Latest / The Gospel Briefing / Colombia Swings Right, Starmer Resigns, US-Iran Talks — June 22, 2026
Transcript
- This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Today... a country swings hard to the right overnight. A prime minister walks away from the most powerful job in Britain. And American negotiators sit across from Iran in a Swiss hotel room, trying to keep the world from tipping over. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. [TRANSITION] Colombia woke up this morning to a very different country than it went to bed in. Abelardo de la Espriella - a right-wing firebrand lawyer who built his career on television and on Twitter - has won the presidency in a preliminary count. He ran on security. Hard security. He ran on dismantling the peace deal with the FARC guerrillas that the country has been living under for a decade. He ran on economic deregulation and a sharp turn away from the left-wing government of Gustavo Petro. His supporters call it a long-awaited correction. His critics are calling it the end of the peace process. Here's what makes this more than a foreign election. Colombia is the third largest economy in Latin America. It is the United States' closest security partner in the region. And what's happening there is happening everywhere right now - voters lurching from one ideological pole to the other, hoping the next government will finally fix what the last one broke. There's a verse in Proverbs that I keep coming back to on election nights. Proverbs 21:1. "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will." Notice what that verse does not say. It does not say the king is godly. It does not say the voters chose wisely. It says the heart of the ruler - whoever the ruler turns out to be - is in God's hand. That is not a political endorsement of anyone. It is a reminder that no election, anywhere, surprises the throne of heaven. Colombians will have to live with the consequences of this vote, good and bad. But Christians watching from a distance can hold two things at once. Real concern for a fragile peace... and real confidence that God has not lost the plot. [TRANSITION] Across the Atlantic, Sir Keir Starmer stood outside Number Ten Downing Street this morning and announced he is stepping down. As Labour leader. As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He has been in office a little over eighteen months. His government has been battered by economic stagnation, by a collapse in his own poll numbers, and by a series of cabinet resignations over the spring. In his speech, he said the country deserves a leader with a fresh mandate, and that he is not the one to carry Labour into the next election. It was a remarkably plain speech. No theatrics. He thanked his family. He thanked the civil service. And he walked back inside. Whatever you think of his politics, there is something worth noticing here. A peaceful, voluntary transfer of power. No coup. No constitutional crisis. A man walking away from one of the most powerful offices on earth because he believed it was time. The Bible has a complicated relationship with political power. It warns against loving it. First Samuel chapter eight is the story of Israel demanding a king, and God essentially saying... be careful what you ask for. Power tends to corrode the people who hold it. So when a leader lets it go - cleanly, without clawing - that is not nothing. That is a small mercy in a world full of strongmen who never leave. Pray for Britain. Pray for whoever comes next. And thank God for the unglamorous gift of orderly succession. [TRANSITION] Now to Switzerland, where the first round of direct talks between the United States and Iran wrapped up over the weekend - and where mediators are using a word they haven't used in years. Encouraging. Vice President Vance and senior Iranian officials met in Geneva to begin working through the framework agreed to last week. The goal is a final nuclear deal within sixty days. The early read from the European and Omani mediators in the room is that both sides came prepared. Both sides stayed at the table. Both sides agreed to meet again. Sixty days is not a long time to undo forty years of hostility. And I want to be honest with you here. Christians disagree about how to think about Iran. Some look at the regime's record on persecuting believers - and that record is genuinely horrific - and they say no deal is a good deal. Others look at the alternative, which is a wider war in a region already on fire, and they say peace is worth the risk of disappointment. Both of those instincts come from real places. What Scripture does make clear is in Romans 12:18. "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." Paul knew that wasn't always possible. He used the word "if." But the burden of proof, biblically, is on the one who would choose war over peace - not the other way around. Pray for the negotiators. Pray for the persecuted church inside Iran, who will bear the consequences of whatever happens in that room. And pray for wisdom that does not come from cable news. [TRANSITION] A few more stories on your radar. In Ukraine, Russian forces are massing near Kostyantynivka - a city in the eastern Donbas region. If it falls, the road opens to Ukraine's last strongholds in the east. After four years of war, the headlines have faded for many of us. The suffering has not. Galatians 6:9 - "Let us not grow weary of doing good." Here at home, new data shows that despite state-level abortion bans, the number of abortions has nearly doubled - driven almost entirely by abortion pills mailed across state lines via telehealth. The legal fights are just beginning. But the deeper truth is one the pro-life movement has always known. Laws change behavior at the margins. Hearts change everything. Psalm 139 still teaches us that life in the womb is knit together by God Himself. And in a lighter note - SpaceX's reported public offering has, according to filings, created more than four thousand employee millionaires. Cafeteria workers. Welders. Engineers. Whatever you think of Elon Musk, that is a striking picture of wealth shared widely rather than hoarded narrowly. Proverbs 11:25 - "Whoever brings blessing will be enriched." [TRANSITION] When something in your Bible reading doesn't make sense, where do you go? A search engine guesses. Generic AI makes things up. Bible Copilot is a Bible study app that answers your questions from Scripture itself. Open any passage, ask anything, the context, the original Hebrew or Greek, what the verse actually means, and it walks you through the answer, grounded in two thousand years of orthodox Christian teaching. Fifteen questions a day, free. Search Bible Copilot in the App Store. Today's verse is Proverbs 21:1. "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will." A new president in Colombia. A prime minister walking out of Downing Street. Negotiators in a Swiss hotel. None of it is outside His hand. Not one drop. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. If today's episode helped you, send it to one person who needs to hear that God still reigns over the headlines. I'll see you tomorrow.