The World and Everything in It: October 5, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Midterm elections are a month away. For many states, this one will be the first with new voting laws on the books. We’ll talk about a handful of legal challenges to those laws.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, World Tour with Onize Ohikere.

Plus, giving new life to old lyrics.

And WORLD Founder Joel Belz on our problem with authority.

BROWN: It’s Wednesday, October 5th. 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, Kristen Flavin with today’s news.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Hurricane Ian latest » In Florida, a slow wait for some to get power restored after Hurricane Ian.

AUDIO: It’s been a little stressful, you know, trying to keep everybody happy and do the best you can and help out your neighbors.

But overall, residents say power companies were well-prepared for this storm.

AUDIO: And in comparison even from this year to the last big storm, which was Irma for us, it's incredible how good these guys did.

As of Tuesday night, about 375,000 customers were still without power.

Governor Ron DeSantis thanked Floridians for their patience.

DeSANTIS: I met some folks at the shelter last night whose homes were destroyed. I’ll tell you, though, their spirit was remarkable. They were thanking me and the Red Cross and everybody more than they were complaining about their own misfortune.

President Biden is scheduled to visit Florida today and tour storm damaged areas.

Burkina Faso » AUDIO: [Protesters]

In Burkina Faso, protesters gathered in the capital city while diplomats met with the leaders of the country’s latest coup.

Envoys from the West African bloc ECOWAS tried to press Capt. Ibrahim Traore into restoring democratic elections.

Traore told Radio France Internationale that he would hold free elections by 2024.

An ECOWAS mediator said the block would stand by the people of Burkina Faso.

ECOWAS: [French]

This is Burkina Faso’s second coup this year.

Oath Keepers trial » AUDIO: [Protesters]

The trial continues for five members of the Oath Keepers organization accused of plotting violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 of last year. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Prosecutors played parts of a recording of a two-hour long Oath Keepers meeting to a Washington, D.C. jury today.

The recording suggests that the five defendants smuggled weapons to the Washington area to resist the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

The five are charged with seditious conspiracy. Their attorneys maintain the Oath Keepers did nothing illegal.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Twitter stock spike » Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy Twitter seems to be on again.

Public filings show that Musk wrote a letter to the company, saying he would like to finish the transaction. The company said it intends to keep to the price of $54.20 per share.

Ann Lipton is a professor of Business Law at Tulane University.

LIPTON: I think at this point, from Twitter's perspective, it wants absolute assurances that Musk is not going to back down again.

Twitter sued Musk when he tried to renege on the deal because he thought the company wasn’t honest about how many fake accounts are on its platform. The parties were scheduled for a trial in less than two weeks.

Twitter stocks soared on Tuesday after the news broke.

Herschel Walker » Georgia’s pro-life, Republican candidate for Senate denies a report accusing him of paying for an abortion. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The Daily Beast claims to have seen a check and a get-well card sent by Senate candidate Herschel Walker to a former girlfriend.

The website reported the money and the card were related to an abortion she had more than a decade ago.

Walker vehemently denies the accusation and called the report a flat-out lie. Republicans are closing ranks and calling the news nonsense.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Loretta Lynn dies » MUSIC: Well I was born a coal-miner’s daughter …

Country music legend Loretta Lynn has died.

In the 1960s and 70s, Lynn sat atop the country music world. Her music highlighted the experiences of women in those turbulent decades. She also paid homage to her Appalachian roots.

Lynn won four Grammy Awards and in 1979 the Academy of Country Music chose her as the artist of the decade for the 1970s. Loretta Lynn was 90 years old.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: legal challenges to new voting regulations.

Plus, we’ll meet an organ donor who hopes to help women who can’t have children.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 5th of October, 2022.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up on The World and Everything in It: Washington Wednesday.

Debates continue in Washington and around the country about the election laws that affect votes for control of Congress and state-level offices.

Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to suppress minority votes. But lawsuits claiming that those laws violate the rights of minorities have not done all that well.

EICHER: For example, just last week in a legal challenge to voting laws in Georgia, a federal judge nominated by President Obama ruled in favor of the state.

Joining us now to talk about this and other cases is J. Christian Adams. He is President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

He litigates election law cases throughout the country and has served in the Department of Justice in the Voting Section.

BROWN: Christian, good morning!

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS, GUEST: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Well, as we mentioned, Democrats are not having a ton of success in challenging voting laws in red states. What are the commonalities in these cases and why, for the most part, are these laws holding up in court?

ADAMS: Well, one of the commonalities is that elections that take place under these laws are actually seeing increased turnout. In other words, the judges have not stayed the laws, elections take place before the case gets resolved, and lo and behold under these supposedly suppressive laws, turnout actually goes up. Particularly among minority communities. That’s the biggest problem that these lawsuits have faced. The other one is that they’re sort of advancing a very radical idea of the voting rights act that really courts have not supported as recently as the Supreme Court this last year said that you actually have to show real world harms to voters, not theoretical ones. And those are the two biggest reasons these lawsuits have been struggling.

BROWN: Let’s talk about the Georgia case. Give us a brief synopsis of what that lawsuit was all about and what the courts have decided thus far.

ADAMS: Well, in Georgia, after the election you saw an effort to change some of the problems that we saw in Georgia. For example, you had limits on the ability of private organizations to fund election offices. You had laws designed to limit other people touching your ballots. And the courts basically said, look, this is not Jim Crow 2.0. This is not some sort of racial conspiracy of the sort that existed in Mississippi in the 1950s. So the courts have just rejected the idea that these sorts of things like voter ID are similar to genuine racial discrimination from half a century ago.

BROWN: Now, some blue states have moved to loosen election laws. Are those moves drawing legal challenges, too? And if so, how are they faring?

ADAMS: Well, what you basically see in some states are—and, matter of fact, the Delaware Supreme Court is hearing arguments almost as we speak about the move to go to, for example, mail ballots, all mail ballots in Delaware with no reasons to do it. And the Delaware constitution is flat, plain says that absentee ballots, mail ballots are supposed to be only when you’re sick or traveling. And so the question becomes in some of these states, what does the law say? And many times election officials or other government officials are just kind of ignoring the law. And, of course, we’re a nation built on the idea that law is fixed. It’s transcribed. It’s a commandment, and we have to follow it. And when states ignore their own laws, bad things happen and that’s why in Delaware, for example, a state that is supposedly loosening their laws, it turns out it might not be such a good thing.

BROWN: You say one voting matter that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is what’s referred to as “Zuckbucks.” What in the world is that and why does it matter?

ADAMS: Well, in 2020, billionaires from Silicon Valley gave over half a billion dollars to government election officials to tell them how to run their elections. That’s what the Zuckerberg money was from Mark Zuckerberg, in part, founder of Facebook, and they gave this money through a charity, so he got a tax deduction for it. And the charity then gave the money to government officials and said, oh, we’d like you to do X, Y, and Z. Now, in the old days, when you gave money to a government official and told them what to do, we called that a bribe, didn’t we? Because that’s what a bribe is. I mean, that was the business model of Tony Soprano. So the point is that many states have now moved to ban giving private money to government officials to tell them what to do in 21 states, I think, in the last legislative session. So, I think a lot of people realize that’s not how we’re supposed to do business. Election officials are supposed to be unaffected by private pressure and that’s why the laws are falling into place.

BROWN: And Republican states are cracking down on that?

ADAMS: A little of both. Believe it or not, there’s been some blue states that have passed, or I like to say clarify that you can’t bribe election officials. For example, Pennsylvania. I mean, I know it’s not a blue-blue state, but it leans that way. It certainly voted for President Biden. And they also ban Zuckbucks there.

BROWN: Democrats in Congress would like to centralize control over election law in Washington. If they ever get the numbers they need in Congress plus control of the White House, can they legally do that?

How much control over election law is constitutionally guaranteed?

ADAMS: Well, the Constitution answers this and it says that the state legislatures get to decide the time, place, and manner of holding federal elections. Now, the federal government has virtually no authority on state elections except from constitutional provisions like don’t discriminate on the basis of race and you have to let 18-year-olds vote for president. Things that are in the Constitution. But when it comes to the general rules, state legislatures have absolute control under the Constitution, except the Constitution says, ‘But anytime Congress may pass laws to designate the time, place, and manner of holding federal elections.’ So, if Congress wanted to, they could. Now, the reason the framers put that in the Constitution was because they were afraid the states might suffocate the federal government by not holding federal elections. Of course, that’s a laugh line, isn’t it? I mean, that’s not going to happen that the states are suffocating the federal government. But that’s what the Constitution says as to how many votes away from it is one or two. The only reason Congress didn’t take over state elections last year was because of Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in the Senate and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. If it weren’t for those two votes, Congress would have taken over state elections.

BROWN: We’ve been talking with J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Christian, thanks so much!

ADAMS: Thanks for having me.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with Onize Ohikere, our reporter in Africa.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Brazil election— We take off today in Brazil, where no clear winner emerged from an election on Sunday.

AUDIO: [Supporters cheering]

Brazil’s incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro defied pollists’ expectations… garnering enough votes to prevent his opponent from gaining a majority. To become president, a candidate must have 50 percent of the vote or greater.

Former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva clinched 48.4 percent, five points ahead of Bolsonaro’s 43.2 percent.

Both candidates will face off again in a second vote on Oct. 30.

President Bolsonaro said he will form an alliance to win the run-off.

AUDIO: [Supporters cheering]

Meanwhile, Da Silva assured supporters he will win again, adding he never won any election in the first round.

Burkina Faso coup— We head next to Burkina Faso, where junior military officials have orchestrated the country’s second coup this year.

AUDIO: [Takeover announcement]

Captain Ibrahim Traore confirmed the takeover in a televised address on Friday. That’s after troops were deployed across the capital and gunshots rang out earlier in the day.

Ousted junta leader Paul-Henri Damiba came into power after staging a similar coup in January. Damiba announced his resignation on Sunday.

The new rebel leaders said they took over because Damiba failed to quell jihadist attacks…a claim he also used to assume office. More than 40 percent of the country remains outside of government control.

Indonesia soccer deaths— Over in Indonesia, tributes poured in Monday after a riot at a soccer stadium killed at least 125 people.

AUDIO: [Mourners singing]

Indonesia’s Arema FC players wore black as they gathered outside a makeshift memorial, singing and laying flower petals.

Thousands of angry home fans invaded the pitch when Arema FC lost Saturday night. Police responded with tear gas, triggering a stampede. Authorities said the dead included 17 children. More than 300 other people sustained injuries.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo sent his condolences to the affected families.

WIDODO: [Speaking in Indonesian]

He asked the sports ministry and national police to review the country’s safety procedures at soccer matches. The national police removed the city’s police chief…and is investigating other officers involved in the incident.

Kashmir cinema— We wrap up today in the Indian-administered Kashmir region.

AUDIO: [Movie playing]

Silver screens lit up for the first time in nearly two decades with a Bollywood remake of Forrest Gump.

The cinema hall with 520 seats opened to the public this weekend in the region’s city of Srinagar.

Rebel groups shut down the city’s eight privately-owned movie theaters in 1989, saying they were anti-Islamic. By the early 1990s, government troops converted them into makeshift security camps and detention centers.

Other attempts to revive the cinemas failed in the following years, due to violence and heavy security presence.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 5th. 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: Worship music. 

Church leaders have a weighty responsibility choosing songs for Sunday services. Are the words Biblically sound? Is the music written in a range most people can sing? Is it something worthy of congregational worship?

EICHER: WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson recently visited Nashville where she attended an annual Christian event called Sing! Today, she brings us the first of two reports on what’s happening behind the scenes in the world of worship music.

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR WRITER: Backstage at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, things are gearing up.

Mic checks. Mirror checks. This is a big worship music gathering.

KATIE: So we are about to premiere a new Getty hymn, “Sovereign Ruler of the Skies,” that was just signed a few weeks ago. And yeah, it's the first time that the Getty audience will hear it.

That’s Katie Foto. She and her sister, Gaylyn, make up the Foto Sisters. They’re both in their twenties. They’ve been singing and playing instruments since they were preschoolers. 

MUSIC: [NEW HYMN]

Two years ago the sisters stumbled across an old hymn lyric named “Sovereign Ruler of the Skies.” They were struck by it. They wrote new music for it. Tweaked the lyrics some.

And this past spring, their new hymn caught the attention of the team at Getty Music.

AUDIO: STAGE INTRODUCTION

It’s no small thing to sign a contract with Getty Music. Keith and Kristyn Getty’s songs are sung by Christians all over the world. Not sure who we’re talking about?

MUSIC: [IN CHRIST ALONE]

Yeah, Keith Getty is one of the writers of that one.

Or how about the song, “He Will Hold Me Fast?”

MUSIC: [HE WILL HOLD ME FAST]

Matt Merker composed that worship song. He now works for Getty Music, and he helped acquire the Fotos’ hymn, “Sovereign Ruler of the Skies.” He says it represents the kind of song the Gettys want to promote.

MERKER: We're not just about putting out our own songs. We want to recover and retrieve and relocate the best hymns of history, because so many of them have been forgotten throughout time.

The Fotos’ hymn is based on one written in 1777 by Englishman John Ryland. Merker says it was one-of-a-kind.

MERKER: So a hymn like this: “Sovereign Ruler of the Skies, ever gracious, ever wise. All my times are in your hand, all events at your command.” The richness of the poetry and the richness of the theology that Ryland was writing about. It's just, it's just unparalleled.

That’s the opposite of a trend Merker has noticed in modern worship music. A trend toward language that isn't necessarily false. It just speaks in generalities and cliches.

MERKER: We love you, Lord. You're everywhere. You're breathing in our midst . . . Those are all true sentiments. They're good, but will they build deep believers over time?

Merker says there’s a big contrast between those songs and the words of “Sovereign Ruler of the Skies.”

MERKER: “His decree who formed the Earth, fixed my first and second birth. Now my life to him I owe. Where he leads me, I will go.” There's so much truth packed into those four lines I just read.

MUSIC: [SONG]

It’s the kind of God-focused music diet Merker believes we need to feed ourselves on.

MERKER: Oh, it's God. That's the One who formed the earth, who fixed my first birth. Okay, so my life, but also my second birth, my conversion, my being born again. That's not to say that I think we should never sing songs that are simple, songs of devotion . . .

But he’s noticed fewer and fewer songs use the language of our sin or God's wrath, condemnation, justice, and righteousness.

MERKER: And there are very few songs that help us to lament the brokenness of this world.

The Foto Sisters are songwriters, but “Sovereign Ruler of the Skies” was their first project that had potential as a congregational hymn. Before the Gettys entered the picture, the Fotos sold the sheet music on their website. It began circulating among churches. Gaylyn remembers something special happened when they were traveling in Oklahoma.

GAYLYN: We were actually at church when they sang it, like we were in the congregation and all of a sudden they start singing “Sovereign Ruler.” It was hard to keep it together . . .

And now they’re here at Sing! in front of a crowd of 7,000 people . . .

AUDIO: STAGE INTRODUCTION

They’re sharing a hymn based on words that have already stood the test of time.

But what about the people in the pews? How do we faithfully address trends in worship music? Merker has some suggestions.

MERKER: You can pray for wonderful songs to be written. You can pray for your pastors and for song leaders and those who are selecting the songs to have wisdom. You can certainly recommend songs that you think help to convey a full-orbed truth of God and all of the main themes of Scripture . . .

MUSIC: [Sovereign Ruler of the Skies]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Nashville, Tennessee.

BROWN: You can read more about the Foto Sisters in the October 8th issue of WORLD Magazine.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Wednesday October 5th. 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. Next up: WORLD Founder Joel Belz’s classic commentary series.

Americans have had a problem with authority for a while now. Whether it’s church government or human sexuality, the root question remains the same today as it was yesterday: what is the final authority?

BROWN: Yes, you hear that question in a lot of discussions these days. Let’s hear a clip from a podcast called Think Biblically, host Scott Rae is talking to Christians tempted by sin.

CLIP: What ultimately is the trump card for them is not their same-sex experience. It’s the objective teaching of Scripture. At the end of the day, if the Bible is clear, you either accept it or you don’t.

EICHER: Joel Belz now with his classic take on Americans’ unhealthy view of authority, a commentary he wrote three and a half decades ago.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: Pope John Paul's visit to the United States catches those Christians who are serious about the Bible in an unusual bind. On the one hand, the pope represents a kind of authority figure, at least nominally associated with biblical ethics.

On the other hand, the Pope's historical claims to a kind of authority that goes beyond the Bible, prompt many of us to distance ourselves from him. We like authority figures, but not those who go too far.

So the question in the next few days for many of us will be is there any sense at all in which John Paul to speaks for those of us who reject much of what he stands for? Americans, by and large, can't stand authority. They are conditioned by almost every influence to believe that democracy is the value, which supersedes almost all other values. Let the people decide.

Preparing for the Pope's trip to the US this month, American media are going out of their way to portray him as a wonderfully nice fellow, who nonetheless can't seem to understand how important it is to let his flock choose for themselves, what kind of church Roman Catholicism should be. After all, that's the American way. Particularly distressing to the media is the seeming insensibility of Rome to all those people who call themselves Catholics. But want a great deal more sexual freedom than traditional Roman Catholic dogma allows them.

The homosexual community in particular, is being pictured repeatedly as a persecuted and misunderstood minority, whose rights within the church are being trampled. But if a church cannot say, at least to its own members in today's society, that homosexual behavior is wrong, then we must ask whether that church is to be permitted to say anything at all of significance in the area of sexual ethics. And if a church cannot speak forcefully any longer in the area of sexual ethics, then where indeed is it allowed to speak with any authority at all.

That, of course, is the point.

Most people today don't want a church that speaks with authority, just like they don't want school teachers who speak with authority, or parents who speak with authority, or even a national constitution that speaks with authority. We're in a society instead, that much prefers just to make up its rules as we go along.

Like society around them, Catholic thinking may be profoundly shaped by biblical values from a very long past. But if that shaping isn't done consciously, and with frequent pointers along the way to the ultimate authority of Scripture, the people of Roman Catholicism will soon be indistinguishable from those of the world at large. It is already happening. And that is why the pope in coming to America finds many of his own people strangely alienated from him, and more like the people around them. But it doesn't happen just to Catholics. It happens to anybody who forgets what ultimate authority is all about. It happens even to evangelicals, who get sloppy on the authority issue.

BROWN: That’s Joel Belz, reading his column titled “Americans Can’t Stand Authority” from his book,Consider These Things. The column originally appeared in the Sept 14, 1987 issue of WORLD Magazine.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Sending illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities. Is it merely political theater or is there something important going on, or both?

Plus, a potential medical advancement for women who can’t conceive.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

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, But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15 ESV)

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.