most outrageous, exaggerated types of positions. The intent is to treat such positions as if they represent the normal position held by Republican operatives and conservative activists.

That video that you’re referring to by Representative Swalwell is truly outrageous and is utterly deceptive. The idea that the mainstream of the conservative movement is wanting to storm into people’s homes to arrest women is absolutely outrageous and absurd. And I’m seeing this in my context in Kentucky—where there is an important amendment to be voted upon on November 8—and watching how this is playing out in the news media. What we’re seeing are just distortions and fabrications—outright lies about what’s happening.

And I think this is just part of a broader moment that we’re in as a culture, where—as you mentioned—we’re seeing pro-life individuals who are having their homes invaded and doors knocked on by the FBI. They are the ones being taken into custody. Meanwhile, pregnancy care centers have historically been the targets of immense violence, yet after the Dobbs decision nobody from the FBI or the Department of Justice is making real inquiries into the attacks on those facilities and related individuals.

So we’re living in an honestly insane time where cool heads are not prevailing. And I think what’s really dispiriting is that we’re seeing the Department of Justice and the FBI really pursue what seems to be a partisan agenda. Perhaps I’m missing something; perhaps I don’t see the full side of the story. But the whole notion of justice is that justice is meant to be impartial. And it appears as if right now—between what we see happening at the federal policy level and what we see happening at the campaign level—fairness, equality, objectivity, and truthfulness are not anyone’s concern.

EICHER: Andrew last week, a jury in Florida was unable to reach a unanimous decision in a very closely monitored mass-murder case—the Parkland school shooting case. The jury failed to impose a death sentence to a person who murdered 14 students and three teachers. It’s an attack that ranks in the top 10 of mass shootings in U.S. history.

And you wonder, at least I wonder, if you can’t get a death sentence in a case this heinous, how do you ever impose a death sentence for anything? But I’d like to hear your thoughts on the the Biblical ethics of the death penalty and whether you think maybe it’s on its way out here in the United States.

WALKER: Nick, that’s a good question. Interestingly enough, when we survey the general American population, the death penalty actually remains quite popular with the majority of people. I think what we’ve seen over time are various states that have taken measures to either ban capital punishment or to institute moratoriums, which means they’re just not going to practice it. I think this is actually an injustice in its own right.

And in this instance—the Parkland shooting—what you said was exactly right. If this particular situation doesn’t warrant the death penalty, then it can be argued that no cases deserve the death penalty; it makes the case that nothing imaginable could rise to the level of warranting the death penalty. Even more problematically, this raises a great concern over our understanding of punishment in general. Because if we’re not willing to pursue capital punishment in this situation, it really raises the question of why we have punishment at all.

What we see in this particular situation are parents who are utterly outraged at this ruling: As they should be, because I believe this is one of those clear instances where justice demands the forfeiture of life. And I don’t say that out of bloodlust. I think this is a biblical principle. You go to the Noahic covenant, Genesis 9:5-6—“if you shed man’s blood, by man shall your blood be shed,” that’s the principle of reciprocity. It’s a principle of justice.

And when our justice system fails to deliver the very thing that these parents are owed, it makes a mockery of the heinousness of the offense done against them. I hope this is one of those situations where it raises a degree of outrage that justice is not being carried out. I hope those who are deciding future types of punishment take into consideration how much additional damage is done to the parents in these situations, knowing that their desire for satisfaction is going unrequited.

EICHER: Here’s a story that caught me by surprise—maybe it did you, too. But Ben Sasse, a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, maybe one of the most articulate, intellectual lawmakers in all of Washington (and maybe that’s not saying as much as I mean it to). But Ben Sasse is leaving the Senate to become president of the University of Florida. Sasse is well known for his Christian faith, his ability to articulate a Christian worldview, his willingness to articulate a Christian worldview. And his leaving really seems to leave a gap in D.C. But what’s your view overall on this change? There are not exactly many presidents of public universities who are outspoken defenders of the Christian faith—not in the world of academia, such as it is.

WALKER: Well, honestly—as I think you know—I would love for him to be able to play both roles, but that’s not possible. And I should be very clear: I am a huge admirer of Senator Sasse; he’s somewhat of an acquaintance of mine. He’s written the foreword for a book that I have coming out in February on the work of Robert P. George. I have been an admirer of his for several years now, because to me he embodies that type of conviction and civility that one who possesses a full understanding of the Christian worldview while in office should embody. He doesn’t shy away from his Christian convictions or his conservative convictions. So while I think it is no doubt sad that he’s leaving the Senate because of these convictions, it is also very good he has found a place as the president of a top tier research institution like the University of Florida, which is a monstrously large institution.

We all know that education—and particularly higher education—is not an institution that is very hospitable to conservative Christians in our nation. The fact that Ben Sasse gets to step into this role is actually a really healthy sign; I think that this is actually a moment for optimism as far as pushing back against that culture of illiberalism that is rampant in universities. After he was announced as president, when he came on campus to have some initial interviews, students were doing what you would expect students to do: protest, yell, scream, have a gigantic tantrum. Yet what do you have Ben Sasse doing in response? Being calm, being gracious, those types of examples speak for themselves. I for one will miss him in the Senate, but I am ecstatic that someone of his caliber is going to be able to hopefully shape a future generation of college administrators from this point forward.

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

WALKER: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers recently halted a crime in California.

Servers at the NōKA Ramen restaurant in Oakland were dressed in colorful superhero Power Rangers costumes last Friday.

They were mingling with customers when a frightened woman ran into the restaurant. A short time later, a man burst through the door and attempted to attack her.

That’s when the servers—well, the Power Rangers, I guess—sprang into action.

One customer told KGO-TV: 

AUDIO: All of the servers-slash-Power Rangers were moving toward the scene to help one another out.

They piled on the suspect and subdued him until police arrived.

Just a typical Friday night on the job for ramen servers–slash–Power Rangers! It’s Morphin time!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, October 21st, 2022. 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: a new movie from Pure Flix. 

The streaming service that’s family-friendly and faith-based has upped its original content of late. Here’s arts and media editor Collin Garbarino with a review of its latest film, Nothing Is Impossible.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Nothing Is Impossible is an inspirational faith-based sports movie that depicts God working through failure. It’s also got a healthy dose of romance. Fans of Hallmark-style love stories will enjoy Nothing Is Impossible. So, go into it expecting the sugarcoating.

Scott: Hi, Mrs. Holcott.

Mrs. Holcott: Your rent’s due.

Scott: I know, I know. I’m sorry.

Scott Beck dreamed of playing professional basketball, but instead of donning a jersey with his name on the back, each morning Scott slips on a work shirt with his name on the pocket. Twenty years earlier he was passed over in the NBA draft. Now he works as a janitor at the Christian high school he formerly attended. But at least he stays in good physical condition. His beat-up truck is so unreliable he finds himself jogging most places.

Ryan Aikens is the new owner of the Knoxville Silver Knights, a professional basketball team. She’s got her own problems.

Ryan: The truth is we barely have enough money to pay the players we have now. And the board is threatening to move the franchise.

Coach: So you tried to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. Maybe it’s time I took up fishing.

Ryan: No, no, no, no. Hear me out. I may have a solution to this, and it’s a bit unconventional. Why don’t we try open tryouts.

Archie: We’d look desperate.

Coach: We’d look like clowns.

Ryan: It’s an event, unique and promotable.

When Scott finds out about the open tryouts, he sees an opportunity to recapture his lost dream. But the road to redemption won’t be easy. Scott’s pushing 40 years old. And the team owner Ryan? She happens to be the ex-girlfriend he left at the altar 20 years earlier. Scott still has skills on the court, but will it be enough to make the team? Will it be enough to give him a second chance with Ryan?

The idea of an NBA team holding open tryouts sounds absurd. But you don’t have to suspend as much disbelief as you think. The NBA’s minor-league teams regularly hold open tryouts, and this small-market Knoxville team feels a bit minor league-ish. But can the 39-year-old Scott really keep up on the court? Well, LeBron James turns 38 later this year, and he’s still driving to the basket. Plus Scott’s stayed sharp helping out with the high-school team.

Scott: You guys do have heart. But to win, you’ve got to use your heads. You have to be smart. You have to think. Average height of a Clayton player’s what?

Player: They’re big coach.

Scott: Yeah, they’re bigger than us.

The film features solid performances. David A.R. White plays Scott—you’ll recognize him as Reverend Dave from the God’s Not Dead franchise—and soap star Nadia Bjorlin plays Ryan. Veteran film and television actor Harry Lennix provides the film with gravitas as the Silver Knights’ basketball coach who wants nothing to do with these open tryouts. The production values are pretty good for a made-for-TV movie.

With this movie, Pure Flix follows the tried-and-true formula the Hallmark Channel has used for decades. These movies can be a little cheesy, but they are popular for a reason.

Ryan: Well, I came to tell you that Coach Banks is releasing a list of players that made it to the second round. And you’re on that list. You just have to sign your life away.

Scott: Is everyone on that list getting a visit from the team’s owner?

Ryan: Just the ones that she almost married.

Nothing Is Impossible takes that formula and baptizes it with some overt Christian references. Scott and his friends pray and go to church. Characters grapple with God’s will for their lives, and there’s talk about God’s blessing in our failures.

Nick: Spit it out, man.

Scott: I don’t know. I’m just thinking about the whole abundant life thing. Is that really the promise you want to make these kids?

Nick: I mean it’s not my promise. It’s God’s.

Scott: I mean, do you see very many abundant lives around here, Nick? Cause from where I’m sitting, I just see a lot of regret and hopelessness.

Christian movies often risk becoming prosperity-gospel fairy tales—once the characters pray and believe hard enough their problems disappear. The martyrs and the persecuted church wouldn’t recognize that version of Christianity. Nothing Is Impossible tries to avoid the name-it-claim-it mindset. But despite all the talk about failure, we know there will be a “happily ever after” at the end of this movie. Waiting on a promised reward in Heaven doesn’t fit the genre’s formula. Neither does talk of sin or repentance.

Nick: What’s going on with you, man?

Scott: I don’t know. I just feel like I got a shot at getting my life back.

Nick: Scott, you’ve always had your life. You’re just not doing anything with it.

Nothing Is Impossible is family friendly entertainment with plenty of feel-good moments. It’s also refreshing to see Christianity depicted positively. Just don’t expect to find deep theological truths in Nothing Is Impossible. Hallmark style movies offer an entertaining, yet shallow and candy-coated, view of romance. Nothing Is Impossible offers the same—adding some sugary, feel-good faith.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 21st. 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. Most of us remember the children’s rhyme about Humpty Dumpty who sat on a wall and had a great fall. What you may not know is how he influenced literature or how he informs our contemporary battle over language. Turns out Humpty Dumpty was quite the relativist. Here’s George Grant with Word Play for October.

GEORGE GRANT, COMMENTATOR: In his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis declared, “Language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience. If you begin by flouting it, it has a way of avenging itself later on. We had better not follow Humpty Dumpty in making words mean whatever we please.”

Humpty Dumpty, of course, is a familiar character in an English nursery rhyme, probably composed as a satirical riddle or parody, as were most of our traditional children’s ditties, making it anything but an innocent nonsense fable: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall / Humpty Dumpty had a great fall / All the king's horses and all the king's men / Couldn't put Humpty together again.

There are several extant alternative endings to the ditty: Three-score men and three-score more / Couldn’t make Humpty as he was before. Or: Forty doctors and forty knights / Couldn't put Humpty to his rights.

Likewise, there are any number of theories about the riddle’s meaning. One theory imagines Humpty as the deposed king, Richard III, following his defeat at Bosworth Field in 1485. Another, conjectures that the rhyme portrays the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529. Yet another supposes that it depicts the 1643 siege of Gloucester during the English Civil War.

Regardless of its original intent, the powerful metaphor of Humpty’s great fall has found its way into literature as widely varied as James Joyce’s 1939 classic Finnegans Wake, Robert Penn Warren's 1946 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All the King’s Men, and Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s Watergate expose, All the President's Men.

In Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll’s 1871 sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Humpty and Alice discuss epistemology, semantics, and etymology: ‘“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful voice, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘No. The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that's all.’ Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again, ‘They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do with whatever you wish, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’”

It was this part of Humpty’s literary legacy that C.S. Lewis was referring to when he warned, “We had better not follow Humpty Dumpty in making words mean whatever we please.”

At a time when the battle over dictionary definitions is as intense as the battle over Bible doctrines, who would have ever imagined that an old, familiar nursery rhyme might provide the most trenchant caveat to our current cultural zeitgeist? As the hymn writer caroled, “Tis ever old, yet ever new.”

I’m George Grant.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who put the program together this week: Lynde Langdon, Lauren Dunn, Cal Thomas, Kent Covington, Mary Muncy, Onize Ohikere, Joel Belz, Josh Schumacher, Anna Johnasen Brown, Carolina Lumetta, Kim Henderson, Whitney Williams, Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, George Grant, Andrew Walker, and Colin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, 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 this week from Lillian Hamman and Benj Eicher.

Kristen Flavin is our producer. Paul Butler is our executive producer.

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: Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Remember to worship in your local church alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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.