It’s Monday, December 23rd, A.D. 2019. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com.  I’m Adam McManus.

By Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com)

British girl discovers note from Chinese slave in Christmas cards

A 6-year-old British girl, Florence Widdicombe from Tooting, south London,  discovered a desperate note in her Tesco Christmas cards from caged slaves in China, forced to work against their will.

The Sunday Times reports that it’s believed to have been written by a foreign prisoner who was made to pack the cards in boxes at a gulag in Shanghai.

Inside one card, featuring a cute kitten in a Santa hat on the front, it said: “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.”

The note asked the finder to pass it to journalist Peter Humphrey, who was locked up at Qingpu for nine months until June 2015. A more recent ex-prisoner said: “They have been packing Christmas cards for Tesco, and also Tesco gift tags, for at least two years.”

Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”

North Korean’s Christmas saber-rattling

American military and intelligence officials tracking North Korea’s actions by the hour say they are bracing for an imminent test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching American shores, but appear resigned to the fact that President Trump has no good options to stop it.

If no progress has been made on lifting sanctions, Pyongyang promised a “Christmas gift”.

Christianity Today calls for Trump’s removal from office

On Friday, President Donald Trump blasted Christianity Today magazine, after it published an editorial by outgoing Editor-in-Chief Mark Galli, arguing that Trump should either be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote in the 2020 election because of his “blackened moral record.”

President Trump tweeted that Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham, “would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.”

Cissie Graham Lynch, the granddaughter of the late Billy Graham, tweeted, “People often think they can speak on behalf of Billy Graham, because they might think what he would’ve done or said. Well, they don’t! Shame on Christianity Today magazine to drag my grandfather’s name in their article for their agenda.”

Franklin Graham said, “I hadn’t shared who my father Billy Graham voted for in 2016, but because of Christianity Today magazine’s article, I felt it necessary to share now. My father knew Donald Trump, believed in him & voted for him. He believed Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.”

Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Mark Galli wrote that the need for Trump’s removal “is not a matter of partisan loyalties, but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. pushed back, saying, “Less than 20% of evangelicals supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, but now Christianity Today Magazine has removed any doubt that they are part of the same 17% or so of liberal evangelicals who have preached social gospel for decades! Christianity Today unmasked!”

And First Baptist Church of Dallas Senior Pastor Robert Jeffress tweeted, “President Trump is the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-Israel President in history!”

Three radical statements from Thursday’s Democratic pres. debate

Last Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles, hosted by PBS/Politico, revealed how far left the party has gone.

Here’s former Vice President Joe Biden’s take on how expendable blue-collar jobs would be under his Green New Deal.

REPORTER: “Vice President Biden, I’d like to ask you, three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production. As President, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers, in the interest of transitioning to that greener economy?”

BIDEN: “The answer is yes.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts championed the gender confusion of transgender prisoners, exploiting the vulnerability of the prison population.

WARREN: “The transgender community has been marginalized in every way possible. … I will change the rules now that put people in prison based on their birth sex identification, rather than their current identification. I will do everything I can to make sure that we are in America that leaves no one behind.”

And Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota claims that the conservative Trump judges are “horrific”!

KLOBUCHAR: “What would I do as president? I would appoint judges that are in the vein of people like Elena Kagan and Justice Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, and let’s not forget the notorious RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg). … We have to immediately start putting judges on the bench to fill vacancies so that we can reverse the horrific nature of these Trump judges.”

Woman sends 160,000 Handwritten Christmas cards to US troops

And finally, it’s been 17 years since Laura Garber started sending Christmas cards to U.S. troops overseas out of the basement of her New Hampshire home.

This year, Holiday Cards for Our Military will send 160,000 cards to U.S. troops around the world, reports the GoodNewsNetwork.org.

Garber told CNN, “The thought of someone being away at a time when, in our culture the holidays are all about gathering together, I wanted to be able to reach out so that person who is far away feels a little tiny bit closer to home.”

Proverbs 17:22 reminds us that “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”  May the 160,000 U.S. military members who receive these cards be encouraged this Christmas.

Close

And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Monday, December 23rd in the year of our Lord 2019. 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

3.7 million Americans had flu this year, 32,000 needing hospitalization

The flu virus continues to spread across the U.S. with millions of illnesses estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the CDC, an estimated 3.7 million people have had the flu already this year with 32,000 requiring hospitalization, reports the New York Daily News.

Bloomberg’s unconventional presidential campaign

Bloomberg’s campaign is bypassing the first four nominating contests and competing only in states that start voting in early March, some of which will be competitive in a general election against Mr. Trump, reports the Wall Street Journal. Four of those six general-election swing states—North Carolina, Michigan, Florida and Arizona—will vote in March, while Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have primaries in April.

After spending more than $100 million on TV ads, Mr. Bloomberg, who entered the Democratic presidential primary last month, has been opening field offices across the country in recent days.

A recent WSJ/NBC national poll of Democratic primary voters showed him at 4%, well behind front-runners such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.