← The World and Everything In It
The World and Everything In It
2.20.26 Culture Friday on Texas politics, linguistic surrender, and a mass shooting, Max Belz on Hamnet, and Les Sillars on South Sudan
00:35:32
Loading summary
Transcript118 lines
- [00:06]
Mary Reichert
Good morning. Today on culture Friday, a U.S. senate candidate from Texas centers his campaign on a critique of Christian nationalism.
- [00:14]
John Stonestreet
They convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage.
- [00:20]
Nick Eicher
We'll talk it over with John Stone Street. Also today, a poetic retelling of the loss that may have shaped Shakespeare's Hamlet.
- [00:28]
John Stonestreet
He loves me for what I am, not what I ought to be.
- [00:31]
Nick Eicher
Reviewer Max Bells on an Oscar favorite. And later, African military chaplains trained in both word and weapons.
- [00:47]
Mary Reichert
It's Friday, February 20th. This is the world and everything in it from listeners supported world radio. I'm Mary Reichert.
- [00:54]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eicher. Good morning.
- [00:58]
Mary Reichert
Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.
- [01:03]
Kent Covington
In Washington, President Trump gaveled to a close the first session of his newly inaugurated Board of Peace.
- [01:10]
Wes Bentley
This is the most prestigious board ever put together. You know, I've seen some great corporate boards. I've seen some great boards, period. It's peanuts compared to this board.
- [01:20]
Kent Covington
The board consists of more than two dozen members, including countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Israel, as well as several nations taking part as observers. The board's focus right now is the reconstruction of the war torn Gaza Strip as the ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group moves into phase two. Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto says a prosperous Gaza is a goal worth fighting for.
- [01:44]
Wes Bentley
We will achieve our dream of peace in Palestine. Peace, a lasting and peaceful solution for the Palestinian problem. End in Gaza.
- [01:59]
Kent Covington
Member nations pledged to donate $7 billion to help rebuild and stabilize the Gaza Strip. And members of the Board of Peace also gave updates on which boots will be on the ground to help stabilize the situation in Gaza. World's Harrison Waters has more.
- [02:15]
John Stonestreet
US Major General Jasper Jeffers III told attendees that the International Stabilization Force under his command is assembling 20,000 troops to be stationed in Gaza.
- [02:25]
Les Sillers
The first five countries have committed troops to serve in the ISF, Indonesia, Morocco,
- [02:32]
Max Bells
Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania.
- [02:36]
John Stonestreet
Jeffers said the troops from these Muslim majority nations will be led by a deputy commander from Indonesia. President Trump has repeatedly said American boots will not be on the ground in Gaza, but it's unclear whether the US Will send in military commanders to lead the force. The Board of Peace has also begun reviewing applications for a Gazan police force. The plan is for Egypt and Jordan to train 12,000 Palestinians to work alongside the stabilization force to demilitarize Gaza. Reporting for WORLD I'm Harrison Waters.
- [03:07]
Kent Covington
Iran has held annual military drills with Russia as a second American aircraft carrier drew closer to the Middle East. Both the United States and Iran are signaling that they are prepared for war if talks on Tehran's nuclear program fizzle out. President Trump said Thursday he believes 10 to 15 days is enough time for Iran to reach an agreement. But he conceded that striking a good deal with Tehran is not easy.
- [03:32]
Wes Bentley
It's proven to be over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran.
- [03:37]
Max Bells
We have to make a meaningful deal,
- [03:38]
Wes Bentley
otherwise bad things happen.
- [03:40]
Kent Covington
Iran thus far has held out on some key demands and has refused thus far to even discuss wider US And Israeli demands that it scale back its missile program and sever ties to terrorists and other armed groups. Indirect talks held in recent weeks have made little visible progress. The former Prince Andrew was arrested and held for hours by British police on suspicion of possible crimes related to his ties with Jeffrey Epstein. Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright stated, quote, following a thorough assessment, we have now opened an investigation into this allegation of misconduct in public office. It was the first time in nearly four centuries that a senior British royal was placed under arrest. Graham Smith is lead campaigner with the British anti monarchy group Republic.
- [04:27]
John Stonestreet
I mean, it's hard to, you don't want to prejudge these things. And he says he's innocent. But, you know, there's so much out there that, you know, unless it's a very thorough investigation, people are going to think that it's, you know, a bit of a whitewash. So it really needs to be a proper, a proper job done. And that puts him in quite a lot of hot water.
- [04:44]
Kent Covington
King Charles III took the unusual step of issuing a statement on the arrest of his brother, saying the law must take its course. The former prince was released about 11 hours after his arrest. A U.S. arts review panel has approved a design for a new, larger White House ballroom on the side of the old East Wing to host state dinners and formal events. The U.S. commission of Fine Arts voted in favor this week. The project still needs approval, though, from another federal agency before moving forward. Critics have voiced concerns about the scale and cost, but President Trump says the ballroom is being funded with private donations, not taxpayer dollars. A lawsuit is pending to block the project. I'm Kent Covington. And straight ahead, John Stonestreet is here for Culture Friday. Plus, the African military chaplains called into battle. This is the world and everything in it.
- [06:01]
Mary Reichert
It's Friday, February 20th. So glad to have you along for today's edition of the World and Everything In It. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichert.
- [06:09]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Iker. Joining us now, John Stonestreet the president of the Colson center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. John, good morning.
- [06:16]
John Stonestreet
Good morning.
- [06:17]
Nick Eicher
Well, John, I'd like to begin in Texas with a state representative who is really gaining quite a national profile. His name is James Talarico. He's running for the Democratic primary for the U.S. senate. Early voting underway as of last week in what Democrats are hoping could eventually become a competitive, supreme statewide race. Well, this week, his campaign got another jolt of national exposure after a scheduled appearance on the Late show with Stephen Colbert was pulled from the CBS broadcast over the FCC's equal time rule that applies to politics. Colbert protested this on the air and then released the interview online. And of course, it quickly went viral. So the controversy had the effect of amplifying the candidate as if that wasn't the idea all along. But beneath the media drama, John Tallarico is attempting something more ambitious, presenting progressive politics framed explicitly in Christian language. Now, let's listen to a sample from that interview. The first voice you hear is that of Colbert. Then you hear Talarico at the end. The religious rite is largely a political movement that references spirituality, but it's a political.
- [07:36]
John Stonestreet
What do you. What is your.
- [07:38]
Nick Eicher
What is your heartfelt hand out to
- [07:43]
John Stonestreet
the people who want to use religion
- [07:45]
Nick Eicher
as a tool of political power?
- [07:47]
John Stonestreet
Well, for 50 years, the religious right, a political movement that is the perfect description for it, they convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage, two issues that mentioned in the Bible, two issues that Jesus never talked about. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I and every one of our fellow believers, how we're going to be judged and how we're going to be saved by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger. Nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people.
- [08:31]
Nick Eicher
All right, John, is this a genuine theological argument entering politics, or do you think it's something else?
- [08:37]
John Stonestreet
Well, I mean, you know, it's not valid. It might be genuine, but it is a very selective argument based on very few things that Jesus said. As if Jesus, you know, couldn't care both about sexual morality, the sexual abuse of children and feeding the hungry. At the same time. It's illegitimate in the sense that the words of Jesus that were given to individuals, given to people, given to churches, are then turned around and used to justify progressive government policies, whether they work or not in accomplishing the objective that these folks say that Jesus cares more about than anything else. So it's really selective, I think it's easily refuted, but it's easily refuted by people who can think theologically or even just kind of at a very basic level biblically. And I don't think we have a very biblically literate culture. So we'll see how effective it is. But I don't suspect it will be very successful in the end. And that is because that Progressive party has become more and more and more anti religious across the board. I mean, listen, the fact of the matter is Tauriko's version of the integration of faith in politics is just thin and honestly a little silly. There's not a lot there. It shouldn't be hard to pick out and discern, but it is for a lot of people. So look, thankfully we also had a gift this week and that is a conversation that took place from the Hoover institution with former U.S. senator Ben Sasse. It is a hour long conversation in which Sasse, who of course just announced he's facing a terminal diagnosis, wrestles through his faith, his life, where politics fits into all of this. And it is a masterclass. It is honestly one of the most thorough and thick framings of the integration of faith and politics and the limits of that integration that you will hear. So if it's not immediately clear to you what Taurico meant, just watch that thing over at the Hoover Institution and compare. And it could not be more obvious.
- [10:48]
Max Bells
Yeah.
- [10:48]
Nick Eicher
You know, and John, I'm wondering though, whether you think there's an audience for what Talarico is selling in Texas, even if it's not all that large, because, you know, as we know in politics, a percentage point or two can translate into a landslide.
- [11:04]
John Stonestreet
Oh, I think so. But I mean, the fact of the matter is, at best you're going to find those folks in mainline churches and you don't find very many people in any mainline churches because people don't go to mainline churches because they don't teach anything that sounds any different than npr. And so if you listen to NPR six days a week, why go to church on the seventh day a week? And religion is not something that is a protected class category in the critical theory breakdown of intersectionality. So you're just talking about a small demographic.
- [11:36]
Nick Eicher
Well, John, now I want to shift gears to a rather difficult story. I know that you've heard it, but for the listener who has not, authorities in Pawtucket, Rhode island say that a youth hockey game became the scene of what police described as a domestic violence tragedy. And that's probably an understatement. Police identified the suspect as 56 year old Robert Dorgan. They said that he shot and killed his ex wife, Rhonda Dorgan. He also killed their adult son Aiden inside the arena. There was another son playing in the hockey game at the time of the attack. Three others in the stands were injured before the suspect took his own life. Now, there's an additional detail to this story, John, but you'll hear the police chief say that this particular detail is irrelevant and police simply have no idea why this happened. But the additional detail that is irrelevant to the ongoing investigation is that the late Mr. Dorgan had undergone a gender surgery about five years ago and was using a female name, although he hadn't officially changed his name with the state. Here is the chief of police, Tina Gonsov at a media briefing. And here she's answering a reporter's question. Was there some sort of transgender process happening?
- [13:00]
John Stonestreet
So that really is, is kind of irrelevant to our investigation at this point. What I can tell you is the identification was in the name of Robert. And then we also know that the suspect went by the name Roberta. It appeared that the suspect was in female clothes yesterday.
- [13:18]
Mary Reichert
But again, that's nothing that had swayed
- [13:21]
John Stonestreet
the investigation one way or another. We're just trying to kind of factually put the pieces together and let that lead us onto obviously why this occurred yesterday. Everybody's looking for answers.
- [13:31]
Mary Reichert
The police department obviously is looking for answers too.
- [13:33]
John Stonestreet
We want to know why it happened, especially in our community. So that's what we're trying to do, trying to put together that timeline and answer those questions.
- [13:40]
Nick Eicher
All right, John. Well, there does seem to be a pattern here. And this is not the first, first such violent incident involving the gender confused. But this man was no kid. He was not a child. He was not a teenager. He was a grown man. Do you think we're at the point where we just need to stand up and say it?
- [14:00]
John Stonestreet
Well, I think it's past time to stand up and say that there is a trend here. And yet what do we have now? We have a pretty consistent run of killers who questioned who they were, that they had been born into the wrong body. So when we stop kind of covering up what this whole thing has been about with nomenclature, with language, and say things as they actually are. We got five or six or seven indications of this just in the last couple years. And I guess if we were talking about literally any other common characteristic, we would have already drawn these connections, we would have already made these headlines. The only reason that we're not is because of the special class Status of protection and a whole lot of culture of fear. But thankfully, in the the last couple years, we have seen more and more and more and more people, you know, willing to break what Chuck Colson often called the spiral of silence, you know, unwilling to say it, but because one person or more, two people said it, more people are willing to say it. We just need these media outlets to stop reporting on women shooters when we're actually talking about men who have been mutilated physically, emotionally, or chemically in some way.
- [15:13]
Mary Reichert
Well, talking about words, John, how should Christians, especially journalists, resist adopting language that isn't biblically true?
- [15:22]
John Stonestreet
Well, and there's a lot of it. This whole movement would have never gone anywhere without made up words or misdefined words. And I think we just have to stop playing by those rules. I think we have to just reject them wholesale, starting with a word like cisgender. We already have a bunch of words that tell us what cisgender is supposed to mean, which is normal, ordinary, mentally healthy, 99.9% of the human population in the history of the world. You know, and these things kind of can get snuck in, and especially when they come through the quote unquote experts that tell us how we're all supposed to behave. And we're just going to have to be a lot more discerning than that, I think, because really the damage done by mainstream media outlets playing along with these games unnecessarily, I think is incalculable. But I also say, look, every single one who is a Christian in any sphere that they are in should commit to be truth tellers. God hates a lying tongue. This is just what the Bible says. If the lie goes forward, it must not go forward through you. And I think that sounds maybe too simple and we need to kind of check each other and keep each other accountable as much. But a whole lot of lies have gone forward through a lot of Christians because we were told that it's the loving, caring thing to do. But I tell you, what we cannot do is basically made peace with same sex marriage. And so I know whenever I talk about same sex marriage, I put the quotes around marriage. I put the so called in front of it, because there is no such thing as same sex marriage. There is marriage and marriage has a definition. We used to understand that and used to believe that, or at least many of us did. And I think some just kind of been worn down to embrace the language. But I say we fight for language. I'll go back to something I believe it came out of G.K. chesterton, who said, if words aren't worth fighting for, what on earth would be? And I agree with that wholeheartedly.
- [17:26]
Mary Reichert
Well, meanwhile, in New York, NYU Langone Health has shut down its transgender medical program for minors. Hospital spokesman cited leadership changes and what he called the current regulatory environment as the Trump administration investigates hospitals offering puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to minors and threatens federal funding for those that continue doing it. Now, this isn't the first institution to scale back pediatric gender services in recent months. Are we now seeing institutional retreat here? And what do you think's driving it?
- [18:00]
John Stonestreet
Absolutely, it is. And there's a number of things that are driving it. It's not an accident that this is nyu. I think the Trump administration's actions, I think now, this week we had an announcement even that the FTC is getting involved in this. So we are seeing a pullback, and that's really great. What I like about this is I always watch because we are so divided politically that it can feel like we're going from one extreme to another depending on who's in the White House. In other words, you live by executive order, you die by executive order. All that's really stuff we've talked about in the past. But when you start seeing it outside of the political sphere, in other spheres, like in this case in the legal sphere or in the actually, the institutional sphere in terms of healthcare, and you have structural changes that are taking place, then these are things that are gonna be really hard to reverse. You're gonna have a hard time convincing a hospital board they should get back into this business because the risks are not going to go away and the success rates are not going to get any higher. And so, yeah, this is certainly good news, but it is something to say about our culture that we are celebrating the affirmation of the obvious. So that just tells us kind of where we were yesterday.
- [19:14]
Nick Eicher
The affirmation of the obvious. John Stonestreet is president of the Colson center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. John, thanks. We'll see you next time.
- [19:24]
John Stonestreet
Thank you both. Additional support comes from Pensacola Christian College
- [19:38]
Kent Covington
Academic Excellence Biblical Worldview, Affordable Cost.
- [19:43]
John Stonestreet
Go pcci.
- [19:46]
Kent Covington
Edu World. From Rich Haven Camp in North Carolina and Iowa Summer Camp. Registration open now@ridgehaven.org
- [20:00]
Nick Eicher
and from Dort University,
- [20:02]
Kent Covington
where the MSN Family Nurse Practitioner program
- [20:05]
John Stonestreet
prepares nurses for Christ centered family focused care.
- [20:09]
Kent Covington
Dort Eduardo.
- [20:28]
Mary Reichert
Today is Friday, February 20th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichert.
- [20:35]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eichert. Hey, before we move on, applications are open right now for the World Journalism Institute. That is our two week program for college students and recent grads. So if that describes you or if you have a young person in your life interested in journalism, we did want you to know. Now is the time to get to work on that application. It is going to take some effort. WJI Collegiate is a two week intensive. I'm not sure which is more important, two week or intensive. Maybe it's just both because it is super intense. It is. And it allows students to come and study and learn, learn firsthand how to approach journalism professionally and biblically. The program runs from May 14 to May 30. It is on the campus of Dort University in beautiful northwest Iowa.
- [21:24]
Mary Reichert
And it's so cool because generous donors allow us to offer full scholarships for those who are accepted. So that means no charge to students. Room and board is covered as well. But it is highly competitive. Slots are limited. Here's one of our recent graduates from last year to tell you a little about why this program is so popular. I'm Claire Wilkerson, and since wji, I've had the opportunity to do on the ground reporting about timely events. Just this past month, I reported for WORLD about the ongoing debate over doctor
- [21:54]
John Stonestreet
assisted suicide in the UK's parliament.
- [21:56]
Mary Reichert
WJI helped give me the necessary logistical skills and confidence to report on this issue. I am currently a fellow at the John Jay Institute and when I finish the program, I will begin a career in journalism. None of this would be possible without
- [22:10]
John Stonestreet
the skills I gained at WJI.
- [22:12]
Mary Reichert
The deadline for applications is Monday, March 23, and it is quite a lengthy application, so don't wait on this. You can apply online at WJI World. That's WJI World.
- [22:25]
Nick Eicher
All right, Mary. Well, I'm not sure which of the two is more competitive getting into WJI or or winning an Oscar. How's that for a transition? It's a wash getting right out of that. But Academy Awards season is also right around the corner. And one of the leading nominees for an Oscar imagines the grief behind Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. Here is world reviewer Max Bells.
- [22:52]
Max Bells
The movie Hamnet is based on a 2010 novel that tells the largely fictional story of William Shakespeare and his wife Anges. It depicts how they meet, marry and raise children.
- [23:04]
John Stonestreet
What is your name? Chantalye.
- [23:08]
Max Bells
William is the son of a glover and he's first introduced to Agnes while tutoring her stepbrothers in Latin at the family table. She wanders in and out of the forest engrossed in its grandeur and beauty. It's in the midst of this that Will recognizes Agnes beauty.
- [23:26]
Kent Covington
I wish to be hand faster to you.
- [23:30]
John Stonestreet
I must be handfasted to you. No one else will do.
- [23:32]
Max Bells
Because her parents are dead, Anges has to receive the blessing of her brother, who eventually grants him.
- [23:39]
John Stonestreet
He loves me for what I am, not what I ought to be. Don't marry him.
- [23:46]
Mary Reichert
You shall.
- [23:47]
Max Bells
One caution is that hamnet is rated PG13 because it contains a brief and uncomfortable scene of sexuality, though not nudity. Because of that and the height of emotional intensity, it's not a movie for children or sensitive viewers. With that caution stated, the movie is a dramatic story about grief. In a review for World magazine, Colin Garberino noted that the film shows how grief shapes creativity and how creativity helps us heal. It also speculates about how real life events inspired Shakespeare to write his masterpiece play and one of the greatest works in English literature. Hamnet, after all, is roughly the same name as Hamlet. Although the film carries the name of Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, it's really a movie about Agnes. Her relationship to her brother and her husband and her children is something to admire, even if she is unfeeling toward her stepmother who raised her. In fact, Agnes claims that she came from the forest, a place where she finds solace.
- [24:46]
John Stonestreet
Brought you into the garden? Ah, it's just a question, master tutor. Yes, I have.
- [24:57]
Kent Covington
I suppose.
- [24:58]
John Stonestreet
The air was fresh out here and
- [25:01]
Kent Covington
I saw you with your bird.
- [25:04]
John Stonestreet
It's a hawk.
- [25:05]
Max Bells
Anges has an uncommon skill to grow and use herbs for medicine. She knows all the trees and keeps a trained falcon. On the other hand, her husband's gift, as we know from history, is playwriting. And we see mirror scenes of them battling with those gifts. Sometimes he can't put the words together. And no matter how hard she tries, sometimes the medicine won't work.
- [25:29]
John Stonestreet
Why marry a pasty faced scholar? What use is he? He's got more inside of him than any man I've ever met.
- [25:39]
Max Bells
The movie's leads are gifted Irish actors Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, and they keep the movie from being maudlin. But I don't want to spoil the story. Instead I want to talk about Chloe Zhao's directing style. Terrence Malick, who made the Tree of Life and the New World, is a clear influence on Zhao. His movies are more like extended prose poems, and Zhao creates a similar thing with her camera. For example, the camera will cut to the earth or to the sky between dramatic turns in the story. For me. This creates poetic light amidst the loss. And the story isn't just about death. It's also about life. Here's Zhao talking about the film on the New Yorker podcast.
- [26:20]
Mary Reichert
New life will come and there's hope. In Hamlet, he wrote, all living things
- [26:29]
John Stonestreet
must die, passing through nature to eternity and to me that eternity is love.
- [26:34]
Max Bells
Zhao is interested in the weariness and mystery of life, which is part of the theme of Hamlet's soliloquy, to be
- [26:41]
John Stonestreet
or not to be. That is the question whether tis nobler
- [26:46]
Nick Eicher
in the mind to suffer the slings
- [26:48]
John Stonestreet
and arrows of outrageous fortune or to
- [26:52]
Nick Eicher
take arms against a sea of troubles.
- [26:56]
Max Bells
Some of her earlier work touches on this theme of grace and beauty in the lives of ordinary people. Her movie the rider from 2017 is about a rodeo star near the Black Hills of South Dakota who gets terribly injured in competition. As he heals, he serves his family and his disabled friend. It's a quiet and powerful movie.
- [27:17]
John Stonestreet
I believe God gives each of us
- [27:19]
Wes Bentley
a purpose to the horse is to
- [27:21]
John Stonestreet
run across the prairie.
- [27:28]
Wes Bentley
For Cowboy. It's true.
- [27:31]
Max Bells
Her movie Nomadland won Best Picture in 2020 for her depiction of bands of people who lived out of their vans and campers in the American West. I don't suspect that Chloe Zhao is a Christian, but she treats her characters with compassion and understanding. I want to champion stories like these because many movies trade human interest for cheap thrills. Does the creator understand the conflict the character is enduring? Does he or she look with humanity on the characters in their duress? These sensitivities dignify human life amidst the struggle and the blessings of writing and literature, bearing and raising children and serving one another. Zhao's movies help me see that a little more clearly. I'm Max Bells.
- [28:22]
Mary Reichert
Coming next, a nation already scarred by war edges toward another. Sudan has been in chaos for nearly three years. That's when a power struggle between the country's military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into civil war.
- [28:39]
Nick Eicher
The UN says more than 40,000 people have been killed, some 14 million displaced, the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Meantime, disease and famine are spreading, and
- [28:51]
Mary Reichert
now many worry that its neighbor, South Sudan, is teetering on the edge of renewed conflict. That country split off from Sudan 15 years ago, but instability has grown in recent Last year we told you about Christian chaplains in the South Sudanese military, armed for battle but also carrying the piece of the gospel. Men like this chaplain, Lino Emanuel.
- [29:14]
John Stonestreet
Yeah, we're preaching while the bullets are flying. Yeah, yeah. We pray and we go while the
- [29:19]
Max Bells
bullets are coming yeah, Bullet is coming.
- [29:23]
John Stonestreet
Yes.
- [29:24]
Max Bells
When bullet is coming, we pray and
- [29:26]
Nick Eicher
we go for an update. World's Double Take host Les Sillers checked back in with Wes Bentley. He is founder of Far Reaching Ministries. That's the organization that trains these chaplains.
- [29:38]
Les Sillers
South Sudan is a mess. A December UN report said the country was staggering toward another civil war. Its countryside is wracked by a simmering conflict between its two top leaders. Suspended Vice President Riek Makar is on trial for treason and murder. He was allegedly involved in a rebel attack on government troops. South Sudan's President Salvakir has been accused of violating power sharing principles he agreed to in 2018. Both men helped lead the Sudan People's Liberation Movement that won the country's independence from Sudan 20 years ago. But they were from rival ethnic groups and they could not share power. And in 2013, the country fell into a civil war that killed 400,000 people. It lasted until 2018, when Kir and Makar signed a peace deal. That agreement more or less held until recently. In January, the government announced a major operation to take back territory rebels had seized in recent months. It gave civilians and aid organizations 48 hours to leave those areas. Audio from CGT in Africa.
- [30:40]
John Stonestreet
So fighting has been going on for some time since December. And the government troops have been withdrawing from many of these places. And with this order now, the government says it wants now to retake those places that opposition forces took from them.
- [30:54]
Les Sillers
So this is now. The US has threatened to withdraw aid to South Sudan. It accuses Kir's government of imposing excessive fees on humanitarian groups and hampering their operations. Wes Bentley of Far Reaching Ministries says two years ago he noticed the situation was deteriorating.
- [31:11]
Wes Bentley
When I was there the week before I'd arrived, there had been like a dozen ambushes on the road within a week, and about 26 people killed and even three nuns were killed.
- [31:22]
Les Sillers
During that time, government forces have been conducting what the UN calls relatively indiscriminate aerial bombing attacks. Armed rebel militia prowl the highways where
- [31:32]
Wes Bentley
our base is to the capital. It's 110 miles. You cannot travel there safely unless you take soldiers with you because there's rebels on the road. And when I say rebels, more like criminals. You know, I think these are people that are just opportunistic to rob. They don't really have an agenda. They're just looking for something to get. But they kill a lot of people.
- [31:55]
Les Sillers
About 7.7 million people in South Sudan face crisis levels of food insecurity. That's more than half the population. And the UN reports there are pockets where it's worse. Famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting.
- [32:09]
Wes Bentley
And there's other conflicts going on tribally all across the country. There's tribes that have been fighting each other for a millennium. And I don't think they even know all the reasons they're fighting anymore. They've just been doing it forever. So they continue.
- [32:24]
Les Sillers
The chaplain's job is to minister to soldiers and their families, fight the conflict. They lead churches across South Sudan. But the chaplains have seen much worse than the current situation. And Bentley says they're not going anywhere.
- [32:37]
Wes Bentley
They believe in God, they trust in God. And you know, I tell the guys, guys, we're not all supposed to live long lives. You know, some of us will die in our 70s and 80s, but some of us go in our 20s and 30s. And you know, a race has a beginning and it has an end. And when the race is over, it's time to go home, be with the Lord. And so the guys are very much committed to laying down their lives if they have to, to protect others.
- [33:05]
Mary Reichert
You can hear an in depth report on the South Sudanese chaplains tomorrow. That's when we're releasing a new episode of Double Take, hosted by Les Sillers. And get a load of this headline, the legendary castle dwelling gun token, bible quoting military chaplains of the African wilderness. We hope you'll join us. Well, it's time to name the crew who contributed to this week's David Bonson, Amy Lewis, Mary Muncie, Todd Vision, Clint Armani, Albert Moeller, Hunter Baker, Emma Eicher, Janie B. Chaney, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Max Bells and Les Sillers. Thanks also to our breaking news crew, Kent Covington, Steve Klosterman, Travis Kercher, Daniel Devine and Christina Grube. And thanks to the overnight outfitters who serve up the program each weekday bright and early, Ben Jiker and Carl Peetz. Harrison Waters is Washington producer, Kristen Flavin is features editor and Lindsay Mast is producer. I'm Mary Reichardt.
- [34:13]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eicher, the executive producer. 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 God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God. Sing praises, sing praises to our king. Sing praises for God is the king of all the earth. Sing praises with a psalm. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is highly exalted. Verses 5 through 9 of Psalm 47 well, Sunday is coming. Find a church faithful to the the Scriptures, Gather with God's people and lift your voice. Hear the word preached. Receive the ordinary means of grace that sustain ordinary Christians in extraordinary times. Well, double take is tomorrow. We will talk to you Monday, Lord willing. Go now in grace and peace.
- [35:26]
John Stonestreet
Sam.