← The World and Everything In It
The World and Everything In It
4.24.25 A different approach to IVF, UK court defines “woman,” and two views on the Seder
00:35:09
Loading summary
Transcript122 lines
- [00:06]
Myrna Brown
Good morning. As states move to safeguard access to ivf, Christians ask, is there an ethical way to do in vitro fertilization?
- [00:15]
Cal Thomas
I think they have heightened responsibility because they know that some number of embryos are going to be dead at the end of this process.
- [00:23]
Myrna Brown
And the meaning of the decision in the UK Defining the word woman. Also, we'll hear from two rabbis who celebrate Passover differently. One is calling on Christians to rediscover the Jewishness of Jesus.
- [00:38]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
The church is following Yeshua, but they.
- [00:42]
Cal Thomas
Don'T know him as Yeshua.
- [00:43]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
They know him as Jesus.
- [00:44]
Cal Thomas
They always refer to those terms. They don't want to use the real word.
- [00:48]
Myrna Brown
And world commentator Cal Thomas says a nuclear deal with Iran is no deal at all. It's Thursday, April 24th. This is the world and everything in it. From listening supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichert. And I'm Myrna Brown. Good morning. Now the news. Here's Kent Covington.
- [01:14]
Kent Covington
President Trump says cease fire talks between Russia and Ukraine are not moving fast enough. And he again showed frustration with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
- [01:24]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
I think we have a deal with Russia.
- [01:25]
Cal Thomas
We have to get a deal with Zelensky.
- [01:28]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
And I hope that Zelensky. I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelenskyy. So far it's been harder, but that's okay. It's all right.
- [01:35]
Kent Covington
The latest U. S Drafted ceasefire proposal would reportedly allow Russia to keep much of the Ukrainian land it currently occupies. It is also said to suggest that the United States would recognize Russia's long contested claim to Crimea. Zelensky reportedly called the terms unacceptable. President Trump responded with a social media post accusing Zelensky of holding up the peace process. Meantime, President Trump says he's confident that the US Will reach a new trade deal with China. But the White House says it has no plans to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods unilaterally without concessions from Beijing. As to whether he will lower those tariffs, Trump said last night, well, that depends on them. That followed a Wall Street Journal report stating that the administration was considering lowering tariffs on Chinese imports by as much as half. But Press Secretary Caroline Levitt says the tariffs give the president bargaining power.
- [02:29]
Cal Thomas
Many on both sides of the aisle.
- [02:30]
Dr. John Gordon
Have pledged to do what's right for the American worker and our manufacturing industry. But this is the first president to actually use the leverage of the United States to bring people to the table.
- [02:39]
Kent Covington
And she adds that many countries are coming to the table, but so far China is not among them. New York Mayor Eric Adams and US border czar Tom Homan this week announced that 27 alleged members of the violent Venezuelan gang Trende Aragua are facing new federal charges. Charges Republican Councilwoman Vicki Palladino remarked, this.
- [03:00]
Myrna Brown
Is something that Eric Adams has wanted to do for the last two years, but he's felt somewhat imprisoned and handcuffed by the Democratic Party.
- [03:08]
Kent Covington
Mayor Adams was elected as a Democrat but is running for re election as an independent. The mayor's administration also announced that it would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement inside the Rikers island jail complex, but a judge temporarily blocked the plan Monday after the New York City Council sued to block the move. A fast moving wildfire engulfing parts of New Jersey's Pine Barrens is expected to continue growing before forecasted rain later this week. Division Forest Fire Warden Trevor Raynor said the fire could burn for days, potentially spawning new fires. These fires with the dryness and the winds, they throw spot fires and embers, little tiny firebrands up to a mile out in front of that main fire. So even if we're successful in stopping the fire on this barrier, this control line, there's still embers that rain down. As of last night, the blaze was 40% contained. The fire has forced some 5,000 residents to evacuate, though many have been able to return home. The White House is considering ways to persuade women to have more babies. The CDC this week reported that roughly 3.6 million babies were born in the US last year. That was less than a 1% increase from 2023 when the fertility rate hit an all time low. House Speaker Mike Johnson says Republicans support the effort to bring more babies into the world. We support all children.
- [04:33]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
We love all life.
- [04:34]
Kent Covington
That's what we've always been about. It's actually in our platform. Among the proposals giving mothers a $5,000 cash gift when they give birth. President Trump this week publicly endorsed that idea. Birth rates in the US are now well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. Catholics are paying tribute to the late Pope Francis this week. His body lies in State at St. Peter's Basilica today for the second of three days of public mourning.
- [05:02]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
He taught us a lesson and we'll just be very grateful for what he did for the church, for us, for the poor people. He's just one of us and may he rest in peace.
- [05:11]
Kent Covington
The viewing is largely for ordinary Catholics to grieve the late pontiff. Francis died on Monday at the age of 88 after suffering a stroke on the heels of a long hospitalization for double pneumonia. The public mourning period will end at 7pm tomorrow, local time. I'm Ken Covington. And straight ahead, considering one part of the IVF debate often overlooked by politicians, plus a victory for women in the United Kingdom. This is the World and Everything in it.
- [05:59]
Myrna Brown
It's Thursday, the 24th of April. This is World radio, and we're so glad you've joined us today. Good morning. I'm Myrna Brown. And I'm Mary Reichard. First up on the World and everything in it, the ethics of ivf. This spring, lawmakers in Georgia and Tennessee passed bills to protect in vitro fertilization in the law with overwhelming support. Even the few dissenters focused mostly on embryo selection and disposal. But even the conservative legislators seem to overlook the deeper debate, especially among Christians. Can IVF be done in a way that honors the sanctity of life from the very beginning? World's Leah Savas introduces some of the arguments in this debate.
- [06:47]
Dr. John Gordon
Dr. John Gordon is a Christian IVF provider in Knoxville, Tennessee. His colleagues in the industry tell him patients aren't worried about ending up with more embryos than they can use. But Gordon regularly hears those concerns.
- [07:01]
Cal Thomas
I see so many patients who've asked their doctor, hey, I just don't want to fertilize every egg. Can we limit how many eggs we fertilize? And they're told, no, you can't.
- [07:10]
Dr. John Gordon
Gordon tells them they can. For many IVF patients and providers, the more embryos, the better. Each one increases the chances of bringing home a newborn. But Gordon and many of his patients are against discarding extra embryos because they see them as human life. He offers IVF protocols that stimulate the woman's body to produce fewer eggs than in standard ivf, limiting the number of possible embryos. One of the protocols is called natural cycle ivf.
- [07:39]
Cal Thomas
For a lot of the patients who do natural cycle, their concern is they don't want to do any embryo freezing at all.
- [07:45]
Dr. John Gordon
Others are concerned about ending up with more embryos than they can realistically give a chance at birth. But even Gordon's careful approach can't eliminate the loss of life inherent to IVF. On average, 50 to 70% of IVF inseminated eggs stop growing in the days following successful fertilization. Gordon doesn't see these losses as the same as intentionally destroying an embryo.
- [08:11]
Cal Thomas
I mean, I think now if you have a blasted stage embryo and you decide that you're not going to use it anymore and you take it out and discard it from the freezer, well, you've killed that embryo. I mean, that's pretty obvious. But in this case. Just because an egg fertilizes and doesn't continue to grow, I don't think that counts as embryos that are destroyed or lives that are lost through ivf.
- [08:36]
Dr. John Gordon
Even in natural conception, an unknown number of embryos fail to implant or miscarry. Gordon sees natural IVF losses as comparable. Christian IVF mother Sheila Brannan has a similar view. The two IVF cycles that resulted in her two daughters produced seven and five eggs each. She and her husband had them all fertilized. Both times, all but one stopped growing.
- [09:01]
Cal Thomas
Even to this day I cry for.
- [09:03]
Dr. John Gordon
Them and I still think about them every day.
- [09:08]
Kent Covington
Those embryos to me are life.
- [09:11]
Myrna Brown
And if they didn't grow, or whatever.
- [09:13]
Kent Covington
The case may be, they still mean something to God and to me.
- [09:19]
Dr. John Gordon
But Brandon doesn't blame IVF for those lost lives.
- [09:22]
Kent Covington
Why don't we look at it that God had a plan for those eggs, that he didn't want them to grow? And yes, I believe they should be considered embryos, but I don't think that.
- [09:32]
Cal Thomas
They are a victim of ivf.
- [09:34]
Mary Muncie
I just believe that that's God's plan.
- [09:38]
Dr. John Gordon
But can we draw a one to one comparison between the losses of embryos in vivo, meaning in the human body, and embryos in vitro, meaning in glass?
- [09:47]
Myrna Brown
We know that it's just no comparison.
- [09:50]
Cal Thomas
Between in vivo and in vitro.
- [09:52]
Dr. John Gordon
That's Petra Weil, president of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand. She describes the conditions tiny embryonic humans experience within their mother's bodies. It's dark, the temperature is just right, so are the oxygen levels.
- [10:08]
Myrna Brown
And then, of course, the embryo keeps moving and, you know, it gets released from the ovary and into the fallopian tube and it keeps moving down and then settles in the uterus. It's moving into new nutrients and new environments, and it's moving away from what was there before it.
- [10:25]
Dr. John Gordon
Meanwhile, new embryos in the lab mostly stay put in a Petri dish. Atmospheric oxygen levels, light, the wrong temperature, certain compounds in the laboratory dishes, and the presence of perfumes and deodorants in the lab can all harm their growth. Even the act of transferring the microscopic embryos in pipettes can put physical stress on them when done too vigorously or too frequently. Whale said the industry has gotten good at replicating the conditions in vivo. But there are still limits to what the industry knows and how closely science can copy the natural process. When an embryo stops growing, she says.
- [11:04]
Myrna Brown
There'S really no way of knowing if.
- [11:06]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
That particular embryo was exposed to unnecessary.
- [11:10]
Myrna Brown
Stress, and that's what was the contributing factor.
- [11:13]
Dr. John Gordon
Another factor causing embryo loss could be the low quality of many eggs harvested through ivf. Except in natural cycle, IVF providers use hormones to stimulate the female body to mature more eggs than it would naturally.
- [11:27]
Myrna Brown
IVF brings along a large cohort of eggs, some of which probably would never have even got there in the first place. And then when they do become embryos, it's not surprising that they aren't able to continue to develop.
- [11:43]
Dr. John Gordon
To whale, these realities aren't an ethical concern. But IVF opponents I talk to say the providers who fertilize these eggs and the people who pay them to do it are morally responsible for the resulting lives since they wouldn't exist apart from ivf. They say that these lab grown embryos don't have the same chance at flourishing as naturally conceived embryos. Matthew Lee Anderson is an ethics professor at Baylor University.
- [12:10]
Cal Thomas
I think they have heightened responsibility because they know that some number of embryos are going to be dead at the.
- [12:17]
Kent Covington
End of this process.
- [12:19]
Dr. John Gordon
He adds that any improvements to IVF technology come at the expense of countless embryos that have died in the process. Knoxville's Dr. Gordon agrees that the IVF industry has its share of moral problems, many that he's worked hard to avoid. He just doesn't see the embryos that stop growing on their own as one of them. But he also understands that people must follow their conscience. If they believe IVF is a sin, they shouldn't do it.
- [12:48]
Cal Thomas
I would say for every believer has to decide wrestling with their own conscience as to what they are called to do. I would never fault somebody who says, I feel like these issues are just issues that I can't come to peace with.
- [13:01]
Dr. John Gordon
Reporting for world, I'm Leah Savas.
- [13:08]
Myrna Brown
Coming up next on THE WORLD and everything in it. Defining woman Last week, the United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled that the word sex in its Equality act refers to biological sex. That 2010 law was meant to curb discrimination, but in recent years it has clashed with newer efforts to accommodate gender identity. The ruling is narrow, only referring to one piece of UK law, but could reshape policies around single sex spaces in that country, world's Mary Muncie reports.
- [13:43]
Mary Muncie
Last week, campaigners gathered outside of the UK Supreme Court celebrating a win for women's rights.
- [13:50]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
This is not about prejudice or bigotry.
- [13:55]
Mary Muncie
Susan Smith is a campaigner with 4Women Scotland, or FWS, the plaintiff and Victor in the case.
- [14:03]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
It's just about saying that there are differences and biology is what one of those differences and we just need protections based on that.
- [14:11]
Mary Muncie
The equality act of 2010 is a piece of British legislation that aimed to protect people from discrimination. It outlines rights to separate spaces for women in vulnerable places like changing rooms, prisons and sports. I talked to Smith before the ruling came down.
- [14:29]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
This started with a piece of legislation that the Scottish government passed six years ago, in 2018. And it wasn't really very well remarked upon at the time.
- [14:42]
Mary Muncie
It was supposed to balance the number of men and women on public boards, but they defined woman as anyone identifying as such.
- [14:51]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
They decided to define women on the basis of self identification.
- [14:56]
Mary Muncie
So FWS took them to court and won. But the Scottish legislators weren't done.
- [15:02]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
The complication arises when you throw in the issue of a GRC.
- [15:11]
Mary Muncie
That's a gender recognition certificate. Anyone over 18 in the UK can get one if they have a gender dysphoria diagnosis, have said they are the opposite gender for at least two years and plan to do so permanently. After four women, Scotland won the first case. The Scottish legislators said they should count anyone with a GRC as a woman. And FWS took them back to court.
- [15:38]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
Because the Gender Recognition act was passed before the Equality act and it spoke about that a person with a grc, their sex is changed, meaning any mention.
- [15:52]
Mary Muncie
Of a woman in the Equality act could apply to a man with a GRC identifying him as a woman and vice versa, for all purposes, including accessing single sex spaces and using government pregnancy resources. Practically, the Gender Recognition act meant anyone saying they were a woman would be viewed as such, because whether or not someone has a GRC is private under UK law. And that had some confusing implications.
- [16:24]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
One of the things that struck us was that this would mean that trans men who had fallen pregnant would not be covered by protections for maternity. And that seemed ridiculous.
- [16:39]
Mary Muncie
Not only that, but men who identify as women would have to be allowed into women's breastfeeding services and lesbian groups.
- [16:47]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
If you read through the entire Equality act as saying that this piece of paper changes a person's sex for all purposes, then it makes a mockery of some of those services.
- [16:59]
Mary Muncie
And interpreting it any other way would create a two tier system because it.
- [17:04]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
Means that people with a GRC are entitled to use services and spaces for the opposite sex. But people without or not.
- [17:14]
Mary Muncie
Inside the courtroom, the Lords agreed.
- [17:18]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
As a matter of ordinary language, the.
- [17:20]
Cal Thomas
Provisions relating to sex discrimination, and especially.
- [17:24]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
Those relating to pregnancy and maternity and.
- [17:27]
Cal Thomas
To protection from risks specifically affecting women, can only be interpreted as referring to biological sex.
- [17:36]
Mary Muncie
They made a point to say they were interpreting what the legislators had written, not trying to protect one group over another.
- [17:44]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
Incoherence and impracticability arise in the operation of provisions relating to single sex characteristic associations and charities, women's fair participation in.
- [17:58]
Cal Thomas
Sport, the operation of the public sector, equality duty and the armed forces.
- [18:04]
Mary Muncie
There are several cases currently moving through the UK court system that may be affected by the ruling. One of them is the case of a woman who didn't want to share a changing room with a man who said he was a woman.
- [18:17]
Myrna Brown
She eventually had to leave her job. She was suspended.
- [18:21]
Mary Muncie
Fiona McKennina works with a charity handling the nurse's case called Sex Matters.
- [18:27]
Myrna Brown
Her behavior was regarded as transphobic. Her privacy was not regarded as important.
- [18:32]
Mary Muncie
The Equality act clarification might mean she wins her case, but it won't solve every dispute.
- [18:40]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
I think that's gonna help a lot of sports, but unfortunately it's not gonna help in our legal case.
- [18:46]
Mary Muncie
Lynn Pinches is a professional pool player in the uk. Two years ago, she walked out of a pool match against a man identifying as a woman. Now she's suing the league based on fairness. She says the ruling doesn't apply to her case because the Equality act only applies to sports where physical strength and stamina are major factors.
- [19:08]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
Things like pool, darts and various other sports are classed as precision sports shooting. They're still going to have to prove that their sport to lawfully exclude. Is gender affected?
- [19:20]
Mary Muncie
Right now she's arguing that there are physical factors. In Poole, she says a player can win off of a Good break.
- [19:28]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
My 10 year old son's brake speed is currently 8. His highest is 18.82 miles per hour and my highest is 16.02 and he's a 10 year old boy.
- [19:39]
Mary Muncie
Pinchas says walking out of the match two years ago was one of the hardest things she's done. She had just qualified to play as a professional, but turned down a tour because she said she would concede again if she came up against a man.
- [19:53]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
Seeing those, the young ones, the young girls lose to the, to the transgender players and just be watching that, it was heartbreaking. So I couldn't carry on doing it anymore.
- [20:04]
Mary Muncie
Smith, Maganina and Pinches say they're not advocating for discrimination against people struggling with gender dysphoria, but they do believe men and women are different and that women need male free spaces.
- [20:18]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
People say, oh, it's just a game of pool, but when you meet so many people over a period of 37 years, you suddenly remove yourself from that or you're removed from that. You lose all your friends and they're like a big family. To you. So it's part of my life, part of my heart, and I'll fight. That was a hill I'm prepared to die on to not see that ruin.
- [20:44]
Mary Muncie
Reporting for world, I'm Mary Muncie.
- [21:02]
Kent Covington
Additional support comes from Life International, fighting the scourge of abortion globally, teaching about the father's heart for life lifeinternational.com and from eyewitness, an immersive audio drama exploring stories of faith and transformation on podcast apps or at the letter I witnesspod.com.
- [21:38]
Myrna Brown
Talk about small town charm. In Chelsea, Michigan, hundreds of people showed up to move a bookstore one book at a time. Sunday before Last Neighbors formed a human down Main street. They passed all 9,100 titles from Serendipity Books to its new storefront a block away. Audio from WXYZ TV make it go. They laughed, they shared their favorite reads and they sang. And they did it all in under two hours. Bookstore owner Michelle Tuplin.
- [22:16]
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin
It was accessible for everybody and people could enjoy that feeling of togetherness. And that was really special.
- [22:22]
Myrna Brown
Special and proof that in a good community, even moving books can turn into a block party. It's the World and Everything In Today is Thursday, April 24th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Mary Reichardt. And I'm Myrna Brown. Coming next on THE WORLD and everything in It, a tale of two seders. As Christians celebrated Easter, many in the Jewish faith mark the close of Passover. That's a week long festival that includes the Seder Mill. World spoke with two rabbis. One celebrated Passover looking forward to a new Jewish Messiah. The other says the Messiah has already come. Here's World's Travis Kercher.
- [23:18]
Cal Thomas
The week before the Jewish Passover officially began, Rabbi Shlomo Litvin was on a seek and destroy mission. The target leaven not just yeast, but any substance that would cause dough to rise. My house, the couches are flipped over. Right now my kids are scrubbing under.
- [23:36]
Kent Covington
The bottom of the fridge.
- [23:37]
Cal Thomas
Anywhere that a contaminant might meet, there might be a we clear out. Litvin is the director of Eastern Kentucky's branch of Chabad Lubovitch, a form of Orthodox Judaism. Litvin strives to live by the Mosaic law outlined in the Torah. It commands the Levin Purge before Passover begins. Litvin and his family take the search seriously. So Cheerios, pretzels, of course, cake and bread and pies. And there's so much. I have, thank God, seven kids. There is leaven everywhere in my house when we start cleaning for Passover. Litvin says the purge is important because the Passover festival, particularly the Seder meal, is central to Jewish history. It's when Jews remember how Yahweh delivered them from slavery in the land of Egypt and taught them how to live as a free people. Freedom means freedom to worship God. So that's what we're celebrating, freedom from an earthly master in order to dedicate ourselves entirely to the creator of heaven and earth, our Father in heaven. Litvin's Seder meal will include matzah bread, bitter herbs, salt water, and traditional readings. But he admits one key element won't be on his the Passover lamb. It never has been. He says Jews haven't been able to eat the lamb since the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. but Litvin says he's hoping someday a Jewish Messiah will change all that. I think hope is an understatement. One of the 13 foundational beliefs of Judaism that every Jew has believed in for the last 3,300 years is that there will eventually be an everlasting temple in Jerusalem, that there will be yet another anointed king from the house of David who will redeem those who long for God's salvation, bring them back to the land and there rebuild the temple. And Litvin is watching. He says he knows the requirements for the Messiah to be a scholar of God's law, to fight the battles of God, to be son after son from David. But while Litvin believes the Messiah may show all people the way to God, he says the Seder meal is only for the Jews. He compares a Gentile celebrating Seder to a boy who celebrates his brother's birthday by blowing out candles on his own birthday cake. To me, someone who is not bound by the covenant, it feels more performative than earnest. But not every Jew celebrates Passover the same way. On Saturday, the night before Easter, a very different Seder celebration takes place at St. John's Community Church, about 15 miles northeast of Louisville. Roughly 70 people are gathered in the church gym. They include people of all ages, both Jews and Gentiles. A team leads worship songs, while some of those in attendance join hands and dance. They're led by Rabbi Aaron Bortz. Bourtz is a messianic Jew, a believer in Christ, and he's making a controversial claim. He believes Judaism, true Judaism, and Christianity are one and the same. Christianity is what Judaism wants to grow into. Bort says true Judaism recognizes Jesus Christ as the Messiah prophesied by the Old Testament. And tonight he's hosting a Seder meal to celebrate both the Jews deliverance from Egypt and deliverance from sin through Christ.
- [27:06]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
So we see him here as the.
- [27:08]
Cal Thomas
Haav Haben and Haruach Hakodesh. Now, that that means the Father, the.
- [27:15]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- [27:17]
Cal Thomas
Bort says a conversation with a Sunday school teacher encouraged him to put on the Seder.
- [27:22]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
He said to me, I've been a believer and a teacher for over 40.
- [27:26]
Cal Thomas
Years of children, and I never knew.
- [27:30]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
That the Last Supper was a Passover Seder. Well, that's a shame.
- [27:35]
Cal Thomas
Scholars differ on whether the Last Supper was an actual Seder meal, as the Gospel of John indicates that it occurred before the day of preparation. Additionally, many of the Seder rituals celebrated today developed after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. But the last Supper's proximity to Passover means it's full of similar imagery. Bortz admits that as New Covenant believers, Christians don't have to keep the Passover. But he says the Christian church has had a bad habit of shying away from its Jewish roots since the days of Constantine, and events like this help unite Christians and Messianic Jews.
- [28:14]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
The church is following Yeshua, but they don't know him as Yeshua. They know him as Jesus. They don't know him as the Messiah.
- [28:22]
Cal Thomas
They know him as Christ.
- [28:24]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
And they always refer to those terms. They don't want to use the real word.
- [28:28]
Cal Thomas
Each part of the Seder meal has a different purpose. Bitter herbs, typically horseradish, remind attendees of the bitterness of slavery to Egypt and of their own sin. Parsley dipped in salt water recalls the saltiness of the Red Sea when God parted it to save his people. A sweet mixture of nuts and apples called merar represents the bricks and mortar the Israelites made while in slavery. But at this Seder as well, there is no Passover lamb. That's because Bort says, messiah, Jesus, the Lamb of God, has already been offered.
- [29:04]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
If you're here and you believe in Messiah, you have been redeemed, you have been bought back.
- [29:12]
Cal Thomas
That's what redeemed means. Jews often end Passover with the phrase next year in Jerusalem. For many Jews, it's the hope that the Messiah will be revealed. But for Seder attendee Joseph Schultz, it's not about the hope that a Messiah will come. It's the expectation that the Messiah will return. Even Jesus says in the New Testament, you know, I will not drink of this cup. I will not eat of this meal until he eat anew with you. In my Father's kingdom, this is a this is eternal feast. This will be happening when we get to heaven. Reporting for World I'm Travis Kercher in Louisville and Prospect, Kentucky.
- [30:11]
Myrna Brown
Today is Thursday, April 24th. Good morning this is the World and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown. And I'm Mary Reichard. World commentator Cal Thomas has a warning for the White House. When it comes to Iran, any deal is likely to be a bad one.
- [30:33]
Rabbi Aaron Bortz
Before basketball's 24 second rule, there was a tactic called freezing the ball. The team that was ahead would attempt to run out the clock by holding onto the ball as long as it could to deny the opposing team an opportunity to score. That looks like what Iran is doing again, freezing negotiations while finishing the final stages of nuclear enrichment on the way to building a deliverable nuclear weapon. It's important for the US to take Iranian leaders at their word. Failing to do so guarantees the world will be faced with the greatest threat since the beginning of the Cold War with a nuclear armed Soviet Union. Except the Soviets were atheists. The Iranian mullahs thank doing what they claim to be Allah's will, especially if it leads to martyrdom, as they believe that guarantees them a ticket to heaven. The west has a history of not taking seriously the announced intentions of its enemies. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publicly stated their economic and political goals. Those were fulfilled in the Bolshevik Revolution and the imposition of communism and socialism in Russia. Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf or My Struggle, in which he stated his hatred of Jews, a hatred incorporated in the Third Reich, which led to the Holocaust. In each instance there were Western academics, journalists, even clergy who excused, denied or rationalized these objectives. And in each instance, millions of lives were lost. Many enforced famine and gulags under Stalin, still more in World War II, launched by Hitler. Past deals with Iran have been violated, including initially agreed inspections by the International Atomic Energy agency and the U.N. why does anyone think the Iranians will abide by a new agreement? Writing for the publication JNS.org, new York attorney Eric Levine criticizes an April 14 op ed in the Wall Street Journal by former U.S. secretary of State John Kerry. In it, Levine describes what Kerry's so called good deal looks like between the US And Iran. Levine underscores that any deal with Iran must not bear in his words any resemblance to the disaster that John Kerry and then President Barack Obama forced down the throats of Americans in 2015. Despite overwhelming bipartisan opposition. President Trump has long criticized the 10 year old deal. Yet Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff has no experience dealing with people who claim a religious motivation for their actions. He is no more likely to succeed with Iran than Kerry and Obama, who got rolled by the mullahs. President Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, wrote this for the publication Independent Washington has every justification to take military action against Tehran's proliferation efforts. Iran's nuclear threat is not a problem merely for Israel, but for the entire world. For 30 years, the Ayatollahs have sought to become a nuclear power to the detriment of everyone else. America has the wherewithal to eliminate this proliferation threat and would be politically and morally justified in doing so. Helping Israel defang Iran follows quite logically. Iran is in a weak position domestically and internationally. Regime change would be the best option, but the rulers are unlikely to willingly relinquish power. The time to strike Iranian nuclear facilities is now. Delay means we will likely have to face a nuclear armed Iran with the ability to launch ICBMs at Israel and American cities. That's not a risk worth taking. I'm Cal Thomas.
- [34:12]
Myrna Brown
Tomorrow, John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday and World Arts and Culture Culture editor Colin Garbarino reviews the second season of Andor the gritty prequel to Star wars and your listener feedback. That and more tomorrow. I'm Mary Reichert. And I'm Myrna Brown. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible says no unbelief made Abraham waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Verses 20 and 21 of Romans 4 go now in grace and peace.