The World and Everything in It: September 16, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Sam Taber, and I'm a heavy equipment salesman from Madison, Wisconsin, where I live with my wife and two daughters. I hope you enjoy today's program.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Legal Docket, the church takes Caesar to court suing the IRS over speech rights.

FARRIS: If ever there was a time that churches need to be speaking out on these issues, it's right now. 

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, David Bahnsen and the Monday Moneybeat. And the WORLD History Book. 55 years ago, a future president sees a UFO.

CARTER: It was an unidentified flying object. It was obviously unidentified, it was flying, and it was an object.

MAST: It’s Monday, September 16th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump assassination attempt » The FBI is investigating another attempt on Donald Trump’s life.

Secret Service special agent Rafael Barros said the former president is safe …

BARROS: … following a protective incident shortly before 2 p.m. on Sunday at Trump International Golf Club at West Palm Beach. Uh, the U. S. Secret Service personnel opened fire on a gunman located near the property line.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw with Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office praised the Secret Service agent who spotted the gunman.

BRADSHAW:  What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time to where the president was at, and he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engaged that individual, at which time the individual took off.

The Secret Service fired multiple shots at the gunman. It was unclear last night whether the suspect got a shot off before fleeing the scene.

Bradshaw said in the bushes where the shooter had been hiding, officers found a rifle with a scope and a GoPro camera, suggesting that the gunman planned to record the apparent assassination attempt.

The suspect fled the scene in an SUV, which officers later spotted and boxed in on Interstate 95. Martin County Sheriff William Snyder:

SNYDER: The suspect's demeanor, I would describe as having a relatively calm, flat affect. He was not displaying a lot of emotion, never asked what, what is this about? Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on, never questioned it.

Police had a 58-year-old man in custody last night.

Trump attempt reaction » The incident, of course, comes just 9 weeks after a would-be assassin’s bullet struck Trump in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania.

Multiple investigations are still underway in the failure of the Secret Service to prevent that shooting.

On Sunday, Congresswoman Laurel Lee reacted to yesterday’s assassination attempt.

LEE:  I do believe the level of resources and agents assigned to President Trump's detail has been increased. But the question that's more important is, is it enough? And it certainly doesn't appear so when we have a threat level that is this significant and this severe facing President Trump.

And fellow House Republican Tim Burchett said while the agents on the ground did their jobs, he’s not certain that this wasn’t another Secret Service failure.

BURCHETT:  You've got brave agents on the ground, obviously one who took that shot, but why in the world would anybody be anywhere near the perimeter of this? This line of sight that we talk about is, is just beyond me.

The former president stated on social media that he was “safe and well!” And he added, “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

Israel latest » Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon is calling out world leaders for, in his view, not fulfilling their promises to fight injustice. Danon on Sunday said that since Hamas’ October terrorist attacks against his country …

DANON: There was no condemnation in the General Assembly or the Security Council about the atrocities of Hamas. No condemnation calling for the release of the hostages. How can you come and speak about world peace after what we have suffered 11 months ago?

He said Iran is waging war against Israel through its proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels and has even carried out direct attacks. He called on the world to take serious action against Tehran.

In a weekly meeting with government officials, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the Houthis in Yemen will pay a "heavy price" after a rocket attack in central Israel.

Tech billionaire and crew return from space » The first all-private space crew splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida's Dry Tortugas islands on Sunday.

SOUND: [Capsule splashdown]

The SpaceX's capsule carried tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew home.

SPACEX ANNCR: On behalf of the entire team of SpaceX, welcome home. We have pulled go for recovery personnel to approach.

The Polaris Dawn mission, conducted by SpaceX, included the first commercial spacewalk. The mission traveled 870 miles away from Earth, the furthest mankind has traveled since the Apollo moon program.

Venezuela conspiracy claim » The U.S. government is answering accusations by the government of disputed Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro.

The Maduro regime is accusing the CIA of leading a plot to overthrow him. Venezuela officials say they’ve arrested six foreign nationals, including three Americans, who they claimed took part in the plot.

But the State Department called those claims, “categorically false," adding that the “The United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela."

The White House recently renewed its calls for transparency regarding the country’s recent presidential election. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby:

KIRBY: Mr. Maduro needs to heed the call of the international community and quite frankly the Venezuelan people and release the data so that the whole world can see what the Venezuelan people, who they voted for, and that their democratic aspirations are met.

The Treasury Dept. recently announced sanctions against 16 allies of Maduro in Venezuela … over what American officials believe to have been a rigged presidential election there earlier this year.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Christians suing the IRS on this Week’s Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Monday, the 16th of September .

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

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Time now for Legal Docket and a case challenging a federal law limiting the speech of religious organizations.

That law calls for penalties on churches and religious non-profits that involve themselves in partisan political activity.

EICHER: But some say that rule is unconstitutional and are suing the federal government over it.

Here now with this week’s Legal Docket is WORLD’s Steve West:

GARY HAMRICK : We need to wake up Christian, this is a battle. This is a war.

STEVE WEST: During a 2020 sermon, Cornerstone Chapel Pastor Gary Hamrick preached to his Leesburg, Virginia congregation about election, the political kind.

HAMRICK: Donald Trump is not our Savior. Joe Biden is not our Savior. Jesus Christ is our Savior, and because, and because he is my Savior, as for me and my house, I cannot, I will not vote for a candidate whose party platform advocates the murder of unborn babies, embraces same sex marriage, encourages transgender behavior and ignores God and His Word in our culture. Listen, if you in good conscience cannot vote for Donald Trump, then don't. But I don't know how in good conscience a Christian can vote for an agenda that is evil.

Soon after that, the church got a visit from the federal government.

FARRIS: the IRS came . . . after our church and levied a fine.

Michael Farris is a member of Cornerstone Chapel. He’s also an attorney. He says the Internal Revenue Service required the church to pay a tax penalty for violating federal law.

Seventy years ago, Congress passed an amendment to the federal tax code that barred churches and religious nonprofits from engaging in partisan political activity.

Labeled the Johnson Amendment—after then-Senator Lyndon Johnson—the law prevents churches and religious nonprofits from supporting or endorsing political candidates. If they do, they pay a price: They risk losing their tax-exempt status.

But Farris and others say the government has enforced the law selectively…since the beginning in fact.

FARRIS: Within a month for sure, after Lyndon Johnson got the Johnson Amendment passed, his campaign violated it. He got a church in Texas, a pastor in Texas to send out a letter to thousands and thousands of Protestant pastors saying, there's a Catholic guy running against me in the primary. And you know, we good Christians, we’ve got to stand together. And we got a good Christian man, LBJ, running for president, so let’s get this done.

So it’s not new that some churches and religious organizations today encourage political action without government retribution.

REV. KEVIN JOHNSON: Don’t you know, beloved, that since 2021, Republican-controlled state houses have passed a swarm of laws to restrict voting rights.

That’s Reverend Kevin Johnson, preaching at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City earlier this year.

JOHNSON: We’ve got to make sure the people get out and vote this November like never before. This is not the time. And the brothers who are at Morehouse this morning, you can’t turn your back on Biden because what are you turning your back to. Beloved, this is not the time.

In a lawsuit filed against the IRS last month, Farris and a group of plaintiffs cited Kevin Johnson’s sermon as one of several examples where the government turns a blind eye to some political speech but not others. Farris is best known for his work with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association…but in this case, he’s representing the National Religious Broadcasters—or the NRB.

Joining the association of broadcasters is the Intercessors for America, and two Texas churches. They filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Johnson Amendment on free speech and religious liberty grounds. They say they want to be able to speak to their members about how party platforms and candidates match up with what the Bible teaches.

But taking the IRS to court isn’t as simple as filing a lawsuit…thanks to a law called the Anti-Injunction Act. That’s a federal statute that generally prevents parties from obtaining court orders blocking governmental action where it involves federal taxation. 

FARRIS: It prohibits you from suing proactively, unless you can fit into one of the exceptions. And the people that tried to dare the IRS to come after them, the IRS never took the bait, and so the ability to challenge them in the-IRS-is-coming-after-me-I'm-defending-him-mode never materialized.

But then, Farris discovered that many newspapers were actually owned or operated by nonprofits who freely endorsed and supported political candidates —newspapers like The Philadelphia Inquirer, the nation’s largest.

FARRIS: There's no statutory reason, there's no constitutional reason there's any difference between a newspaper and a church or any other nonprofit for that matter. Everybody has the right of freedom of speech, and so to be able to prove arbitrary and capricious enforcement is the key to getting around the Anti Injunction Act. So that's why now, is that I feel like I cracked that code.

At the core of the lawsuit is the plaintiffs’ claim that nonreligious nonprofits are treated differently by the IRS than are religious nonprofits and churches. For-profit and the many nonprofit newspapers are free to speak to political issues and endorse candidates without risking the ire of the IRS.

But it’s not only an attack on the law for unfairly targeting religious nonprofits. The lawsuit also contends the IRS has been arbitrary in its enforcement of the law. Plaintiffs say the IRS treats Democratic activity in churches or by religious nonprofits differently than activity by theologically conservative churches and religious nonprofits.

FARRIS: They’ve got to explain what their pattern is. Well, why did you go after Cornerstone and not these others? And so we’ll find out who they knew about, and what kind of diligence they are exercising. And so if it’s clearly they come after conservatives, that’s discriminatory. And if there’s no explanation, that’s arbitrary.

There have been attempts to repeal the law, but none have been successful. In 2017, President Trump issued an executive order that suspended enforcement of the law, but that lapsed under the Biden administration.

But not everyone thinks repeal of the Johnson Amendment would be a good thing for the public or for churches. Major philanthropic organizations like the National Council of Nonprofits oppose repealing it. It says repeal would politicize and damage the public’s trust in charities, houses of worship, and foundations.

When repeal was considered by Congress in 2017, Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis gave an impassioned appeal to preserve the restriction on political activity.

LEWIS TESTIMONY: This bill before us will pit neighbor against neighbor, worshiper against worshiper, and volunteers against volunteers. It will literally wreck havoc on the last pillar of civility in our country.

So even if the NRB and other plaintiffs succeed in this latest lawsuit, is it wise for churches and religious organizations to involve themselves in politics?

FARRIS: If we win, churches will have the freedom of deciding which path they want to go. And if a church wants to say, we don't want to be involved, that's fine. You know, it's not mandatory that they get involved if we win. I believe that we should be able to be free to apply God's truth to every single area of life, including the political world, including what candidates say.

Farris points to an important historical example of beneficial church involvement in politics—one which goes back to just after the country’s founding—to the election between James Madison and James Monroe. Baptist churches worked with Madison to secure the Bill of Rights of Virginia.

FARRIS: The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 that George Mason wrote only had religious toleration, and toleration is a cheap imitation of religious liberty.

As a Federalist, Madison was comfortable with that wording, but the Baptists were concerned that there wasn’t enough protection for free exercise of religion. So when it came time to draft a federal constitution, the Baptists asked for a meeting.

FARRIS: They basically set him down and said, ‘You're not going to get the Baptist votes unless you promise to give us a federal bill of rights that includes religious freedom.’ And he made the promise. They made the deal, and he kept his promise, and it was because of a deal cut in a Baptist church context where they communicated it through that we got the Bill of Rights, so I think there’s a pretty good history here.

The case has only begun, and Farris says that he hopes to be able to get to a point of gathering facts so that attorneys can see how the government has enforced or not enforced the restriction in the past. He is deliberately not fast-walking the litigation, as he doesn't want it to be about the 2024 election.

Farris says churches need the freedom to be able to speak up in public debate … not because the church has become more political, but because more of society has become political.

FARRIS: The political world was much more constrained when I was in high school, but we've invaded God's jurisdiction in a much more direct way, like, Did God create men and women as biological creatures? That was never a political issue. But it's a political issue today, but that's just straight on God's jurisdiction. And so I think that, you know, if ever there was a time that churches need to . . . be speaking out on these issues, it's right now, because of the egregious atmosphere in society that we're living in today.

That’s this week’s Legal Docket. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Steve West.

LINDSAY MAST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David's head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now and good morning, David. 

DAVID BAHNSEN: Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, at the risk of a little bit of old news, I did want to complete the loop on your economic analysis of the presidential debate. You said last week what you were hoping for, and now you know what we've got. So, how do you appraise it? And begin with the Vice President.

BAHNSEN: Well, there was virtually no economics in the entire debate. She was allowed to not really answer anything particular about her economic agenda. I was very disappointed in whatever we did hear about economics from both of the candidates. And then, most strikingly, as we've talked about, you know, through the whole campaign, and this was certainly the case in the debate, within the category of economics, there's no discussion at all about the national debt. And in fact, a lot of things that are thrown out there, even if they're disappointingly vague and ambiguous, they are even in their sort of prenatal phase, things that would add to the deficit, not subtract from it. And so there's just a real lack of economic self awareness in this entire campaign, and it's very disappointing.

EICHER: David, you said that both candidates were disappointing. Go deeper, would you, on the former president?

BAHNSEN: Well, he announced later in the week this idea to have no taxes on overtime wages. He didn't say it in the debate. He announced it a couple days later. And I fear that we're getting to a sort of cartoonish place now of the pandering and both candidates. You know, he announced no taxes on tips, and then Kamala Harris announced the same thing. And now they're just going through talking about these different things that I think are very politically driven, but really are not good policy. 

And even for a tax cutter like me, you really need the tax cuts to be broad based. When you give a tax cut to one selective group, what you do is incentivize really bad behavior of people manipulating the tax code. It has the risk of picking favorites, and I definitely understand politics, but I was very critical about President Biden's attempt to forgive student loans as what I consider to be a very crass way of buying votes. I can't really support it with selective tax cuts for overtime or for waiters or other things like this, either. 

So, we don't have a lot of economic coherence. The supply side movement, the success of the Reagan Revolution, was predicated on broad based reduction of tax burden that helps everybody, and then therefore produces incentive for greater productivity. And unfortunately, the things I'm hearing out of this campaign are not doing so, and I would apply that to tariffs as well, Nick.

EICHER: Well, David, since the last time we talked about it, we did get a new jobs report the month of August is in. Did not meet expectations, coming in below 150,000. What'd you think?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I think all the data is still pretty consistent, that you have non recessionary data that speaks to slowing of economic circumstances. Manufacturing, industrial production, has not been great. You know, when you're talking about 125,000 jobs created, it's still positive, but it's below the 200-250,000 rate that you expect in more robust times. So, it is a pretty consistent theme of slowing data, but not bad data. And eventually slowing data does go negative, but we will see where we go into the next round of things around productivity. And then, as the Fed, you know, begins cutting rates, is there any economic activity that has been bottled up and is waiting to kind of get released? I suspect that there will be some, but we will wait and see. 

EICHER: Alright, and it's been a little bit since we talked markets overall. So, maybe zoom out a bit on that. Any discernible themes that you can point to?

BAHNSEN: Well, the huge theme – and it's really played out now for a full two months, and so, I'm always hesitant to ever talk about a theme out of one week – but from, you know, the second week of July now through the second week of September, markets are up. They've had some volatility along the way. And no doubts in some cases, some pretty high volatility. And yet, in being up, it's been led by a wide margin by the more defensive sectors: utilities, consumer staples, healthcare, not technology. In fact, tech is like the fifth best performing sector through this. And four of the seven, Magnificent Seven names, so called, the biggest companies in the S&P 500, they're down in this period. So, I do believe that there's a rotation going on. And that's the big theme we're watching in the markets, is a rotation out of very overpriced growth investments to more value oriented.

EICHER: Alright. David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. You can check out David's latest book. It's titled, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life. The website is fulltimebook.com. David, I hope you have a great week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick. Great to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, September 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today, former President Jimmy Carter witnesses a strange object flying that he couldn’t identify.

Also, Amish families seek the FBI’s help over an unusual crime.

EICHER: But first, new leadership and radical changes for China. Here’s WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley:

EMMA PERLEY: 75 years ago, Communist Party leader Mao Zedong gets up to address a crowded conference room. Applause rings out for five minutes before he is finally able to speak. Audio here from VideoChinaTV.

NEWSREEL: [Speaking Mandarin] Fellow delegates, we are all convinced that our work will go down in the history of mankind …

He tells the delegates that he’s convinced their work “will go down in history.”

Zedong’s communist Red Army has just gained control of the country after a costly civil war. The defeated Chinese Nationalists and anti-communists have fled to Taiwan. This September 21st political conference marks the beginning of a new regime. He says “the Chinese people, one quarter of all humanity, have made a stand.”

NEWSREEL: The Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up. [Applause]

The conference adopts a temporary constitution, known as the Common Program. It outlines a communist agenda. Among other things, the Program hands over much of China’s land to the government. And establishes Zedong and his associates as a democratic dictatorship.

A week later, Zedong announces the new government at Tiananmen Square inaugurating the People’s Republic of China.

Zedong says the conference officially put him and his allies in charge. And that his government now legally represents all of China. He rules as a dictator until his death in 1976.

Next, Jimmy Carter glimpses an Unidentified Flying Object. And he isn’t alone. About twenty other people see the same UFO at the same time in a small south Georgia town. It happened 55 years ago.

The former president appeared on The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe in 2007.

CARTER: And all of us, there were 26 men I believe, if I remember right, all of us saw a very bright light in the western sky, and it was bright enough to attract our attention, much brighter than a star.

The object hovers just above the horizon. And it’s completely silent.

CARTER: And it got closer and closer, and then it seemed to stop in its proximity to us, and then the color of it changed from white to blue to red. And it stayed there for a while. All of us were aghast at what we were seeing. Couldn't figure it out.

Carter doesn’t think the UFO is from outer space or that there are aliens on board. He just doesn’t know what it is.

Four years later on September 18th, Carter files a report with the International UFO Bureau. Some astronomers suggest he actually saw the planet Venus, which was unusually bright that evening. But Carter doesn’t think so.

CARTER: Some of us even have, have like I do, have amateur telescope, small telescopes, so we were thoroughly familiar with Venus as it changes from morning to an evening star. It was, it was not Venus.

During his presidential campaign Carter promises to reveal any classified information about UFOs to the public, although he backtracks on that promise after being elected.

But Carter does write a letter to extraterrestrials in 1977. It’s launched aboard NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, and is currently 15 million miles away in interstellar space. Voice actor Ed Phillips reads Carter’s words.

ED PHILLIPS/CARTER: We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilization. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

We end today on a cold October night when Amish couple Myron and Arlene Miller wake up to find five strangers on their doorstep. Audio here from NPR.

NEWS: They pulled him out in the front yard, and they have scissors and a battery-powered shaver and everything. They're trying to hold him down and cut his beard off and cut his hair off.

The men jump into a vehicle and speed away, while Myron walks back to his house—without his beard.

The Amish follow several Old Testament regulations for how men should treat their facial hair. When Amish men get married, they stop shaving. So, long beards symbolize a husband’s long term commitment to his wife.

The hair cutting attack on Myron is the fourth such attack in late 2011. By November, the FBI opens a hate crime investigation and agents arrest several suspects. Audio here from News 5 Cleveland.

NEWS: In the Amish community, a man’s hair and beard are sacred, and any effort to forcibly shave or cut that hair in their eyes is elevated to the level of a hate crime, and that was the charge leveled today against 7 men, including the leader of a breakaway Amish group: Sam Mullet and 3 of his sons.

The federal trial reveals that Sam Mullet, a controversial Amish spiritual leader, had encouraged the attacks as a way of taking revenge on people who criticized his religious teachings. Prosecutors argue that Mullet is a dangerous man with a cult-like following.

NEWS: Defendant after defendant after defendant would stand there and offer yet again to sacrifice his or her own life for Mr. Mullet is just proof of what we’ve said all along. Mr. Mullet is a cult leader. Mr. Mullet is a thug. Mr. Mullet is a bully. And Mr Mullet belongs where criminals belong: in federal prison.

Sam’s wife, Martha, doesn’t think a long prison sentence is fair—to Sam or her family. Audio here from The New York Times.

NYT/AP: We made a mistake. We’re not saying that we didn’t do anything wrong. We made a mistake … Their hair will grow back. Their beards will grow back. They can go on with their lives. But they want to tear our lives apart.

On September 20th, 2012, a judge convicted Mullet (and 15 of his followers) under a federal hate crimes act. Mullet faced 15 years in prison until 2015, when an appeals court reduced his sentence to only 10 years. In 2022, Mullet finished the rest of his term at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Congress in gridlock again over government funding, again. We’ll have a report on the sticking points. And, a homeschool mom known as a pioneer. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Proverbs 25 says: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.” —Proverbs 25:11,12

Go now in grace and peace.

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