According to the Department of Health and Human services, in 2021 over 70,000 babies in the U.S. were conceived using in vitro fertilization, or IVF. That’s over 2 percent, and in some European countries that figure is over 4 percent. And it’s rising rapidly all over the world. And that’s raising questions about the limits of using medical technology to produce children.Today, WORLD reporter Leah Savas has the first of a two-part story about someone who crashed into those limits: medical,...

Michael and Millie Shipe grew up in the era of “purity culture.” It was a big thing for about 20 years starting in the 1990s, and it focused on saving sex for marriage. There were conferences and purity rings and slogans, like “True Love Waits.”But a lot of people say they’ve been deeply damaged by their experience in purity culture. There’s a growing genre of books by the “survivors” of purity culture. These are often bitter tales written by ex-evangelicals who use the term “deconstruction”...

WORLD Radio’s Jenny Rough was worried. Last year, her memory seemed to be slipping, and few things scared her more than descending into dementia as she got older. She also came across some recent research that tied dementia and Alzheimer's disease to a person’s ability to navigate–and Jenny has always had a little trouble with maps. Worst of all, her own mother had passed away from Parkinson’s disease a few years before.So, naturally, Jenny went for a good long hike … and got lost.On this...

In 1968 Mallory Millett arrived in New York just in time to watch her sister Kate Millett turn into an icon of the radical Second Wave feminist movement. At first, Mallory thought of herself as a feminist. But soon Mallory began to realize that feminism wasn’t quite what she thought: “I’d been brought into something very, very weird.”And the weirdness is still around. In fact, Mallory says that Kate’s radical ideas have shaped a new narrative about what it means to be a woman. In fact, says...

When Thaddeus Hall was born, the room went silent. From then on, every day has been a struggle for survival–kind of a race, really. As Thad’s family pushes through the obstacles of raising a medically fragile child, it seems like life will never be the same. What do you do when something goes wrong? What does life look like? What do you lose—and what do you gain?Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate (wng.org/donate). Music licensed via...

This is the story of two Iranian women who brought about a revolution in one of the world’s most notorious prisons–just not the kind involving protests and violence. It all came down to the courage to answer a few questions from a judge.Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate (https://publish.blubrry.com/s-1467414/episodes/e-116647184/edit/wng.org/donate).Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate. Music licensed...

Laurel Marr is a Christian who helps people find comfort and meaning in their last days. In the past, death was a preparation to meet God. But our secular culture today thinks this life is all there is. Laurel asks—and answers—the question: what does it mean to die well?Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate (wng.org/donate).Music licensed via podcastmusic.com from ALIBI, AMG, Atomica Music, and STKA. Amazing Grace keyboard by lorenzobuczek from...

When he was 15, Connor Clough taught himself how to become aware he was dreaming while he was dreaming. It seemed kind of fun–until it wasn’t. Along the way he faced a question that has puzzled thinkers for millennia: Are dreams just collections of memories and emotions dredged up from our subconscious? Or are dreams really some sort of window into transcendent reality?Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate. (wng.org/donate.) Music licensed via...

In 2005 Tani Prroj was pastor of a small Albanian church and his wife Elona was a stay-at-home mom. But then Tani’s uncle shot and killed a mountain man, casting the family into a cycle of revenge that can go on for generations. Albania is one of the last places on earth that still practices “blood feud.” It’s a cultural imperative and an impulse most of us recognize all too well: the desire for justice–and then some.Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at...

Two years ago Stewart Freeman built a church in a virtual reality app called VR Chat, reputedly one of the wildest places in the metaverse. On this episode we’ll tag along with Stewart and the VR ministry of Cornerstone Church as they try to bring the Gospel into virtual reality. Instead of allowing virtual reality to distort the Gospel that they preach. It’s the second in our short series exploring the implications of technology that shapes our perception of the world around us.Support...

About three years ago Stewart Freeman went online, into virtual reality, to meet girls. Instead he found Christ through a California church called Cornerstone, one of a handful of ministries trying to preach the Gospel in a new digital world called the “metaverse.” Mark Zuckerberg predicts that within a few years a billion people will be in the metaverse–but at what cost? It’s part one of our two-part series exploring the implications of technology that shapes our perception of the world...

Larry and Connie Van Oosten were awakened one morning in 2017 by a masked intruder with a weapon. He stuffed them into the trunk of an old Caprice and hauled them off to a secret room. It seemed at first like a sophisticated heist designed to clean out their bank accounts–but the truth was both weirder and more unsettling than they could have imagined. They’re still dealing with it.Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate....

When Rachel Cochrane was 17, she headed off with her mom to attend an Air Force Academy ball with her brand-new, first-ever boyfriend. It should have been so romantic. It wasn’t.Music licensed via (http://podcastmusic.com/)podcastmusic.com (http://podcastmusic.com/) from 5 Alarm, ALIBI Music, Atomica Music. News clips from KOAA News. Final song: The Manhattans, "Kiss and Say Goodbye”

On April 12, 1999, Air Force cadet James Busch stepped out of an airplane 6,000 feet in the air for a routine practice jump. But his parachute didn’t open. Neither did his reserve.And then things got really bad. It’s a helpless feeling to watch a big problem come rushing up from a long way away, knowing that you’re out of options. But sometimes God works in unexpected ways.

Last September Roberta Bayer got a call from her mom, who was in a nursing home in southern Ontario. Roberta had to come up and visit that weekend, her mom said, or it would be too late. Roberta realized that she had 48 hours to stop her mother from doing something terrible.

The Kim regime’s information blockade is crumbling. Truth under the totalitarian society is finding a foothold. Free North Korea Radio is sending hope and the Gospel across the DMZ.

A tiny band of North Korean defectors is battling for the hearts and minds of 25 million people with shortwave news and programming. Free North Korea Radio, founded by Christians, is helping people in the world’s most totalitarian state imagine life without the Kim regime. Will the truth set them free?

Monica Gill just wants to be able to talk about important things with her public high school students. But a dumpster-fire of controversy over Critical Race Theory ideology, identity politics, and transgender policies erupts in Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Virginia district becomes a flashpoint for a national debate.

The story of a Chinese doctor who once participated in a program of terrible pain and cruelty. Now he regrets helping a regime that still makes thousands of people per year disappear, all in the name of healing. Supposedly.

July of 2022 marked the 75th anniversary of the modern flying saucer ... craze? Movement? Whatever. This is the story of how Christians through the ages have reacted to the idea of alien life. It might not be the story you’re expecting.

Jill Stanek gets a nursing job at Chicago’s Christ Hospital in 1999 because she wants to avoid ethical issues. What could go wrong at a hospital named after Jesus? Lots, it turns out. But she refuses to turn away when confronted with evil. Her revelations shock the nation but the same thing—and worse—is still going on today.

What do you do when your own country wants you to violate your own conscience? And what if you’re a physician, born and raised in Canada? This is the story of a family that had to decide if and when the dangers of staying home outweighed the risks of leaving. It unfolded over three decades in a country and a culture that’s a lot like the U.S. in many ways.

The story of a guy who’s trying to make it in the world of clean comedy—on his own terms, and in his own words. We get a backstage pass to Gutty’s Comedy Club in Indianapolis, Ind., where we’ll follow Brandon Young, punchline by punchline, as he tries to stay relevant in a world that’s leaving his language behind.

Doubletake is a narrative podcast. We tell stories creatively about interesting people encountering big ideas. It’s journalism plus storytelling, informed by a biblical worldview.