Doubletake: Recent Episodes
WORLD Radio
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.
A Christian nurse blows the whistle on a gender transition clinic, putting herself in the cross-hairs of one of this culture’s most aggressive ideologies
A Christian nurse blows the whistle on a gender transition clinic, putting herself in the cross-hairs of one of this culture’s most aggressive ideologies
Peter Francisco was known in his lifetime as George Washington’s One-Man Army–but what if the stories aren’t true?
A Christian journalist’s well-justified expose of a preacher’s online double life ends with gut-wrenching consequences.
Support The World and Everything in It today at wng.org/donate
Additional support comes from The Amplified Bible, from The Lockman Foundation, is designed to bring out the full depth of meaning in Scripture by expanding key words and phrases from the original languages. Its unique amplifications and definitions add clarity for reading and study. New TwoTone editions use soft gray typography to distinguish amplified words from the main text, creating a cleaner page and a smoother reading experience. Learn more at amplifiedbible.com
WORLD Radio’s Jenny Rough and Lynn Vincent explore how a minor misdemeanor trial raised the most significant question of all. Where did we come from?
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate.
Everybody knows you’re not supposed to bargain with God. It’s just a bad idea. God doesn’t answer prayers that begin, “Dear God, if you just give me this one thing I’ll do this other thing. For the rest of my life. I promise.”
Theologically speaking, we don’t give God our terms. He gives us His.
But today we have an essay from someone who actually did bargain with God. Trinity Klomparens is a journalism student at Patrick Henry College.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate.
When Gerald Groff took his job at the Post Office in 2012, taking Sundays off wasn’t an issue. USPS didn’t deliver on Sundays. Then about a decade ago Amazon decided people simply had to have their gadgets and groceries delivered on Sundays and hired USPS to help. Suddenly Groff had a choice: keep his job or his convictions. He decided to try for both–and the case is still not settled, exactly.
Today on Doubletake, a special legal episode about a mailman, his faith, and the byzantine legal rules that define religious liberty in this country.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
Hearing that his father was dead was very nearly the last straw for Radha Manickam. In two years he’d lost almost his entire family under the brutal regime of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. It seemed that God had abandoned him, and one night while lying on an anthill in the middle of a rice paddy, he decided to end it all. But then hope arrived–in a most unlikely place, and a most unexpected way.
This series is based on my recent interviews with Radha, along with my 2016 book about his experiences. The book, audiobook, and this series are titled Intended for Evil by Les Sillars.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
Intended for Evil available as a paperback and audio book at Amazon.com
After the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia on April 17, 1975, they herded everybody out of the cities and into socialist “cooperatives.” Radha Manickam and family were sent to the country’s northwest, where they and 1.8 million others were dumped out of trains and told to start building villages.
It was Year Zero, supposedly the start of the agrarian utopia promised by their Marxist masters.
Instead, Radha watched the Khmer Rouge turn Cambodia into the realm of the dead.
This series tells a hard and brutal story, but it’s also a story of hope and, ultimately, redemption.
It’s based on my recent interviews with Radha, along with my 2016 book about his experiences.
The book and this series are titled “Intended for Evil.”
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
The communist Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on April 17, 1975. Radha Manickam, a new Christian, watched them arrive from the balcony of his parents’ apartment.
It was Radha’s first exposure to the Khmer Rouge. The leader of the Khmer Rouge was Pol Pot, led the most violent and brutal government in modern history. In its doomed attempt to create an agrarian utopia, between 1975 and 1979 Pol Pot’s regime murdered over 1.7 million people. Many were beaten to death or executed. Others starved to death or died of fatigue or some wretched disease. Mao and Stalin’s Communist regimes killed far more people. But no other government has destroyed nearly a quarter of its own citizens.
Today Pol Pot is largely forgotten. But he and the Khmer Rouge are well worth remembering. Because the ideas that formed the Khmer Rouge are still with us today. Also worth remembering are the stories of those who survived. People like Radha Manickam. We’ll be telling his story over the next three episodes. It is in many ways a brutal story. One of loss and grief and terror. But it’s also a story of hope and grace. And ultimately, redemption.
This series is based on my recent interviews with Radha, along with my 2016 book about his experiences. The book and this series are titled “Intended for Evil” by Les Sillars.
Audio from
The Associated Press
NBC News
ABC News
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
Last week we brought you the story of Hawler Sheikhe, a Syrian woman who returned in 2023 to one of the world’s most chaotic countries on unfinished family business. She went with a Christian humanitarian aid group called the Free Burma Rangers. WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde went with them.
This week, the story of the rest of that trip. They went a year before the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS, overthrew the brutal government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria last month. But northeast Syria is still one of the most chaotic places in the world. And, as Caleb found out for himself, very dangerous.
Until Assad fell, the West had largely ignored the conflict in Syria. However this turns out, the people Caleb met there will likely remain right where they are now: stuck in a simmering conflict with no place to go.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate.
On December 8 the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS, overthrew the brutal government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. There’s a new regime in Damascus, but in northeast Syria a lot remains the same. It’s still one of the most chaotic places in the world. WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde traveled around the region in November of 2023 with the Free Burma Rangers. That’s a Christian aid group working in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones.
This is the first of two episodes based on Caleb’s reporting last year. Today Caleb will tell us the story of a Syrian woman named Hawler Sheikhe. She was 13 years old when ISIS roared into Syria in 2014. But when ISIS forced her to flee her home, she found herself on a journey that would eventually lead her to Christ– and beatings, bombings, and death threats.
Audio from:
CNN
Sky News
NBC News
Euronews
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate.
Today, something a little different: it’s a series of letters Doubletake host Les Sillars wrote to his father last year. He never sent them. He doesn’t think he could.
This episode is about regret and loss. But also hope, and memory, and memories.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
Two women head to Hollywood just hoping to get on a game show and have some fun. They get on national TV and hobnob with Drew Carey. There they realize, in a most unlikely place, that everything they have is a gift.
Don’t forget to rate and review this program!
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
Doubletake correspondent Alessandra Nash visits a Christian school in Idaho that’s encouraging parents to take the “Postman Pledge.” It has nothing to do with the Post Office. The Postman Pledge is a promise a small group of parents around the country are making to each other to not let their kids use social media–not at school, and not even at home.
As one parent told us, that’s like declaring war on an entire culture.
Audio Credits:
Damon Allen
MSNBC
C-SPAN
Reliant K.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
If children are a gift from God and you really, really want them, and then you have them, how can you possibly wish that your dream never came true?
Last time we introduced D’Lynn Herting, a young woman who decided to have children via IVF. Today WORLD reporter Leah Savas has the conclusion of a story about someone who wishes she’d asked a few more questions before making some life and death decisions.
Audio Credits
“Newborn Child”/Blue Water Highway
Don’t forget to rate and review this program!
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
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, emotional, and spiritual. And walked away with a lot more than she bargained for.
Audio Credits
Brave New World/Universal Television
Witness History/BBC
“Facing Fertility”/CBS
Sarah Lavonne/Youtube
Click Orlando/WKMG News
“Families lose frozen embryos in tank failure”/CNN
Don’t forget to rate and review this program!
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
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” to describe leaving orthodox Christianity.
Today on Doubletake, the rise and fall of purity culture, through the eyes of a couple who lived through some of its best features–and some of its worst. And, just a note: this episode involves relationships and sexuality. It’s not for kids.
Music/audio from:
CNN
South Park/Comedy Central
“Kiss the Girl” by Samuel E. Wright/Disney
“Someday My Prince Will Come” by Adrianna Caselotti/Disney
“I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye” by Joshua Harris
“Everyday Robots” by Damon Albarn
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate
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 episode of Doubletake we’re going to navigate—metaphorically and literally. We’ll explore the pathways of the human brain, hike trails in the Rocky Mountains, and journey along the road of grief.
Support WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate.
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 Mallory, these ideas have “taken over the world. Kate has taken over the world.”
So today, a story about a woman who took a journey with her sister, only to realize that she’d been led into some very dark places.
Support WORLD at wng.org/donate.
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.
Music licensed via podcastmusic.com from AMG, Atomica, and STKA. News clips from CNA News and HBO.
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.
Support sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth at wng.org/donate.
Music licensed via podcastmusic.com from ALIBI, 5 Alarm, AMG, Atomica Music, Manhattan Production Music, and Strike Audio.
News clips from ABCNews, the BBC, ITVNews, CBCNews, PBS, NBCNews, and NPR.
Ambient sound from Sound Effects Pod and Stockmusic. “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” from http://youtube.com/instrumentalworship
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.
Music licensed via podcastmusic.com from ALIBI, AMG, Atomica Music, and STKA. Amazing Grace keyboard by lorenzobuczek from Pixabay. News clips from Reuters and The Guardian. Audio clip from Ghost.
A young man teaches himself to “lucid dream” and stumbles into one of life’s great mysteries
A young man explores a new technology that delivers what he was looking for–just not in the way he expected
An Illinois couple learns the hard way that sometimes people aren’t quite what they seem
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 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?
A Christian teacher tries do her job amid a dumpster fire of controversy and identity politics
A Chinese doctor participates in a program of terrible pain and cruelty, and lives to regret it
The story of a guy trying to make it in the world of clean comedy—on his own terms, and in his own words.
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.