A Question of Higher Law

A Question of Higher Law 

We received this email from a lady in Granite City. Illinois. She is searching out answers to a legitimate question concerning this battle we have entered into. We thought it important to share it with you.

Flip,

Thank you for coming to the Hope(less) Clinic last Saturday. I was one of the saints on the streets and in the audience at Faith Lutheran. Here's a question for you. Why, when the security guard and Granite City police asked you to move off the curb, you would not? If property rights are not an issue we could plant ourselves on the parking lot.

It is only within the last eight months that God has opened my eyes to this fight so my insight and experience is limited. But the defiance of such a reasonable request (and a legal one) caused the surrounding saints to begin loudly yelling and shouting as pregnant girls quietly slipped passed the commotion and entered the clinic. Was this serving a purpose bigger than I could see? For the moment anyway, it just seemed to release pent-up anger and frustration in a seemingly righteous way.

Could you not have stepped on the sidewalk, began to walk like they asked, and continued to preach? Please don't see this as an accusatory note. I am sincerely asking for understanding to that whole episode that, to me, brought nothing but anger and confusion and distraction from those we came to serve. Was it worth it? I am SO confused. Cathy.

Dear Cathy,

Thank you for your query. I don't know that I can answer it in a way that is fully satisfying. There are property rights on the life of a little child also. Render unto Caesar what is Creaser's and unto the Lord that which is the Lord's.

If there were a pond, and around the pond there was a fence, and on that fence there was a "No Trespassing" sign, you would be obliged to honor the rights of the owner of that property. Now, if there were a child in the middle of that pond and the child was drowning, what would you be legally required to do? Should you remain on the other side of the fence and allow the child to drown or should you leap the fence (breaking a very explicit law) and save the child?

The answer of course, is that you would break a lesser law to keep a higher law. This is called the law of "justification" of law of "necessity." One would be justified breaking a lesser law in order to keep a higher one i.e. the sanctity of life.

What has happened to us in Christian America is that we are far more concerned about appearing nice and kind (because we don't want to defile Jesus' Name) thereby allowing an enemy to rob, kill, and destroy. The Christian Church in Nazi Germany had a responsibility to speak up for her Jewish brothers and sisters being dragged away to concentration camps. She did not speak up because it was legal to kill Jews in Nazi Germany. The Church was lulled into a Romans 13 argument by the devil himself. Romans 13 is not an endorsement of all governments (some governments must be resisted) it was a picture of what good government should be. Nazi Germany was not a good government and allowed immense evil to plague its population. Christians hid Jews to save their lives. Were these Christian law breakers or were they law keepers?

Remember that most of the New Testament was written in jail.

Now, I will ask you. If they were taking four-year-olds into that building in Granite City, and you knew that those children were going to be killed - what would you do? Would you be very careful not to step on a blade of grass (for that would be breaking the law) or would you lay your life down so that that child might live.

Someone once said, "Greater love has no man than this, that He would lay his life down for his friends." My act at the Hopeless Abortion mill, now that I am forced to rethink it, was the supreme act of cowardice. I should have laid down in front of that abortion mill door and said with my own life that these children, who have no voice, are at least worthy of such a small sacrifice!

Please forgive my cowardice!

In Christian love,

Flip