Monday, August 20th, in the year of our Lord 2018.
By Adam McManus (adam@TheWorldView.com)
The torture and dramatic escape of an Egyptian Christian
Coming from a prominent family of Muslim lawyers, Majed El Shafie said he was 18 when he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior in 1996. He didn’t waste time in following the Great Commission and launched an organization that advocated for equal rights for religious minorities in Egypt. It grew to over 24,000 people in just two years.
On August 15, 1998, he was arrested, reports The Christian Post.
After Shafie was tortured in Cairo’s Abu Zabal Prison for seven days, he was told by a guard that he would be free to go and given any car, house and pretty girl of his dreams if he would just give up the names of his brothers and sisters in Christ.
After fooling the guard into thinking that he was going to tell him the names of his friends in exchange for a good meal of shish kebab, the only name that Shafie uttered was that of the organization’s true leader — Jesus Christ.
What followed was another brutal attack by the guard and three more days of torture and imprisonment.
Shafie said, “They started by shaving my hair off my head, putting my head in buckets of cold and hot water, hanging me upside down. On the third day, they released dogs to attack me but the dogs didn’t attack.” After that, they tied his hands to a cross for two days. And then, “they made a cut on the back of my left shoulder to the bones and they rubbed salt in my open wound. I almost died.”
Shafie was sentenced to death and sent to a police hospital for three months of recovery.
In God’s providence, Shafie ultimately escaped on a jet ski on the Mediterranean Sea, making it to Israel, and found asylum in Canada in 2002 thanks to the pressure of human rights groups.
Shafie, who was the focus of the 2012 documentary “Freedom Fighter,” started One Free World International which has helped over 600 women and children who were held hostage by the Islamic State terrorist organization in Iraq as sex slaves.
James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.”
Trump revokes security clearance of former CIA Director
President Donald Trump revoked the top security clearance of Ex-CIA Director John Brennan. Until Tucker Carlson of the Fox News Channel reported it, the American people had been unaware that he and many other former government officials still retained access to such top secret information after their official duties had ended.
Tucker Carlson: “It’s not clear why any of these men still have legal access to classified material. The fact that they retained that power, after leaving government for the private sector and punditry, is bizarre. Brennan is an out-of-the-closet extremist. This is not a man who should have a security clearance. Just a few weeks ago, he accused the President of treason for daring to hold a press conference with a foreign leader. Keep in mind that treason is a death penalty offense. Responsible people do not make that charge for political reasons. Brennan called the loss of his clearance an effort to suppress freedom of speech.”
(Watch Carlson’s excellent interview with Mark Steyn and his debate with a liberal talk show host Ethan Bearman.)
That is a laughable charge, especially in light of the fact that Brennan complains regularly on the public platform on MSNBC and in the New York Times.
During Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein condemned the President’s decision.
Carl Bernstein: “This is what dictators do. This is a dictatorial exercise of power that should frighten and call on all Republicans to say, Mr. President, you cannot do this. You are trying to inhibit the free speech of people who may be in opposition to you, but they have a right to express themselves. This is an act of authoritarianism and demagoguery which defines who Donald Trump is and his total disregard for the First Amendment as we have seen when he calls the press the enemies of the people.”
Democrat New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: “America was never that great!”
Riffing on Trump’s famous campaign slogan, Democrat New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that America was never that great to gasps and laughter, reports The Guardian.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: “We’re not going to make America great again – it was never that great. (gasps and laughter) We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping of women – 51% of our population – is gone.”
Trump tweeted, “Which is worse, Hightax Andrew Cuomo’s statement, ‘WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, IT WAS NEVER THAT GREAT’ or Hillary Clinton’s ‘DEPLORABLES’ statement? I say Andrew’s was a bigger and more incompetent blunder. He should easily win his race against a Super Liberal Actress [Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City”], but his political career is over!”
Batman character renounces Christian faith
Batman, one of DC Comics’ most recognizable fictional heroes, no longer believes in God, reports ScreenRant as Catwoman leaves Batman, whose secret identity is billionaire Bruce Wayne, at the altar. This leaves Wayne in a questioning state, where he explores his life and reflects on his theological background — he had been raised as a Christian by his father, Thomas.
In one exchange with another character, Wayne is asked, “Do you believe in God?” to which he replies, “I used to.”
He reflects that his father “held hallow the immortal soul, Heaven, the Father and the Son.”
His father also believed in “giving your will to your Lord, trusting Him with that will.”
Wayne notes that he “put aside believing in a deity — or believing in anything my father thought had saved him.”
The cemetery background of the comic strip strongly suggests that Wayne is referring to the murder of his parents when he was a boy, which is what began the character’s journey into becoming Batman.
Psalm 14:1 says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Satanists install half-goat, half-man statue in Arkansas capitol
Nearly four months after crews reinstalled the Ten Commandments monument at Little Rock, Arkansas’ state capitol grounds, the Satanic Temple came Thursday with a statue of its own, reports Fox16.com.
They chanted “Hail Satan!” during their “Rally for the First Amendment” as a flatbed truck wheeled the half-goat, half-man monument of Baphomet to the capitol steps.
One Christian said, “You’re an intelligent man, I could see you in Heaven someday, turning from your sin.”
In response, a Satanist said, “What if I said I didn’t want to go to heaven. Heaven sounds boring to me.”
Revelation 21:1-5 declares, “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
And that’s The World View in 5 Minutes on this Monday, August 20th in the year of our Lord 2018. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldView.com. I’m Adam McManus. Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
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Trump to Facebook, Google, Twitter: Stop censoring conservative voices!
Following the removal of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars shows from most major social media platforms earlier this month, President Donald Trump on Saturday tweeted, “Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen”, reports TheWrap.com.
The president did not indicate what steps his administration might take to prevent private companies from setting up and enforcing terms of service that have allowed them to discipline or shut down accounts for reported abuses.
John MacArthur: Social justice is threat to Gospel
Pastor John MacArthur argued that evangelicalism’s “newfound obsession” with social justice is a threat to the Gospel, reports The Christian Post.
In a Monday blog post on his Grace to You ministry website, MacArthur, leader of Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California, and president of The Master’s College and Seminary, said that social justice advocates are “demanding repentance and reparations from one ethnic group for the sins of its ancestors against another.
“It’s the language of law, not gospel — and worse, it mirrors the jargon of worldly politics, not the message of Christ. It is a startling irony that believers from different ethnic groups, now one in Christ, have chosen to divide over ethnicity. They have a true spiritual unity in Christ, which they seem to disdain in favor of fleshly factions.”
Good deed encouraged new stay-at-home mother
Mackenzie Mauller was at a coffee store in Ohio earlier this week when she spontaneously decided to pay for the order of the woman behind her in line.
When she left the store, she didn’t think much of her good deed. Later that day, however, she found a heartfelt letter in her mailbox, reports GoodNewsNetwork.org.
The letter was from Nicole Clawson, a woman who had fallen on hard times and incidentally lived right next to Mauller.
In her note, Clawson wrote, “Thank you for the coffee! I rarely go to Starbucks and treat myself, but the last couple of months have been a bit of a struggle. My father just passed away and he was also my babysitter. My family and my children have had a really hard time. This morning, my babysitter called off sick and I had to take the day off work. I decided to buy my kids breakfast and get myself a coffee with total guilt because I am going to be a stay-at-home-mom for a while.
“I was not emotionally and financially prepared to quit working. I cried when I found out you were so sweet to buy my coffee. I felt it necessary for you to know that what you did for me was more than just a coffee. It was something that has turned my whole day around, put tears in my eyes and a smile on my face.”
First Liberty defends couple told to stop Bible study
A couple threatened with eviction from the Evergreens, a Virginia-based senior living community, for hosting a Bible study have gotten the support of First Liberty Institute which sent a letter last Thursday demanding that Kenneth and Liv Hauge be allowed to continue their Bible study, reports The Christian Post.
Initially, the Evergreens refused to allow the Christian couple to call the event a “Bible Study”, instead requiring them to refer to it as a “Book Review.”
If the Virginia-based senior living community does not respond by August 30th, First Liberty will sue.
Willow Creek paid $3.5 million for sexual abuse of disabled boys
Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois reportedly paid $3.5 million in lawsuits over the sex abuse of two developmentally disabled boys unrelated to accusations that former lead pastor Bill Hybels sexually abused women, according to court records obtained by The Chicago Tribune.
Former Willow Creek volunteer Robert Sobczak Jr., now 24, pled guilty in 2014 of abusing an 8-year-old with special needs at the church. A year earlier, he admitted to sexually abusing another disabled boy at the church, believed to have been 9 years old.
One payment of $1.75 million was apparently made in February, while another one of $1.5 million was made last year.