Many are surprised to learn that we are unwelcome at Christian colleges and universities, where we are often denounced by students and faculty alike.  Here are some of the more disappointing comments from our recent trips to Liberty University. 

Inconvenient maybe, but not inappropriate.  A Liberty student told CBR staff member Joanna Keilson, “How long are you going to be here?  This is inappropriate.  You’re showing pictures of dead babies.  This is a Christian campus.”  This student can ignore God’s admonition to do oppose injustice, but he can never again say that he didn’t know.

How did you come to that conclusion?  Jacob had many questions, but was sure about one thing.  “Oh, I support abortion.  I don’t think we know when life begins.”  The biology books in your library say something very different.  So does Matthew 1:18-23, where God tells us that the life of Jesus Messiah began when Jesus was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit.

Where is that in the Bible?  “You know what my favorite Bible verse is? The one that says to love your neighbor and like, not shove things down their throat.”  Hopefully, they’ll let him take Bible 101 again …

Ignorance is bliss.  CBR staffer Fletcher Armstrong asked a passing student what he thought about abortion.  The student replied, “I’m not educated enough to know.”  So Fletcher offered him one of our informational leaflets.  The student turned it down.

What’s political about child sacrifice?  One student refused to speak with us because he doesn’t “get into politics.”

CBR Staffer Joshua Lindsey explains to a Liberty U student that God is displeased and appalled when His people fail to intervene against injustice.

CBR took our Revival Project to Liberty University twice during the 2018-2019 school year.  Although we were denounced by students and others, we certainly had many positive reactions as well.

Pro-choice, even in the church.  A young man stopped his bicycle and told CBR staffer Mik’aela Raymond that he grew up in a Christian family hearing that “abortion is murder,” but he hadn’t given it much thought.  In the last few years he had become “borderline pro-choice,” even while a student at Liberty.  He said seeing our abortion pictures opened his eyes and made him think differently about all of it.

Student comes to our defense.  The president of the Liberty U pro-life student club complained that we were using shock tactics and were only hurting people.  But one of his fellow students overheard and rebutted, “We need to be shocked in order to care!”

Wake up!  Vincent stopped to talk with CBR staffer Fletcher Armstrong and was very supportive.  “This is a very explicit picture, but that’s how you wake people up.  I’m upset that you aren’t allowed on campus; you could do more good there.”

She gets it.  A young female student stopped to tell CBR staff member Joanna, “Those are graphic pictures, but they are effective.”

Politically correct Christianity?  A young man on a bicycle told CBR volunteer Tony, “Thanks for being here y’all!”  A jogger stopped and said, “Liberty is very politically correct and I am glad you are here.  What you are doing is right!”

Despite opposition, many students are receptive to the Revival Project message at Lee University.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) is refocusing its outreach to the Church, which will now be known as our “Revival Project.”  We’ve taken our pro-life message to Christian audiences for many years, but calling it the “Revival Project” is new.  Here’s why.

The Church’s prayer: revival.  For some time now, Christian leaders have prayed for revival in the Church and in our land.  We don’t doubt their sincerity, but they ignore the principle that God will never bring revival as long as Christians, leaders and lay alike, stand by and do nearly nothing about abortion.  Christians are both complicit with and complacent about child sacrifice in America, even when church members sacrifice their own children.

The Church’s position: cruel indifference.  Church members are killing children who could be saved if Christian leaders would (1) stop helping Planned Parenthood cover up the truth and simply open the curtain to let everyone see what abortion is and does, (2) exhort Christians to forsake killing their own children and grandchildren, (3) help Christians be a public witness against child sacrifice, and (4) offer hope and healing to abortion-wounded hearts.  The overwhelming majority of our “pro-life” churches refuse to take even these basic steps.

Challenging students and passersby alike in front of Catholic University of America.

The Lord’s apparent response: “Request denied.”  We want revival without repentance, the crown without taking up the cross.  We pray for revival, but how can God permit revival when there is complacency about the bloodshed of our neighbors and even bloodshed within the Church?  God says in Isaiah 59:2-3:

[B]ut your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.  For your hands are defiled with blood . . .

God says in Isaiah 1: 15-17:

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.  Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

In these and many other places in the Bible, God says, in effect, that our petitions to Him are offensive as long as we fail to seek justice, correct oppression, protect the fatherless and widow, etc.

A question for the Church:  Who is more of an orphan than a child being abandoned by his own parents to be decapitated and dismembered?  And who is more of a widow than a woman being threatened with abandonment if she will not consent to the extermination of her own child?

In light of God’s Word, it is difficult to imagine that He will grant revival as long as the Church turns a blind eye to child sacrifice.  Over and over again in Scripture, God rebukes and calls to repentance, not the world, but His own people (e.g., Ezekiel 36:18-23, Revelation 3:15-17,19, and Romans 2:24).

Signs visible to pedestrians and vehicular traffic alike at Liberty University.  By standing on a busy sidewalk, we reached many thousand students.

Purpose of CBR’s Revival Project.  Our purpose is to confront complicity and complacency in the Church.  We use horrifying photos, because without them, most people cannot understand how evil abortion truly is.  Nor can they understand how their indifference must grieve the heart of God.

Our signs exhort Christians to forsake killing and take a public stand against child sacrifice.  Our presence models one way Christians can be a public witness.  One sign offers hope and help to parents in crisis and offers healing to abortion-wounded hearts.  You may view all of the Revival Project signs below.

Revival Project signs.  Each Revival Project sign is a 5 x 10-ft image printed on two 5 x 5-ft panels.  Most depict a photo of abortion or living embryo, along with a Scripture verse that explains God’s view on child sacrifice and our responsibility to stand against it.  Depending on conditions, a volunteer can hold one or two of the panels.

Revival Project at entrance of Regent University, reaching arriving students and staff, as well as travelers along a busy thoroughfare.

Revival Project venues.  Christian leaders, for the most part, are not receptive to this message, so we display our signs on the sidewalks and other public spaces immediately adjacent to their concerts, conventions, seminaries, and schools.  In doing so, we find Christians who will see the difficult truth and hear God’s heart for “the least of these.”  God sent Jeremiah to the gate of the Lord’s house to call His people to repent of their sin, including child sacrifice (Jeremiah 7).

The response from “pro-life” Christians.  At Liberty University, Lee University, Catholic University of America, and Regent University, we were denounced by faculty and students alike.  Harvest Crusade organizers (Anaheim, California) threatened their own attendees, stating that they would not be admitted to the arena if they hold one of our brochures.  Members of Crossroads Community Church, a megachurch in Vancouver, Washington, used vinyl banners to block our prenatal development photos.  This is reminiscent of the pagans in Ireland who also blocked our prenatal photos.  Apparently, pro-life advocacy of any kind is offensive to many Christian leaders.

Why would “pro-life” Christians oppose us for exposing the deeds of darkness (Ephesians 5:11)?  Why did so many churches fail to address historical injustices such as slavery, racism, and Nazism?  Here’s why.  It is bad for business.  Controversy doesn’t fund-raise well.  It’s easier to give a token response and turn to more profitable pursuits.

Will you invest your time and treasure?  Please pray that Christians will repent of sacrificing children on the altar of self and instead sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, as Jesus has done for us.  We will expose injustice as long as God enables.  Please invest your time and treasure in this crucial work, to be a voice for those who have none.

Revival Project Signs

For display only at Liberty University:

Mik’aela Raymond

We are pleased to welcome Mik’aela Raymond of Monroe, North Carolina to the CBR family.  Mik’aela is a graduate of Liberty University, having earned one BS degree in International Business and another in Market Research and Analysis.

As a freshman, Mik’aela knew very little about abortion, but after seeing Choice Blues (CBR’s graphic abortion video) and learning the staggering number of children being killed every year, she was motivated to join the student pro-life organization.

Sadly, pro-life activism at Liberty University gets almost zero support from the Administration and most of her classmates at Liberty did not at all support her efforts.  At best they were apathetic, but quite often they were antagonistic.

Later that year, Mik’aela attended a CBR student training conference in Virginia, along with a carload of other Liberty students she brought with her.  At this conference, she learned why CBR projects are so effective.

When she graduated three years later, she felt God calling her to pro-life activism.  She answered, and we thank God for her.

Welcome aboard, Mik’aela!  We’re expecting great things from you!

If you’d like to support Mik’aela (or any of our staff), it’s quick, easy, and secure to support CBR online.  Whatever you can do will make a huge difference.  To support Mik’aela’s work, designate your gift for “Carolina Project Director (SE-MAR).”

Diana Jeminez broke the rules to display this abortion victim photo at Biola University.  A baby was saved and Biola later apologized for their abusive treatment of her.

In recent years, CBR has encouraged students at Christian universities to display abortion victim photos, in spite of demands by university administrators that these images be covered up.  This has included Biola University and Liberty University, but CBR is committed to growing this list.

As Christians, we are commanded to obey those in authority over us (Hebrews 13:17, Romans 13:1), presumably even if, in our opinion, the authorities are in the wrong.  So, therefore, we must ask the question:  Is it permissible for Christians to break rules in order to save lives?

In the case of rules which prohibit students from saving the lives of children on Christian university campuses, the answer has to be an emphatic “Yes!”

We can start with Mark 3:4.  Jesus asked the religious authorities, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”  When babies are dying all around us, when Liberty University parking stickers are seen at nearby abortion mill parking lots on a regular basis, when 1 in 5 women who aborts her child identifies her as a born-again or evangelical Christian, and when the Church leaders are trained to believe that abortion is somebody else’s problem, then we think it’s fair to ask the question, “Which is lawful at Liberty University (or Biola, or wherever), to do good or evil, to save life or to kill?”

And no student has any Biblical obligation to obey school rules which conflict with God’s laws.    God’s law regarding injustice mandates that we intervene in defense of its victims (Isaiah 59:15-16, Proverbs 24:11-12).  Ephesians 5:11 proscribes intervention by “exposing” the deeds of darkness, not covering up those deeds.

CBR has seen countless pregnant students change their minds about killing their children after seeing abortion photos on public university campuses.  Christian university administrations, however, have spent more time and energy stopping the display of abortion imagery than they have ever spent trying to stop abortion.  Publicly, these universities profess to be pro-life.  Christians are scandalized to learn that the unwritten rules at these Christian universities actually censor pro-life speech on their own campuses.  That is an inconsistency that deserves to be exposed and resolved.

Our experience at Biola has been very instructive.  Biola’s treatment of Diana Jimenez can only be described as abusive, even after she had graduated.  Biola has since apologized to Diana, but Biola’s claims that CBR’s video was “edited” and had “given a false impression” can rightly be compared with Planned Parenthood’s response to the CMP videos released in 2015.

In the face of all of this, God has actually used Diana’s courage to save at least one baby’s life.  The following message was posted online:

There are a lot of people bashing Diana right now but first hand I can tell you she did what she was told to do.  I am 20.  A student of Biola and always claimed to be pro-life.  I thought that until I got a positive pregnancy test.  This came after a night of partying just outside the campus and had a one night stand with a youth pastor in training.  I was going to go to Planned Parenthood that day and as I walked through campus her signs made me realize there is a human life in my womb ….  In that moment I went to my dorm room got on my knees and asked that I would have the strength to be my baby’s mom.  STOP saying she didn’t follow her stupid rules.  God came through for me because of her.  (emphasis added)

Matthew 23:23 says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin.  But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness.”  We don’t want to make that mistake.

Liberty University students expose the truth to their classmates.

by Jacqueline Hawkins

It may seem counter-intuitive to display abortion victim photos at Liberty University (LU), the world’s largest evangelical university.  But these students need the truth, just like everyone else.

Eye-witnesses confirm that cars with LU parking stickers are often seen in nearby abortion mill parking lots.  Obviously, LU people are having abortions.  That doesn’t surprise us, because 1 in 5 women who aborts her child identifies herself as a born again or evangelical Christian.

But when Christians see abortion, they are much less likely to abort their own children.

They are also more likely to understand God’s commandment to be a witness against evil in their own communities.  God’s law mandates that we intervene in defense of its victims (Isaiah 59:15-16, Proverbs 24:11-12).  Ephesians 5:11 proscribes intervention by “exposing” the deeds of darkness, not covering up those deeds.

Despite all this, abortion victim photo (AVP) displays are prohibited on the LU campus.

However, courageous students at LU are displaying them anyway.  At the encouragement of CBR, they have displayed AVPs on several occasions over the past 2 years, most recently during the Fall 2015 semester.  All of these events have been peaceful and quiet.  Compared to their public university counterparts, LU students are less inclined to curse and carry on.  However the students’ most recent display provoked more than one visit from unhappy administrators.

Near the end of the event, the students were approached by the LU police and asked to meet with administrators to discuss their pro-life activism.

Stay tuned.

In a future post, Lord willing, FAB will examine the question of whether it is permissible to break rules in order to save lives.

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Beth Fox and I exhort Liberty students to be pro-life with their actions as well as their thoughts.

by Kendra Wright

Who needs to see abortion photos?  Everyone?  Even those that are already pro-life?

Absolutely.

This point can seem confusing.  If you already believe something, you don’t need to be convinced of it.  Right?

Yet, it is clear that Christians are doing almost nothing to stop the killing in the culture.  They are even killing their own children at staggering rates.  One in five women who abort identifies herself as a born-again or evangelical Christian.

Secular universities devote massive resources to training advocates for the abortion industry, but Christian universities like Liberty University have zero training programs to prepare Christians students for the pro-life mission field.  Zip, zero, nada.

In fact, Liberty has even forbidden pro-life students from displaying abortion victim photos on campus.

It is a tragedy every time a savable baby at Liberty is killed by abortion.  But CBR is working to change all that.

Beth Fox is one Liberty student who is willing to stand up and be counted.  On several occasions, Beth, (CBR Project Director) Maggie Egger, and I have stood in front of the Liberty library with a sign showing an abortion victim photo.  The sign first asks if Jesus would use a bloody picture, then answers that question with a picture of the Crucifixion.

Many student studied this sign and discussed it with their friends as they walked by.  Two students that gave us a thumbs up.

As we were packing up to leave, a professor came up and asked why we were there.  He wasn’t against the use of the pictures, but he was confused about their use at Liberty.  He asked, “But why are you here on a Christian campus?  Isn’t everybody here already pro-life?”

Maggie stopped him with her reply, “Are they doing anything about it?”

Good question.  The pictures challenge Christian complacency.

Kendra Wright is a CBR project director and a regular FAB contributor.

This Liberty student is hungry … but, for what? His answer may not be as creepy as it seems.  Read on to find out why.

by Nicole W. Cooley

I got my first collegiate baseball cap at Liberty University in August 2011.

But at Liberty, we weren’t actually on the campus.  Despite requests by Student Government and CBR, the Liberty Administration repeatedly denied permission for our GAP display.  First Amendment rights don’t exist at private schools.

That is very creepy, I thought.  But then I saw the fine print at the bottom of his sign.

But we came anyway.  We used the streets, sidewalks, and public spaces just off campus.  We displayed GAP signs at the campus entrances and drove Truth Trucks around the perimeter of campus.  Five Truth Trucks.  For an entire week.

I lost count how many times students asked me, “Why are you here?  Everyone at Liberty is pro-life already.  Why don’t you go somewhere else?”  Many were annoyed at our presence.

Over and over I replied, “I’m so glad you are pro-life.  What are you doing about it?  Do you vote pro-life?  Do you sidewalk counsel outside of abortion clinics?  We’re here because you are attending the largest Christian university in the United States.  If we can’t get Christians to care about abortion, we have no hope of ending it.”

One conversation stood out.  On the fourth day, a young man came up to me in tears.  “Why are you doing this?  I can’t get those pictures out of my head!”

I gently replied to him in the same way as I did the others, “We had to break your heart about abortion – otherwise you’d continue in ignorant apathy like the rest of America.”

On the last day at Liberty, we finally got a protester … or so I thought.  A student stood along the side of the road with his sign which read, “Looking at dead babies just makes me hungry.”

That is very creepy, I thought.  But then I saw the fine print at the bottom of his sign, “…for change.”  Because he saw the pictures, he was hungry for change.

Amen!  So are we.

Nicole Cooley is a CBR project director and a FAB contributor.  This is the second in a series of “hat blogs” about memorable conversations gleaned from her experiences with GAP.

This public space near the bookstore allowed CBR to overcome the Liberty University’s censorship of the pro-life message.

Just now found this in my “Draft” folder.  For the record, here is the media coverage from our Fall 2011 Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) excursions to Liberty University, Radford University, and the U of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

GAP at Liberty University

• Abortion demonstrators share graphic message with local college students
• Pro-life group gets banned from Liberty University
• Anti-Abortion Group Demonstrates near LU
• Thinking Christian: Christians condemning Christians

Radford University

• Students react to graphic anti-abortion demonstration at Radford University
• Abortion protests manifest at Radford, Liberty
• Graphic abortion protest at Radford U
• Letter to Editor: Big images, big impact
• Feelings toward protest from Republican perspective
• Letter to the Editor: New student overwhelmed by club presentation
• Letter to the Editor: Demonstration opens eyes to opposite sex

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

• Abortion group at UTC draws demonstrators
• GAP Photo
• Anti-abortion images spark debate
• Students protest use of grotesque images
• Students defend use of disturbing photos
• Letter to the Editor

Nicole Cooley speaks with a student at Liberty University.

Nicole Cooley, CBR’s Virginia Project Director, spoke to the pro-life student group at Liberty University last night.  She described her experience with rape and abortion and spent another hour answering questions and speaking with students.

One student wanted to know how to help his girlfriend, who is post-abortive from a previous relationship.

Another student wanted to know about our use of pictures at the entrances to the campus back in August.  He asked how Christians can do more to end abortion, which is exactly the question we hoped to stimulate with our GAP appearance.  Nicole stressed that if we can’t get Christians to care about abortion, we have no hope of ever ending it.

She also spoke to the  issue of how Christian women can feel pressured to abort if they are condemned and punished for getting pregnant out of wedlock.  Notice that men never have to face this.  The irony here is that the sexual revolution was sold to America as an emancipator of women.  In practice, women are pressured to have sex.  Women become pregnant.  Women are threatened with expulsion from school.  In many cases, women bear the more severe symptoms of STDs.  “Men” get sex without responsibility and then they try to transfer their own guilt to the mothers of their own children by saying, “It’s a women’s issue.”  Yeah, right.

Pro-life students told Nicole that we had a huge impact on Liberty when we brought GAP early this semester.  Students were talking about abortion a lot for a month after we were there, and they still talk about it now, months later.  Even though many of them were angry at us, we still succeeded in making abortion a significant and ongoing topic of discussion on campus.  Mission accomplished.

We agree with Martin Luther King.  We don’t care what people think about us; we care what they think about injustice.  Read my letter to Liberty University here.

Darius Hardwick and GAP at Liberty University

This story is from Darius Hardwick, CBR’s Midwest Director.

“Are you more pro-laundry now?” Greg said as he pushed his sweaty gym shorts under my nose. “We don’t need to see this, we are already pro-life!”

This was the almost unanimous statement we heard from students at Liberty University (LU) when we brought our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) there this fall.

Greg is one of the many students at LU who were upset by seeing abortion photos at their university. He stayed and debated for well over an hour about how our abortion photo signs were ineffective at getting peoples’ attention, forming relationships, and getting people engaged in the abortion battle.

After an hour of lively on-camera debate, we all shook hands and exchanged contact info. He even offered to edit the video for us, because that is a part of his major! He admitted he would not have met us had it not been for the pictures.

LU is the largest private non-profit university in the nation, the largest university in Virginia, and the largest Christian university in the world. According to the LU website, “[Liberty] is designed to develop Christ-centered men and women with the values, knowledge and skills essential to impact tomorrow’s world.” We went to LU because those are the types of people who need to engage the culture on abortion.

We talked to many great kids who were growing in their relationship with God, and had high hopes of serving Him with their educations. When the inevitable question came from every student, “Why are you here?” We replied, “Because Christians are the only ones who will stop abortion, and you are the cream-of-the-crop.” All week long, our plea for help was met with blank stares. It had not occurred to them that they should personally do something to stop abortion.

God said to the Israelites through the prophet Jeremiah, “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7) God said to “amend your ways.” We as a nation are guilty of all of this, but note that God reserved His harshest words of judgement against Israel for their practice of killing innocent children. Here in America, we have killed more than 54 million innocent preborn children.

“As for you, [Jeremiah] do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you. “Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?” (Jeremiah 7:16-17)

We must not say, “Look what they did.” We need only drive through our cities to see the neon signs for the establishments of drunkenness, fornication, and pride in homosexuality. Finally we will come to the “clinics” where innocent blood is shed. When will God tell America, “I don’t want to hear your prayers until you amend your ways?”

Let us amend our ways before it is too late.

Liberty students see abortion, many for the first time.

We were disturbed but not particularly surprised at some of the reaction from Liberty University students when we took GAP there a few weeks back.  So many of them wanted to live within the fiction that since they are “pro-life,” whatever that means, that’s all they need to know.  Not trying to pick on Liberty here; Liberty is simply a microcosm of the modern American church.

A particularly disturbing comment from “LU” (his pen-name) appeard on FAB.  It read, in part, as follows:

… Abortion has been in the light of public media for years now and I would say that most adults do know what takes place.  You are not showing us anything we haven’t seen or heard before, you only anger the students of this campus with your lack of tact.  Also, it pains me to see the young children with your group being involved in this protest.  These children are way too young to be seeing these images in the first place and are only being brought up into a lifestyle of intolerance; not a true life of love as we as Christians are called to live.  Children need to be taught both sides of an issue and allowed to develop their own opinions once they are capable to do so. … We need to be able to decide for ourselves through skeptical study of the Bible and beliefs we have been taught.  It is sad to see how Christianity is being portrayed to unbelievers through your work.  I pray for you, your family, and fellow campaigners.

Note how illogical his reasoning is:

1. We shouldn’t show the pictures because everbody has seen them when they were younger.
2. Younger people shouldn’t see the picture’s, either.
3. Showing the pictures is intolerant.
4. Leaving Christians ignorant allows them to figure out for themselves what side they are on.

But wait a minute, if we all followed his advice, none of his classmates would have ever seen the pictures before and the first premise would be invalidated.

I responded as follows:

LU Student, you are mistaken on many points.  Please read my Open Letter to Liberty University, which you can link to from our website, http://www.ProLifeOnCampus.com.

You said that “abortion has been in the light of public media for years now.”  Really? I watch public media all the time.  I see unborn children dehumanized as mere blobs of tissue, masses of cells, products of conception, parasites, etc.  I see abortion euphemized as a reproductive “choice.”  A mere picture would dispel those myths, but the myths are cherished by those in power, so the pictures are suppressed.  With all the talk about “choice,” I’ve almost never seen any attention paid to what is actually being chosen.  The rare exception is when we come into town and some of the local media outlets actually show the pictures we have put on display.  Without any presentation of the reality of abortion in the media, the education system, and even the Church, most people have no idea who the preborn baby is and what abortion does to her.

You say the “shock factor” is not as effective as we would like to believe.  Your argument is not with us.  Your argument is with the countless women and men who have let us know that our pictures changed their minds.  In many cases, they tell us that our pictures saved their own children from destruction at the hands of the abortionist.  You can see many testimonials on http://www.AbortionNo.org and on http://www.ProLifeOnCampus.com.

You say that children should never be shown these pictures, but that you and everybody else at Liberty has already seen them?  How can that be?  If only a few kooks like us are letting our children see the pictures, how can it be that by the time they are 18, everybody has seen them?  We have encountered many, many students who tell us that they grew up in “pro-life” churches, had never seen abortion pictures, had come to believe abortion should be a choice, and changed their minds only after seeing our pictures.

You say that “Children need to be taught both sides of an issue and allowed to develop their own opinions once they are capable to do so.”  Really?  Whatever happened to God’s side?  Whatever happened to “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6)?  We are commanded not to kill their own children (Mark 10:19).  We are commanded to protect and defend the defenseless (Proverbs 24:11-12).  And finally, we are commanded to teach other believers to do the same (Matthew 28:20).  These commands are not optional.

When Christians see the horror of abortion, they are more likely to obey God’s command not to kill their own children (Mark 10:19).  Furthermore, they are more motivated to protect and defend the defenseless (Proverbs 24:11-12).  And finally, they more fully understand their duty as Christian leaders to teach other believers to do the same (Matthew 28:20).

[Note: You can read the entire discussion stream here.]

.

We often get comments from people who don’t want us to show abortion pictures in the public square because children will see them.  We get one such message from “Briana Richards”, who saw our trucks operating near Liberty University in Lynchburg.  She wrote:

To whom it may concern,

Let me begin by saying I am completely anti-abortion and support that cause.  However, I do not agree with the manner in which the organization is displaying the signs in areas that are heavily traveled by young children.  I do not think that it is necessary to take away my young child’s innocence by showing them graphic images of fetuses.  The only thing that is going to promote is questions too early regarding what is abortion, why are some babies not wanted and killed.  Why do YOU get to choose when the right time is to talk to MY child about abortion?

I understand making people aware of what abortion truly is so they do not make that choice, I just disagree with the method in which you are getting your point across.  After school yesterday I had to stop short of the stop light and drive up next to 2 cars just so my 6 year old wouldn’t have that image in his mind for the rest of his life!  You are not using a plane this year (from what I’ve seen) but what 18-month-old kid, or 10-year-old, does not look up at the cool airplane going over, only to be accosted with an image they have no idea about but know it’s scary looking?  I mean would you really want to have a conversation with your 6-year-old about abortion?  They don’t even understand all the ins and outs of how babies are born yet but we’re showing them what people do when they don’t want them.

I am requesting that you please take into account the large amount of parents that are driving their young children by these signs daily near the Liberty University campus and that you rethink the location of your displays for the future.  I disagree with your methods but I know it is your right to display them.  It seems there could be better ways to get your point across without effecting our innocent children.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Briana Richard
Sent from my iPad

I responded as follows:

Dear Ms. Richards,

Thank you for registering your comment about our work at Liberty University last week.

We don’t target young children with our pictures, but with all the institutions of society (including the Church) covering up the truth of abortion, we have no choice but to take to the public square.  Otherwise, the killing will never stop.

Children are exposed to graphic images of violence all the time … on newspaper front pages, on magazine covers that are visible in the supermarket checkout lines, etc.  They even showed Schindler’s List on TV during family viewing hours a few years back.  Nobody objects because nobody feels guilty about their own complicity or complacency with respect to those acts of violence.  Many are guilty of complicity or complacency with respect to abortion.

What is worse, a born child being horrified by a picture of abortion or a preborn child being killed by the act of abortion?

You might ask if Jesus would ever put a graphic image on display where children could see them.  In fact, He did just that.  Jesus controlled every aspect of his arrest, trial and execution.  He arranged to have Himself beaten nearly to death before stumbling through the most crowed part of Jerusalem on the most crowded day of the year.  His bloody body horrified throngs of Passover pilgrims which included large numbers of families with young children.

He then permitted himself to be stripped naked and tortured to death in full view of still more passersby, including more children.  The Romans used executions to intimidate subjugated peoples.  They located crucifixion cites for maximum public exposure.  Our Lord accommodated Cesar by going out of His way to make this disturbing spectacle of His death as public as possible.  And in the process, He chose as the very symbol of our faith, a bloody instrument of torture.  His point was to disturb us with the gravity of our sin but bless us with the grace of His forgiveness, despite the fact that many children would be traumatized in the process.  Did He get this wrong?

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FAB undercover operatives an e-mail that was sent to the parents of Liberty Christian Academy, which was previously posted here on FAB.  CBR Florida Director Mike Schrimsher responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Patterson,

I am the Florida regional director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and took part in the recent visit to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. I watched your interview that was included in the abc13 WSET-TV news coverage and read your letter that was sent out to LCA parents last week. Please allow me to provide some details and clarification about our visit.

We agree that the pictures of aborted babies are “very graphic” but I’m not sure what you mean when you refer to them as “insensitive”. I assume you mean that either their public display is insensitive or perhaps that we are insensitive for displaying them publicly. We also agree that our graphic images of aborted fetuses are jarring and offensive to many viewers, precisely because these images accurately portray the horror of abortion, and abortion itself is very offensive, and insensitive, especially to unborn babies. Abortion is an act of violence which kills a baby and wounds his or her mother, and it is worse than many people think, even in the first trimester (first 12 weeks) when 90% of abortions are performed.

Most Americans, including pro-life Christians, are not bothered enough about abortion to stop the killing and they need to be jarred and offended into action to defend those who are being taken away to slaughter. (Proverbs 24:11-12) I hope that the hundreds who complained and sought protection for their born children from our abortion pictures will also take action to protect unborn children from abortion procedures.

While we did not set up any of our displays at entrances to LCA, we know that some parents drove past our display across from Hardees on their way to LCA and that our trucks did pass by the LCA campus on their way to and from the entrances along the east side of Liberty University. Clearly, the focus of our visit was Liberty University as we maintained our displays only at LU entrances and focused the driving of our trucks on the LU perimeter. Undoubtedly, however, people of all ages, young and old, saw our trucks as we drove on Lynchburg roads around Liberty.

You should know that we wrote and called Liberty University, requesting a meeting to work out the details of a visit on the LU campus similar to our frequent visits to secular public universities. This would have enabled us to interact almost exclusively with college students and staff, but we received no response of any kind from Liberty and were left with the choice of doing nothing at Liberty or designing a visit to the borders of Liberty’s campus. We chose the latter.

We know of only one contact with someone who may have been an LCA representative. A lady who parked in the Hardees parking lot came over and spoke to one of our ladies on Tuesday morning and requested that we take down or move the sign(s) near Hardees during the morning drop-off and we did discuss and voluntarily comply with her request that morning. Also, later in the week we dropped that location and focused on the other 2 locations.

Again, I hope that similar time and energy will be invested in efforts to stop baby-killing as were expended to research how LCA and LU might “curb political speech on public property”. On future visits to Lynchburg, I think it would be reasonable for us to coordinate with LCA to limit driving our trucks past LCA’s campus during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up times, and LCA parents might choose to avoid our signs near Hardees by using another route while we are there. However, while it is understandable to shield pre-school and elementary school children from abortion imagery, most middle school students and practically all high school students should be made aware of the reality of abortion in America: who the unborn baby is and what abortion ~legally~ does to him or her. Anyone old enough to make a baby or have an abortion is old enough to see abortion.

Please let me know if you have any additional comments or questions and I will be pleased to respond.

Thank you for your service in the U.S. military to help protect America, and for your ministry with students at Liberty Christian Academy.

Michael A. Schrimsher
CBR-Florida Regional Director

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Earlier, we posted a message from Warren Wilson, a student at Liberty, along with a response written by CBR Florida Director Mike Schrimsher.  Here is my response:

Dear Mr. Wilson,

If you are committed enough to want to end abortion, and I don’t doubt that you are, you owe it to yourself to study the history of social reform. If you look at the work of other reformers (William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, the American abolitionists, Lewis Hine, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few), you will discover that they all used graphic images to help people relate to the humanity of the victims of injustice and the horror of the crime itself. I would challenge you to name one injustice that was ever eradicated by covering it up.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought about dramatic changes in our society, even ending segregation in less than 10 years. Was he wrong when he said this?:

We bring [injustice] out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Dr. King also said, “America will never reject racism until America sees racism.”

Was Dr. King wrong? Other civil rights leaders thought so. They criticized him for making people uncomfortable about injustice. But he knew that unless people became uncomfortable with respect to the status quo, there would be no pressure for change. They told him some of the same things you and other Liberty students are telling us. They told him that he was making it harder for them, that he was undoing all the good that they had done, that he was making them look bad by association, that he was an outsider who should not come to Birmingham. But he went to Birmingham, anyway. He was arrested, and he wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I hope you will read it. If you are going to invest yourself in the work of social reform, you ought to read the works of others who have done it before you.

Because some in the civil rights movement would not expose injustice, Dr. King called them “civil rights moderates” and said that they were more dangerous to the cause of civil rights than the Ku Klux Klan.

You said that we were neither winsome nor loving. But how is it loving to cover up the truth so that people don’t know how evil abortion really is? How is it loving to allow people to sin out of ignorance, when showing them the truth can lead them to obey God’s commands? When Christians see the horror of abortion, they are more likely to obey God’s command not to kill their own children (Mark 10:19). Furthermore, they are more motivated to protect and defend the defenseless (Proverbs 24:11-12). And finally, they more fully understand their duty as Christian leaders to teach other believers to do the same (Matthew 28:20).

You call out materials “extremist, hateful propaganda.” Can you give me one example of an extreme or hateful statement in any of our materials?

You mentioned that our people heckled you and your friends, that we yelled, condemned, and shoved posters in your face. I find that very hard to believe. All of our staff and volunteers sign an agreement that they will never shout at people and that they may offer literature but never pressure people to take it. If any of our people violated our very strict rules, then please provide me with additional details (who, what, where, etc.), so that I can put a stop to it.

[Note: since this e-mail was sent, we have determined that one CBR volunteer may have said something like, “I thought this was a Christian university.”  This comment would have been a violation of our rules, but hardly the yelling, condemnation, shoving pictures in faces, etc. that was described in Mr. Wilson’s e-mail. — FAB]

After you have read Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, please read my letter to Liberty University (which you can link to from www.ProLifeOnCampus.com). I look forward to hearing from you.

Fletcher

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