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Posts Tagged ‘Christian universities’

Is it permissible for Christians to break rules in order to save lives?

Diana Jeminez

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.