The World and Everything in It - October 29, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Culture Friday: WORLD Opinions editor Albert Mohler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today a new film about one of the most well-known conversions of the 20th century.

And your Listener Feedback.

BROWN: It’s Friday, October 29th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden announces “historic” deal on framework for spending bill » President Biden announced on Thursday he had reached a—“historic economic framework”—on a massive new spending package.

BIDEN: It’s a framework that will create millions of jobs, grow the economy, invest in our nation and our people.

Party leaders have been negotiating with more moderate Democrats who objected mainly to the size of the plan. Biden was pushing for a $3.5 trillion spending package.

The agreed-upon framework, according to the president, cuts that figure in half—at least on paper. It outlines $1.75 trillion in spending on social services and climate change programs.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters …

PELOSI: I said over and over again, provisions in the bill are about children learning, parents earning. And that means with universal pre-k and childcare, with home healthcare, with childcare tax credit and all the rest.

But Republicans say nearly $2 trillion dollars is still a staggering and irresponsible amount of money to spend. And Sen. Marco Rubio insists the actual price tag would be much higher.

RUBIO: It doesn’t matter if it’s $3.5 trillion or $1.75 trillion. At the end of the day, that’s a gimmick because they can just lower the number of years. They can say, well we’re only going to have these socialist programs for two years, and then that will lower the cost - because they’re plan is, once they get these things in place, it’s very hard to repeal them. And they know that. That’s what they’re banking on.

Democrats plan to pass a spending bill without any Republican votes using reconciliation. But they will need all 50 Senate Democrats on board. And Democratic holdouts in the upper chamber have not yet publicly committed to backing the plan.

New covid cases fall 70% since Delta surge peak » New COVID-19 cases have fallen more than 70 percent since the peak of the delta variant wave. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: After the delta variant took hold in the United States in July, new cases rose sharply for almost two months straight. The current wave peaked in mid-September at nearly 190,000 new cases per day.

But daily cases are now down to about 56,000.

Deaths are also down sharply. At the delta variant peak, 2,400 Americans were dying of the illness each day. That number is now under 1,000.

With many more Americans vaccinated, the delta surge has not been as lethal as previous waves. At its January peak, COVID-19 claimed more than 4,000 lives in the United States each day.

But the vast majority of those who are most vulnerable are now vaccinated. Ninety-seven percent of adults 65 and up have received at least one dose. And 85 percent of them are fully vaccinated.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Families, survivors of Charleston church shooting reach settlement » The Justice Department will pay out nearly $90 million in a settlement in connection with a racially motivated mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina.

Six years ago, 21-year-old Dylann Roof opened fire on a Bible study group of nine worshipers at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Mullins McLeod is an attorney for multiple victims. He told reporters Thursday …

MCLEOD: The background check for Dylann Roof, there were some mistakes made. And but for those mistakes, the firearm would not have been sold.

And the Department of Justice has conceded that a prior criminal charge should have prevented Roof from buying the gun he used in his crimes.

Each family of the victims will receive between $6 and $7.5 million. And each survivor is entitled to $5 million. The settlement is pending a judge’s final approval.

Facebook Inc. rebrands as Meta to stress ‘metaverse’ plan » Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is changing its name. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: Facebook’s new corporate name will be Meta. Zuckerberg said the change is designed to reflect the company’s virtual-reality vision for the future—what he calls the “ metaverse.”

Zuckerberg describes the “metaverse” as a “virtual environment” you can go inside—instead of just looking on a screen. He further explained, it’s a world of connected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets and other devices.

Zuckerberg expects the metaverse to reach a billion people within the next decade.

But skeptics question the timing of the name change. They say the announcement is merely an attempt to change the subject after the company took a public relations beating in recent weeks. That after a former employee leaked internal Facebook documents and accused the company of putting profits over safety, failing to police dangerous content.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: a bellwether for Democrats in Virginia.

Plus, your listener feedback.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, October 29th, 2021.

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

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

Joining us today is Albert Mohler, he’s a theologian and public intellectual, a seminary president, and editor of the new WORLD Opinions.

Glad to see you.

ALBERT MOHLER, EDITOR: Nick, and Myrna. Great to be with you both as always on The World and Everything in It.

EICHER: It’s the last Friday in October, meaning the first Tuesday in November is right around the corner—Election Day in Virginia. And this one is maybe by virtue of its being an off-year election, but this is one everybody’s watching.

If you listen to David Bahnsen on economics every Monday—and you ought to—David stresses the importance of this one as driving the outcome of the jumbo spending bill in Washington as a bellwether of the strength or weakness of the president. If very blue Virginia goes red and the Republican wins—or it’s closer than it should be—that’s a proxy for President Biden’s weakness and the willingness of congressional Democrats, then, to defy him.

But apart from pure politics, this Virginia governor’s race may turn on the issue of education. The state has become something of a representative of the clash of worldviews over parental involvement in education versus education by experts only and that’s where the Republican candidate has turned the issue to his advantage.

Is this a real issue, do you think, not just in Virginia, but are we seeing the beginning of something big across the country that may change the way we educate children and teens?

MOHLER: It may change the shape of public education, it's more likely to reshape the political landscape, the public education establishment is so deeply entrenched, and quite frankly, has defense mechanisms that gets any kind of correction. But parents are now alerted in a whole new way to the problem, whether it's South Lake, Texas, or it's Virginia, you have parents showing up saying, these are our children, they don't belong to you. They don't belong to the school, they don't belong to the state. They belong to us. And we bear the responsibility. This has been a long debate in the United States, American Christians have been so acculturated into the public school movement, we forget how controversial it was in the beginning, and and how, in the early 20th century, the ideologues of public education, were already talking about separating children from the prejudices of their parents. And now the amazing thing is, you had the the former governor would be governor, again, Terry McAuliffe, just tell parents, it's none of your business. And even recently, it after that statement, you have public education figures coming back and saying, Okay, no, it's really true. Parents have no role in deciding what's taught in the public schools. So yeah, I think it's a big thing. I don't know what change it will bring in the public schools. I just seen the resilience of the public schools to any kind of change. And quite frankly, they can make incremental change. Conservative thinks something's happened, only to find out they went, you know, one step backwards and five steps forwards. But it has alerted parents and hopefully Christians, to the larger issue of who's in charge here.

EICHER: Right. But it's just one of these things where you see Virginia, it's kind of a flashpoint Loudoun County, right. And there's a lot of controversy there. But it comes in the context of politics. But it's not just in Virginia, it's all around the country. And that's why I was wondering, if is there Do you have a sense that it's a movement?

MOHLER: It is a movement, and it it has begun in places like Minneapolis, California, where people have discovered parents have discovered what's being taught to their children. They have complained about it, and we're talking about radically unacceptable curriculum and is brought to the attention of the schools and the schools insist you don't have any say here. In other states, you have opt out provision such as California, where the legislature put in an opt out on sex education, so the health educators just re labeled it as health rather than a sex education. nullifying parental rights. So it's happening everywhere. I hope it's a huge wake up call.

BROWN: Twix, the candy company, has a disturbing Halloween series out on social media—2.5 million people have watched a young boy, home alone, dressed in a princess dress, visited by a cross-dressing nanny in gothic. They end up at the park. The boy, still dressed as a princess, is approached by another boy wearing a superhero costume with a cape. Boy with cape asks why he’s dressed like that. The boy wearing the dress says, because it makes me feel good. Boy with cape says you look weird, your nanny looks weird, you’re both weird! The boy in the dress says, no we’re just different. Then the Nanny gets involved and conjures up a strong wind that sweeps the boy asking the questions away, leaving behind his cape. Then boy in dress and gothic nanny walk away hand in hand.

This seems so much bigger than a culture war. What do you think?

MOHLER: It's an absolute exchange of one entire system of meaning for another we are at it. It's like James or the the evangelical philosopher over a century ago said it's the deepened radical antagonism between the Christian view of the world and the world's own view of itself now, and that's what we've got this deep and radical antagonism. But you know, Myrna as I look at that, here's, here's what I'm thinking this is overacting. This is Twix virtue signaling as a company is preaching this transgender ideology and a little boy wearing a princess dress, but I just have to tell you, it's not working on the ground. The reality is that in Britain, and in the United States, the big movement right now is a push back against the transgender ideology and the non the gender non binary. And it's, you know, there were claims I dealt with just in the last few days in which 41% of Generation Z are supposedly said, they have some question about this, I just want to say it's not true. It's not true. Just go out and public 41% Not even close. And it just tells you that they have told themselves, this is the future. But I'll just point out there will be no babies of this as the future the entire, you know, sexual ideology being taught right now. But the reality is, it's not working. This is desperation. We should be very concerned about it. But it really shows you the desperation of ideologues who are now having to use candy commercials to try to sell their message.

BROWN: With President Biden’s December 8th vaccination mandate looming, do you think Christians can claim religious exemption when many Christian leaders support and promote getting vaccinated.

MOHLER: Well, there are two different questions there. And I appreciate the way you ask it. The first question is, would there be a Christian, deeply historical, biblical rationale against this vaccine? The problem with that is, is that there has been a very eager Christian case for vaccinations. So the question will be why this vaccination? That I don't believe is the strongest ground? I'll be honest, I think the strongest ground is against the mandate itself and what it would what it means is as government intrusion upon the private institutions, and corporations, making those corporations or institutions for instance, the seminary and college I lead, just saying you're now responsible to intrude into the health decisions of your employees, I don't even want to know the answer to this question. So I think there's a conscience issue here. That's bigger than the vaccine. It's the problem is the mandate, especially the way it's being handed down. This is coming from OSHA. You know, this is this is not something Congress has the authority to to legislate it couldn't possibly allegedly is the attempting to use the administrative state for political ends.

EICHER: Albert Mohler is a theologian, seminary president, and editor of the new WORLD Opinions. Enjoyed the talk, thanks!

MOHLER: Great to be with you and I'm proud of this project and proud to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, October 29th. 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 radical transformation.

C.S. Lewis is one of the 20th century’s best known Christian apologists. Even many non-Christians are familiar with his work through the children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. But fewer people know the full story of how Lewis came to embrace Christ after spending years as an emphatic atheist.

EICHER: A new film by Fellowship For Performing Arts tells that story. The Most Reluctant Convert, The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis is adapted from the original stage play by Max McLean. And it will be in theaters nationwide for one night only, on November 3rd. Some theaters are adding more dates as early ticket sales continue to rise. But there’s no word yet on how to watch the movie after that.

BROWN: Our reviewer, Sharon Dierberger, got a sneak peak. And she says if you like C.S. Lewis, you’ll enjoy this true story of how God transformed his life.

AUDIO: I never cared for my name. Clive Staples. The world came to know me as CS Lewis. Perhaps you’ve read my books. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is most famous. But there’s one story that’s not so well-known. It’s my story. And who better to tell it, than me?

SHARON DIERBERGER, REVIEWER: Christians appreciate C.S. Lewis for his ability to articulate accessible yet profound insights into complex theology. In classics like The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, and Mere Christianity, he uses convincing apologetic arguments to defend Scriptural truths.

But for much of his early life he didn’t believe any of it.

AUDIO: So, if you’d asked me to believe all this I’ve just described as the work of an omnipotent, benevolent God, I would have laughed and said, the evidence points in the opposite direction. Either there’s no God behind the universe, a God indifferent to good and evil, or worse, an evil God.

Lewis, an avowed atheist from age 14, explained his trek to Christianity in his many writings. But thanks to this film’s concise script, the influences and turning points in his life emerge in about 70 entertaining minutes.

Three different actors ably portray Lewis. Eddie Ray Martin plays Lewis as a boy. Nicholas Ralph, best known for his role in the PBS series All Creatures Great and Small, portrays Lewis the young man. And McLean makes a very believable older Lewis. That’s not surprising. McLean has played Lewis 287 times in his one-man stage show this film is based on.

An opening scene shows the make-up crew prepping McLean. He looks down, pauses, then gazes up into the camera, transformed into Lewis’ persona. The story begins—taking viewers to the places Lewis frequented in England—replete with steam engine trains, a smokey pub, and the childhood home he describes in this scene:

AUDIO: I am a product of long corridors, empty, sunlit rooms, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, noises of wind under the tiles, and endless books—Books readable and unreadable. Books suitable for a child, and books emphatically not. Nothing was forbidden. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons, I almost literally read my way through the house.

The older Lewis walks us through his story, sometimes mere steps behind the younger Lewis dramatizing the same scene. He narrates mostly from Lewis’ own beautifully written words with his powerful mastery of language. The long soliloquies are worth listening to closely. But they may be hard for children to grasp. (The film is unrated, and includes one swear word.)

Lewis describes a happy childhood until his mother’s death from cancer—despite his fervent prayers—when he was a young teen. Her death, and the drastic change in his father afterward, influenced his break from his Christian upbringing. It led to what he called one of the worst acts of his life:

AUDIO: I allowed myself to prepare for confirmation, be confirmed, make my first communion—all in total disbelief. Acting a part. Eating and drinking my own condemnation. I knew I was acting a lie. Cowardice drove me to hypocrisy, and hypocrisy to blasphemy!

As a young man, Lewis heads to Surrey for two years of rigorous teaching from an atheist tutor. He plunges into reading classical, mostly secular works, and veers into materialism and even the occult.

But one day, while rummaging in a bookstore, he discovers a fantasy novel by Christian writer George MacDonald. Reading it resets his moral compass.

AUDIO: The bright shadow coming out of this book transformed everything, and it would affect my own writing forever. It was as if I’d died in the old country and come alive in the new. That night, as I read Phantastes, my imagination was baptized. The rest of me took a little longer.

We learn how God used Lewis’ unrelenting pursuit of truth and numerous circumstances to slowly draw him. The film shows how Lewis sustained a critical injury in World War I—and how he later befriended Christians at Oxford University, including J.R.R. Tolkien, who challenged his thinking. Lewis had to decide if Jesus was a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.

After his conversion, Lewis said, “That walk marked the end of one journey and the beginning of another.” His words sound remarkably close to this quote from his last chronicle of Narnia: “Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

I’m Sharon Dierberger.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 29th. 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.

Time now for Listener Feedback. And for that we turn to executive editor Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, EDITOR: Good morning!

EICHER: Well, the last time we did Listener Feedback we were in Minnesota for our live event. So today we have two months of email and voicemails to go through. What have listeners been saying?

BUTLER: Far and away we heard the most from listeners praising Les Sillars’ two-part special on Free North Korea Radio. It was called The Freedom Show. Matt Brown from Tucson, Arizona, summed up just about all the feedback we got about these two programs. 

MATT BROWN: Wow, what an incredible production. What a super helpful, super interesting podcast on current affairs in North Korea. You know, this came as a complete surprise. I didn’t hear about any um ticklers on this particular podcast. Fell on a Saturday morning. I’m thinking I’m in withdrawal from The World and Everything in It. Low and behold there’s something in my podcast inbox and I just start to listen. And I’m absolutely mesmerized, enthralled. Can’t say enough good about this particular podcast. It’s quality. It’s investigative reporting. Outstanding. Thank you so much for these kinds of just amazing ongoing podcasts that really just meet such a such valuable need to us as listeners. So a home run Les Sillars.

Thank you, Matt. And thanks to all of you who listened, loved it, and took the time to write and tell us that. We really appreciate knowing that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed creating it. If you didn’t get a chance to listen to those programs, we’ll put a link to them in today’s transcript. Look for that at WNG.org. (Part 1 and Part 2)

EICHER: And we do plan to do more special episodes like this. In fact, stay tuned for a four part story that Kim Henderson is working on titled: Truth be Told on abuse and healing. We hope to release it in mid-November.

BROWN: We’ve also gotten several emails from listeners asking about Lawless. That’s the true crime podcast hosted by author and former WORLD Magazine reporter Lynn Vincent.

BUTLER: It is still coming! We’ve moved the release date back to March 31st of next year.

Back to the phone lines now for a call from Todd Cheney. He’s an active duty military chaplain stationed in South Carolina.

TODD CHENEY: I wanted to respond to the excellent report that Joshua Schumacher provided today on veteran’s struggles with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The subject really focused on PTSD. However in my time as a chaplain with one tour of duty to Iraq and two to Afghanistan, I’ve become convinced that PTSD is often time a name we incorrectly give to combat veterans that have been betrayed or they’re sacredly held beliefs and morals have been violated due to what they have either done in combat or witnessed. It is what trauma specialists called soul or moral injury. I draw this to The World and Everything in It's attention because I believe this undiagnosable phenomenon is what’s truly behind the sad reality of veteran suicide. A Biblical example of this is Elijah in 1 Kings 18 and 19. Prayerfully your listeners will have a broader perspective of veteran behaviors and suicides as they consider the impact of combat trauma and soul injuries. Thanks so much for your exceptional reporting.

BUTLER: Thank you, Todd. And thank you for your service.

Next, we have a call from Ian McAllister from Western Massachusetts.

IAN MCALLISTER: Just listened to today’s program and just wanted to say I love Whitney Williams’ great commentary at the end about the pulled pork and bologna sandwiches fundraiser. Just really well done. Heartfelt, touching and sweet and funny and all the good stuff. So keep up the good work, and we’ll keep listening. Thanks.

BUTLER: From a piece that touched hearts to one that, well, I’ll let listener Charlie Herndon explain.

CHARLIE HERNDON: Hey! Nick Eicher is right in the Kicker about Arc All Souls Academy and filler words, as they are, you know, like well they’re on to something. So, I mean, this is why I love this shazam WORLD podcast! Jenkies, it’s the bomb! ‘Cause communication on WORLD podcasts is always spot-on, never filler, you know? Other podcasts get filled up with, well, jumble spuz. So, I mean, at the end of the day, in my opinion, you know, honestly, you see, it’s reasonable to assume here’s to the most excellent, stupendous podcast! Preservative and filler free, and you know it!

EICHER: You may not know what Charlie is talking about, we’ve included a link to our October 11th kicker on expelling verbal fillers words...

BUTLER: And finally, we’ll end today with some praise for our audio engineers.

LORRAINE FRITCH: Hello, I’m Lorraine, from southern California. And I want to give a shout out to Carl Peetz and Johnny Franklin for their creative audio engineering. I’m still chuckling over the “Bye, Corona” clip from Friday’s podcast. Of all the parodies out there, you found a great one. And introduced me to a new band. Thanks, guys, for staying up late.

And that’s this month’s listener feedback.

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

Jenny Rough, Kent Covington, Katie Gaultney, Kristen Flavin, Jenny Lind Schmitt, Amy Lewis, Whitney Williams, Onize Ohikere, Joel Belz, Josh Schumacher, Lauren Dunn, Hayley Schoeppler, Cal Thomas, and Sharon Dierberger.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Carl Peetz and Johnny Franklin are the audio engineers who stay up late to get the program to you early! Leigh Jones is managing editor. Paul Butler is executive producer, and Marvin Olasky is editor in chief.

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

The Bible says: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

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.

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.