A Christian Resource

By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter | Friday, December 10, 2021

A Texas-based pro-life activist organization received a new bomb threat against one of its offices, allegedly due to its support for the state’s controversial heartbeat abortion ban restricting abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy. 

Texas Right to Life released a statement Monday explaining that its legislative office in Austin had received a bomb threat that morning. 

The threat came in the form of what the lobbying group labeled a “suspicious letter” sent to the office, which threatened to bomb the organization and said that they should expect to “receive the bodies of aborted babies.” 

Authorities arrived at the office at 11:40 a.m., according to the statement. The Austin Police Department is investigating the incident.

“Devaluing life inside the womb inevitably leads to violence outside the womb,” Texas Right to Life President Elizabeth Graham said in a statement. “These recent crimes demonstrate the brokenness, anger, and pain of the pro-abortion movement. We pray for the perpetrator, that he or she may find healing in Christ, and we ask for prayers for our staff.”

Kimberlyn Schwartz, director of media and communication for Texas Right to Life, told The Christian Post in a statement Thursday that the most recent threat and other threats they have received are “heartbreaking.”

“These threats are heartbreaking, not only because they endanger our staff, but also because they reveal the anger and pain that abortion leaves on the hearts of its proponents,” stated Schwartz.

“Ultimately, this is a spiritual war. Texas Right to Life is taking ground from deep in the Evil One’s territory and proclaiming the sanctity of Life. Now is the time for all Christians to stand up for preborn children and pray for the end of abortion.”

In another email cited by The Texas Citizen Journal, Graham said the organization is working with the Austin Police Department and the FBI to determine the validity of the threat. 

According to Texas Right to Life, the threatening letter stated: “LETS BOMB TEXAS FOR LIFE AND CHANGE IT TO – TEXAS FOR DEATH.”

Texas Right to Life, which was instrumental in helping craft Texas’ new abortion law, received an email in September from someone threatening to blow up its headquarters in Bellaire. A suspicious package was delivered to that office later that day.

The facility was evacuated and bomb experts from Houston checked the package, which turned out to not have an explosive device inside.

“Texas Right to Life did the right thing in contacting the police,” said the Bellaire Police Department in a statement to CP in September.

“It was fortunate that our officers were on scene when the suspicious package was delivered and we appreciate the occupants of the building working with police to quickly clear out in the event that this was an actual bomb.”

In May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas Heartbeat Act prohibiting most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually about six weeks into a pregnancy.

The law is not enforced through state officials but rather through private citizens given financial incentives to sue abortion providers and anyone who helps a pregnant woman procure an abortion.  

Despite multiple pre-enforcement legal challenges, including from the Biden administration, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the controversial legislation to take effect on Sept. 1.

On Nov. 1, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for around three hours on the Texas law, focusing on the means through which the ban was enforced.  

“Since the Texas Heartbeat Act took effect September 1, abortion advocates wished rape upon our female staff and their daughters, left vicious voicemails, circulated the home addresses of employees online, and threatened to bomb our offices twice within four months,” Texas Right to Life’s Monday statement reads. “Texas Right to Life has taken proactive measures to ensure the safety of our staff since we became the target of violent messages online and by phone due to the Texas Heartbeat Act.”

In September, an Oklahoma man was arrested for making death threats to pro-life Texas legislators. 

President Biden’s grandiose Build Back Better plan seeks to expand the size and scope of the federal government to a degree not seen since Johnson’s Great Society. But mention any limits to the power of government and people on the left and right bare their fangs. If they were porcupines, they would raise their quills. Most people assume that the state must have absolute power, or we will kill and eat each other.

God disagrees. Let’s look at the most famous passage on government in the New Testament, Romans 13. Paul launches the discussion with what appears to be an absolute command:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

Verse four continues,

“For he is God’s servant for your good…”

Few theologians read past the first half of verse four and conclude that God has written a blank check to governments to do anything they desire if someone views it as good. They employ the first half of verse four to justify setting minimum wages and maximum prices, providing healthcare, welfare and education, building roads and airports and many other activities.

However, the second half of verse four reads, “…He is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.” That sentence gives us a clue as the role God thinks government should play – to punish evil people.

The great political theologian Oliver O’Donovan wrote in his book, Desire of Nations, that Paul had pruned the role of government back to its original one of punishing evil because the Father had given Christ all authority, as he said in Matt. 28:18, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.”

Statists of the left and right bristle at such a suggestion and argue that Paul is merely giving us one of the many jobs of government, not all them. Specifying some activities of the state doesn’t exclude it from engaging in others. If authority is a public good, like air, so that my use of it doesn’t diminish yours and both could have as much as we wanted, then critics of O’Donovan would be right.

But authority isn’t a public good; it’s a private one. Competing authorities is a zero-sum game like poker in which the winner of a hand takes money from the losers. The one who has power over me diminishes my power. If I take back that power, I diminish his. An officer in the military has power that the enlisted men under him don’t. He has reduced their power to act. If they rebel and take back some of that authority, the officer loses what authority he had.

Paul wrote in Romans 13 that governing authorities are servants of God. The Greek word is the same as the one for deacon. Governments have no authority but that given to them by God. He assigned government the role of punishing evil people, those who violate the God-given rights to life, liberty and property of others. If the state takes on more roles, it steals the authority from God and from citizens.

And the state’s role is even more limited because the state has no money of its own. All it has comes from taking the property of others through taxation. The state diminishes the wealth of individuals to perform its God-given duty. God has given the state the authority to tax people to perform its role. Jesus said to give to Caesar what belongs to him (Luke 20:25). Paul confirms it in Romans 13:6 and Peter agrees in I Peter 2:19.

But for the state to expand its role beyond that of punishing evil, it must take more of the people’s wealth to pay for it. As with authority, it must reduce the wealth of citizens to expand its role and in doing so conflicts with citizens’ right to property. “Thou shalt not steal” applies to governments as much as citizens. At what point does taxation become theft?

Statists argue that under a democracy the government cannot steal because the people give their consent to the taxes. But God never said, “Thou shalt not steal unless the majority approves of the theft.” Individuals have rights to life, liberty and property that the state cannot infringe upon. The right to life is the positive restatement of “Thou shalt not murder.” The right to property is the positive of “Thou shalt not steal,” including the government. If the state steals from its citizens, then democracy becomes the tyranny of the majority.

Wealth is limited, so if the state wants more of it to perform roles other than its God-given one, it must take wealth from citizens who have the right to it. It must increase its authority and wealth and reduce those of individuals. But who gave the state the authority to do so?

The theologians at the University of Salamanca, Spain, during the Reformation arrived at the principles of limited government centuries before O’Donovan. They determined that the state has no authority beyond that to punish evil people. God had given individuals the rights to life, liberty and property and the people contracted with the government to protect those rights because they understood the benefits of specialization before Adam Smith. John Locke learned his contract theory of government from those scholars. If the state goes beyond its God-given duties and raises the necessary taxes, it commits theft.

This argument won’t convince statists because they love the state and most pick a verse from the Bible, plant a flag on it and camp there. They read, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” and stop. They ignore the principles of hermeneutics that instruct us to consider all verses on a topic to distill systematic theology about it. Good systematic theology is hard work, and few people want to do it.

The theologians of Salamanca and Oliver O’Donovan have done the hard work for us. Whether we like it or not, God in the Bible has given the government a very limited role, that of punishing evil people and nothing more. The Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution instantiate that principle.

A strong argument against Biden’s Build Back Better leviathan is that it is illegal under the Constitution and violates God’s role for government.

It may sound harmless, but the Canadian Senate’s decision to fast track and pass a bill prohibiting “Conversion Therapy” is terribly dangerous and, to date, without precedent worldwide. How on earth did this happen?

An article on Canada’s CTV news referred to “the harmful practice” of conversion therapy, noting that this will now be banned for people of all ages, part of a promise made to “the LGBTQ2S+ community” by the government.

As to why the bill was fast-tracked, Sen. Leo Housakos, a member of Canada’s Conservative (?!) Party, explained, “I think we have to get to the reflex in this institution, that when something is in the universal interest, public interest, that we should not create unnecessary duplication and engage into unnecessary debates.”

In other words, when there is such widespread agreement that something is so evil and dangerous, we must ask quickly and decisively, without debate and discussion. Let’s get this thing done!

How does CTV News define “conversion therapy” (a name created by the critics, not the practitioners)?

It states, “Conversion “therapy,” as it has been called, seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender. It can include seeking to repress someone’s non-heterosexual attraction or repressing a person’s gender expression or non-cis gender identity.

“These practices can take various forms, including counselling and behavioural modification, and they have been opposed by numerous health and human rights groups.”

So we’re not just talking about trying to force gays to try to become straight. Or kidnapping children and subjecting them to torture in a secret reprogramming camp. God forbid.

There is not a genuine Christian I know on the planet who would agree to such practices, nor is there a counselor I know who would engage in them.

If that is what was meant by “conversion therapy,” then of course, we should all oppose it.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

The reality is that this new bill actually prohibits Christians from practicing their faith when it comes to homosexuality and bisexuality and transgenderism. It also prohibits people who want to get help to pursue change, whatever their age, from pursuing that change — as long as it is change away from being gay or bi or trans.

Not only so, but the bill prohibits any attempt at “behavioral modification,” meaning, simply wanting to lessen one’s same-sex attractions or actions. This is now forbidden by law.

As expressed by Jose Ruba, communications director of Free to Care, “This means heterosexual Canadians could get support to reduce their unwanted sexual behavior but non-heterosexuals could not. That is a violation of our Charter rights.”

Talk about dangerous government overreach. Talk about yet another step toward banning the Bible.

This bill is actually the worst thing of its kind that has ever been passed — and it was passed unanimously, with the help of “Conservative” senators. Did we not tell you this was coming?

What happens to a 30-year-old married man with children who secretly struggles with same-sex attraction? Under the new law, could he receive professional counseling to help him deal with these attractions? Not a chance.

He could, however, get counseling to help him embrace his homosexual desires, even if it destroyed his marriage.

What about a 19-year-old woman who feels tormented within her own skin, as if she’s a man trapped in a female body? If she wanted to find wholeness from the inside out, rather than getting on hormones for life and having radical sex-change surgery, could she receive professional counseling? Absolutely not.

But if you’re a 10-year-old child who identifies as trans, you can get a doctor to prescribe puberty blockers for you. And you can start to plan for the first of several sex-change operations when you reach 18.

How utterly perverse.

The opening text of the bill reads:

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, create the following offences:

(a) causing another person to undergo conversion therapy;

(b) doing anything for the purpose of removing a child from Canada with the intention that the child undergo conversion therapy outside Canada;

(c) promoting or advertising conversion therapy; and

(d) receiving a financial or other material benefit from the provision of conversion therapy.

So based on provisions c and d, if you are a professional counselor who has helped people with unwanted same-sex attractions or gender-identity confusion for years, you can neither advertise such services nor receive payment for them. Talk about discrimination under the law.

You might say, “You’re getting this all wrong. The issue is dangerous conversion therapy. There’s no problem with a counselor or a pastor helping someone deal with unwanted same-sex attractions or the like. That’s where you’re mistaken.”

Quite the contrary.

Instead, all positive attempts to help the countless LGBT individuals who want to change for personal or religious reasons are branded “conversion therapy.” And any belief that homosexual practice is wrong or that God created only two sexes, male and female is now labeled as bigoted.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the bill’s Preamble:

Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to the persons who are subjected to it;

Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to society because, among other things, it is based on and propagates myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, including the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions;

And whereas, in light of those harms, it is important to discourage and denounce the provision of conversion therapy in order to protect the human dignity and equality of all Canadians;

Now, therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows …

So under Canadian law, you are believing in “myths” and “stereotypes” if you affirm what the Bible teaches, namely, that: 1. marriage is the union of one man and one woman; 2. homosexual practice is always sinful in God’s sight; 3. heterosexuality is God’s intended norm for the human race; 4. there are only two sexes, male and female; 5. it is better to be at home in your biological body than to pursue sex-change; 6. with God’s help, all people can change; and 7. there are many ex-gay and ex-trans individuals.

As expressed by a Canadian pastor, the LGBT movement, which “fought for tolerance, equality and acceptance … now denies these rights for others and demand[s] those with deeply rooted religious convictions deny who they are and conform to a society that hates them.”

And what happens to the professional counselor or pastor who offers help to someone struggling? They could be fined or, worse still, go to jail.

When California almost passed a similar bill in 2018, also banning professional help for people of all ages, I dubbed it the “Must Stay Gay” bill, asking if California would ban the Bible and religious books next.

But Canada has long been ahead of America in this regard, to the point that decades back, when Dr. James Dobson would address these issues on his Focus on the Family radio broadcast, the shows could not be aired in Canada.

Now, the nation has taken a very dangerous plunge, awaiting the official signature on the bill from the governor general or her designate.

The only solution is for Christian leaders to refuse to comply, preaching the Word openly and saying that change is possible, and for counselors and therapists to do the same, continuing to serve those who willingly come for help.

As for America, wake up! Otherwise, what happened in Canada won’t stay in Canada.