Persecution of Christians in North Korea Increases; Polish President Promises to Support Restrictions on Abortion; Homeschool Bill Moves Forward in the Virgin Islands

Wednesday, November 2nd, in the year of our Lord 2016

By Adam McManus

North Korea’s Treatment of Christians is a Human Rights Violation

In 2014, the group Aid to the Church in Need published a persecution report which figured that some 50,000 Christians may currently be in North Korea’s prison camps.

The organization warned that the Kim Jong-un regime appeared to be tightening controls over potential dissent, including a vigorous crackdown on Christians. According to the Aid to the Church, “Since 1953, at least 200,000 Christians have gone missing. If caught by the regime, unauthorized Christians face arrest, torture, or in some cases public execution.”

Daniel Harris, Regional Director for International Christian Concern of Southeast Asia, told The World View that it is critical that the word gets out on the many injustices suffered by Christians in North Korea.

“I think a lot of people are aware that things are bad, I just think that people are not aware of HOW bad they are for Christians over there. The reason that I think people should know about what’s happening is that it’s a human rights violation, what’s happening here, and it’s a matter of religious freedom for these people. They’re getting steamrolled, burned, crucified, tortured, and summarily executed only because of their faith in Jesus. North Korea has topped the Open Doors list for 14 years straight. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ; this is our family, and we want the world to know.” 

Harris explained that the stakes are high.

“You’d think that their hope would be to defect or to escape, but for many of them, if they escape to China and if they are found in China, there is a mandatory deportation policy. They will be returned to North Korea, and they will be tortured, imprisoned, and executed. If they make it south, to South Korea, things don’t always get better; they are hunted by the North Korean government, they’re marginalized.   

“So there’s a lot of suicide, a lot of hopelessness. There are some organizations that are working to provide care for defectors, providing care packages, food, supplies. We support some projects that fly drones and fly balloons with the gospel across the border. We even support a project, that they fill water bottles with rice, and hide USB keys with the gospel on it in those bottles, and they throw those bottles in the ocean.”

Daniel Harris of International Christian Concern explained what he thinks keeps North Korean Christians going and pressing on.

“There was a missionary, and he says that these North Koreans, they’ve found the hope that goes beyond success or freedom. We think about how they must be crying out for freedom or money, but he says that their hope is beyond their circumstances. It’s almost like it’s in a different type of kingdom. They are praying to be transformed more into the image of Christ, more than freedom. It was really humbling to hear that.”

Kim Jong Un’s Wife Has Been Missing for Months

What has happened to North Korea’s first lady?  According to The Sun, Ri Sol-ju, the wife of Kim Jong Un, has been missing for seven months. Some suggest that she might have somehow crossed the dictator’s sister Kim Yo Jong . . . and others speculate the dictator himself may have harmed her in some way. News reports from August of this year allege that he executed one of North Korea’s top officials with an anti-aircraft gun after the man fell asleep in one of his meetings.

Polish President Promises to Support Bill Restricting Abortion

Despite intense pressure from abortion activists, Polish President Andrzej Duda promised this weekend to support a bill that would restrict abortions on unborn babies with disabilities, Radio Poland reports. Almost half a million Polish citizens signed the citizen-led bill, and a recent poll found that 58 percent of Poles support a ban on abortions, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Pastor Refuses to Hand Over His Sermons to State of Georgia

Nearly 40,000 people have signed a petition backing a Christian pastor who is resisting demands to hand over his sermons to the state of Georgia, reports Christian Today.  

Dr. Eric Walsh, a Seventh Day Adventist lay pastor who takes a traditional Biblical line on issues such as sexuality, was fired in 2014 from his job as a health administrator by the Georgia Department of Public Health. Officials had watched some of his sermons on YouTube and have now demanded that he hand over his sermons, his sermon notes and his Bible. Walsh refuses to do so.

Acts 5:29 says, “We must obey God rather than men.”

His lawyer, Jeremy Dys of First Liberty Institute, said, “The pulpit is a sacred space…For them to intrude upon that sacred space is a gross violation of the Constitution and religious liberty in general.”

Add your name to the petition at www.FRC.org/Walsh  

Group in California Brings God’s Help and Healing to Sex Trafficking Victims

“The light shines the brightest in the darkest of places.” Those are the words of Kim Biddle, the 36-year-old founder of Saving Innocence (www.savinginnocence.org), a Southern California-based group which empowers the victims of American sex trafficking to break the cycle of abuse with God’s help and healing. Southern California is one of the largest sex trafficking hubs in the nation because it’s home to the entertainment and porn industries.

Two Republicans Who Pledged to Support the Nominee Did Not Vote for Trump

Every Republican presidential contender, except for Donald Trump, raised their hand and pledged in the primary debates to support the eventual nominee. Two of those candidates broke that pledge.  

Ohio Governor John Kasich, despite making that pledge twice, said he wrote in the name of Senator John McCain for president, according to Fox News.

Former candidate and Florida Governor Jeb Bush has also revealed that he will not vote for either Trump or Clinton in this election. Bush explained by Facebook that “Donald Trump is not a consistent conservative.”

Matthew 5:37 says, “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be no’.”

Bill to Protect Homeschool Families Moves Forward in Virgin Islands Senate

After receiving a deluge of phone calls, emails, and personal visits, the Virgin Islands Senate’s Education and Workforce Committee voted unanimously to move the homeschooling bill forward to the Rules Committee—one big step closer to enactment.

The bill will move the power to govern homeschooling from the Board of Education to the legislature, and it will protect families from the draconian regulations proposed by the Virgin Islands Board of Education.

Evangelical Bishop Likely to Become Mayor of Rio de Janeiro

In Brazil’s rightward shift, an evangelical bishop is favored to become the new mayor of Rio de Janeiro, reports Reuters.  

Marcelo Crivella, a controversial conservative who is a senator and the nephew of the founder of an evangelical megachurch, maintained a lead in opinion polls over a liberal former schoolteacher to run Brazil’s second biggest city. He appeared to weather an uproar over his past comments against homosexuality and Catholicism. The 13-year reign of the leftist Workers Party fell under the weight of an historic corruption scandal.

Mosul Getting Close to Liberation from ISIS

Iraqi forces are on the verge of setting Mosul free from ISIS occupation, reports CNN. Yesterday, they encountered snipers, landmines, and road-blocking boulders as they edged closer to the key city. Residents of an eastern neighborhood reached by phone said there had been heavy shelling in the area by Iraqi forces, and that they heard outgoing mortars and heavy fire from ISIS machine guns.

Children in Ireland Are Being Corrupted by Pornography

‘Children are being corrupted by an avalanche of porn’, says the Irish Prime Minister.  Enda Kenny added that Ireland’s young people are “growing up imagining that what they see on a screen might be normal sexual behavior,” reports the Christian Institute.

A survey of European Union countries published in June found that Irish teens were the fourth most likely to be involved in ‘sexting’.  And the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children noted that children as young as six have watched pornography, leaving them “confused and scared.”

And that’s the World View in Five Minutes.

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