Culture’s Moral Anchor

This post is not about politics. It is about how pro-life Christians can continue saving lives in an increasingly hostile environment. Scripture helps us navigate and endure times that tempt us to compromise.

In May of 2021, CompassCare’s Walk for Life in Buffalo was violently attacked. A year later, the Buffalo office was firebombed by pro-abortion Marxists. Shortly after, extremists defaced the outside of the Buffalo property. Between those events, the legacy media and pro-abortion politicians denigrated pregnancy centers while the DOJ and FBI were questioned by the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for turning a blind eye to the violence against us. But it did not end there.

After the 2022 mid-term elections, I predicted that pro-abortion bigotry would shift away from physical violence (over 300 attacks on pro-life groups) to lawfare. And so it did. Gov. Hochul signed a bill to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers. CompassCare was the victim of a frivolous lawsuit. And now New York Attorney General sued eleven pregnancy centers—including CompassCare—in an attempt to shut down life-saving, emergency abortion pill reversal care. In all instances we are fighting back in court with the help of pro-bono law firms like ADF and the Thomas More Society. Thankfully we are winning so that we can keep saving women and babies from the devastation that is abortion.

Christians ought to be culture’s moral anchor because we understand we are made to reflect the image of an unchanging God.

But the propaganda delivered by these bald-faced Marxist, pro-abortion domestic terrorists and NY’s Attorney General is identical: pro-life Christians are a woman’s enemy, lying in order to permanently relegate mothers to a life of privation and economic slavery.

A year ago last April, I warned that Christians at large ignore these attacks to our peril, noting Jesus’ Mt. Olivet Discourse command for the disciples to “Be on the alert” (Mt. 24:42a) as well as Paul’s appeal to his Roman citizenship when unjustly persecuted and scourged (Acts 22:25).

Now the threat level against public pro-life expression in New York has risen to DEFCON 1. The threat? The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The amendment could outlaw activity by any organization or person perceived as discriminating against a woman based on “pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

Translation: any pro-life activity could be interpreted as a violation or conspiracy to violate a woman’s civil right to abortion, from a pregnancy center refusing to refer for abortion to a pastor preaching a pro-life message. For those of you living outside of NY, many states are considering similar amendments this November.

Given New York is already the most pro-abortion state next to North Korea, coupled with recent attempts to shut down public pro-life expression, the ERA is less about “equality” and more about legalizing the bigotry of pro-abortion politicians. A “no” vote on Prop 1 provides pro-lifers and pregnancy centers equal protection under the law.

But no matter what happens with politicians, laws, or the constitution, we must persevere. Throughout the history of God’s faithful remnant, governments persecuted them not because they changed their behavior but because the culture around them changed and insisted God’s people dance to their tune.

Refusal to comply with culture always comes with a cost. Think of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers and unjustly imprisoned; the Hebrew midwives refusing Pharaoh’s order to kill boy babies; Moses “choosing ill treatment with the people of God considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11:25-26); Elijah against the government religion of child-sacrificing Baal worshipers; Jeremiah whose message to his own people fated him to the muddy well of isolation; and others who “by faith conquered kingdoms…shut the mouths of lions…escaped the edge of the sword…others were tortured, not accepting their release…mocking and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment” (Heb. 11). All this at the risk of being labeled troublesome, inconvenient, even insensitive, inconsiderate, intolerant.

Christians ought to be culture’s moral anchor because we understand we are made to reflect the image of an unchanging God. Our words and lives remind a rebellious world of the truth, “The earth is the LORD’s, and all it contains, the world, and all those who dwell in it” (Ps. 24:1).

If Christ sacrificed His life on the cross to redeem a helpless sinner, no less should be expected of us as “fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him…” (Rom. 8:17).

P.S. $47 per month is all it takes to give hope and a future for a woman and her baby. Become a monthly lifesaver at www.compasscarecommunity.com/donate!