It’s Friday, July 5th, A.D. 2019. This is The World View in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus.
By Jonathan Clark
Eritrean authorities confiscate church, seize 22 Catholic hospitals
Christians in Eritrea continue to face persecution in recent months. On June 23, officials raided Faith Missions Church, arresting members of the church and confiscating church property.
Authorities also seized 22 Catholic-run hospitals last month after bishops spoke out against the authoritarian brutal regime of Isaias Afwerki, the country’s president since 1993.
The 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council is currently underway, and the U.K. has joined with others calling on Eritrea to respect religious freedom.
Eritrea is listed by Open Doors as the seventh worst nation for Christian persecution, often called “Africa’s North Korea.”
Ephesians 6:12 reminds us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Court: British college student, who stood for marriage, was right
On Tuesday, a U.K. appeals court ruled in favor of a Christian student who was kicked out of a university for expressing his beliefs.
The University of Sheffield dismissed Felix Ngole in 2016 after a complaint surfaced over a 2015 Facebook discussion in which he opposed faux homosexual marriage by appealing to the Bible. The school even prohibited Ngole from speaking on the issue in public.
The court of appeals noted, “The mere expression of religious views about sin does not necessarily connote discrimination.”
More Christian refugees, fewer Muslim refugees under Trump
The Trump administration is seeing an end to the Obama-era surge of Muslim immigration while also seeing an increase in the percentage of Christian refugees coming into the country, according to State and Homeland Security data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute.
Under the Obama administration, the percentage of Muslim refugees being accepted increased from 22 percent to over 40 percent while the percentage of Christian refugees hovered around 45 percent.
In contrast, over the last year, 16 percent of refugees were Muslim and 80 percent were Christian.
Democrats try to exact revenge after Hobby Lobby case victory
Over 120 Democrats have signed onto a House Bill, inappropriately named the “Do No Harm Act”, that would actually weaken the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The 1993 bipartisan act states “government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.” The new bill would make exceptions to protect people living in sexually perverted lifestyles from any form of so-called “discrimination.” Exceptions could also apply to health care and the issue of abortion.
Democrats initially introduced the bill after Hobby Lobby, the Christian company, won their court case to not be required to provide abortifacient drugs in their employee health care plans.
NYC rejects $1.3 million so they can continue to kill babies
New York City announced last week its public hospitals will forgo $1.3 million in federal funding rather than follow a recent Trump administration rule that bars health care providers from promoting abortion.
This follows a federal appeals court ruling last month, upholding the new rule which prohibits the use of Title X funds to “perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”
Church kicked out, pastor defrocked over lesbian wedding
While numerous churches and denominations are caving on issues of family and sexuality, one denomination took a stand for God’s Word last week.
The Evangelical Covenant Church voted to defrock a Minneapolis, Minnesota pastor and expel his church from the denomination for their support of faux homosexual marriage, overseeing a lesbian wedding off-site of two of the worship band members, reports The Star Tribune.
The vote ends a five-year conflict with Dan Collison and his First Covenant Church, a founding church of the 134-year-old denomination.
Jesus said in Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”
Sadly, the congregation itself voted to keep their theologically unsound pastor.
Sneak Peek: Culture presents euthanasia as good
Our culture has painted euthanasia as a “right to choose” to take one’s own life or to end one’s suffering, so they “don’t have to be a burden” to someone else. But what does God teach about suffering?
James 1:2-4 says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Immediately following the newscast, listen for The Worldview Special Report with Alex Schadenberg of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition on why people might think that euthanasia is their “only option.”
Michigan church pays off $2 million of medical debts for 1,800 families
Grand Rapids First, a Michigan congregation, will be paying off nearly $2 million of medical debts for 1,800 families across four counties, reports Detroit Free Press.
The church paid pennies on the dollar through nonprofit RIP Medical Debt which seeks to “empower donors to forgive the billions in oppressive medical debt.”
On Sunday, Pastor Sam Rijfkogel said the debts were “paid in full, not held against them one bit. To God be the glory.”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Friday, July 5th 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.
Special Report: Fear, Bad Quality Medical Care inspire Euthanasia
Time now for a Worldview Special Report by Emily Swanson. I’m Adam McManus.
Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition talked to The Worldview about the evil practice of euthanasia.
SCHADENBERG: “Part of that is due to how the culture has sold euthanasia. They sell it as choice, freedom, and autonomy, when in fact, when you look at the law, the law gives physicians the right to cause your death. So, the power is in the hands of the physicians, and the act is done by the physicians. You get this natural pressure built into the system. The greater concern is the patient.”
He said the patient may feel like they have no other choice.
SCHADENBERG: “Because in the opposite direction, you have a situation where a patient might have significant disabilities or health concerns such as the case of Candice Lewis, who in August of 2016; she’s a woman with disabilities since birth, was being pressured by her doctor to ask for euthanasia. The reason was because her health condition was significant, and the physician was ‘pro’ assisted death.”
Schadenberg said that when doctors start thinking of euthanasia as the “solution” they will revert to this when someone has significant disabilities.
SCHADENBERG: “If you think about this, once you’ve become convinced this is a good idea, once you’ve done the act a few times, when a patient shows up who has significant health problems, suddenly the response is ‘Well, isn’t euthanasia the best response?’”
“The tragedy is that murdering someone before their natural death is being sold as ‘right.’ Isaiah 5:20 says to this, ‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!’”
He said that this is the core of the problem.
SCHADENBERG: “To actually take someone’s life, and this is what is being sold to society as being as a ‘good.’ It’s now a ‘good’ to kill somebody, which to me is a ridiculous concept. But this is how we are being conditioned to believe.”
Matthew 5:19 says, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” Let’s pray for transformed hearts by Jesus Christ that don’t love the murder of the disabled, the elderly, or the unborn.
Schadenberg said that these people need care and compassion.
SCHADENBERG: “What’s really needed in the culture more than anything else is a society that provides the best possible care. Let me give you an example. This person did not die by euthanasia or assisted suicide. Bill Peace is a disability leader and activist; he was a professor of anthropology, who was disabled most of his life. He became disabled through an accident when he was 18. Anyway, he was in a wheelchair all those years. He just died of sepsis which is an infection. And the reason he died of sepsis is because of his disability.
“You often get these pressure sores because of how your wheelchair might fit, because of how your bed fit, or whatever it might be, you get these pressure sores and it becomes infected. But the reason he died of this was because he was not being offered the best possible care.”
He said that when people aren’t receiving the best possible care, they often feel like it isn’t worthwhile to keep living.
SCHADENBERG: “If people do not feel that they are receiving the best possible care, if they have fear for their care, then euthanasia, assisted suicide becomes what they see as a ‘reasonable option.’ People make decisions about euthanasia and assisted suicide not out of some feeling of, ‘I want control over my life.’ It’s because they have fear of the future. 95% of requests for assisted suicide in Oregon are based on fear.”
May the words of Job 12:9-10 be before the eyes of every physician, every patient, and every family member, “Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
This has been a Worldview Special Report. I’m Adam McManus.