USA: Sorry, Mr. President: Socialism's not in the Bible

John Aman, One News Now | Having placed 50 percent of America's economy under government control, the Obama administration is now angling for a tighter grip on the financial sector.

The operative word is "fairness," which is shorthand for Obama's famous campaign promise to "spread the wealth around."

 When critics said that this remark to "Joe the Plumber" displayed Obama's socialist leanings, Obama justified it by citing Scripture:

"My Bible tells me there is nothing wrong with helping other people," said then-Sen. Obama. "That we want to treat others like we want to be treated. That I am my brother's keeper, and I am my sister's keeper. I believe that."

But Obama, who once dismissed the Bible's relevance to politics, saying, "People haven't been reading their Bibles lately," may need to go reread his Engels. Co-author with Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels knew better than Obama about collectivism's clash with Christianity, stating, "...if some few passages of the Bible may be favourable to Communism, the general spirit of its doctrines is, nevertheless, totally opposed to it ...."

Despite Engels and Marx (who dismissed religion as the "opium of the people"), Obama and many others still manage to see socialism in the Bible. They point to the early church which, at first glance, seems like a model socialist community. The New Testament reports that these first believers "had all things in common" (Acts 4:32) and "all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need" (Acts 4:34-35).
 
But unlike socialism, the sharing was voluntary, not coerced, and the money was given not to the state, but the church.

Three Samaritan’s Purse Workers Missing in Darfur, Sudan

Assist News | Three Samaritan’s Purse employees have been abducted in Sudan.

The Samaritan’s Purse team, two Sudanese men and one 36-year-old American woman from California, was traveling in a two-vehicle convoy and stopped by a group of armed men 25 miles southwest of Nyala in Sudan’s Darfur region at approximately 5:30 p.m. (GMT+3), Tuesday, May 18.

USA: Texas board adopts new social studies curriculum

One News Now | Texas schoolchildren will be required to learn that the words "separation of church and state" aren't in the Constitution and evaluate whether the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty under new social studies curriculum.

In final votes late Friday, conservatives on the State Board of Education strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers and required that the U.S. government be referred to as a "constitutional republic" rather than "democratic."

The board approved the new standards with two 9-5 votes along party lines after months of ideological haggling and debate that drew attention beyond Texas.

 The guidelines will be used to teach some 4.8 million students for the next 10 years. They also will be used by textbook publishers who often develop materials for other states based on those approved in Texas, though Texas teachers ave latitude in deciding how to teach the material.

On the Front Line of Faith and Freedom:

Former British Politician Gives Whirlwind Report on the Front Lines of the Persecuted Church Around the World

Assist News | It is a long way from a tent in a war zone in Sudan, to a five-star hotel in Beverly Hills -- but that's the transition that Baroness Caroline Cox, a former deputy speaker of the British House of Lords, made recently when she met with international journalist and broadcaster Dan Wooding before speaking about the persecuted church at this top hotel.

Baroness Cox told Wooding her organization, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), works with people who are on the front lines of faith around the world.

CANADA: Same-gender 'marriage' and rights of conscience

One News Now | A Canadian court is deciding whether marriage commissioners have a right to conscience.

 The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) appeared before the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, offering arguments for giving commissioners the right to not perform homosexual "marriages" based on their religious beliefs.

While homosexual marriage is legal there, EFC spokesman Don Hutchinson explains that the case stems from a Baptist marriage commissioner who "had prepared himself for any such event by securing the names of some other marriage commissioners who would perform same-sex marriages. So he advised the couple that he could not perform the ceremony himself, but [he] provided them with alternate names."

Chocolate: The Bitter Truth

Four Corners: Watch Full Episode on ABCs iView | Cocoa beans are the basic ingredients of chocolate. They are one of the most heavily traded commodities in the world. In Europe, major chocolate makers have signed up to Fairtrade programs, claiming some of their products are made without abusive labour practices. Now the BBC's Paul Kenyon, posing as a cocoa bean buyer, puts those claims to the test, revealing that despite Fairtrade's best efforts unscrupulous cocoa suppliers still try and cheat the system.

His name is Fatao. He is just 12 years old and each day he works with a machete harvesting cocoa beans on a farm in Ghana. The hours are long, the work is dirty and exhausting and he is paid no money. But the beans he harvests underpin a massive industry that nets companies, in the developed world, millions and millions of dollars.

His situation is not unique. Across parts of Africa thousands of children, some less than ten years of age, are forced to work for little or no pay to harvest cocoa beans. Some are trafficked and moved from country to country to work illegally. Their treatment breaks international labour laws and yet in many cases very little is done to stop this modern day slavery.

Major chocolate makers acknowledge there are problems involving the use of children. In the United States, after a major political campaign, companies including Mars and Nestle agreed to sign up to a six point plan to protect children in the chocolate industry. Nine years on though there is still no logo on U.S. chocolate stating which brands are free of child labour.

For some activists, including Terry Collingsworth from International Rights Advocates, this is a completely unacceptable situation

WATCH FULL EPISODE

Training tomorrow's leaders

There is a great need in this nation to assist those students and recent graduates who demonstrate a high potential to become influential leaders for Christ across strategic areas of our nation including politics, law, media, science, education, arts and philosophy.
The Compass program, an eight-day course in Christian worldview, aims to address this need.

The inaugural program kicks off this Sunday with 40 students at the University of Queensland. For more information and to register interest for 2009, please go to www.compass.org.au .

Lyle Shelton
National Chief of Staff , Australian Christian Lobby