CBR Blog

CBR’s Aerial Billboards Fly Over Liberty University

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Below is  a portion of a recent email exchange that is instructive as to why the church’s witness against the evil of abortion is so weak.  The name of the receipient of  this email has been changed for privacy reasons.

Hi Joe,

Because of your generous support for our work and your influential relationship with Liberty University, I am sure you will be interested in the note (below) I received from one of our staff.  He has long experience working with students in our Genocide Awareness Project and is very diplomatic in the way he promotes our work, especially when he encounters resistance, which he often does.  It appears that two unhelpful lessons are being taught to students at Liberty: The first is that it is not appropriate to display abortion photos in public (private showings are approved but not public displays) and that criticizing administration policies at the school, even respectfully, is out of bounds.  Both of these erroneous principles are obviously unbiblical.

It may also be helpful for you to be aware that shortly before Rev. Falwell’s death, I met with him on campus to propose that Liberty create an academic major to prepare interested students for professional careers in pro-life ministry.  I explained that secular schools worked hard to inspire and equip students for careers in abortion advocacy but that there is no corresponding attempt by any Christian school to professionalize the ranks of pro-life activists, the vast majority of whom are amateur volunteers.  We met for more than two hours and he responded enthusiastically.  At the conclusion of the meeting he designated one of the administrators who was present to be the point person who would work with a department chairman to form a curriculum committee to begin the process of designing such a major.  I was encouraged by his supportive response but it was very clear to me that none of the administrators in the room shared his view.  As I feared, I later had great difficulty getting my calls taken or returned and the project died a quick and decisive death.

Christian colleges (and seminaries) are staffed by enormous numbers of administrators who view abortion as someone else’s problem and they see attempts to involve the church in the abortion wars as a threat to ministry.  That view is shared by most faculty members and gets thoroughly internalized by students who go on to pastor churches.  There are students at Liberty who are sexually active.  Some of them are getting pregnant.  Some of those who are getting pregnant are killing their children.  Some of those who are killing their children would have carried to term had they seen the horror of abortion.  Almost none of them will attend our director’s talk on abortion.  Almost all of them would see our photos displayed outside the student union building.  The decision to suppress the truth about abortion is so common at Christian schools that we began using aircraft to tow abortion photos over their campuses.  That is what we had to do to Biola when the school told us that we could only display our signs if we turned them to face a wall behind which passersby would have to go to see them.  We can sue public schools which try to ban our pictures but we have to resort to truck billboards and airplane billboards to reach Christian students.  This is why so many Christian students abort and who so few Christian students every become seriously involved in pro-life activism.  I will pray for your conversations with Matt.

This is a very wide-spread problem.  I remember a broadcast of James Dobson’s radio program on which he interviewed six Christian college presidents and he asked them if they had ever seen a pregnant student on their campuses.  To a person, they said no.  To a person they all believed this was evidence that their students were living chaste lives.  James Dobson was incredulous.  I am not.

Gregg Cunningham

Executive Director, The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform

Dear AP,

Thank you for taking the time to write, but with all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about.  Please go to our website and read the many, many testimonials from people whose minds were changed by seeing the horror of abortion which churches have been covering-up for decades.  They are just the tip of the iceberg.  We have never, ever, received a note from someone who told us that they would have never gotten an abortion until they saw our photos.  No one has ever said that the sickening horror of the images convinced them to rush out and kill their baby.  But enormous numbers of women have told us that without our photos their baby would be dead.  Enormous numbers have told us that had they seen our photos before, instead of after they killed their baby, they wouldn’t have done it.

Would you dare tell Jews who show Holocaust imagery that they are showing disrespect for dead Jews?  That would be idiotic and insulting.  Shocking pictures are the best way to make the Holocaust real and dramatize the evil it represents.  The same is true with abortion.  If you think God would have us show respect for the dead at the expense of saving the lives of the living, you are very confused spiritually.

For the record, the pastor in front of whose church we are displaying abortion photos is not telling the truth about why we are there but the simple truth is that we are no longer going to give pastors a veto over the imperative of exposing abortion.  If he won’t show his congregation the truth, we will.  Babies are dying because he and countless other pastors are withholding the truth about abortion – the truth which can’t be told with words alone.  We have a First Amendment right to hold up these signs on any street corner in America.  We waited far too long to engage Christians on this issue.  No more.  We are going to pray alright:  But we are going to pray for you.  You say you oppose abortion.  What are you doing to stop it?  If little or nothing, I think I prefer our way to yours.

Lord bless,

Gregg Cunningham                            
The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform

From: AP
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 10:06 PM
To: Gregg Cunningham
Subject: Your Organization’s Tactics

I have recently seen a Suburban being driven around Salem, Oregon, displaying graphic pictures of aborted fetuses.  I find it ironic that a group that purports to reverence human life would show such a lack of respect for the deceased.  I do not support abortion.  I believe a life is ended when an abortion is performed, and I believe the life that has been ended should be respected enough that the murdered child’s body is not displayed in such a disgusting fashion on the side of a vehicle or on picket signs.

If it is true that your group is picketing Salem Heights Church because the pastor refused to allow your group to make a presentation to the church, you should be ashamed of yourselves.  What a disrespectful way to make a point.  Attempting to hijack the pulpits of Salem to promote your disgustingly expressed, if well intentioned, agenda probably isn’t the best way to win the Christian community to your cause.  If I have been misinformed on the reason your protesters have camped out near the church for the past two Sundays, I apologize in advance.

Please prayerfully reconsider your literature and advertising.  While shock tactics are effective in getting people’s attention, they do not always have the desired effect.

AP