My previous post ended with call for post-abortive women and men to rise up and lead the pro-life movement in this hour. There is nothing quite as powerful as the wounded rising up against the perpetrators. Consider vets against war, lung cancer survivors against tobacco, mothers against drunk driving.

These wounded warriors would best lead us by keeping the following principles close to the heart: Be the Church, Build the Community, Resurrect Chivalry, Rally around the Constitution.

Be the Church

One of the fundamental mistakes of the pro-life movement from the get go was secularization. This was a byproduct of the Protestant Reformation. That ostensible reform movement ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater in its second and third generation (see Protestant author Richard Lovelace for this argument) The socio-religious argument goes something like this: since we cannot agree on such foundational subjects as the Creed, the Eucharist and Church offices we must agree to just ignore these foundational subjects and soldier on seeking the lowest common denominator. Some of the affiliates of the National Right to Life took this false ecumenism so far as to ignore the Author of Life in toto — not even opening meetings in prayer.  The ArchAngel Institute does not ignore the core of our Christian Faith — we celebrate and memorialize it.

A pro-life movement focused upon being the Church must focus its gaze squarely upon the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost. Since we (sadly) had a divorce in the family of God in the 900’s and again in the 1500’s, let us go back further than that to find, in the hallways of history, our common Christian heritage. That heritage is found among those who faced down the Culture of Death in the persons of the Caesars. If we do live in the age of the Antichrist, as many argue (click here and here for examples) then we should draw inspiration from the Founding Fathers who faced the lions with faith and courage. We should seek out the Faith of our Fathers.

Build the Community

If I have learned one thing through the rough ride at the end of my four year gig in the civil service it is this: Families under attack for their faithfulness in standing against the Culture of Death should not be shunned by “the Movement.” The Culture of Death will ever seek to target the leaders of the Movement and compromise or destroy them. I was so targeted by the Left in a $250,000 political ad campaign. That campaign rendered me far too controversial for most. Pro-lifers who knew my history should not have been included in that grouping. But my letters to pro-life attorneys, pro-life groups and Christian Right law firms (the ones ostensibly advancing the type of robust Christian activism for which I was pilloried) went pretty much unanswered. Even letters to Church officials resulted in little in the way or aid or encouragement. (I thank God Most High for Bishop John D’Arcy!)

If President-Elect Obama’s appointments and pledge to grow the federal government are taken at face value it is likely that the “culture war” is about to open a whole new chapter. The families of Christian activists may soon face official harassment not seen since the darkest days of Janet Reno’s reign.

Will we circle the wagons or let those targeted twist in the wind? It we are to circle the wagons we must get to know one another better and be ready to stand, in solidarity, with one another. Future pro-life events should thus be less akin to revivalist church services (all focused upon the speaker) and more akin to banquets. Our model must be less top down and more bottom up. Our structure must be more like a net, made up of many intersection ropes, and less like a pyramid.

This social networking is a tall order. It is best accomplished through the parishes, or, as our Protestant brethren call them, the “churches.” Our Lord is building His Church – let the Movement be fully integrated with that plan in this hour to realize its full potential. To be pro-life is to be fully Christian. To be pro-choice is to reject the Revelation clearly given the Church. (See this post for details. One of the many counselors that the State required me to see actually instructed me that this was a misinterpretation of a historic event and thus not a foundation from which to value the lives of those in utero.)

Resurrect Chivalry

Political correctness is the chivalry of the modern age. It does not value women and children as the highest priority, it rather values “diversity” and “tolerance.” Or so it claims. The diversity of one who engages in civil disobedience to protect the unborn is never celebrated. Tolerance is not extended to those who refuse to swear off their allegiance to traditional Christian morality.

Chivalry is thus the antithesis of the ethic advanced by modernity. The ArchAngel Institute was born to advance chivalry, as is made clear by this lengthy statement on the same. Most all of the series presented on this website arise out of some paragraph in that lengthy philosophical foundation.

Chivalry and political correctness are diametrically opposed because they are the ethical systems of two competing systems. One is Christendom, the other is the New World Order. Those who have dedicated themselves to the latter have no regard for, and even rail against, the former.

Our Lord clearly taught that what we believe must inform what we do. Christianity is incarnational. Our Lord Jesus Christ became flesh to save us, and we are to put His teachings into flesh to change our world. A merely spiritual experience (Francis Schaeffer called it an “upper storey experience”) is not what the Christian faith is all about. As nice as spiritual goosebumps are, they are not the stuff of which our Faith is advanced. Consider the greatest prophet who ever lived – John the Baptist. Why did he lose his head? Because he refused to abandon the morality of the Faith even when ordered to do so by the King himself. The greatest prophet to ever live was executed for advancing chivalry in an age that wanted to celebrate an ungodly “diversity” and embrace toleration of all manners of deviance. (Sound familiar?)

If we are to have John the Baptist’s courage we should draw inspiration from the generations that most revered him. Those generations were the Founders of our Church. I cannot stress enough the import of studying the writings of those Church leaders. Here is a link to a set that I found most helpful and here is a study of the historic development of those same Fathers’ teachings that I found most instructive.

Rally around the Constitution

While the pro-life movement claims to be the majority in America, recent election results reveal this to be a soft majority at the very best. The Culture of Death has dominated the media for a good forty years, hammering home themes that now frame the debate. The winds of change that carried Barack Obama to victory could be fanned into flames that attempt to silence the pro-life witness over the next four years.

Rest assured that Planned Parenthood desires, more than most anything else, to see such a conflagration fanned into real flames of persecution.

The Founding Fathers of our federal government sought to protect the rights of persons much like today’s pro-lifers. Religious wars had dominate European politics for centuries, and there was little love lost among the Calvinists, Anglicans, Baptists and Roman Catholics who settled the original thirteen colonies. Prior to the Declaration of Independence the colonies of Maryland and Virginia had witnessed squabbles every bit as intense as the culture wars of the past forty years in America.

No less authority than the United States Supreme Court has noted, in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943) that:

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

This same High Court, through Justice Jackson, left us with this very important assurance:

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein”.

A federal appellate court recently applied the Barnette decision to render an opinion that included the following:

“[The] rights embodied in the Constitution, most particularly the First Amendment, protect the minority — those persons who march to their own drummers. It is they who need the protection afforded by the Constitution and it is the responsibility of federal judges to ensure that protection.” Circle School v. Pappert, 381 F.3d 172, 183 (3d Cir. 2004).

(The drummer reference harkens back to an earlier post in which a government agent called me just that.)

All who stand up to the government should use the constitution as a shield. It can also be used as a sword against overreaching government. If I am correct on what lies ahead, pro-lifers will need the shield and the sword more than ever in the days to come. Christian eschatology certainly teaches that a day is coming when great evil will be unleashed upon all the Earth. Our constitution may be all that restrains such evil in our time. Value that blood bought document with your life, your fortune and your sacred honor.

Putting it all together

I dropped into the Institute today for 1 pm prayers. Father David Meizen was on duty, leading us in the Jesus prayer out of the orthodox tradition.

Retta, Priscilla and Delores were hard at work, busy bringing their female energies to the Institute. The launch completed, the blessing performed and the founder out of the way (tomorrow’s post), it is time for new sprouting at the Institute.

I bequeath the above to the new guard moving in, and again invite other wounded warriors to come join the team. Now is the time for America to hear from the consumers of the pain that is abortion.

My detractors think I am too religious. They would expect me to anchor all of the above in Holy Writ. I need not turn to that fine source, for their own poets encourage us in such matters.

Click on the blue — Roger Waters gets it , he laid it down on Pink Floyd’s Final Cut album — it is the post war dream that we are aborting in the modern age:

A place to stay, Enough to eat
Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud
About your doubts and fears
And what’s more no-one ever disappears
You never hear their standard issue kicking in your door.
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs don’t blow holes in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no-one kills the children anymore.
No one kills the children anymore.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 1:02 am and is filed under Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Swansong. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.