← The World and Everything In It
The World and Everything In It
10.17.25 Gen Z and gender ideology, a review of Truth & Treason, and Word Play on God’s bestiary
00:34:14
Loading summary
Transcript88 lines
- [00:06]
A
Good morning. Two years after Hamas shocked the world, what have we learned about the human heart and Gen Z's retreat from gender ideology?
- [00:15]
B
John Stonestreet is standing by for Culture Friday. We'll talk about that and much more. Also today, a film that asks what would make you risk it all.
- [00:24]
C
I love my country, but there are things more important than that.
- [00:28]
B
Reviewer Joseph Holmes takes a good look at the film Truth and Treason. And later, wordplay with George Grant for October celebrating the wonder of all God's creatures, great and small.
- [00:46]
A
It's Friday, October 17th. This is the world and everything in it. From listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [00:54]
B
And I'm Nick Iger. Good morning.
- [00:58]
A
It's time for the news. Here's Ken Covington.
- [01:02]
C
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet with President Trump at the White House today. They'll talk about more air defenses for Ukraine and the possibility of the United States selling long range Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv. The meeting comes one day after Trump again talked with Russia's Vladimir Putin by phone and discussed another face to face meeting. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
- [01:25]
D
I think the president is always willing.
- [01:27]
C
To take a chance at diplomacy and.
- [01:30]
D
This war he has always is going to have to end at the negotiating table.
- [01:33]
C
And the two leaders last met in Alaska in August. Since that time, Trump has voiced growing frustration with Vladimir Putin's lack of interest in ending the war. The next meeting is set to take place in Budapest, Hungary, though it's not clear exactly when. Trump told reporters that the Secretary of State is working on details.
- [01:53]
E
Marco Rubio is going to be meeting with his counterpart, as you know, Lavrov, and they'll be meeting pretty soon. They're going to set up a time and a place very shortly. Maybe it's already set up.
- [02:05]
C
Trump shared on social media that he believes yesterday's phone call with Putin made significant progress. President Zelensky, while in Washington, is also set to meet with lawmakers and leaders of US Energy companies. Outcomes Amid Russia's bombardment of Ukraine's power grid, the Senate has voted for a 10th time on a clean stopgap funding bill to reopen the government. But once again, the motion is not agreed to. GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he has extended an olive branch, promising a floor vote on Obamacare tax credits if Democrats will approve temporary funding. But Democrats do not appear to be impressed by that offer, as odds are the vote would not be successful. And Democratic leaders say they will continue to block funding until Republicans agree to extend those tax credits. And Republicans, for their part, say they are still willing to negotiate, but only after Democrats agree to reopen the government. Israel has identified the remains of more deceased Israeli hostages, World's Benjamin Eicker reports.
- [03:09]
D
Israel's National Institute of Forensic Medicine Thursday.
- [03:12]
F
Identified the remains of two additional hostages returned from Gaza.
- [03:17]
D
That comes as Israeli leaders warned Hamas.
- [03:20]
F
To hand over the bodies of those.
- [03:22]
D
Still held amid a fragile truce that halted the two year war. Since Monday's exchange, Hamas has returned 10 bodies, nine of which Israel's military has identified as hostages. Israel said there would be 28 total.
- [03:38]
F
Deceased hostages in Gaza before the swap.
- [03:41]
D
In exchange for the release of the.
- [03:43]
F
Hostages, Israel freed around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
- [03:49]
D
For World I'm Benjamin Eicker.
- [03:51]
C
Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton has been charged with keeping top secret records at home and sharing classified notes with relatives. The 18 count indictment also says Iranian linked hackers breached his email In 2021, exposing sensitive material he had shared. President Trump reacted to the news, telling reporters, I didn't know that.
- [04:12]
E
You told me for the first time. But I think he's, you know, a bad person. I think he's a bad guy. Yeah, he's a bad guy. Too bad. But the way it goes.
- [04:24]
C
Bolton served for more than a year in the first Trump administration before being fired in 2019 and emerging as an outspoken critic of the president. The Department of Homeland Security issuing a new warning about Mexican drug cartels offering bounties against federal agents. DHS says cartels are offering as much as $50,000 for hits against ICE and Border Patrol agents. Border czar Tom Homan says he's never seen anything like it.
- [04:51]
E
I have not lived with my wife since late March because of death threats against me. And now there are reporters out there trying to find the location of my family. There are reporters trying to identify who my sons are. I mean, this has gone beyond the pale.
- [05:05]
C
That comes after a federal grand jury indicted an alleged Chicago gang leader for soliciting the murder of a high ranking U.S. border Patrol commander. Tom Holman is also facing questions amid reports that he was recorded accepting a $50,000 bribe from undercover federal agents during a town hall this week. Homan for the first time gave an outright denial of that accusation. It is being called one of the most significant airlifts in Alaska history, evacuating hundreds of people from coastal villages that were inundated by the remnants of Typhoon Ha Long. Rick Thoman with the University of Alaska.
- [05:40]
B
Fairbanks the recovery is just complicated because these are remote communities, because there is no road connections and many of the airstrips are not big enough.
- [05:54]
C
Record storm surge swept away homes, some with people still inside, leaving 1500 residents in makeshift shelters.
- [06:01]
B
Even in the best of circumstances, this would be a logistical nightmare. We're now, you know, into mid October. Freeze up is coming.
- [06:12]
C
Roughly 40% of those living in some 10 affected communities are being forced to evacuate. Three people were reported missing or dead.
- [06:21]
D
FOREIGN.
- [06:23]
C
I'm Kent Covington. And straight ahead, Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus wordplay with George Grant. This is the WORLD and Everything in it.
- [06:52]
A
It's Friday, October 17th. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the World and Everything In It.
- [06:59]
D
Good morning.
- [07:00]
A
I'm Myrna Byrne.
- [07:01]
B
And I'm Nick Iker. It's Culture Friday. Joining us now, John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Good morning, John.
- [07:10]
D
Good morning.
- [07:11]
B
Well, John, I'd like to take you back a couple of years to those first days after the Hamas attacks. You told us back then that the Western world's shock at what happened, the disbelief that anyone could commit that kind of barbarity that that revealed a deeper misunderstanding of human nature. Let's go back to that and re.
- [07:33]
D
Listen, you know, the inability to really understand this, I think, stems from a couple worldview truths. First, this idea that somehow the more technologically advanced we get, the more morally progressive we get has proven to be just a wrong vision of human n nature. Second, most warfare was carried out like this throughout all of human history. And the only thing that changed that was Christianity. Literally the only thing that stopped the inability of distinguishing between civilians and combatants. And by the way, that's a worldview thing, right. Why are civilians and combatants seen the same throughout most of human history and by Hamas? It's because people aren't seen as individuals. They're not seen as individually valuable. They're seen as part of a group and therefore all are guilty. And that's why there's calls for extermination.
- [08:20]
B
Well, John, now after two years of war, the hostages finally are home. The fighting is shifting into what, you know, Winston Churchill might have called the end of the beginning. What, if anything, do you think we've learned as a culture? Anything at all?
- [08:37]
D
Well, it's a good question. First, I want to just bring up that in my contract, it states that you can never replay my words back to me, especially ones after a year, statute of limitations. That's a frightening thing to see, that kind of thing.
- [08:49]
B
Hey, you signed the addendum you know.
- [08:54]
D
No, I listen, I think that at the time we were trying to communicate there is the importance and power of worldview. Those things that are the software on which a culture the hardware runs and when the hostages were released, praise God. Hamas celebrates this end of the war by killing Palestinians in Gaza. Israel celebrates their loved ones coming home. This is the power of worldview. And Islam really is, on Islam's own terms as a framework is one that dehumanizes the other, that has a description of what's wrong with the world as being the other, a solution as being a death to the other. And all this is inherent, it's baked into the worldview. This is not to suggest that Israel did everything perfectly or right or well. We spent a lot of time over the last couple years in various programs talking about just war theory, which is both do you have a right to wage war? And secondly, how are you waging that war? And I think that there are real questions that need to be asked, but the moral equivalence is just an astonishingly amoral take. Color me cynical or skeptical. It seems like the same sides are still on the same sides on this one.
- [10:13]
B
Well, John, speaking of worldview and where worldview leads, there is another kind of cultural clash underway. It was not long ago that Gen Z was described as the most gender fluid generation in American history. But new data from the political scientist Eric Kaufman suggests that that may have peaked. A large scale survey shows sharp declines in both transgender and non heterosexual identification since the year 2023. So just a couple of years ago, and especially so at elite universities, Kaufman calls it a cultural correction, saying it's not driven by politics or by religion, but by the fading of an online social contagion tied to mental health. So when you look at this drama spike, John, and we have looked at it a lot and talked about it a lot, but then the equally dramatic decline, when you look at it on a chart, it's like an upside down V, just straight up and straight down. What do you see behind that? What's really going on here, do you think?
- [11:23]
D
Well, I just feel like there's more data that needs to come in. But we all feel like the train has been slowed down and maybe has been stopped and in some areas of culture has been reversed. It shouldn't surprise us if that's also happening among the vulnerable who themselves were the most likely victims of these really terrible ideas. I mean, look, we had schools that were teaching this stuff. We have less schools that are now teaching that stuff because of realigning Title 9 and other things that the Trump administration has done. We had basically a whole group of people that were absolutely fearful to say anything in opposition to this ideology. This is what Malcolm Gladwell himself admitted just a couple weeks ago. And now, thanks to high profile people willing to speak out from J.K. rowling to Riley Gaines, certainly to those who are willing to go to court. So I think we should see a reversal in this number. I also think that there is a similar reversal happening in smartphone usage. And if Dr. Gene Twenge and others have taught us anything is that there is a direct correlation. I don't think smartphones and social media are sufficient to explain the crazy spike, but it certainly contributed to it in an incredible way. And more people realizing that smartphones and social media are a terrible idea for teenagers, period. And I don't usually do a whole lot of preaching here, but listen, if you have your kid harming themselves with a knife, you take the knife away. Doesn't mean there's not other issues to deal with. There are, but you at least take the knife away. In this whole story of social contagion, self harm, the smartphone and social media has been the knife. And, you know, I don't usually say it that definitively, but there you go. The other thing that I think is worth mentioning is that this is just more evidence, as if we needed any, that this was indeed a social contagion. And when you see this crazy spike that just kind of came out of nowhere and then it falls off the cliff, well, that tells you there's nothing natural about it. And the next time that there's this ideologically driven movement and we're all gaslighted by saying, well, we were born this way and the science is settled and all this other nonsense that we all knew wasn't true, but there was so much social pressure, from the highest realms of government to medical establishments, to even educators and everybody in between, don't believe it, right? The crisis of trust in American culture is in a really bad place. And it was made incredibly worse by transgender ideology and transgender ideologues. You know, Abigail Schreier got it right early on. That's who we should have believed. And don't believe the gaslighting the next time it happens.
- [13:58]
A
John. Okay, I want to turn to something political. Uncovered private group chats among young Republican leaders from around the country. New York, Kansas, Arizona, Vermont. Messages spanning months and I might add, not intended for public view. It's a revealing glimpse of what some of them say when they think no one is listening. Kind of reminded me of the Luke 8. Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest. So what light does this shine on the next generation of political leadership? I mean, what stands out to you in these conversations about integrity, character, or the cultural forces shaping some young conservatives today?
- [14:44]
D
Yeah, they were horrific and violent racist comments, laughing about things that shouldn't be laughed at. And I think you see in there a mark of something we've struggled with in the west for a long time, which is this cult of adolescence. This was written about years ago in a book called the Death of the Grown up by Diane west, in which she noted that for the first time in history, we had teenagers. And she wasn't talking about teenaged people, but that in most nations in the history of the world, there was a rite of passage, and then they were expected to act like adults. And now we have this stage of life called adolescence in which we expect them to act like idiots for five or six, six or seven years. And one of the things that she pointed out and only became more pronounced since then is that that age of adolescence not only became normal, but it expanded and it's not been good for us. Now. Most people who study this identify adolescence as a stage of life. Between 11 and 30 years ago at a Christian college that I taught at, I had a run in with a group of freshmen there who dressed up like the KKK to interrupt a forum that I was hosting on race. And when I stopped them and confronted them on it, they all said, we just thought it was going to be funny. And you just kind of go, what makes you think this is funny? And you listen to the chat. That was kind of the flashback that I had. What makes you think this is funny? Well, one of the things that makes you think things are funny that aren't is a category that Carl Truman has introduced, which I think is really important and makes a lot of sense of this, that the whole language of disenchantment of the modern world, like looking to technological and political solutions for things that are actually spiritual realities. But there's another stage called desecration. It's further. It's not just when you treat God as if he doesn't exist, but when you actively attack religious symbols and the sacred. And the ultimate act of desecration is the profound dehumanization that takes place. We know that through the trans ideology. We know that through acts of actual violence that we have seen recently in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And we know that there's a dehumanization that comes out of radical Islamic ideology. That's clear from Hamas. But there's also been an attack on the human person that has come out of secularism and critical theory. In other words, we basically laugh at things that aren't funny. And oftentimes what that requires is a profound dehumanization, and that's embedded in the text. So, look, I think this will be dismissed by some on the right, like, boys will be boys. We're not talking about them. We're talking about young adults. In other time periods, they would have commandeered troops and managed entire farms. So by the young Republicans, that should not be an excuse of boys will be boys, because we should have higher expectations of them and they should have higher expectations of themselves. And the fact that neither of those things are true is a real indication that our society is not. Well, that we have been captivated in this cult of adolescence too.
- [17:46]
A
Well, finally, John, Britain has named its first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman ever to leave the Church of England. What does that signal about where the Anglican Communion is heading? And also what, if anything, can the broader church, especially here in the US what can we learn from the courage we've seen in Nigeria, where we've seen costly stands taken for biblical truth?
- [18:15]
D
Well, we can learn a lot from our Nigerian brothers and sisters. And honestly, the bishops that are part of the Global Anglican Futures Conference, they have been protesting and standing against the positions of the archbishop and then pointing out heresy in the Church of England, the Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church, and other places for a really long time. So there's a lot we can learn. I mean, for 20 years now, when the archbishop has called a meeting at Canterbury, which is, by the way, the primary job of the Archbishop of Canterbury is try to get all the primates together, they don't go. But when Gafcon calls a meeting, the archbishop shows up at their meeting. That kind of tells you a lot about where the situation lies. This is a disaster of an archbishop appointment. And I say that as an Anglican in America whose church is not really connected at all with the Church of England in any formal way anymore. I mean, the last several archbishops have been pulled left. Sarah Mullally is already starting left. The problem with this appointment is not just the question over women's ordination, which is an enormously controversial issue across the Anglican Communion. There are five or six or seven other theological, doctrinal, cultural positions that she's on record on that are heretical. They're heterodox at best, they're heretical at worst. And it's a tragedy. It's obviously been going in this direction for a long time. And I think the Archbishop of the ACNA certainly needs to be very, very clear about where the authority of the Church lies, how the position of Canterbury is different than what keeps us grounded in an evangelical space and an orthodox, historic Anglican space. And I do think that if we need a place to look, let's look to the leaders of GAFCON who have been really clear on this.
- [20:09]
B
All right. John Stonestreet is president of the Colson center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. John, thank you very much. See you next week.
- [20:16]
D
Thank you both.
- [20:33]
C
Additional support comes from the Masters University equipping students for lives of faithfulness to the Master Jesus Christ masters.
- [20:44]
D
Edu from His Words Abiding in you.
- [20:47]
C
A podcast where listeners memorize Bible verses in each episode.
- [20:52]
D
His Words Abiding in you on all podcast apps.
- [20:56]
C
And from Dort University where pre med.
- [20:59]
D
Students gain knowledge through undergraduate research and hone skills through hands on simulations.
- [21:06]
C
Dort.
- [21:07]
D
Edu.
- [21:21]
B
Today is Friday, October 17th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Nick Iker.
- [21:29]
A
And I'm Myrna Brown. Coming next on the world and everything in it, a film on conscience and conviction. Angel Studios latest inspirational World War II drama is the true story of a teenager who defied the Third Reich and paid the price. Here's reviewer Joseph Holmes on the movie Truth and Treason.
- [21:52]
F
Holocaust And World War II movies seem to be having a comeback lately. Last year we had White Bird and Bonhoeffer. This year Nuremberg and Triumph of the Heart. And that's not surprising. We're seeing rising antisemitism and both left and right fear their political enemies are becoming dictators. So the question of what would you do if a new Hitler came to power? Feels eerily relevant. Angel Studios new film Truth and Treason is tackling that question head on.
- [22:19]
B
I think it's just a matter of time now.
- [22:22]
C
I could hide you.
- [22:25]
E
You go in the house.
- [22:26]
B
That would be interesting.
- [22:27]
C
Not there. Somewhere else I don't.
- [22:29]
B
I'm German as much as you are. I'm not going anywhere.
- [22:35]
F
Truth and Treason is in many ways a typical entry of the genre, but in some other ways it's far better. The movie follows the real life story of helmuth hubiner, a 16 year old boy living in Nazi Germany. He forms a resistance group with friends Carl and Rudy, secretly distributing anti Nazi pamphlets, and he eventually becomes the youngest resistance fighter to be executed for standing against Hitler. The film does pretty much everything you expect from a movie like this. But what sets it apart is the implementation. Truth and Treason puts you right in Helmuth's shoes and takes you step by step, showing not telling what it's like to experience a society turning evil and how you might be inspired to stand up to it. We see Hellmuth being an ordinary boy with his friends, excited to move up at work. We then see and feel the moment that Helmuth and his friends opposition to the Nazis changes from youthful rebellion to a decision to wage war against evil.
- [23:31]
C
Those leaflets you found in your typewriter change all that. A man finds one in his mailbox, reads it, can't get it out of his head, pass it to a friend at work who passed it to another and another and. And enough people find out what's really going on and stand up.
- [23:53]
F
The film also gives more time than other films of the genre to the genuine faith of its characters, both those who support Hitler and those who defy him. Helmuth's bishop argues Christians have to obey their rulers.
- [24:06]
C
We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law. Would not this include our Fuhrer and the current laws of the Reich? Each of us must ask ourselves, can we pick and choose which of God's laws will follow only the commandments we find most convenient, the ones we happen to agree with?
- [24:35]
F
But Helmuth argues that obeying the Nazis violates Jesus command to love thy neighbor as thyself. He is likewise encouraged by another Christian not to let a lifetime of what's been learned inside these doors be lost because of what was outside them this morning.
- [24:51]
C
I love my country, but there are.
- [24:54]
E
Things more important than that.
- [24:56]
B
What do we do?
- [24:59]
C
We do what we can.
- [25:01]
F
Many Christians may be disappointed that the film does not resolve the tension between what the Bishop preaches and Helmuth's faith based defiance. After all, the bishop is right that you can't just pick which commands you obey. But the film does give Christian viewers the opportunity to wrestle with that question together.
- [25:19]
C
Jesus was a revolutionary.
- [25:23]
D
We like to think of him as always being kind and loving and filled with grace. And he was. But the Scriptures say he was full of grace and truth. He said what needed to be said, he stood up, but he did it peacefully.
- [25:43]
F
While the film implements the typical formula of a World War II hero inspirational drama, well, it doesn't transcend it. It ticks the boxes better than most, but it doesn't shake up the formula at all. And as the film goes on, the more formulaic it becomes, the climax is particularly guilty of the contrived sentimentality of the genre. For example, in court, Helmuth gives a long inspirational speech that his enemies could have, and probably would have stopped. Tales about those who stand up against injustice at great cost are always timely. Truth and treason doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it will effectively remind you why truth is worth dying for. I'm Joseph Holmes.
- [26:50]
A
Today is Friday, October 17th. Good morning, this is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [26:59]
B
And I'm Nick Eicher. World commentator George Grant wraps up our week with this month's Wordplay Today Wonder words and the Creatures that Fill Up God's World.
- [27:12]
E
We live in an enchanted world of dizzying diversity and sacred swarming God made the seas teem with living creatures, shoals of fish, and great monsters. He made the open expanse of the heavens team with flocks, murmurations, and throngs of winged birds in flight. He made the dry land team with the beasts of the earth, the lowing cattle, and everything that creeps on the ground. He made each creature in this sacred teeming to be fruitful and to multiply after its kind, an endless ARR of mortal images with which he speaks to us of eternal things. It is little wonder, then, that Christians in the medieval age were captivated by the idea of cataloging this creative splendor in detailed, sometimes wildly imaginative compendiums called bestiaries. These were encyclopedic books that combined descriptions, illustrations, and moral lessons concerning all manner of fabulous creatures, some observed in the natural world and some mythically fanciful, some exotic, some mundane, like the Aristotelian lists that they imitated. Medieval bestiaries became the lexicons or field reference guides for the analogical and metaphorical language of the epic's florid profusion of art, architecture and literature. In Umberto Eco's classic medieval murder mystery, the Name of the Rose, the novice Adso approaches the soaring edifice of an abbey chapel. Above him is a carved tympanum. It is a bestiary in stone, described in a stunning 250 word long sentence saturated with a riot of unfamiliar vocabulary. It was Ed, so declares an enigmatic polyphony that was assembled in a consistory with sirens, gorgons, harpies, incubi, dragopods, minotaurs, lynxes, pards, chimeras, griffins, leucorota, manticores, pyranders, saurians, and dipsasis. It's enough to take your breath away. JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth Legendarium likewise features an immense cosmological bestiary populated with hobbits, elves, dwarves and men. But there are also Balrogs, Nazgul, Kraken, orcs, trolls, ents, barrow wights, and a host of other creatures. C.S. lewis gave us a Narnian bestiary that included centaurs, dryads, naiads, fauns, nymphs, ogres, satyrs, sprites, unicorns and wraiths, to say nothing of eloquent beavers, articulate horses, fluent pucks and redemptive lions. But perhaps the greatest bestiary of all is found in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. There is the sacred teeming in the celestial realm, angels, archangels, principalities, powers, and all the hosts of heaven. There is the sacred teeming in the terrestrial realm, Nephilim, Rephaim, Emim, and Zamzumim. There are the apocalyptic creatures, dragons, winged beasts with the appearance of lions and leopards and rams and goats, the seven horned beast and John's Revelation and the bedazzling four living creatures of Ezekiel's prophetic vision. There are terrifying creatures of Leviathan, behemoth and Rahab. Is it any wonder, then, that when God charged Adam to name every creature in the vast sacred teeming, he would have to exercise such linguistic dexterity and creativity? God's bestiary is indeed enough to take your breath away. I'm George Grant.
- [32:06]
B
All right, time now to name the crew who helped to put this week's programs together. Maria Baer, David Bonson, Hunter Baker, Anna Johansson Brown, Janie B. Cheney, Rachel Coyle, Emma Eicher, George Grant, Joseph Holmes, Travis Kircher, Carolina Lumeta, Becca McCallum, Lindsay Mast, Onise Addua, Carlos Paez, Mary Reichert, Jenny Ruff, John Stone street, and Cal Thomas. And thanks to our breaking news crew, Kent Covington, Daniel Devine, Christina Grube, and Steve Klosterman. And thanks to the moonlight maestros working in the dark of night. So the program is ready bright and early. Ben Jacker and Carl Peetz, Harrison Waters is Washington producer, Kristen Flavin is features editor, Paul Butler is executive producer, and Les Sillers is editor in chief. I'm Nick Eicher.
- [33:01]
A
And I'm Myrna Brown. If you enjoy this podcast, help a friend find it, too. Send a link to a favorite story or the whole podcast right from your app. It's a simple click that helps the program grow. 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 make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. For the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. Verses 1, 2 and 5 of Psalm 100, a reminder to worship at a Bible believing church this weekend. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances and Lord willing, we'll be right back here with you on Monday. Go now in grace and peace.