It’s Friday, July 26th, A.D. 2019. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus.
By Jonathan Clark
Humanity Denied: Religious Freedom in North Korea
A short documentary called “Humanity Denied: Religious Freedom in North Korea” was shown at the Senate Dirksen building last Thursday by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Afterward, a panel addressed the dire situation for Christians in the country in that oppressive country, ranked as the worst nation for Christian persecution.
Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American pastor, who was held hostage in North Korea from 2012 to 2014, reports the North Koreans said, “We are not afraid of nuclear weapons . . . we are afraid of someone like you bringing religion into our country and use it against us and then everybody will turn to God and this will become God’s country and we will fall.”
Since the 1960s, the North Korean government has sought to erase the name of Jesus from anything in the culture.
Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
North Korea fired 2 missiles Thursday
In a related story, South Korean officials report that North Korea fired two ballistic missiles yesterday.
This is the first missile test since North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump renewed denuclearization talks last month. The new tests put further tension on the relationship between the two countries.
Ugandan president quotes from Genesis
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni welcomed a gathering of church leaders this week, which marks the 50th anniversary of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar.
Museveni said Africa is doing better spiritually than other continents. The president also cited human development problems in Africa and quoted from the book of Genesis, encouraging the church to “establish dominion over nature” to better the welfare of the lives of their people.
Since 1969, church membership in Africa has quadrupled from 40 million to 178 million.
India launches rover headed to the moon
On the 50th anniversary of the America’s successful Apollo 11 mission to the moon, India successfully launched their lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, on Monday from their space center in Andhra Pradesh.
The launch was initially scheduled for July 15, but was called off over a technical snag.
If successful, the mission will soft land a rover on the moon, making India the fourth nation to do so after the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union.
Attorney General Barr greenlights federal death penalty
Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered the federal government to resume capital punishment after a 16-year lapse.
Five inmates convicted of murdering children now face execution in December or January at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Barr said, “We owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
Romans 13:3-4 says, “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. . . But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”
Google Exec blows whistle on manipulation of elections
Google put one of their senior engineers, Gregory Coppola, on administrative leave this week just hours after he blew the whistle on the Big Tech giant with James O’Keefe in a Project Veritas video.
Coppola said that Google’s search engine algorithms are biased and expressed his concern over Big Tech companies taking sides in elections.
Listen.
COPPOLA: “We are seeing Tech use its power to manipulate people. It’s a time to decide, you know, do we run the technology? Does the technology run us? I really don’t buy the idea that Big Tech is politically neutral and I think we need to start incorporating that into whatever strategy we use. Are we going to continue to have elections that mean anything? Are we going to just let the biggest Tech companies decide who wins every election from now on?”
This marks a third attack by Google on conservative engineers.
Coppola has raised $16,000 on line to pay for his living expenses while he writes a book about politics and technology.
Lutherans: We believe in 6-day creation
On Tuesday, the 67th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod passed a resolution titled “To Confess the Biblical Six-Day Creation.”
The resolution affirmed the Bible’s teaching of a literal, six-day creation. The resolution also declared the creation of Adam as the first human being as a “historical event” while rejecting the claims of evolution.
U.S. Evangelicals most knowledgeable about Bible among believers
A new Pew Research poll found that Christian evangelicals are the most knowledgeable about the Bible and Christianity compared with other American Christians.
Those most likely to answer questions about the Bible correctly were also those who attend church at least once a week.
However, the study also found that atheists and agnostics do about as well on questions about the Bible and Christianity as do Christians in general.
Hebrews 2:1 says, “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Friday, July 26th 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.