It’s Monday, August 7th, 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
Iraqi Christians remember The Black Day
Iraqi Christians have dubbed August 6th, 2014 as “The Black Day.” And for good reason.
Listen to how Max Wood, the Chairman of the American Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, explained it to me for The Worldview.
WOOD: “On August 6, 2014, the ISIS forces arrived outside of the city of Qaraqosh, Iraq. The city of Qaraqosh, at that time, was the largest Christian city in Iraq. It was 50,000 people, approximately 80% Christian. The ISIS forces gave the people there a day to make a decision. And the decision they had to make was either to leave or be killed or convert to Islam. It was that simple and that brutal!
“You had an estimated 40,000 Christian people leave and hundreds were killed. They were people that tried to reason with the ISIS forces that were murdered. People that went out to try to talk to them and beg them to be merciful were killed. It was chaos.
“They carried what they could in suitcases and packed into family cars and drove as far as they could go before they ran out of gas. They slept along the roadside. They slept in cemeteries. They made their way to various countries. Some went to Turkey, some went to Syria, some went south into the desert and then went around to the east to Baghdad, and some went to Jordan.”
In 2019, the American Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East established The Olive Tree Center in Madaba, Jordan.
WOOD: “That’s a small five-room building where we offer a number of training opportunities, therapeutic meetings, woodworking classes, mosaic-making classes, adults and children classes, and especially a community center for Iraqi Christians where they can be Iraqis. They’re not Jordanians, even though they live in Jordan.”
Wood addressed whether any of the Christian Iraqi refugees, who fled ISIS in Qaraqosh, Iraq in 2014, subsequently returned to their homeland.
WOOD: “People often ask why they haven’t gone back to Qaraqosh in northern Iraq. Thousands of them have. Those who had jobs to return to, a lot of them went back to those jobs. But keep in mind, this is an area that looks like Europe after World War Two, looks like a war zone because it was a warzone. They destroyed houses, municipal buildings, churches, stole everything that they could take with them. So, there’s not a viable economy to go back to. And then the other factor, Adam, that keeps many of them from going back is while ISIS, as an organization, was defeated, radical Islamists still exist in Iraq, and the government is very weak. The law enforcement is very corrupt. And they still don’t feel safe to go back.”
To help fund the work of The Olive Tree Center in Madaba, Jordan to help assist the Iraqi Christian refugees, make a donation through the Christian-based American Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East through a special link in our transcript today at www.TheWorldview.com.
Biden admin pressured Big Tech to suppress criticism of COVID mandates
President Joe Biden’s administration worked closely with Facebook to censor dissent about COVID and related policies, according to the latest set of emails released by Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, reports LifeSiteNews.com.
The emails provide further evidence that Big Tech works not as an independent, private company, but as an extension of the federal government.
LifeSiteNews previously reported on Biden’s claim that Facebook was “killing people” by not censoring more COVID “misinformation.” Plus, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged that the administration had been “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”
In a series of tweets from Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, he documents how Rob Flaherty, President Biden’s former director of digital strategy, was actively colluding with Facebook to censor the First Amendment rights of Americans about the efficacy of the COVID shot.
Proverbs 19:28b says, “The mouth of the wicked gulps down evil.”
Trump’s PAC has spent $40 million on legal defense of Trump and advisers
Former president Donald Trump’s political group, Save America, seems to be primarily motivated by saving Trump.
It spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of 2023 to defend Trump and his advisers, financing legal work that has drawn scrutiny from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest between Trump and witnesses, reports The Washington Post.
The $40.2 million total is more than any other expense the political action committee has incurred during Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. In fact, it’s more than Trump’s campaign raised in the second quarter of 2023. It will bring the PAC’s post-presidential legal spending to about $56 million, as Trump faces a federal indictment in Florida, state charges in New York, and the prospect of additional criminal indictments in Washington and Fulton County, Georgia.
Anniversary of John Eliot’s baptism, Puritan “Apostle to the Indians”
And finally, John Eliot, the Puritan missionary from Hertfordshire, England, was known as the “Apostle to the Indians” here in America.
Baptized on August 5, 1604, he sailed for Boston in 1631. After marrying Hannah in 1632, they had six children whom they raised faithfully to know the Lord.
According to the Generations History textbook entitled Taking the Americas for Jesus by Joshua Schwisow, Eliot became the first full-time missionary to America. In 1643, God used his ability to learn languages easily – including Latin, Greek and Hebrew – to learn the language of the Algonquin American Indians, a people group that had never written their words down nor had they developed a dictionary. Eventually, after years of careful study, he translated the Bible into the Indians’ native tongue. It became the first Bible printed in America.
What the natives learned in the pages of Scripture transformed them. Before their Christian conversion, for example, the Indians consulted witch doctors who tapped into demonic powers. Through his Bible translation work, evangelism and discipleship, Eliot led 3,600 Native Americans to Jesus Christ.
Not only was John Eliot known for dedicating whole days to prayer and fasting, but he was incredibly generous. Once, after receiving his pay from the church which he wrapped in his handkerchief, he came across a poor family. While initially planning to give them just a portion of his pay, God impressed upon him to give it all.
In the Nonantum Village, the Indians asked Eliot, “Does God know what we’re saying if we pray in our language?” Eliot answered, “Of course! God understands all prayers.” An old Indian man asked, “Is it too late for me to repent?” After being assured that he had time, he repented and God saved his soul.
However, not all Indians were welcoming of John Eliot. Some did not want to give up their idols and their witch doctors. Despite attempts on his life, he kept preaching.
Ultimately, 1,000 Christian Indian converts, who had become ostracized by their pagan Indian relatives, founded fourteen Praying Indian towns by 1674.
Clearly, John Eliot is the preacher described in Romans 10:14. “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Monday, August 7th 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.