A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Christian Pro-Lifers met in Richmond, Virginia over the weekend for a “Day of Mourning,” following passage of a late-term abortion bill in New York in January and a more recent bill proposed in Virginia.

The event organizer, Elizabeth Johnston, who is known by the moniker “activist mommy” on social media, said the day saw “dozens from the medical community on stage mourning and repenting over what the medical community has done to these babies.”

In January the Reproductive Health Act was passed in the New York State legislature with a 38-28 vote, effectively decriminalizing late-term abortions in the Empire State. A few weeks later Virginia governor Ralph Northam voiced support for a similar bill that would allow abortions up to 40 weeks of pregnancy, saying a “fetus that’s not viable” could justify a third trimester abortion.

“We are in the 11th hour in our country. If we don’t turn from our wicked ways now as a nation, we are toast,” Johnston lamented, citing the church’s laxity on the recent snowballing legislation.

The slew of new abortion bills comes amidst fears on the left that the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court last Fall will lead to the overturning of Roe V. Wade, which Planned Parenthood’s website called “a huge blow to our right to access safe, legal abortion.”

The landmark 1973 Supreme Court case ruled that access to abortions was guaranteed to women as a constitutional right under the privacy clause of the 14th Amendment.

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(Worthy News) – In a nation where many have never seen a Bible in their own language, Christians from 16 language groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are requesting Scripture translation workshops from Wycliffe Associates.

“Language groups have heard about our Bible translation strategy,” said Bruce Smith, President and CEO of Wycliffe Associates. “They’ve heard how other groups have translated the Scriptures. And they are crying out for the same chance.”

Wycliffe Associates, an international organization involving people in the acceleration of Bible translation, has been equipping mother-tongue translators with tools and training for translating the Bible into their own languages. The translators are trained in the translation method known as MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation), which Wycliffe Associates piloted in 2014.

Since then, more than 1,300 translation language projects have been launched through MAST workshops.

During a MAST workshop, teams of mother-tongue translators work in parallel on assigned portions of the Bible. The translators draft verses during the morning and then check their work in the afternoons and evenings using an eight-step process.

While French is the official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there are 212 living languages spoken in the Central African nation. Generations of tribal violence has led to political instability and has dramatically slowed the progress of Bible translation by foreigners.

“With the local Congolese churches taking ownership of translation projects, we will finally be able to reach parts of this country that are impossible for outsiders to reach,” said Smith. “Local churches leading workshops is the safest, most sustainable strategy for taking God’s Word to the DRC. National Bible translators can deal with the challenges of this region far more adeptly than foreigners.”

In addition to MAST training, Wycliffe Associates provides technology that includes computer tablets loaded with translation apps and portable Print On Demand equipment. This equipment allows translators to work discreetly, safely preserve the translation, and print Bibles or portions of Scripture in custom quantities.

Launching a new language with a MAST workshop costs $19,500. Wycliffe Associates is raising funds to meet the 16 new requests from language groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Currently, there are 1,058 MAST Bible translations in progress worldwide.

About Wycliffe Associates

One of the world’s leading Bible translation organizations, Wycliffe Associates was organized in 1967 by friends of Bible translators to accelerate the work of Bible translation. Wycliffe Associates empowers national Bible translators to provide God’s Word in their own language, partners with the local church to direct and guard translation work, harnessing their passion and desire for God’s Word, and engages people from all around the world to provide resources, technology, training, and support for Bible translation.

Because millions of people around the world still wait to have the Scriptures in the language of their hearts, Wycliffe Associates is working as quickly as it can to see every verse of God’s Word translated into every tongue to speak to every heart. Wycliffe Associates is directly involved with speeding Bible translation by providing technology, training, resources, logistics, networking, expertise, volunteers, discipleship, church planting, and support. Wycliffe Associates staff and volunteers are currently accelerating Bible translations in 92 countries. For more information, please see www.wycliffeassociates.org.

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(Worthy News) – President Reuven Rivlin urged Israelis to vote in Tuesday’s general election, saying that maintaining a democratic system is hard work and “not a given.”

“Elections are a celebration of democracy,” Rivlin told voters in a column carried by Hebrew-language media. “This is the day we exercise our right to determine our fate, as citizens with equal rights and as partners in the political enterprise – the State of Israel.”

“Democracy is not a given, nor is a state’s ability to preserve its democratic character, the independence of its governing institutions, and its uncompromising commitment to civil rights and equality under law,” the president wrote. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Illegal leaks of classified information have reportedly reached ‘record high levels’ during the Trump administration, according to a nonprofit group citing DOJ stats.

“Agencies transmitted 120 leak referrals to the Justice Department in 2017, and 88 leak referrals in 2018, for an average of 104 per year,” the Federation of American Scientists reported, citing numbers issued by the Justice Department. “By comparison, the average number of leak referrals during the Obama Administration (2009–2016) was 39 per year.”

While Trump administration officials have sought to stem the flow of these leaks, they appear to have continued at record levels. [ Source: Washington Free Beacon (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Hundreds of pro-life Christians came together on Saturday not to protest or rally but to repent for their silence and complicity in abortion.

“Something is desperately wrong with our hearts when we can drive by these abortion clinics every day and sit silently by and do nothing,” said Elizabeth Johnston, who organized the Day of Mourning in Richmond.

“We walked by the cries of these babies. We have to own this. We are in the 11th hour in our country. If we don’t turn from our wicked ways now as a nation, we are toast.” [ Source: Christian Post (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Flood, snow, avalanche and fire alerts popped up Monday from Idaho to Colorado, as parts of the U.S. interior that were paralyzed by blizzards and floods last month braced for round two of an unusual weather phenomenon.

A storm system that is moving in from the Pacific Ocean is forecast to intensify and form into a new inland “bomb cyclone.”

A bomb cyclone is a rapid drop in air pressure – at least 24 millibars in 24 hours – and often is over or near oceans or seas because it requires warm moist air smacking into cold dry air, along with volatile weather from the jet stream. The central and mountain part of the country may get one of these every few winters, said Greg Carbin, forecast branch chief for the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.

But this would be the second such storm in less than a month. The March 13 storm caused massive flooding in the Midwest, a blizzard in Colorado and Wyoming, and produced winds of between 96 mph and 110 mph (155 and 177.02 kph). [ Source: VOA News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The Syrian government condemned as irresponsible a US decision on Monday to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a “terrorist group,” calling it a “badge of honor” for the Islamic republic.

A foreign ministry source told state news agency SANA the US move against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was “a blatant attack” on the sovereignty of Iran, a strong ally of Syria.

US President Donald Trump said the “unprecedented” move “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.” [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Trump is considering signing legislation that would end the U.S. role in Yemen’s stalemated civil war after his advisers urged him to veto the bill.

Trump’s choice pits his aversion to Mideast wars against concern about the consequences of not routing Iran-allied Yemeni rebels who took over population centers in 2014. Most GOP lawmakers and Trump’s in-house advisers opposed the bill, but it passed with support from some of Trump’s closest allies, including Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Although White House advisers urged a veto, potentially Trump’s second, Trump expressed open-mindedness Thursday, telling reporters, “I’ll look at it.” Since then, he’s made no public remarks amid behind-the-scenes lobbying. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A new cancer “vaccine” that’s injected directly into a single tumor can trigger the immune system to attack cancer cells throughout the body, a small new study suggests.

The researchers say that the experimental therapy essentially turns tumors into “cancer vaccine factories,” where immune cells learn to recognize the cancer before seeking it out and destroying it in other parts of the body. “[We’re] seeing tumors all throughout the body melting away” after injecting just one tumor, said lead study author Dr. Joshua Brody, director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Still, the research, published today (April 8) in the journal Nature Medicine, is very preliminary. The therapy has only been tested in 11 patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a cancer of immune system cells), and not all of these patients responded to the treatment. But some patients did have remission for relatively long periods, and the results were promising enough that the therapy is now also being tested in patients with breast and head and neck cancers, the authors said. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he’s going ahead with the controversial purchase of a Russian air-defense system over U.S. objections as Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin urged even closer military links between their two countries.

“Everything is done” on the agreement to buy the S-400 missile system and “those who ask or suggest we backtrack don’t know us,” Erdogan told reporters after talks with Putin in Moscow on Monday. “If we sign a deal on an issue, that’s a done deal. This is our sovereign right, no one can ask us to back down.’’

Russia’s ready to consider deepening defense cooperation with Turkey through “joint development and joint production of high-tech weaponry,” Putin said. While they discussed implementing the S-400 contract, there are also other “promising projects,” he said. [ Source: Bloomberg (Read More…) ]

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