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The World and Everything In It
2.4.26 First ladies and political influence, elections in Myanmar, and expressing faith through hospitality
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- [00:06]
Lindsay Mast
Good morning. Today on Washington Wednesday.
- [00:08]
Hunter Baker
Hi, Mr. President.
- [00:10]
Amy Lewis
Congratulations.
- [00:11]
Hunter Baker
Did you watch it? I did not. Yeah, I will see it on the news.
- [00:14]
Lindsay Mast
The role of the first lady in politics.
- [00:17]
Nick Iker
Hunter Baker is standing by for that and more. Also, a world tour special report on elections in Myanmar.
- [00:25]
Dave Eubank
It would be like the Chinese government holding election or any dictator holding election. There's no meaning to it later opening.
- [00:30]
Nick Iker
The doors to strangers.
- [00:32]
Hunter Baker
If you are saying, lord, here I am, use me. That's what Christian hospitality is.
- [00:37]
Nick Iker
And world's Janie B. Cheney on severed family ties.
- [00:47]
Lindsay Mast
It's Wednesday, February 4th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Lindsay Mast.
- [00:54]
Nick Iker
And I'm Nick Iker. Good morning.
- [00:58]
Lindsay Mast
Up next, Kent Covington has today's news.
- [01:02]
Nick Iker
On this vote, The A's are 217.
- [01:03]
Hunter Baker
And A's are 214. Without objection, the motion. The motion is adopted.
- [01:10]
Kent Covington
And with that, the House voted Tuesday to end the partial government shutdown. 21 Democrats voted with Republicans while 21 Republicans voted no on a stopgap measure. The package will fund federal agencies into the fall. With the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, it only funds DHS for a couple of weeks, buying time for talks over immigration enforcement. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he's hopeful about reaching a long term deal on that funding soon. He noted that DHS does not only oversee immigration enforcement, it is tsa, it's.
- [01:41]
Nick Iker
The Coast Guard, it's Secret Service, it's fema.
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Kent Covington
We're in the middle of winter storms.
- [01:47]
Hunter Baker
That people are still digging out from. So this is no time to play.
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Nick Iker
Games with that funding.
- [01:51]
Kent Covington
The Senate already approved the funding package last week and President Trump says he welcomes it.
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Hunter Baker
We've succeeded in passing a fiscally responsible package that actually cuts all wasteful federal spending while supporting critical programs for the safety, security and prosperity of the American people.
- [02:10]
Kent Covington
House Democratic leaders were not as pleased. They are demanding changes to federal immigration enforcement. And negotiations now shift to immigration policy, where sharp divisions remain. Iran's president has instructed the foreign minister to pursue negotiations with the United States. World's Kristin Flavin reports.
- [02:29]
Janie B. Cheney
Iran's shift comes amid high tensions following the Islamic government's crackdown on nationwide protests. The announcement comes as President Trump has threatened military action if Iran does not negotiate an end to its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Talks are planned in Turkey later this week between US Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei appears to support the talks. The announcement also follows news that a US Navy jet shot down an Iranian drone near an American aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea after it failed to respond to warnings. For World I'm Kristen Flavin.
- [03:08]
Kent Covington
At the White House, President Trump met with Colombian President Gustavo Petro behind closed doors for nearly two hours. U.S. officials say the talks focused on regional security and curbing drug trafficking. And and despite very public friction between the two leaders in recent months, both called the meeting friendly and productive.
- [03:26]
Hunter Baker
We got along very well. He and I weren't exactly the best of friends, but I wasn't insulted because I never met him. I didn't know him at all, and we got along very well.
- [03:36]
Kent Covington
The two leaders previously traded jabs with the Colombian president, criticizing the U.S. military operation in Venezuela, among other things, and Trump accused Petro of being a drug trafficker. But the tone had softened in recent days. Trump told reporters ahead of the meeting that Petro appeared to be more open to cooperating following recent developments in the region. Petro is Colombia's first leftist president in generations. He's set to leave office in August with an approval rating mired below 40% in recent polls. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky says he expects the US to respond after he says Russian leader Vladimir Putin disregarded a promise recently made to President Trump. On Monday, Trump told reporters that he had asked Putin to pause Russia's attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure amid the current cold snap.
- [04:26]
Hunter Baker
And I asked him if he wouldn't shoot for a period of one week, no missiles going into Kyiv or any other towns, and he's agreed to do it.
- [04:33]
Kent Covington
So it's something, zelensky Sundays. Not even four days into that week, Russian forces are still pounding Ukraine. Authorities say two people were killed and eight others were wounded after a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia yesterday. All of this comes ahead of another round of trilateral peace talks between US Russian and Ukrainian officials and the United Arab Emirates over the next couple of days. Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee later this month in its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. World's Benjamin Eicher has more.
- [05:10]
Hunter Baker
Hillary Clinton is set to appear on February 26, and Bill Clinton will testify the next day. The agreement comes after House Republicans threatened a contempt of Congress vote. Committee Chairman James Comer says the testimony is aimed at understanding how Epstein gained access to powerful figures. The closed door sessions will be recorded and transcribed. House Speaker Mike Johnson says contempt proceedings are now on hold. Neither Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both say they had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes at the time. For World, I'm Benjamin Eicher.
- [05:46]
Kent Covington
Gospel music artist and worship leader Ron Canole has died at the age of 81. His longtime music director confirmed Canoli's passing Tuesday. He was best known for popular worship songs like Ancient of Days. And jesus is alive. Tributes have poured in from fellow worship leaders and listeners who say his faithfulness inspired generations. I'm Kent Covington. And still ahead, Hunter Baker is standing by for Washington Wednesday. Plus, world's Janie B. Cheney, unsevered family ties, this is the WORLD and everything in It.
- [06:55]
Nick Iker
It's Wednesday, the 4th of February. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the WORLD and Everything in It. Good morning. I'm Nick Iger.
- [07:03]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. Time now for Washington Wednesday. Joining us now is political scientist Hunter Baker. He is a World Opinions contributor. Good morning, Hunter.
- [07:13]
Hunter Baker
Good morning, Hunter.
- [07:14]
Lindsay Mast
I want to start somewhere a little different this week. I spent a couple of hours last weekend seeing the new Amazon documentary Melania. It is highly curated. Yes. But it is an interesting look at the weeks leading up to the inauguration last year.
- [07:28]
Hunter Baker
Hi, Mr. President.
- [07:30]
Amy Lewis
Congratulations.
- [07:31]
Hunter Baker
Did you watch it? I did not. Yeah, I will see it on the news.
- [07:34]
Lindsay Mast
Melania has done better than expected at the box office, earning over $7 million. That's the highest opening weekend for a non music documentary in years. I'm not going to ask you about Fashion Hunter, but I will give you my takeaway and a question for you. What I saw was a busy woman who stays in her lane. She understands the power and the influence that she yields and does it in a feminine way. Yes, she is a model who still loves to look good. But what I saw in the film shows her deeper dimensions. She is a wife accompanying her husband to his work commitments. She is a mother being mindful of her son Baron. She's a daughter of grieving her mother's death and a first lady gathering information about everything from the Israeli hostages to global initiatives to help children. So that's my little midweek movie review for you. I am no Colin Garberino. But in all seriousness, Hunter, as a political scientist, talk about the role of the first lady. How do you measure success?
- [08:34]
Hunter Baker
So first ladies really matter and they matter in different ways. You know, a lot of people in our era might think first about Hillary Clinton, who famously took the lead on the attempt to nationalize health care during her husband's administration, was also a source of sort of speculation about scandal with regard to her finances eventually became the Secretary of State and came very close to becoming President of the United States. But maybe the biggest one of them all was Eleanor Roosevelt, who, you know, it was completely impractical in the 1930s to think about her succeeding her husband in the presidency, but she left a big mark on American policy and was a big part of the UN Declaration on Human Rights after World War II. We might also think about Betty Ford, who became famous for her problems with addiction. Also one of many Republican first ladies who are socially liberal. She was in favor of keeping abortion legal. And then you think of first ladies like Nancy Reagan with her Just say no campaign. But really who you think about more for her stalwart support of her husband, Ronald Reagan. It's almost impossible to imagine him getting where he did without her kind of bolstering him and just kind of unconditional love and support throughout his political career. And the one that I really like is Pat Nixon. Pat Nixon. I think a lot of people don't realize this. She was the most traveled first lady for something like 25 years after she served in that role. But more famously, when there was an attempt to take Richard Nixon off of the Republican ticket in 1952, she encouraged him to fight. And he gave his famous Checkers speech in which he deflected complaints about him receiving gifts from donors by saying that they had received a little dog named Checkers and the girls loved him and he wasn't gonna give him back. It was also in that speech when he talked about his wife Pat's respectable Republican cloth coat. She was a fighter, and she really wanted him to demand a recount in 1960, though he did not choose to do so. And then. And then finally, since we're talking about Melania Trump, she makes me think about Jackie Kennedy. Jackie Kennedy, who is similarly sort of a fashion and style icon and also the builder of sort of the myth and legend of Camelot after her husband's death.
- [11:18]
Nick Iker
All right, Hunter. Well, the partial government shutdown, very different from the previous one that we talked about here. The record setter last year. This one, not quite about to budget disagreements, but a specific fight over homeland security and immigration enforcement. Democrats are withholding support unless Republicans go along with some changes to ICE and turning DHS funding into the leverage point here. So what are the concrete issues actually on the table, Hunter? Border enforcement, detention policy, asylum rules, ICE authority. And just thinking, as this kind of drags on, what do you think Republicans are prepared to consider giving up in order to get a deal?
- [12:01]
Onize Odua
Deal?
- [12:02]
Hunter Baker
There's really two Levels. There's the substantive level, and then there's the political level. So, on the one hand, is this really about the way ICE operates? To some extent, Americans are clearly concerned. These two deaths of protesters have put a big spotlight on the issue and took it beyond just sort of this question of kind of mass actions by ice, but also created the sense that their activity was actually dangerous to American citizens. And whether you agree with that or not, it has become kind of a salient political issue. And that really takes us to the second part of this, which is, I think the Democrats have accurately intuited that these events have opened up an opportunity. And so they are not going to just kind of pass this entire budget without taking the opportunity to highlight ICE and homeland security. And so that's what they're going to do, and they're going to focus on that, and they're going to talk about changes that have to happen. They're going to try to get rid of these mass actions entirely. They're going to try to have cameras on all of these ICE agents. They're going to try to prevent them from wearing masks, all the different kinds of restrictions and changes that you can get. And then having done so, they'll be able to say, look, we stood up to Donald Trump, we stood up to Christine Dom, and we got these important changes.
- [13:34]
Nick Iker
My question comes down to how far can Republicans go without fracturing their coalition? I mean, there's gotta be a point here where Republicans can't go beyond.
- [13:45]
Hunter Baker
Yeah, I think that Republicans are not really divided so much about the immigration issue. I think that Donald Trump has basically convinced them, through his sort of remarkable career, that immigration in the border is or can be a winning issue, and that it's. That it's actually important. But the division here is over the way that ICE goes about it, and that's gonna be the issue. Right? And so you're gonna have Republicans who are gonna say, look, there's a point at which this becomes counterproductive and counterproductive in the way that they care about the most, which is electorally counterproductive. So that's gonna be the big division.
- [14:24]
Nick Iker
Well, staying on politics, Hunter, the New York Times cast this as a political jolt to the Republicans. A local Democrat winning a Texas district that President Trump carried in 2024 by 17 points. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis weighed in after that special election. He said, special elections, granted, are quirky and not necessarily projectable. But he added that a swing of that size. 17 points, that's not a thing that can be Dismissed. So how should Republicans read this? What part is signal? What part is noise? And is this state Senate race a reliable proxy for the kind of headwinds that we think Republicans may have going into the November midterms?
- [15:11]
Hunter Baker
I think that there is more signal than noise. Yes, it's a state Senate race, but in Texas, I think that this state Senate district is as big or a little bit bigger than a US Congressional district. So you're talking about, you know, an area of like a million people or something like that. It's true that it was a special election. It's true that it was held on a Saturday, which is odd. It's true that the weather was frigid, but it's also true that the Republican had, I don't know, something like a 4 to 1 fundraising advantage in this race. And so when you lose in Texas in a conservative district where you have a whole lot more money, I think there's a signal. And the signal is there's a lot of frustration and that the Democrats are well organized. I mean, whatever happened, they were able to get their voters to the polls and the Republicans did not. So I think that this race matters.
- [16:08]
Lindsay Mast
Hunter. Last week, a jury awarded a gender detransitioner $2 million in damages for the mastectomy she underwent at 16 years old. The Free Press reports that this medical malpractice case is the first of dozens currently in the legal pipeline. So I want to draw on your dual legal and political expertise here. What does this verdict mean? Politically, surgeries like this are still legal in more than 20 states. But how will lawsuits like these affect not just the courtroom landscape, but the regulatory landscape?
- [16:40]
Hunter Baker
Right. Well, what is legal is not necessarily what is dispositive. We know, for example, that cigarettes were legal for decades, they still are legal, and that damages from smoking cigarettes added up into, I think, probably the billions for the cigarette companies in those famed lawsuits. Now, I think that the typical American, when they hear about a minor having a sex change operation of the most serious sort, right, where the body is being literally, radically changed, we might even say mutilated, so drugs and surgery are used, I think that the typical American thinks to themselves, a teenager should not be doing this. Their consent should not be enough to make this happen. And so I think that intuitively, it's a very, very potent issue. And I think it's going to be potent for juries. I think that juries are going to say, I don't think that this should have been done to this young person. Now, what that does is it kind of takes us away from this sort of glitzy, influencer type world that we've been living in where we act as though people can have their sex changed, like rubbing a lantern and asking a genie for a wish, clearly is not the case. And you know, it takes us into this world that C.S. lewis talked about in the Abolition of Man where we just lose all sense of the natural law and sort of moral reality about what human beings are and submit ourselves to this class of elites that he called the conditioners. To me, this is the revenge of the abolition of man.
- [18:27]
Nick Iker
Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University, world opinions commentator and our regular Washington Wednesday analyst. Hunter, thank you. We'll see you next week.
- [18:37]
Hunter Baker
Thank you.
- [18:44]
Kent Covington
Additional support comes from B and H Academic. Their new resource, God and Country explores faith and national identity. 40% off lifeway.com God and country from Ambassadors Impact Network, connecting entrepreneurs with Christian investors for capital and spiritual support. Ambassadorsimpact.com and from free Lutheran Bible College, grounding students in the word of God for life in Jesus Christ on campus and in person in Plymouth, Minnesota. Flbc Edu Word.
- [19:25]
Lindsay Mast
Coming up next on THE WORLD and everything in it. A world tour special report on disputed elections in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Last week state media confirmed a military backed party as the winner of national elections.
- [19:39]
Nick Iker
The widely criticized but expected outcome has raised concerns over what many have said is the ruling military's attempt to cement its grip on power. Onize Adua brings us the story.
- [19:54]
Kristin Flavin
25 year old Cyrus abstained from voting in a process that played out in three phases starting in December. He says others he knows did the same.
- [20:05]
Hunter Baker
Some of my family, they live in.
- [20:08]
Dave Eubank
City but they didn't vote.
- [20:11]
Kristin Flavin
Cyrus is an ethnic Kyreni Ranger with the Christian humanitarian organization Free Burma Rangers. He's stationed in a camp outside of the military's control, but says even some family members elsewhere also did not vote.
- [20:25]
Dave Eubank
Most of Burma can't vote.
- [20:27]
Kristin Flavin
Dave Eubank is a former US Army Ranger who founded the Free Burma Rangers.
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Dave Eubank
And then number two, the dictators control it anyway. So it would be like Putin holding election or the Chinese government holding election or any dictator holding election. There's no meaning to it.
- [20:43]
Kristin Flavin
Myanmar's military seized power after a general election in 2020 that devolved into a civil war as the military clashed with citizens and armed ethnic groups opposing the takeover. Analysts have said the military is now trying to comply with the country's 2008 military constitution. It empowers the junta to switch back to constitutional rule after four years of a state of emergency. Final results released last week confirmed the military backed Union and Solidarity parties scored the majority of seats in both legislative houses. But polls only opened in about 21% of the country where the military has control. Opposition forces control nearly half the country. China has praised the military for successfully completing the vote, a move aimed at securing its investments in the country. But the region's association of Southeast Asian nations, also known as asean, was less supportive. Teresa Lazaro is the foreign secretary of the Philippines.
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Amy Lewis
ASEAN does not recognize the Myanmar military.
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Hunter Baker
Junta as of now.
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Kristin Flavin
Eubank said the military's daily attacks on civilians continued despite the election.
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Dave Eubank
Every single day you know we have 150 relief teams and they report. And every single day, with no pause about the elections, we have over four and a half million, maybe five million displaced. That has not slowed down at all.
- [22:16]
Kristin Flavin
Many who have fled the country remain in limbo. Back In November, the U.S. department of Homeland Security terminated the temporary protected status of nearly 4,000 Myanmar nationals in the United States. The agency said it is safe for them to return home. It pointed to the plans for what it called free and fair elections, among other signs of progress and governance. But a US Federal judge has halted the move ahead of a hearing on Friday. Since the 2020 coup, authorities have killed more than 7,000 activists and civilians. More than 30,000 others remain behind bars. Eubank says the war has brought fear and discouragement and even death to his group.
- [23:01]
Dave Eubank
I've been in Burma 32 years. I've never seen heavier fighting than now. Never the scale of it. The Burma army coming with a speed and a force we've never seen.
- [23:11]
Kristin Flavin
In the meantime, he has encouraged his rangers to pursue deeper repentance as they fight for justice.
- [23:18]
Dave Eubank
So we pray that the dictators will change. We pray that they would decide to follow Jesus themselves. We pray for reconciliation. And until that happens, we stand with these people, sharing the gospel, giving humanitarian care.
- [23:33]
Kristin Flavin
With additional reporting from Joyce Wu. I'm Onize Odua in Abuja, Nigeria.
- [23:53]
Nick Iker
Straight from the horse's mouth. That's supposed to mean information you can trust. But what happens when the horse's mouth is stitched on upside down? As it turns out, you get a viral hit. That's what. A toy maker in China was shipping merchandise ahead of Chinese New Year, the year of the horse, just a couple of weeks away, aiming for a cheerful plush mascot. Instead, workers stitch the mouths on upside down, turning smiling horses into mournful mares. The audio here from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
- [24:25]
Onize Odua
This crying horse really suits the reality.
- [24:27]
Lindsay Mast
Of modern Working people.
- [24:29]
Nick Iker
Yeah, and young buyers snapped them up. But not everyone got the appeal.
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Onize Odua
People my age don't like it, though. Young people do. During New Year, you're supposed to do something auspicious.
- [24:41]
Janie B. Cheney
But a big drooping mouth like this?
- [24:43]
Nick Iker
Okay, not so fast. You may not want to turn that frown upside down because judging from the sales figures, it's all smiles. It's the world and everything in it. Today is Wednesday, February 4th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Nick Iker.
- [25:11]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. Coming next on THE World and everything in it, welcoming strangers on a road trip. You can pay for a motel crash on a relative's couch or camp along the way, but could you stay with a stranger?
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Nick Iker
Turns out thousands of Christians around the world intentionally welcome strangers into their homes. In other words, a biblical version of we'll leave the light on for you. World correspondent Amy Lewis has the story.
- [25:42]
Amy Lewis
Kenneth Michael McAdams and his family raise goats in Plains, Texas. Planes isn't near much of anything, but travelers still go out of their way to stay with the McAdams family. Today, the travelers arrive in time to help milk the goats.
- [26:02]
Hunter Baker
For me.
- [26:05]
Nick Iker
They like you when you're slow.
- [26:06]
Janie B. Cheney
You know why?
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Amy Lewis
For 15 years, the McAdams have been a part of a Christian hospitality network called A Candle in the Window. They've used the network to travel inexpensively around the US Their favorite part is sharing stories and making new friends.
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Nick Iker
The one family we had just had a meal with them, but as we.
- [26:27]
Dave Eubank
Left, well, they not only walked us.
- [26:29]
Kent Covington
Out, but as we drove the half or quarter mile down the road, we.
- [26:33]
Nick Iker
Look back, they're still all outside waving.
- [26:36]
Kent Covington
And I go, yeah, this is not your ordinary people.
- [26:39]
Amy Lewis
They particularly enjoy hosting. They've had families from places like China, South Africa, Jordan, and Mexico. In half a mile, turn left further up the road. In Salt Lake City, Utah, Elizabeth Vayon keeps a homemade dinner warm for her guests who are arriving late. She has fresh sheets on the beds and a warm welcome at the door. You have arrived several times every month for the past 10 years, the vaillants have invited strangers to sleep in the lower level of their house.
- [27:08]
Hunter Baker
I started when I became an empty nester. I found the house so quiet that.
- [27:17]
Nick Iker
I was like, this is crazy.
- [27:19]
Amy Lewis
Leon grew up the youngest of 12 children.
- [27:22]
Nick Iker
One thing that my mother would always.
- [27:23]
Hunter Baker
Say is, there's always room for one more at the table.
- [27:26]
Amy Lewis
Still, she grew concerned that her focus was on her own actions, what she could do instead of why it mattered and because of her love for God.
- [27:35]
Hunter Baker
So if you are saying, lord, here I am, use me.
- [27:39]
Lindsay Mast
That's what Christian hospitality is.
- [27:41]
Hunter Baker
Even when it's not a convenient time.
- [27:44]
Amy Lewis
Welcoming people into your space can also be uncomfortable. Elizabeth's husband, Chuck I want quiet, I.
- [27:50]
Hunter Baker
Want peace, I want my time, me time, all the things. But it comes down to.
- [27:57]
Amy Lewis
Their in.
- [27:58]
Hunter Baker
The end, they're selfish.
- [28:00]
Amy Lewis
The struggle of the host to be hospitable is just one side of the coin of loving strangers.
- [28:06]
Janie B. Cheney
Hospitality is messy Tanner K. Swanson works.
- [28:09]
Amy Lewis
From home as a mom, a wife and an editor for Desiring God, where she sometimes writes about hospitality. She has everyday opportunities to practice hospitality like today. Her mother's in town for work but needs a place to take a nap between shifts. So Swanson speaks to me from her patio while her mother sleeps inside. She says opening a home to others helps model how God drew near to us through his son.
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Janie B. Cheney
Christ has been hospitable to the point of dying on a cross to make strangers his brothers and sisters. And so I think hospitality is very bent up in the gospel.
- [28:43]
Amy Lewis
Swanson says Christ's own sacrifice has a real world impact for his followers because God commands it. It's part of his design to make us more like Christ.
- [28:54]
Janie B. Cheney
So when we don't obey that command, we're actually missing out on what God has for us. We're not protecting ourselves, we're actually hurting ourselves. And that doesn't mean it's not hard.
- [29:06]
Amy Lewis
She says it's important to pace hospitality so that it's sustainable.
- [29:10]
Janie B. Cheney
One thing I love that is in the book the Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosario Butterfield, she and her husband I believe it's on Sundays. There's an open invitation to their neighborhood to come and have scoop on a cold day and hot drinks and talk. And that is something that they've built in to their life so that they can be lavishly hospitable on a Sunday afternoon.
- [29:33]
Amy Lewis
Of course, life can get busy or hard.
- [29:36]
Janie B. Cheney
If your hospitality looks like 30 minutes on your front porch talking to your neighbor, that is an expression of hospitality. If it looks like Costco pizza right before everyone comes over. My husband and I just did this last week.
- [29:50]
Amy Lewis
Elizabeth Vayon in Utah says every type of person can be hospitable, but you.
- [29:54]
Hunter Baker
Also don't have to be an extrovert. I'm an introvert.
- [29:59]
Amy Lewis
I'm kind of introverted. An introvert who uses her energy to welcome strangers into her home. For Christ's sake.
- [30:05]
Hunter Baker
All right, we'll drive safely Reporting for.
- [30:08]
Amy Lewis
World, I'm Amy Lewis in Plains, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah.
- [30:40]
Nick Iker
Good morning. This is the World and everything in it. From Listener supported Welcome welcome to World radio. I'm Nick Icker.
- [30:46]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. Next up, broken bonds. More adults are choosing to cut contact with their parents, and many say they're getting professional encouragement to do it. The language is therapeutic. Boundaries, self care, emotional safety.
- [31:02]
Nick Iker
World commentator Janie B. Cheney explores this no contact trend, where it came from, why it's spreading, and why treating family bonds as optional comes with real costs.
- [31:15]
Onize Odua
Have you heard of going no contact? Dr. Lindsay Gibson has done as much as anyone to mainstream that phrase in her 2015 breakout book titled Adult Children of Emotionally Immature how to Heal from Distant Rejecting or Self Involved Parents. Gibson's basic recommendation for wounded adult children to heal is to become distant, rejecting, or self involved themselves, at least where their parents are concerned. Her book recounts stories of unhappy gen seeers and millennials, mostly women but a few men who were not being sufficiently emotionally responded to as a child, which led to their feeling emotionally lonely or emotionally unseen. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Gibson described what an emotionally immature parent looks like.
- [32:09]
Janie B. Cheney
They cannot enter the reality of their child's emotional truth, their emotional experience. It just doesn't make sense to them. Maybe it's the teenager who wants to talk to their parent about their girlfriend or boyfriend, and then the parent says, oh, tell me about it. That reminds me of your father. Let me tell you what he did yesterday. And suddenly we're back talking about the emotionally immature person's issues with no sense of, you know, sticking to the subject of the other person.
- [32:48]
Onize Odua
According to Dr. Gibson, emotionally mature parents are always sensitive to their child's feelings, always ready to affirm them, always open to honest conversations. She admits that emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience, not easy to see or describe. But that doesn't let parents off the hook. If you feel emotionally lonely, she says, it comes from your family. No reasonable counselor would suggest maintaining a close relationship with toxic or abusive parents. But going no contact has become an epidemic, with as many as a quarter of young Americans by some estimates, breaking off from mom or dad or both. This is not just tolerated, it is often encouraged. Psychologist and author Dr. Joshua Coleman is alarmed at the trend among counselors who serve as detachment brokers exploring the subjective swamp of emotional loneliness. Normal parenting mistakes are reimagined as abuse. Exercising discipline becomes trauma. Insisting on family standards is gaslighting. The solution is to establish boundaries or separate entirely. Parents often don't know what hit them. Christians are not immune. After raising her children in a loving two parent home, my friend was heartbroken when her married son and daughter in law decided neither set of grandparents would spend unsupervised time with the grandchildren. A few months later, the young family moved halfway across the country with no plans for holiday get togethers or summer vacations. That's just one Christian homeschooling family I know. I could name at least five more. In some of these cases, it was a church counselor or youth leader who encouraged an anxious and confused young person to cut ties even before knowing all the facts. In a culture that prizes self fulfillment and self care over loyalty, separations naturally follow. For natural relationships like family, we substitute so called communities of like minded and affirming individuals which break up when affirmation falls short. Our minds begin to differ. Some millennials raised in Christian homes may also be reacting against the idealization of Christian families as the last best hope of the nation. They don't want to save America, just themselves. But idealization of the self will not heal emotional emptiness. We are made and shaped by others as much as by individual personality traits. Seeing ourselves reflected in close, sometimes difficult bonds helps us understand who we truly are. God who is a relationship in himself means to shape us in relationship beginning with our mother's arms and father's voice. Honor your father and mother is a weighty command. To break that connection for self centered reasons makes us weightless. I'm Janie Buccaney.
- [36:06]
Lindsay Mast
Tomorrow the US Military builds up its presence near Iran. We'll have a report and new recruits for the Israeli military remember their fallen comrades that in fact More tomorrow. I'm Lindsay Mast.
- [36:19]
Nick Iker
And I'm Nick Icker. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible records Moses saying to the people, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you and you have only to be silent. Verses 13 and 14 of Exodus 14 go now in grace and peace.