It’s Wednesday, April 22nd, A.D. 2020. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus.
By Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com)
Church in Zhengzhou, China receives letter to disband
On April 13th, the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness, the Zhengzhou-based church in the Henan province, received a notice to disband from the Communist government, calling its religious activities illegal, reports International Christian Concern.
Matthew 5:10 says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Biden affirms interest in Michelle Obama as VP
In an interview on Pittsburgh’s CBS affiliate, Jon Delano asked this question of Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President.
DELANO: “Where are you in naming that running mate? I’ve heard some speculation about Michelle Obama as vice president. If she said to you she’d be willing to be your running mate, would you ask her?”
BIDEN: “Oh, I’d take her in a heartbeat. She’s brilliant. She knows the way around. She is a really fine woman.”
Attorney General: “These are unprecedented burdens on civil liberties”
On Tuesday, in a broad-ranging phone-in interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Attorney General William Barr acknowledged the burdens to civil liberties during the COVID shutdown.
BARR: “The President has executive power. Part of that is the ability to head off disastrous situations that can’t otherwise be dealt with. One of the key things that I think is being missed in this whole debate that’s going on now, these are unprecedented burdens on civil liberties. The idea that you have to stay in your house is disturbingly close to house arrest. I’m not saying it wasn’t justified. I’m not saying in some places it might be still justified, but it’s a very onerous as is shutting down your livelihood. These are very, very burdensome impingement on liberties.
“And we adopted them, we have to remember for the limited purpose of slowing down the spread, that is, bending the curve. We didn’t adopt them as a comprehensive way of dealing with this disease. Now, seeing that these are bending the curve and now we have to come up with more targeted approaches.”
Attorney General Barr compared the overall strategy to fighting cancer.
BARR: “To me, this is a little bit like, you know, fighting a cancer. You know, sometimes cancer is spreading and one of the treatments you can use is chemotherapy to drive it back and localize it and make it more susceptible to surgery or a more targeted thing like radiation or even immunotherapy. But your first thing is to drive it back to a more manageable state. That’s what we’re doing and have done.
“And the question is, you can’t just keep on feeding the patient chemotherapy and say, ‘Well, we’re killing the cancer.’ We’re getting to the point where we’re killing the patient. And now is the time that we have to start looking ahead and checking into more targeted therapy.”
TX Lt. Gov: This shutdown is “crushing the average worker”
On Monday night, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson chatted with Republican Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick about the impact that the shutdown has had on the economy from a month prior when they last talked, reports the Fort-Worth Star Telegram.
CARLSON: “You were pretty clear in what you thought might happen in our conversation a month ago. You said, ‘If they don’t pull us back a little bit, you’re going to see a lot of people out of work and you’re going to see the economy crushed.’ Do you think you’ve been vindicated?”
PATRICK: “I’m sorry that I’m vindicated. I wish it hadn’t happened, Tucker, but I’m a small business guy. And when you start shutting down society, and people start losing their paychecks, and businesses can’t open, and governments aren’t getting revenues. I’m sorry to say that I was right on this.
“I’m thankful that we are now finally beginning to open up Texas and other states because it’s been long overdue.”
Patrick said the predictions have been unreliable.
PATRICK: “You know, they told us to follow the science. Well, what science? I mean at the end of January, Dr. Fauci, who I have great respect for, said this wasn’t a big issue. Three weeks later, we were going to lose two million people. Another few weeks later, it was 100,000 to 200,000. Now, it’s under 60,000. We’ve had the wrong numbers, the wrong science. I don’t blame them. But let’s face reality of where we are.
“In Texas. We have 29 million people. We’ve lost 495. Every life is valuable, but 500 people out of 29 million and we’re locked down.”
Patrick insists it’s time to let people go back to work.
PATRICK: “We’re crushing the average worker. We’re crushing small business. We’re crushing the markets. We’re crushing this country. And when I said when I was with you that night, there are more important things than living. I don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die. But man, we got to take some risks. And that’s saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us. Get this country back up and running.”
600 Montanans: “Constitutional rights are always essential”
And finally, walking along the sidewalk outside Montana’s capitol building last Sunday, 600 citizens rallied in support of reopening the state, reports KRTV.
One sign said, “Constitutional rights are always essential.” Another said, “We are citizens, not subjects.” Worldview listeners Rich and Jessica Royal were in the crowd.
Conrad Evarts, one of the organizers, explained what motivated the people to come out.
EVARTS: “All these people were looking for a way to express themselves. These people all wanted to be somewhere to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with Governor Bullock’s directives.”
Ken Gardner was also upset with the government mandating that people stay in their homes with few exceptions.
GARDNER: “This is about waking up to patriots. This is about waking up way the people. It’s going to be the people that opened his country up.”
And Anne Cameron indicated that the selective closures were not fair to small business.
CAMERON: “Every business is essential to somebody. You give guidelines and recommendations for Walmart for target for Costco to follow the social distancing guidelines. Why wasn’t the same opportunity presented to small businesses? You can easily have 300 people in Walmart at one time. These mom and pop businesses, 30 people? Maybe?”
Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Wednesday, April 22nd in the year of our Lord 2020. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I’m Adam McManus (adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Print stories
Harvard Professor Calls for Ban on Homeschooling
Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard Law School professor, is calling for a presumptive ban on homeschooling, arguing that it poses harmful risks to children, reports the Christian Post.
In an article titled “The Risks of Homeschooling”, Bartholet stressed that children have a right to a “meaningful education” and that the state is obligated to intervene to protect them from abuse, which is sometimes interwoven within homeschool environments.
The article notes that many Americans — possibly as many as 90 percent by some estimates — who opt for homeschool are driven by traditional Christian beliefs and a desire to remove their kids from mainstream culture. The image featured alongside is a house that has prison bars over a window with a young girl trapped inside while other children play outside.
Katy Faust, founder of the children’s rights organization Them Before Us, said clearly, in the opinion of the Harvard professor, “children don’t belong to parents, they belong to the State.”
Big companies applying for money meant to help small businesses
Hundreds of millions of dollars of Paycheck Protection Program emergency funding has been claimed by large, publicly traded companies, new research published by Morgan Stanley shows.
In fact, the U.S. government has allocated at least $243.4 million of the total $349 billion to publicly traded companies, reports CNBC.
The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to help the nation’s smallest, mom-and-pop shops keep employees on payroll and prevent mass layoffs across the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.
At least 75 companies that have received the aid were publicly traded and received a combined $300 million in low-interest, taxpayer-backed loans, according to a separate report published by The Associated Press.
TX Governor: “People tired of being stuck at home”
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott told Pastor Jack Graham, of Prestonwood Baptist Church, that amid the coronavirus pandemic, Jesus is the “support you can lean on that will always be there for you.”
According to The Christian Post, Abbott met with Graham during the church’s online weekend services. He talked about how Jesus has been instrumental in his own life and how he’s learned how to rely on Him.
Plus, the Texas Governor said, “People are tired of being stuck at home and they want to get back out. Texas wants to lead the way in opening our state back up.”
Graham said, “As a church, we believe that God is at work in our moments of crisis and He will see us through this pandemic.”