It’s Friday, August 18th, A.D. 2023. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com)
By Adam McManus
Hard times in Syria open hearts to the Gospel
Last year, a Muslim woman in Syria showed up at one of the Bible study groups of a native Christian ministry and asked to see the leader, reports Christian Aid Mission.
Her face riddled with anxiety, she told the group leader that her son had a high fever, and that she could not afford any medical care. She had heard that the Christians prayed, and she asked him if they would pray for her son’s healing.
The Christian group leader clarified, saying, “You know that we pray to Jesus, right?”
She replied, “That is okay. As long as my son is healed. That is all I want.”
After the native Syrian Christian team prayed for her son, she went back home, and was shocked to discover that the boy’s fever was gone.
Overjoyed and astonished, she returned to the Bible study with her son. The director explained, “She introduced us to her son and showed us his miraculous recovery. She then told us that she wanted to know more about Jesus. In response, we shared the plan of salvation with her and invited her to receive Christ as her Savior. And she did!”
According to 1 Peter 1:2, this former Muslim woman was “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.”
Pray for her safety as Muslim-majority Syria can be become quite hostile to those who trust Christ as Savior. Indeed, sharing the Gospel is very risky, churches have often been completely destroyed, and church leaders have been abducted.
Of the 19.4 million Syrians, only 603,000 or 3.1% are Christians. Syria is the 12th most difficult country worldwide to be a follower of Christ.
Hillsong Church founder not guilty of covering up child abuse of his father
On Thursday, Brian Houston, the founder and former leader of Hillsong Church in Australia, was cleared of concealing his father’s repeated sexual abuse of a boy, reports Evangelical Focus.
The prosecutor had accused Houston of covering up the crimes of his father, in the decades of the 1970s, against victim Brett Sengstock, who was then seven years old. Frank Houston, who died in 2004, is believed to have abused other boys, using his position as a pastor.
Brian Houston claimed he only knew about the repeated abuses two decades later and shared this information with his church leadership, but not with police, to respect the wish of the victim, who then asked that the crime not be reported.
In the court sentence, the magistrate said Brian Houston had a “reasonable excuse” to not report the crime of his father, even if the motivation would also have been to avoid damaging the reputation of the family and the church he then led.
Outside the court, Houston admitted, “I have no doubt now my father was a serial pedophile and we’ll probably never know the extent of it.”
Brazilian homeschool mom fined, threatened with loss of son’s custody
A Christian homeschooling mother in Santa Catarina, Brazil, is facing legal fines and has been threatened with loss of her son’s custody because she withdrew him from public school, reports The Christian Post.
Regiane Cichelero began homeschooling her 12-year-old son after the local public school’s closure during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
When the schools reopened in March 2021, she continued educating him at home, believing she can ensure a high-quality education in line with her family’s faith instead of exposing him to a public education system she believes maligns their faith.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom International, Cichelero’s choice led to legal challenges from local prosecutors. She has been fined in the amount of $300 for not registering her son in public school, plus an additional per day fine of $20, which could run up to $1,200, until she re-enrolls her son with the local government school.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9 says, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
Of the 52 million Brazilian children under the age of 18, only 70,000 kids are currently homeschooled, according to unofficial data from the Brazilian Homeschooling national group.
DeSantis Debate Memo: Defend Trump and Hammer Vivek
Ahead of the Republican presidential debate next Wednesday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a firm associated with the Ron DeSantis super political action committee, Never Back Down, posted hundreds of pages of blunt advice, research memos, and internal polling online in early nominating states to guide the Florida governor.
After The New York Times reached out to Never Back Down for comment on Thursday, the group removed from the website a key memo summarizing the suggested strategy for the debate.
Super PACs are barred by law from strategizing in private with political campaigns. To avoid running afoul of those rules, it is not unusual for the outside groups to post polling documents in the open, albeit in an obscure corner of the internet where insiders know to look.
The August 15th memo to DeSantis said there are four basic must-dos:
- “Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times.”
- “State positive vision 2-3 times.”
- “Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy. Say ‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake.’”
- “Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack. Say, ‘Many voters, like me, voted for Donald Trump, love Donald Trump. He was a breath of fresh air. … But … [h]e’s got so many distractions that it’s almost impossible for him to focus on moving the country forward. This election is too important. We need someone that can fight for you instead of fighting for himself.’”
Why Vivek Ramaswamy opposes transgendering children
And finally, speaking of Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the GOP presidential contenders who is climbing in the polls, at 6.9%, and the number one threat to DeSantis, at 14.8%, for second place, Blaze TV’s Allie Beth Stuckey asked the 38-year-old successful businessman about his position on transgendering children.
Listen.
RAMASWAMY: “When a kid is saying that their gender doesn’t match their biological sex, they’re going through a mental health struggle. That’s a mental health condition. And the compassionate thing to do is not to affirm that confusion. That’s not compassion; that is cruelty. The compassionate thing to do is actually to figure out what’s going wrong in that kid’s life. And the fact that that’s now beyond the pale to even explore shows how far we’ve come as a culture.
“So, for the same reasons that we don’t let kids in any one of the 50 states to get a tattoo before the age of 18, to make a permanent, life-altering change to their body that they may later regret, we should not allow those children to make life-altering genital mutilation or chemical castration-based changes to their bodies either.”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Friday, August 18th in the year of our Lord 2023. 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.