9.11 | The day still speaks

0:00Good morning. Today is the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attack on America. We'll talk about what's changed in the years since. John Stone Street will be along for Culture Friday, also today. Are you taking me seriously now, Hank? We're old arts and culture editor Colin Garberino reviews runner, an action comedy about a medical delivery that turns into a fight for survival and a preview of Double-Tay. It's Friday, September 11th. This is the world and everything in it. From listeners supported World Radio. I'm Murna Brown. And I'm Nick Eiker. Good morning. Up next, Kent, coming 10 with, today's news. Secretary of State, Mark Arubio was in Peru Thursday, wrapping up a three-country South America trip in which he pressed countries to step up the fight against drug cartels

1:03and Peruvian President Kaiko Fuhimori promised to do just that. Fuhimori announcing that her country is signing on to the shield of America's pact. Members of that U.S.-led block are working together on military and law enforcement operations targeting cartels. Ecuador joined that block back in March and in Keto, Ecuador this week, Rubio announced that the administration will ask Congress for $45 million in security aid for Ecuador. We are aligning with governments and leaders that are willing to be serious about taking these groups on. As opposed to leaders who in the past like we had with Petro and Colombia are actually on the take or aligned with these terrorist organizations and these narco groups and so forth. So you have to make a choice here. We're going to talk to you. As Dr. O. The U.S. sanctioned Gustavo Petro, Colombia's president at the time over what the U.S. said was his coziness with drug cartels. Petro was the nation's first socialist president, but this week Rubio was in Colombia with kind words for Petro's conservative replacement, President

2:04Abelardo de la Espereja, a former Miami resident and a dual U.S. citizen. This is a man of energy. This is a man of strength. This is a man of vision and of courage. The Pentagon said Colombia has also joined the Shield of America's program. Vice President JD Vance had lined day two of the first ever midterm Republican national convention on Thursday. World's Mary Muncie has this report from Dallas, Texas. Vance touted what he called the administration's wins thus far, including work to stop Medicaid fraud and locking down the southern border. Vance has seen the foreign-born share of a population dropped by three million people. That's illegal aliens that we sent back home. Vance and other speakers also marked 25 years since 9-11 and one year since turning point U.S. A founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated. The group's vice president, Lucas Miles, said of Kirk. I think he would say the work's not finished. There's still young people to reach.

3:06There's still pastors to equip. Still a generation searching for truth. It was less than eight weeks until Election Day, President Trump led the audience and residing in oath. We swear that on November 3rd, we are going to go out and vote. So help me, God. So help me, God. Wrong. Reporting for World, I'm Mary Muncie and Dallas. The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked Missouri Republicans from using new congressional districts in November. The Justice's Thursday paused a federal order requiring the new map. Republican lawmakers passed it last year. It was designed to help the GOP win seven of the state's eight seats. But critics gathered more than 300,000 signatures for a referendum. Missouri's state Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week that the new map never took effect. So the state will use districts drawn in 2022. Voters decide in November whether the new map ever takes effect.

4:06wholesale inflation heated up in August after cooling this summer. World's Benjamin Eiker has that story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that wholesale prices rose 5.4% from a year ago, up from 4.8% in July. Higher energy prices amid the Iran war helped drive that increase. U.S. crude surged above $100 a barrel on Thursday and wholesale diesel prices jumped about 24% in August alone. Diesel, of course, fuels most of the trucks that carry consumer goods across the country so an increase there can drive up the cost of many other things. The hotter inflation numbers could push the Fed toward raising interest rates when it meets next week. The government's Consumer Inflation Report comes out today and could help tip that decision. For World, I'm Benjamin Eiker. As the battle rages for control over the straight-of-war mousse, Iran backed forces are making a play for another key shipping route.

5:06Houdi rebels in Yemen seized the Key Port City of Mocha on Thursday. Houdi-Ran Television broadcast video footage that appeared to show rebel fighters inside the city. One man overheard saying this is Mocha port with the grace of God. Mocha sits on Yemen's southwest red sea coast. It's also a mere 50 miles from the Bob Al-Mandab straight that waterway has become an important alternative route for Saudi oil shipments amid the fighting around the straight-of-war mousse. Yemen's internationally recognized leader met with European diplomats on Thursday and blamed Iran for the recent escalation. I'm Kent Cuffington and still ahead. John Stone Street is standing by for Culture Friday, plus Colin Garverino reviews a new action comedy. This is The World and Everything In It.

6:18It's Friday, September 11th. Glad to have you along for today's edition of The World and Everything In It. Good morning. I'm Nick Eiker. And I'm Irna Brown. It's Culture Friday and joining us now is John Stone Street, resident of the Colson Center and host up the Breakpoint Podcast. Good morning, John. Good morning. Well, John, 25 years ago today was a terrifying, angering, sad-need shocking day. And because of the magnitude of what happened, Americans experienced it together. Dan Darlene made that point this week in World Opinions that 9-11 was a shared national experience. But the unity that followed clearly didn't last. And now with social media, every major event seems to get sorted almost instantly into

7:23competing narratives. So John, how do you think the culture today would respond to the kind of attack we endure 25 years ago? You know, I think that obviously social media has changed how we encounter our world, how we view events, all kinds of things. And the algorithms behind us certainly further polarize us. But I don't want to miss the ideological roots of culture that were in place back in 2001 and what we're dealing with now are the stepchildren of the postmodernism that was deeply in place. Look, we had an incredible increase in patriotism of national unity. There was a shared patriotism. We got a little kinder. We flew a lot more flags. All of that stuff was true for a while. But it didn't last. It didn't last. The increased church attendance didn't last. The increased national unity didn't last. And that's not because we had social media or didn't have social media. It was prior to all that. It was because there were still roots in place within our culture of a way of thinking

8:27about reality, including a way of thinking about evil like this. A few months after 9-11, I heard a prominent Christian apologist and philosopher announced the end of postmodernism. His reasoning was that after witnessing that kind of evil, it was now impossible to be a moral relativist. Clearly, moral absolutes exist, he believed. But what we ended up seeing is an increasing number of voices, proclaiming that it's not that an act of 9-11 proves moral absolutes. The explanation was it's people that believe in moral absolutes that do this kind of evil. Relativists are the tolerant ones. At the time, of course, we had Pope Benedict and others predict that we would be seeing an onset of a dictatorship or relativism, where the relativism would become a new absolutism. And that, of course, is the stepchild of postmodernism that we now have in our world called critical

9:29theory, where we divide the world into the oppressed and the oppressors. And so we now have a group of younger generations that don't remember 9-11. They don't know who were the good guys and who were the bad guys on 9-11. Some of them actually think that America was the bad guys, the victims were the bad guys. And this is the triumph of postmodernism, or at least postmodernism, stepchildren over the rest of our culture. And it kind of speaks to the fact that humans don't look at events around them. We look through worldviews at events around us. We see through our deeply held beliefs, our framework that we call our worldview, and that stuff really matters, and those things are really sticky. Certainly that event changed history. But how we think about that event is shaped more by our worldview than what actually happened. You know, in one technological difference is almost hard to remember now. It's hard to imagine. You know, there was no iPhone in 2001.

10:31You realize that. It would have been another roughly five years before the iPhone ever appeared on the scene. And today we can see almost everything almost immediately. What do you think about that? Has it actually made us more connected or just more absorbed by events we cannot meaningfully do anything about? Well, we're let's connect it with each other. And we're more aware of things that are supposed to be earth shattering, which in other times and places wouldn't have changed much of anything. Look before 9-11, Neil Postman was warning about the newspaper and television about making all news local. So we would be deeply concerned about something over which we had no power, no control. We could make no meaningful contribution. Now, look, the degree to which this illusion takes hold in a society and in an individual's heart and mind is greatly exaggerated by smartphones.

11:35But the fundamental challenge is still the same. Like, what does it mean to see things that other generations would have never seen? That was a national experience. That's a little bit different. But you know, why is it breaking news for us of a tsunami on the other side of the world? It's for a lot of people, but why is it for us? And Neil Postman wondered about those things and the illusion that it would give us to have constant and immediate access to information, uncontextualize, that we would then contextualize within our own experience and our own culture and our own worldview. Well, John, that leads naturally to another anniversary yesterday marked one year since the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Several assassinations are pretty rare and this one was captured from multiple angles and yet what followed was a year of conspiracy theories and suspicion, not that that's over. Now, there's a lot to talk about here, but what do you think this says about the assumption

12:37that more information necessarily gets us closer to the truth? I do think that we can see a palpable difference, like with 9-11 from this sort of immediate reaction that happened as a result of his assassination among his friends, his allies, and his foes and kind of where we are now. The kind of that's toned it down that didn't last, that certainly has not led to a greater sense of unity or a greater call to be the kind of people willing to have. For example, what Charlie was known for, these really controversial conversations with people who disagree in a respectful way that we could really all learn from. I also think just kind of the conversation we were having about how we experience these things in a media and social driven and a smartphone world. Think of how many more angles and videos and I agree this isn't something that any one

13:38of us should go seek and watch. It's not something that I am glad I saw. I wish I wouldn't have. But isn't it interesting that that many more videos of what we know happened on that day did not hold back the conspiracy theories? In other words, we think that our technologies are going to save us. We have people that are actually predicting that our best technologies are what's going to actually bring us the truth. It's going to bring what we're forgetting is that all information, all data that we see, whether it's live or whether it's through some mediated form has to be interpreted. It's interpreted through our deeply and fundamentally held beliefs. We've seen that from people who have incredibly big platforms like Candace Owens and we see it from everyday people who are just imbibing in all kinds of conspiracies that support or prop up their own either biases or hate or deeply held beliefs already.

14:39If we think that more technology will make us somehow more moral or better people, this is one of those stories that should help us get to the heart of the human condition. That we've got all the more data on this than anything else. And the truth is not something that we stumble on. It's not something that we discover. We have to submit to it. And if we have committed ourselves up front to submit to something else, then we're actually perfectly capable as fallen individuals. And a fallen culture of denying what is observably true. Well, John, I want to talk about the Lindsay Clancy case. We really couldn't get into it with you because of the timing, but now we can. And one thing strikes me right away. We call it the Lindsay Clancy case. But a writer and national review made a pointed observation. It's really the Korra Dawson and Callan case. It's about the three children who were brutally murdered. And that leads me to ask, why is that?

15:42Has abortion culture trained us to center the mother so completely that the children can almost disappear from the moral frame? Well, I've intentionally not spoken out on this because I felt like there were so many details that still needed to come out that this was one tragic example and not something necessarily to make hay on. And of course, you have the law of Massachusetts to which the jurors are bound and who knows. And then you've got all these things that we didn't know about psychological evaluations and so on. But this comment that the frenzy and the fury around this case, that's something that we can see. We do know, has to do in no small way with our abortion culture is absolutely right. My friend Scott Cluzendorf has pointed out that one of the most effective things you can do when talking to an everyday person about abortion is to trot out the toddler. In other words, what's the difference in the reasoning you're giving for abortion that would change why we ought not kill a two-year-old? And it's been a very effective strategy to trot out the toddler and say that the only

16:45difference between a two-year-old and the embryo is size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. This has been a case in which we've seen advocates of abortion trot out the toddler and which we've seen people actually argue that if a woman's psychological condition is sufficient in any way that she should be allowed to kill her unborn children. And then they trotted out the toddler and said, well, if it's okay for her to kill her unborn children, it's actually maybe not okay, but it's justifiable. It's understandable. We're all Lindsey Clancy now. And therefore, it must be tolerated and who are we to judge someone going through such mental distress if they then decide? Because of the same exact argument used to say for the health and well-being of a mother, she needs to be able to kill an unborn child. They're now using that same language. This is what's happening now.

17:46There is a psychological justification for the killing of born children. And this is the way, by the way, that, for example, the legalization of doctorousis the suicide went forward. You know what it all started with? It started with sympathetic stories like the woman in New Zealand who killed her mother out of deep love and compassion. And so you sympathize who wasn't 10 years later that New Zealand legalized doctorousis the suicide. This story is playing that same role when it comes to justifying the killing of born children. That's something that we should notice. The history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. This one's rhyming as Mark Twain would say. John Stone Street is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Thank you, John. Thank you both.

18:57Additional support comes from Ambassadors Impact Network, offering growth stage Christian entrepreneurs funding and support from Mission Aligned Investors. AmbassadorsImpact.com. And from Rich Haven Camp and Retreat Centers in North Carolina and Iowa, Fall registration now open at richhaven.org. Today is Friday, September 11th. Thank you for turning the world radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Nick Eiger. And I'm Ernord Brown. Coming next on the world and everything in it, against the clock. The new action comedy film, Runner, may not make much of a first impression the way

19:59it was promoted. But world arts and culture editor Colin Garberino found more to like once the film got rolling. This movie puts Alan Richardson and Owen Wilson in an odd couple pairing to tell a story about getting the job done no matter the obstacles. Okay. Take a deep breath. Yeah. I need you not to freak out. I'm not. I'm processing. I'm not. I'm not processing. I'm processing. I'm getting out of the car right now. Richardson is the burly actor most known for playing the title character in Amazon's popular series, Reacher. In this movie, he's playing a variant of the same type. Hank Malone is former military, currently working as a runner in Australia. How did he get to Australia? You might ask. I'm sure the tax credit the government offers to movie studios probably helped get him there. Anyway, he's the guy you call when you need to make sure a sensitive delivery arrives on time. I'm not a man that people successfully mess with. Okay. His last delivery of the day is a matter of life and death.

21:00Okay. As we speak, there's a private jet heading from Honolulu to Brisbane with a highly sensitive medical package on board. Hank must deliver a donor liver to the hospital in a matter of hours to save the life of a little girl. Ascording the liver is Owen Wilson's Ben Bishop. Exuberant Ben is the polar opposite of the taciturn Hank. Not a foodie. I'm a bon vivant. What starts out as a routine delivery run from the airport to the hospital takes a dangerous turn when the mismatch duo become the targets of a gang of criminals trying to steal the liver. Hey. What do we do? Stay calm. I went into this movie with pretty low expectations. The trailer makes the film look terrible. But runner turns out to be entertaining with a couple of likable leads. Alan Richardson looks like an action hero straight out of the 80s and he pulls off that graphic exterior with a heart of gold persona perfectly. Owen Wilson is pretty much the same guy he plays in every movie.

22:02But that's okay. Pretty much everyone loves that guy. But why don't we do this? I'm going to dial it down a little bit and you crank it way up and we meet in the middle. How's that sound? Action comedies sometimes struggle to maintain the right tone, but runner for the most part hits the mark. I can only think of one moment that strayed too far into absurdity. Hank and Ben Spanter doesn't always sparkle, but it's definitely amusing. And the action scenes have that bone crunching feeling that makes you wonder how much punishment these characters can take. Also, there's a pretty cool car chase sequence involving an ambulance toward the end of the film. The script too is better than I expected. At first I wondered what in the world a drug cartel would want with a human liver, but the story makes sense. And both the heroes and the villains have compelling reasons for doing what they're doing on a day that turns out pretty badly for everyone involved. I have taken the series from now, Hank my son. Runner is rated PG-13 for strong violence, bloody images, and some language.

23:04Hank and Ben rack up a pretty high body count as they fight their way to the hospital through a horde of thugs. And the thugs are fairly proficient at causing carnage. While the violence is high, the bad language is infrequent compared to other PG-13 action comedies. And there's no sensuality. That might have something to do with the fact that Runner is distributed by Angel Studios. However, Angel didn't actually make the movie. They're just getting it into theaters. Alan Richardson is actually one of the film's main producers. He's one of the few Hollywood actors who openly professes to be a Christian. Throughout the movie we catch glimpses of the three nails tattooed on his chest, which are meant to remind him of Jesus' sacrifice. It's a fitting visual element in this movie about putting everything on the line for the sake of another. I know you didn't know I signed up for this, so if you want to be on that's a time. They all depend, but you can't be on that now. Especially now after I've done all the hard stuff in a way. We'll go for you guys today. I'm Colin Garberino.

24:12Good morning. This is The World and Everything In It from listener supported World Radio. I'm Merna Brown. And I'm Nick Eiker. Next up, Double Take. It is back tomorrow with a new episode. This one will tell the stories of Christian women who found themselves in deeply troubled marriages, sometimes abusive marriages. The episode is titled A Few Red Flags. Here's Double Take Hose, Less Cillars, with a preview. One of my students, Hannah Gashler, pitched this story to me last year. Honestly, for a while I wasn't sure we should tell it. We focused on a woman named Kelly Hahn, but we tell the stories of other women as well. And there's a lot of sadness, a lot of hurt in this episode. But the more Hannah talked to me about it, the more I realized this is an important story. I don't think evangelical churches talk much about spousal abuse.

25:14It's not clear how common it is, but there's no doubt it's there. These women all got divorced as even though they believed and still believe that, as scripture says, God hates divorce. But they just didn't think they had a choice. So we're trying to tell the story from the perspective of abused women. Not because we think there's only one side to a story. And we're not arguing for a particular view of divorce. But we're hoping to help people understand these abused spouses in our churches a little better, understand what they're going through and why they make particular choices. And then maybe we'll be better prepared to help them honor Christ, you know, moving forward. One section of the episode is where the title comes from. A few red flags. This part isn't about Kelly. Here, Hannah is telling the story of a woman we're calling Abby. It's about the lead up to Abby's wedding. But Abby hung in there. She doesn't know why exactly. When he asked her to marry him, she agreed.

26:16He didn't seem to care much about the wedding, either. She picked the ring. It was a $30 ring off Amazon paid for the dress. I got $150 wedding dress off of a sketchy Chinese website. Wrote the vows to include listening and respecting each other. And hopes that that saying it out loud would like make him do that. It didn't. On her wedding day, preparing to walk down the aisle, she thought, I don't want to do this. Do I want to be like permanently connected to this man who has already caused me so much emotional turmoil and suffering and questioning of myself and is mad at me about any little mix up or mistakes or accident? Normal wedding jitters, she thought, but you go, what you pay for, as they say, he didn't change, not a bit. Abby tolerated a lot because that was her Christian duty. As a child, she believed that Christians had to get married and have kids.

27:17There was this idea deeply embedded in my mind that I had been taught for years and years and years that marriage is hard, but it's worth it. Just that if I just stuck with it, I would have this joyful, ideal marriage that I was supposed to have. That's tomorrow on Double Take. The full episode will appear Saturday morning in the world and everything in it podcast feed. All right, well, it's time now to name the crew who helped out with this week's programs. Mary Reichard, David Bonson, Arseneo Orteza, William Fleson, Lauren Smith, Todd Vision, Janie B. Cheney, Hunter Baker, Grace Snell, Cal Thomas, Liz Lykins, Jenny Ruff, Daniel Sur, John Stone Street, Colin Garberino, Will Hogan Doug, and Les Sillers.

28:18Thanks also to our breaking news crew, Kent Covington, Steve Closterman, Travis Kircher, Daniel Divine and Christina Groove. Thanks to the technical production team, Ben Geiker, Karl Petz and Josh Gagne. Harrison Waters is Washington producer, Kristen Flavin is features editor, Emma Eiker is assistant producer, Lindsay Mast is producer, I'm executive producer, Nick Eiker. And I'm Ernab 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, God shall arise. His enemies shall be scattered. And those who hate him shall flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away. As wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God. But the righteous shall be glad. They shall exalt before God. They shall be jubilant with joy.

29:18Sing to God. Sing praises to his name. Lift up a song to him who writes through the deserts. His name is the Lord. Exalt before him. Psalm 68 verses 1 through 4. Plan on singing praises to his name and lifting up a song to him in a Bible believing church. Find one and be there this weekend. And Lord willing, we'll meet you right back here on Monday. Go now in Grayson Peace.