It’s Thursday, March 30th, A.D. 2023. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldView.com. I’m Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com)

By Jonathan Clark

Israeli Prime Minister opposes criminalization of Christian evangelism

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke out against a new bill that would criminalize Christian evangelism. Last Wednesday, he tweeted, “We will not advance any law against the Christian community.”

The anti-conversion bill would punish violators with at least one year in prison.

Members of the United Torah Judaism Party proposed the legislation to suppress the spread of the Gospel in Israel. In a statement, a spokesman said, “Recently, the attempts of missionary groups, mainly Christians, to solicit conversion of religion have increased … the many negative repercussions, including psychological damages, warrant the intervention of the legislature.”

Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Pope hospitalized

Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will need to spend a few days in the hospital in Rome, reports the British Broadcasting Company.

The 86-year-old had breathing difficulties in recent days, but does not have COVID-19.

United Methodist Church’s perversion push costs more delegates

The United Methodist Church is now losing its regional bodies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. 

On March 18, United Methodist Church delegates from Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Estonia voted for allowing regional bodies to leave the denomination. The delegates also voted against a proposal that would have authorized the blessing of people living sexually perverted lifestyles.

The split comes as United Methodists in America and western Europe are pushing support for such perverted lifestyles.

Biden eager to strip students of religious liberty

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last Friday. The Republican representatives are challenging a Biden administration proposal that would remove protections for religious student groups.

In 2020, the Trump administration established a policy known as the free inquiry rule. The rule prohibited public institutions from discriminating against religious student organizations. Now, the Education Department is moving to rescind the rule. 

The Republican letter referenced research from the Christian Legal Society. The research documented anti-religious discrimination in 90 campuses in 35 states in recent years.

Idaho bill would end trafficking teen girls for abortion

The Idaho state Senate advanced a bill Monday to end the trafficking of teenage girls to other states for abortions, reports LifeNews.com.

Linda Thomas, Director of Community Outreach for Stanton International, a medical pro-life pregnancy outreach, said, “With abortions virtually banned in Idaho, Planned Parenthood and other organizations are actively coaching and luring women across state lines for abortions. This is abortion trafficking.”

The bill already passed the Idaho House. It’s expected to pass the state Senate, and Republican Governor Brad Little will likely sign it.

Marriage is good for women’s physical and mental health

A new study published in Global Epidemiology found marriage is good for women’s physical and mental health.

The study examined 11,830 American female nurses who were deciding on marriage in the 1990s. Twenty-five years later, the women who got married had a 35% lower risk of death compared with the women who did not get married. The married women also had lower risks of cardiovascular diseases and depression. 

Dr. Brendan Case and Dr. Ying Chen at Harvard University helped conduct the study. In a Wall Street Journal column, they wrote, “Our findings, added to an already extensive literature showing the value of marriage, ought to serve as a wake-up call for a society in significant denial about this crucial element of flourishing.”

Protestant missionaries arrived in Hawaii 203 years ago

And finally, the first Protestant missionaries arrived at the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii, on this day in history in 1820. That was the original name that James Cook, a British explorer, chose in honor of John Montagu, a British statesman known as the 4th Earl of Sandwich who invented the sandwich.

The missionaries were sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, America’s first organized missionary society.

The first missionaries to Hawaii came thanks to a young Hawaiian named Henry Obookiah. He traveled to the United States and became a Christian. As one of the first Hawaiians to convert, he urged for his teachers to send missionaries back to his homeland. He died in 1818, but his wish would come true.

Describing the first missionaries to Hawaii, Historian Peter Young noted, “Most of them were young people, still in their twenties, full of life and enthusiasm. All were pious . . . Some were scholars able, when the native language had been mastered, to put into Hawaiian the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek.”

1 Timothy 4:12 says, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set for the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

Close

And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Thursday, March 30th 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.