How should pro-life advocates deal with people who say they agree with us, but refuse to allow pro-life presentations at their institutions? I’m going to talk about that today on this edition of The Case for Life. Thanks for joining us today. By the way, if you have not already visited our social media sites, please do so. We’d love to have you like our pages and pass them on to others so that we can spread word about this. Also, if you have not already done so, Please pick up a copy of my book, The Case for Life, second edition. You can get that at scottklusendorf.com, where you can also sign up for our pro-life apologetics course if you like the content we’re covering here. Today, I’m going to do something a little bit different. I got an email just this morning that was troubling to me. It was puzzling and troubling, and I’m just going to go ahead and read it to you, just to give you the context of I was scheduled to speak at a very prestigious classical Christian school in San Antonio, Texas next month. And I was going to go in there and give a pro-life apologetics presentation. But the school has a new headmaster. The old headmaster had approved me, but the new one that came in, she has declined to have me speak. And I want to read you the email she sent about why she was declining and see if we can’t unpuzzle this thing a little bit. Pardon me while I put on my goofy reader glasses here. These are my favorite dollar 25 dollar tree glasses. I’ve got them all over the house because I keep losing them. But if I want to read carefully, I really do need to wear them. So pardon the Elton John look for a minute here. Here’s what she writes. She says, Scott, I have listened to your talk and it is well done and powerful. I totally agree with the message, but don’t think now is the time to present this to our students. I am sorry that it has taken me a while to get back to you. We do support the pro-life message that you convey here at our school, but we need to leave this up to parents on how they want to engage this message with their children. You have a great message for the church, and I hope you have much success conveying it there. Sincerely, and she signs her name. Now, the backstory to this, just so you know, this is a very prestigious college prep school. In fact, if you go to their website, it’s interesting what they say. We pride ourselves on preparing our students to do tough things within the context of a well-informed, biblical worldview. Now, my question is, if that’s your mission, why on earth would you shy away from a talk like this? Now, this is not about me. You know, quite frankly, I don’t care if they were to invite another pro-life speaker that would come in and do a pro-life apologetics talk. I am all for that, and I would support that. And every school has a right to choose the personalities they want to bring in. Maybe They might say something like, you know what, we watched you, we like your content, but we just don’t think you have the temperament we want for our students. Okay, that would be an honest response. I would disagree with it, of course, because I think I’m just wonderful in my personality and students love me, but at least that would be an honest response. I mean, follow the logic here. We think your presentation is powerful. We think it’s great. We think it’s great for the church. We are glad you’re doing it. But here’s the conclusion then. We’re not going to do it here. What on earth is going on here? This is why pro-lifers lose. Because gatekeepers like this shut off access to their audiences and that the excuse is always the same. Well, our people aren’t ready for this right now. Well, when will they be ready for it? I mean, come on, we’re talking an election season where the students at this particular school are hearing Democrat politicians promote abortion wholesale. And basically this school that prides itself on developing Christian thinkers who are willing to do hard things. things is saying, we don’t want to equip our students to do the hard thing on abortion. We don’t want to equip them to articulate a biblical worldview on it. We just don’t think that’s our place. That’s for the church to do. Well, here’s the dirty little secret. The churches aren’t doing it either. And it’s funny how this becomes a political hot potato. The government says the government shouldn’t be involved in abortion and they kick the issue back to the church. The church says we don’t want to get involved in politics and they kick it back to the state. Christian schools get involved and they say, well, we don’t want to step over the boundaries of the home. We think parents should do it. Parents then kick it back and say, well, our church youth groups will do it. No, they don’t. Nobody’s doing it. Everybody’s passing the ball. And this is a problematic thing. With friends like this, we don’t need enemies. This is enough to make us lose. And I think pro-lifers need to think long and hard about what we’re going to do to deal with schools like this one and churches like others that do the same kind of reasoning here. Say, oh yeah, we’re with you. We agree with the message. We’re pro-life. We’re every bit as pro-life as you, but we’re not going to talk about it. Okay, I’m going to say this bluntly, and if you’re offended, I don’t care. If you claim to be pro-life, act like it. If you’re pro-life, step up and defend the unborn. Don’t cowardly hide behind spiritualese rhetoric where you make it sound like you agree with us, but you don’t have the courage to do the right thing. Thank God Winston Churchill didn’t use the same kind of reasoning this gal uses when dealing with the Nazis. Thank God Abraham Lincoln didn’t use these kinds of arguments when dealing with slavery. When will our own spiritual leaders step up and simply articulate the simple, undeniable truth that the Bible communicates, that our founders communicated, that Lincoln articulated, namely this, you do not have a right to do what is wrong. You do not have a right to intentionally shed the blood of innocent human beings, which is what abortion does. When are we going to get the courage to articulate and equip our people and understand abortion at a basic worldview level. Don’t tell me you’re pro-life when you’re going to shield your own people from hearing the truth about abortion. This is something we can no longer tolerate as a movement. It’s emails like this that discourage me far more than a Planned Parenthood ad. Look, I don’t expect unbelievers to get abortion right. I expect them to put forth sinful ads. I expect them to promote sinful practices. I’m not surprised by that. You’ve got a culture that’s hell-bent on killing children in the womb, and people who are not believers, it’s natural that they would think that’s just fine. But believers who claim to be followers of Jesus, who say, “‘I think your presentation is great. I think the content is great. It’s powerful. It’s very moving. And I hope you have great success communicating it to others, but not to our people.'” This is just garbage. Christian leaders, you should be ashamed of yourselves if you think like this gal does. I hope you can do better. You must do better or we’re going to lose this fight. Thanks for putting up with me being a little bit agitated this morning, but I hope it gives you some insight into the challenges we face. I hope you’ll join us the next time here on the Case for Life podcast.