The World and Everything In It: Culture Friday on Redefining Reality, “The Paper” Review, and Ask the Editor

Episode Date: September 5, 2025
Podcast: The World and Everything In It
Hosts: Myrna Brown, Lindsay Mast
Guests: John Stonestreet (Colson Center, Breakpoint Podcast), Colin Garbarino, Paul Butler
Episode Focus: Discerning cultural shifts in morality and truth, protecting girls’ privacy, how art (and media) shapes values, a review of “The Paper” (the new Office spin-off), and the editorial role of memory in faith traditions.

Main Theme

This episode scrutinizes the ways culture is redefining reality—morally and practically—highlighting three major areas:

• The societal shift toward labeling good as evil and vice versa, especially in immigration and gender policy debates
• The impact of activist art and entertainment as cultural guides
• Consequences for truth-tellers in societies where free speech is under threat

A review of the new TV series “The Paper” explores comedy’s evolving edge, and the “Ask the Editor” segment discusses how Christians should remember (but not venerate) religious relics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Redefining Reality: Calling Evil Good and Good Evil

(timestamp: 06:01–15:47)

• Art As Activist Medium:

  • Take Us North, a video game simulating migrant journeys across the US/Mexico border, is discussed. Developers collaborate with undocumented immigrants and anthropologists to keep the narrative authentic.
  • John Stonestreet reflects on Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death:

  “So much of our art and entertainment has become activist art and entertainment…Everything has to have an activist bent. It’s not about just kind of laughing and having a good time anymore.” (07:57)

  • Art as a mechanism “to embed ideas into societies—not through debate, but through imagination.” (09:00)

• UK Grooming Scandals & Cultural Blindness:

  • Authorities failing to protect girls from immigrant-perpetrated violence, prioritizing not appearing “racist” over victim safety.
  • Stonestreet:

  “There’s no way anyone would argue, ‘oh, yeah, it’s actually worse to have an opposition to illegal immigration than it is to rape a young girl.’ …And yet this is…what’s been embedded in UK culture…You end up becoming all upside down on it completely.” (09:42)

2. Protecting Girls’ Privacy Under New Gender Policies

(timestamp: 10:28–15:47)

• California School District’s Bathroom Policy:

  • Girls are forced to sign a religious or mental health exemption to avoid sharing bathrooms with boys identifying as female.
  • Lindsay Mast:

  “This seems to be setting up girls to be ashamed of having very normal desires for modesty, or to have to reveal their own private problems.” (11:01)

  • Middle schoolers staged walkouts to protest.

• Redefining “Normal” and Enforcing Confusion:

  • Stonestreet:

  “The normal posture is that boys should share girls’ private spaces…and if you disagree with that, that’s abnormal…This is the definition of losing touch with reality.” (12:22)

  • The invention of “cisgender” as a concept demonstrates the effort to redefine what is “normal” in gender discussions.

• Advice for Parents Facing Cultural Change:

  • Courage is Required:

    “We live in an age of deception and confusion. Orwell famously said, in an age of deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act…as a parent, my job is to prepare my kid for the world they’re going to actually live in.” (14:25)

    • Cultivate discernment, and especially courage: “Virtues have to be practiced—they’re muscles we have to exercise.” (15:27)

3. Free Speech and Truth-Telling in England: The Graham Linehan Case

(timestamp: 15:47–19:25)

• Graham Linehan’s Ordeal:

  • Irish comedian and TV writer, outspoken critic of trans ideology, is exiled from the UK and arrested for his speech.
  • Linehan:

    “You cannot tell the truth without the police coming to your door.” (16:25)

  • Five armed UK police arrested him at Heathrow in a “bully move” for “telling the truth”—shows the cost of dissent.

• Parallel to US Satirists and Truth-Tellers:

  • Babylon Bee’s Seth Dillon, featured in the new documentary “Truth Rising,” is cited as another truth-teller facing culture’s resistance.
  • Stonestreet:

  “What it means to live out our calling, at bare minimum, is to be someone willing to tell the truth…sometimes [there’s] an initial cost…But you watch how God used those particular acts of courage…” (17:38)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Art and Activism:

  “Our art reflects culture, and sometimes our art leads culture…so much of our art and entertainment has become activist art and entertainment.” —John Stonestreet (07:45)

• On Inverted Morality:

  “There’s no way anyone would argue—'Oh, it’s actually worse to have an opposition to illegal immigration than it is to rape a young girl.'…And yet this is…what’s been embedded in UK culture…all upside down.” —John Stonestreet (09:42)

• On the Need for Courage:

  “Virtues have to be practiced—they’re muscles we have to exercise. This is an opportunity to exercise that muscle of courage.” —John Stonestreet (15:27)

• On Free Speech in the UK:

  “You cannot tell the truth without the police coming to your door.” —Graham Linehan (16:25)

• On Looking Back at Acts of Courage:

  “Soren Kierkegaard famously said that life has to be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards.” —John Stonestreet (18:25)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 06:01–15:47: Culture Friday — activism in art, UK grooming gangs, activist education
• 10:28–15:47: Girl’s privacy and changing gender norms in California schools
• 15:47–19:25: Graham Linehan, free speech, and truth-telling consequences
• 20:52–26:01: Review: "The Paper," The Office spinoff
• 26:24–31:54: Ask the Editor — remembering the faithful, the role of relics

Art & Culture Review: “The Paper”

(timestamp: 20:52–26:01)

• Overview: “The Paper,” a mockumentary Office spinoff set in a struggling local newspaper, helmed by Greg Daniels.

• Plot: A new idealistic editor (Domhnall Gleason as Ned) attempts to revive the “Toledo Truth Teller” amidst ridiculous budget constraints and incompetence.

• Style/Tone:

  • Lighter on risk than The Office:

    “Greg Daniels and company are playing it pretty safe…Watching the first season of The Office can be a startling experience…The Paper merely tiptoes where The Office once gleefully stomped.” —Colin Garbarino (23:44)

  • Lacks an equivalent to Michael Scott; eccentricities are spread among many characters.
  • More subdued tone, slightly less innuendo and crude humor than The Office; some PG-13 language on Peacock.
  • Oscar Nunez returns as Oscar the accountant.

• Memorable Moments:

  “Remember the five W’s?”
  “Is that a gang?”
  “No, it’s who, what, when, where, why…It’s what they teach you on the first day of journalism school.” (23:13)

• Reviewer’s Verdict:

  “The Paper has a more subdued tone than The Office, and it takes a few episodes to hit its stride. But fans of mockumentaries and cringe comedy will find a lot to like if they give it a chance.” —Colin Garbarino (25:38)

Ask the Editor: Memory, Relics, & Protestant Perspective

(timestamp: 26:24–31:54)

• Listener Criticism: Recent segment on a Catholic relics collection in Pittsburgh sparked protest from some Protestants who wanted a clearer stance against relic veneration as "idolatry."

• Paul Butler’s Explanation:

  • Biblical – There’s value in remembering God’s faithfulness, as in Joshua’s stone monument, and Hebrews 11’s “cloud of witnesses.”
  • The story aimed not to promote relic-venerating but to encourage considering “ephemera of faith”—material reminders that point to Christ, not objects of worship.
  • Protestant listeners are urged to reflect on how material culture can help recollect and celebrate God’s faithfulness, without idolizing.

• Notable Quotes:

  “We've thought of it not as promoting Catholicism per se, but as an opportunity for Protestants to consider the ephemera of our faith, material reminders of the many faithful who make up a cloud of witnesses who preceded us and laid down their lives in service of the king and his kingdom.” —Paul Butler (31:12)

Summary Flow & Utility for Non-listeners

This episode offers a deeply engaged critique of recent social issues—immigration, gender, and free speech—connecting contemporary news stories and cultural products (like TV and video games) to larger trends in Western morality. The interplay of biblical worldview with journalism, education, and the arts foregrounds the challenge for Christians: to discern, stand firm in truth, and cultivate courage in a world swiftly redefining reality. The episode’s review segment and editorial commentary broaden this theme, questioning the cultural significance of pop art and religious traditions while always returning to a biblical frame.

Listen For:

• Cultural impacts of activist art — and how it shapes public morality (07:45–10:00)
• When protecting privacy becomes “abnormal” (12:22)
• The cost of speaking truth in environments where “wrong is right” (16:25–17:38)
• What makes “The Paper” both familiar and different from “The Office” (23:44–25:38)
• The editorial responsibility in handling faith traditions in reporting (31:12)

This summary should give you the substance, tone, and memorable moments from the episode—equipping you to discuss its content knowledgeably without listening.