The World and Everything in It: October 4, 2024

PREROLL: What can a 70 year old movie teach today's endless phone scrollers? You'll find out in just a few minutes. I'm WORLD film reviewer Max Belz. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Pro-life and the V-P debate … today, the argument that never made it to the table.

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet will bring it to the table on Culture Friday.

Also today, that review of the famous Alfred Hitchcock film starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, Rear Window.

CLIP: What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. How’s that for a bit of homespun philosophy?

And Ask the Editor.

BROWN: It’s Friday, October 4th. 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!

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Helene: search for the missing / recovery » Search and rescue crews are still combing remote mountains of North Carolina to locate the missing and those in need of supplies … nearly a week after Hurricane Helene barreled through the Southeast.

Volunteer firefighter John Payne says the Rocky Broad River swept through the community of Chimney Rock … like a freight train carrying massive debris.

PAYNE:  These boulders are the size of cars or houses even that are rolling down the river. There's the steel girders from the beams on the bridges … I just walked up there, hiked up the river, and they're bent in horseshoe shapes … around boulders.

The death toll has surpassed 200 and could rise higher still. Rescue crews and volunteers are just now trying to get to the hardest-to-reach places and finding mudslides, downed trees and washed out roads at every turn.

Helene is now the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina.

Helene: Biden in GA, FL » President Biden toured storm-ravaged parts of Georgia and Florida Thursday … one day after visiting North and South Carolina. He said the federal government is doing all it can to help.

BIDEN:  FEMA teams are knocking, literally knocking on doors to register folks so they can receive assistance to buy what they urgently need.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack joined the president on the trip. With many pecan and cotton crops completely destroyed in Georgia Vilsack told reporters:

VILSACK:  Our job obviously is to try to keep farms viable and operational, uh, to basically get as much help as quickly as possible to as many people as possible.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson said Congress will work on a bipartisan basis to ensure recovery efforts are fully funded.

Israeli hostage » One of the more than 200 hostages taken by the terror group Hamas on October 7th...is speaking out about that experience.

Aviva Siegel told the Associated Press she had to beg for food and water from her captors.

SIEGEL: Hostages were chained, tortured, starved, beaten up into pieces, I saw that in front of my eyes. That's what they did to us.

Siegel was released during a brief cease-fire last year...but she says her husband is still being held by Hamas.

Israel-Hezbollah » Meanwhile, near Israel’s northern border …

NATS - Blasts in Beirut

Blasts were heard last night as Israeli ground operations continued in southern Beirut. Israel is warning civilians to evacuate additional parts of southern Lebanon ahead of what the army says will be precise strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure.

HALEVI - In Hebrew

Israeli military spokesman Herzi Halevi says Israel is determined to destroy that infrastructure … so that the terror group can never again settle in those places.

Amid that conflict, some Americans have been fleeing Lebanon in recent days. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller:

MILLER: A second flight, departed Beirut this morning with 134 passengers on it, bringing the total number of American citizens and their immediate family members who have departed on these flights to 250.

Miller says more than six-thousand American citizens have contacted the U.S. Embassy about leaving the country since the conflict escalated.

Pronouns settlement » A Virginia school board is shelling out a six-figure sum to settle a religious liberty lawsuit brought by a former teacher. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Peter Vlaming taught French at West Point High School for nearly 7 years … before he was fired over new rules surrounding the use of pronouns.

He said that on religious grounds, he could not adhere to a policy that required teachers to refer to students by chosen–not born–pronouns.

In an effort to keep his job, Vlaming started referring to students only by their first name…omitting pronouns altogether. But that did not satisfy school administrators.

The district is now paying just over $500,000 to settle the lawsuit. It also agreed to adopt new policies supporting free speech and parental rights.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Dockworkers strike » The union representing 45,000 striking dockworkers in the eastern U.S. has reached a deal to suspend their strike until Jan. 15th giving the two sides more time to negotiate.

Workers with the International Longshoremen’s Association are expected to be back on the job today. That comes after port operators upped their offered pay raise to at least 62 percent, getting closer to the 77 percent the union is demanding.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet, plus Ask the Editor. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 4th of October, 2024.

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 time for Culture Friday, and joining us now is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Good morning!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning!

EICHER: John, I’d like to begin today with the vice presidential debate … but with a very specific purpose. I know a lot of pro-lifers were and are disheartened by the political strategy of the Republicans—basically to duck and cover on abortion. But my specific question has to do with the very articulate vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, who had no trouble all night long … except, I’ll suggest here. Have a listen to his opponent, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz.

WALZ: There's a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth. The fact of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights as basic as the right to control your own body, is determined on geography. There's a very real chance, had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today. That's why the restoration of Roe versus Wade. When you listen to Vice President Harris talk about this subject, when you hear me talk about it, you hear us talking exactly the same.

EICHER: It was about the best and most coherent he was this week … very skilled with pro-choice rhetoric. But how much damage, do you think, the pro-life argument sustains here because, even though it was well-delivered, it was not irrefutable. But it was left unrefuted. How damaging was this?

STONESTREET: I think these stories have done significant damage. I mean, I really do, because really the headline of the Amber Thurman case is not the danger of pro life laws. It's the danger of chemical abortions. It's not the fact that doctors are prevented by law from caring for women who need it. It's that somehow there is a disconnect between what the law clearly says, including in this case of Amber Thurman and what doctors are being told they can or cannot do.

And all of this, I think, is a reflection of this deep shift that has taken place, which is new. It's actually new in the history of the abortion debate, and I think that the Trump ticket has granted those terms of this debate now that we are now there: it's an unwinnable issue, it's unpopular, and also then that kind of makes it official that abortion, for many political conservatives, is a means issue, not an ends issue. So I think it's a really big deal.

I mean, we've talked here about the, you know, kind of GOP being, kind of where the Democratic Party was in the ’90s, kind of a safe, legal and rare.

The other thing that I'll say about this, and I think this can't be understated, for both Kamala Harris and for Tim Walz, their absolute best moments, and both of those debates, and no other moment comes close was when they were each talking about abortion. That's when they got the most animated. That's when their thoughts were the clearest, that's when they were the most passionate. That's where you kind of listen and thought to yourself, yeah, I don't doubt their commitment here one bit. I mean, there's plenty of areas where a politician says something you're like, I don't know if they really mean that, but for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, they absolutely both mean this to the extent that they will defend it.

So, you know, we're talking about this kind of shift that this is a another indication of in a far more pro death direction. And I think it leaves pro lifers in a tough spot, but there clearly is a worse position and a better position, but neither one are good positions.

EICHER: Who’s fault is this? Who’s to blame? Is this the fault of the pro-life movement, are the arguments not well-developed? Is it the fault of supposedly pro-life politicians who lack courage? Who do you blame?

STONESTREET: Yeah, it's a great question. I probably the right answer is not one thing, but a whole lot of things. And you know, one of those things being kind of a thoroughgoing, capitulation culture wide, to a deep moral relativism when it comes to sexuality.

So, you know, maybe it's our fault for not reading the signs as Jesus told us to do, because the public just wasn't where we thought they were. I think too that, you know, we said it over and over and over, Roe didn't settle the issue of abortion, and that means neither does Dobbs settle the issue of abortion. I think we all meant it, but we certainly weren't ready to seize that victory and then to run forward with it.

And realizing, too, that once the lawmaking returned to the States, that culture is upstream from that, and the culture wasn't properly seated, even in quote, unquote red states, to be able to move the needle legally in such a way as to prevent the loss of innocent lives. So, yeah, I mean, and, you know, that's, that's on us.

And then, and then finally, look, I can't say that I would, in all honesty, give the church a round of applause for their discipleship efforts, not only on the moral issue of abortion, but on the overall issue of where the value and dignity of life come from. You know, we use that same sort of language of autonomy and self esteem and self reflection, and we just kind of Christianize it. And the idea of the image of God has been taught, if it has, in many cases, has just been kind of a Christianized version of a very secular idea of self esteem. It actually isn't the theological grounding that it needs to be. That work, that discipleship, work, that worldview building work is just not being done in churches. So that's on us.

And then, you know, you could talk about the rampant misinformation, like what we're hearing about Amber Thurman. You know, it was a setback, not just that, that misrepresentation of her tragic story was allowed to say that the debate, but you watched any coverage after it, and I'm talking about CNN or CBS or ABC or Fox News or NPR, and Amber Thurman's name was brought up, and that narrative allowed to stand there as well. And so, you know, at this point you're you're talking about a dereliction of duty from the press.

So you know, is that upstream or downstream? And I think the answer is yes.

BROWN: Certainly the story that is on our minds and hearts is the devastation from Hurricane Helene. There have been other destructive storms. Living here on the Gulf Coast, I have lived through a few. But this one hit differently. Why do you think that is John?

STONESTREET: Well, it hit differently for me too, and I think, you know, at some level, it's because of the amount of time I've spent in western North Carolina. It's because of the number of drives that I took between Tennessee and western North Carolina to play basketball games during my college days, and the amount of time I made that same drive to speak at the many Christian schools in, you know, Asheville and Charlotte areas and so on.

And I think this does tell us something about the human condition, is that when it is personal, when you actually know real people, the destruction of stuff doesn't sit the same as when people experience great loss, and that's because humans were made different.

That's as CS Lewis said, in the weight of glory, nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, they're mortal. Their life is to ours like life of a gnat, but it's the immortals whom we work with and joke with and marry and snub and exploit, and I think it's really moments like these that elevate this. And we experience our friends and our neighbors and our loved ones go through that deep loss.

I have been thinking all week about you guys and about your colleagues, a WORLD News Group I consider to be not just a partner organization with the Colson Center, though it is, but a partner organization made up of a bunch of friends. And there's a whole lot of other people I'd say the same thing about. I've been to the offices there in Asheville, and those offices now are devastated, and the loss that you guys feel, it sits differently.

And you know, there is a Christian view that helps us make sense of this to some degree, it doesn't mean we can explain exactly what God is doing by allowing this to happen. Why didn't he turn the storm this way or that way? And there were a lot of eternal immortals who lost their lives in this, a remarkable number, and who would have thought to prepare for a hurricane in western North Carolina?

You know, this tells us all kinds of things.

Number one is, is this unprecedented for the people western North Carolina? Absolutely. Is this unprecedented and so let's completely, you know, punt to climate change as the explanation for why it was like this? That's not a proper perspective.

Secondly, why is it that events like this hit differently? And it's because at the end of the day we know what's really important, and that's people. When the people in our lives hurt, we hurt too. And we also know too that we're even though people are more important than stuff. Stuff does matter because it matters to people. And we're not Gnostics. That's not a Christian view, because a Christian view actually takes seriously the goodness of the created world. That's one of the most beautiful places on the planet, western North Carolina. And so we can actually order our affections and order our cares around a Christian worldview.

And then the last thing I thought about this morning as I was talking to one of my colleagues who lives in that area in western North Carolina, and praise God, she's safe. And her husband just moved to the area not too long ago.

But I always think of the wisdom of Mr. Rogers, and you're already seeing it, which he said after 9/11 trying to explain this to young kids, look for the helpers. There will always be helpers. Now, why will there always be helpers? Even more, why is it that nine times out of 10 the best helpers, the quickest helpers, the most effective helpers, and the ones that always show up are followers of Jesus? And we're going to see those stories. And that doesn't mean that the loss didn't matter, because the loss mattered.

But it does mean that there is, you know, as Sam told Frodo, good in this world, I believe that there is, and you can see it in the hearts of people. And all of that points back to that wonderful, I think, truth that was expressed so well by CS Lewis, that nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, and even our buildings, and even beautifully, beautiful mountainsides where the trees change color and it looks like the whole thing is a painting, at the end of the day, people are eternal, and that's why this one hurts, and that's why we can have the right perspective, and the people who are themselves victims turn into helpers. It's really an amazing thing.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 4th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Next on The World and Everything in It, the 70th anniversary of a movie from the master of suspense. It’s a film that may have an important lesson for us in the age of social media. Our reviewer is Max Belz.

MAX BELZ: In the 1950s, English movie director Alfred Hitchcock was at the height of his creative powers, and 1954 might have been his best year.

In the spring, his movie Dial M for Murder came out. It starred Grace Kelly, and told the story of a man who schemed to murder his wife to collect her inheritance.

AUDIO: Do you really believe in the perfect murder? Yes, absolutely. On paper, that is. But I doubt if I could carry it out. Why not? Well, because in stories, things usually turn out the way the author wants them to and in real life they don’t.

The movie was shot almost totally in one room and its technicolor storytelling hinted at coming greatness when Rear Window hit theaters later that summer.

AUDIO: This is the apartment of a man named Jeffries, a news photographer whose beat used to be the world. Right now, his world has shrunk down to the size of this window. He’s been watching the people across the way.

In Rear Window, Hitchcock uses the camera like a painter with a brush, telling the story through pictures, uncluttered by dialogue. Take for example, the opening scene. We see the courtyard of an apartment building. The camera then shows us the neighbors and their daily movements, before landing on LB Jefferies played by Jimmy Stewart.

We see his broken leg in a cast, then a busted camera and photos of race cars and explosions. Next, a portrait of a beautiful woman on a magazine cover. All of this takes about 3 minutes and yet, Hitchcock establishes most of the movie's conflicts during that time.

AUDIO: Congratulations, Jeff. For what? For getting rid of that cast. Who said I was getting rid of it?

Again, we have a crime on our hands: Jeffries suspects one of his neighbors of killing his wife. First the man’s wife is ailing and later she disappears, the bed neatly made. Jefferies can’t help but solve this mystery from a distance.

Grace Kelly plays the part of Lisa, Jeffries's sophisticated girlfriend. But trouble is brewing between them, something Jeffries confesses to the nurse tending to him.

AUDIO: She’s not the girl. She’s perfect. She’s too perfect. She’s too talented. She’s too beautiful. She’s too sophisticated. She’s too everything but what I want.

His appetite for excitement stands in contrast to Lisa’s desire for stability and success. They want different things, he as the globetrotter, she as the Manhattan socialite.

AUDIO: Someday, you may want to open up a studio of your own here. How would I run it from, say, Pakistan? Jeff, isn’t it time you came home?

We are bound once again to a single setting. An apartment building is a clever way to have one narrative that contains other stories—each window he sees is another story all its own. In this setting, his thirst for adventure and his cabin fever drive him to look through his telephoto lens at his neighbors, to the chagrin of Lisa and his nurse.

AUDIO: We become a race of peeping toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How’s that for a bit of homespun philosophy. Reader’s Digest April 1939. Well, I only quote from the best.

His snooping leads him to spy on the people around him, speculating about their motives. But he neglects his own friendships. Hitchcock presents a tendency we face in our own lives: it is easy to choose the fake over the real, the mediated to the actual, fantasy to reality. LB Jefferies prefers to go on dreaming rather than face the music.

AUDIO: That’s no ordinary look. That’s the kind of look a man gives when he’s afraid somebody might be watching him.

He only starts giving Lisa the attention she deserves when she sneaks into the suspect's apartment and enters the "show" he's watching.

AUDIO: C’mon, c’mon. Get out of there!

Throughout the movie, the camera takes Jefferies’ perspective, showing us what he sees— often quickly cutting to his reaction. This technique is absorbing for the viewer: what does he see? What does he think about what sees? Is he interested?

AUDIO: I just can’t figure it out. He went out several times last night in the rain carrying his sample case. Well, he’s a salesman, isn’t he? Well, what would he be selling at three o’clock in the morning?

But enough dubious happenings bring Lisa and the nurse in on the action, and the story keeps you in suspense till the end. Jefferies and Lisa repeat the facts of the case to each other, absorbed by it all, as are we, the audience.

AUDIO: Let’s start at the beginning again, Jeff. Tell me everything you saw and what you think it means.

Since movie ratings didn’t exist in 1954, Rear Window earned a PG rating later on even though it touches on some serious themes. The music by Franz Waxman sets the tone and the costumes by Edith Head are stunning. All of Hitchcock’s classic touches are here, but it’s his pure storytelling through the camera that will keep drawing audiences back to this movie. And like the best stories, it shows us something true about the human experience. Take a look, but remember it’s just a movie. Reality is even sweeter.

AUDIO: Mr. Jeffries. The music stopped her.

I'm Max Belz.

MYRNA BROWN: Today is Friday, October 4th. 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. Up next, Ask the Editor for October … and Paul Butler you read lots of mail … and it sounds a little like petition the editor this month. What’s that all about?

PAUL BUTLER: Well, Nick, last Friday you and Myrna announced the end of listener pre-rolls … and our podcast listeners have had a lot to say about it. There’s been much sackcloth and ashes and gnashing of teeth.

Jane Hyland lives in Charlotte, N.C., and she writes:

I had been hearing the nudges for more listeners to call in and let their voices be heard…Now I’m sorry I never responded. I’ve been listening every day for so many years, but have never called in. I’m going to miss those greetings from around the country and around the world!

Robin Lowe is from Texas but lives in Minnesota. She writes:

Like most of your listeners, I appreciate hearing national and world events from a biblical perspective. I am always impressed by the quality of the journalism.

I just wanted to point out that today when your reporters mentioned stopping the “pre-rolls“ I was disappointed. I have to tell you it’s one of my favorite parts. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because we can often feel quite alone in our biblically-based views, so I love hearing the snippets from people around the US who are listening daily like myself.

I hope you won’t give up on those.

Listener Jonathan Phillips wrote something similar:

The listener pre-roll is unique among all of the podcasts I listen to, and it's something I look forward to every time I push "play". I appreciate the sense of community it brings, reminding me that I am joined by diverse brothers and sisters around the world, not just as I listen to the podcast, but also as I go through my day seeking to follow Christ. I've even had the experience of recognizing an old acquaintance, being prompted to pray for them, and getting in touch to let them know their pre-roll encouraged me.

I especially appreciated this comment from Tom Woloszyn:

Hi folks. Love the program. I especially appreciate the [pre]-rolls - they gave me someone to meet and someone to pray for. They were truly a way to connect with folks in the body of Christ.

And finally, one of our prolific prerollers … Paul Gebel of Edmond, Oklahoma, left us this message:

PAUL GEBEL: On the one hand, I'm disappointed as I love doing pre rolls, hearing them on the air, getting texts and emails from other WORLD listeners who had heard me, all because we listen to the same great program.

On the other hand, I commend you for not letting yourselves get into the trap of never changing your format because you're too in love with how things have always been done.

So, a sincere thanks, and I look forward to how you'll begin the show in this new season.

Well, for those who have sent us pre-rolls and for those who wish they had, thanks for letting us know how encouraging this part of our program has been for you.

Our goal is to keep the program fresh and interesting … and as Paul Gebel said, we’re not going to continue to do something just because it’s how we’ve always done it. And we did receive mail from those who agreed it was time to retire the prerolls.

And so while we are shaking things up a bit, we acknowledge that this program is about you, the listener … and so I want you to know that we’re looking for the right way to celebrate your different hometowns, interests, and personalities … and why you listen. We won’t promise that whatever we land on will last as long as the prerolls did … but you’ll soon start to hear from each other once again in the program, and we hope that you’ll enjoy it even more.

I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who helped put the program together this week:

Jeff Palomino, David Bahnsen, Lindsay Mast, Brad Littlejohn, Carolina Lumetta, Onize Oduah, Maria Baer, Janie B. Cheaney, Leah Savas, Anna Johansen Brown, Mary Muncy, Leo Briceno, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Max Belz, Mary Reichard, and Collin Garbarino.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Lynde Langdon, Travis Kircher, Lauren Canterberry, Christina Grube, and Josh Schumacher.

And thanks to the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Our producers are Paul Butler, Kristen Flavin, and Harrison Watters, with assistance from Lauren Dunn 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 records Peter as saying: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” —Acts 10:34-35.

Be sure to worship Him with brothers and sisters in Christ in church on the Lord’s Day.

And Lord 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.