Response to Dr. Reeder of Briarwood Church - Operation Rescue/Operation Save America

You stated that OSA was "protesting Briarwood" when, in fact, OSA's intentions were to exhort and invite Briarwood members to join OSA's activities for the week at the local abortion chambers, and other
places. We weren't particularly protesting Briarwood, but since you mention it, Jesus might have cause to do so.

You called us "prideful", though you hardly know any of us. And, though you hardly know any of us, sought to prejudge, marginalize, discredit, and dismiss us as not part of your body. (Yes, there was clearly more of an "US VS THEM" attitude in your haughtily blowing us off than in our asking you to join us, which probably accounts for your desire to portray us as "prideful".)

I think if your own heart was more broken for the babies unjustly sentenced to die in these places, and their moms headed for harm themselves than for the possibility of being looked down on more than up to, or sued for money, your priorities would be very different.

You state that no one in our group knew what Briarwood has done for the "issue" of "the sanctity of life". Some of us do know that Briarwood supports Sav-a-Life, and includes mothers in crisis among Mercy Ministry recipients. Some of us also recall the days when Briarwood members went regularly to the local gates of death and hell to offer information and assistance to moms and their babies in danger, and some even went to far as to lay down their lives in interventive rescues.

Now those latter activities are frowned upon not by Christ, but by you. You criticize us for showing the public graphic evidence of the atrocities inflicted upon innocent children at the local death camps, as though such exposure were the cardinal infliction. Get a grip! We know the images we display are not pretty, and most of us do not intentionally target small children as audiences for these displays. Sometimes they make people cry, and not just children. Jesus wept, and it can be a healing thing. The fact of the matter is that children can be taught what abortion is in age appropriate ways. They can not only get over, but be better for, having seen the images if this encounter is properly handled by adults. What children never get over, and are NEVER bettered by, is BEING "those pictures"; and, yes, there is an inverse connection between the public seeing "those pictures" and the smallest children being them.

Hitler's minions did all they could to suppress and discredit graphic evidence of the atrocities in their death camps, too, and you cannot deny that they had a very heinous, bloody, unjust, vested interest in doing so. In these efforts, they generally appealed to public aesthetic tastes.

As I read your comments, I could not help further thinking of the parable of the Good Samaritan, which you well know. Several things distinguished the Samaritan from the priest and the Levite. Once being the fear factor. Whereas the first two probably feared what would happen to them if they actually went where the beaten man was, the Samaritan's greatest fear was what would happen to him if he did NOT intervene. Obviously, the man was in mortal danger, as are those entering abortion mills. Reality did not alter just because Briarwood "left the building". This reminds me of a little kid covering up his eyes and declaring, "You can't see me." I don't think any serious Christian will even consider excluding the endangered unborn from Christ's "least of these" category. Anyone knows that the more you love someone, the closer you want to be to them, ESPECIALLY if they are in trouble of any kind, MOST especially if they are in mortal danger.

Please don't think that I am disparaging things we're told Briarwood has done and is doing to counter abortion. Physicians, I'm told, have used their influence to get abortion discontinued in their various spheres, and that is good. It is a good thing to start and support Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Homes for unwed mothers, as we know Briarwood members have done and continue to do. And I know that Rev. Barker has always been very strong on standing for the unborn in the voting booth/political arena. But this seems to me to fall short of the Samaritan model which Christ Himself endorsed as His standard. Suppose the Samaritan had been content to found and support the hospital to which he took the dying beaten man? If he owned the hospital, it would not have absolved him of the responsibility to go where he knew men were being mugged if he knew when and where these crimes were taking place, if he could possibly do so.

I think what bothers me most about this is that the further you get from the ditch where the man is, the further you get from Christ. I am told that Briarwood was threatened with a lawsuit for pro-life activities, and backed off direct intervention (sidewalk counseling/ witnessing, rescue, prayer picketing, etc.) for this reason. If that is true, I think you would do well to reconsider this fear.

For one thing, there are only two abortion mills left in this city and if only a handful of people could be present (say, shifts of an hour or two)each time the mills were open, it could seriously cripple their operations, if not close them down. Don't take the church bus! For another thing, the man in the ditch was headed in the wrong direction when he fell among the thugs. His back was toward Jerusalem, the city of G-d, and his face was toward Jericho, a literal and symbolic stronghold of the enemy, similar to setting his face toward Sodom. That is not a good direction for anyone to move in, but it is the direction your remarks in the news suggest, and it is the direction the man in the ditch was moving in when he was robbed of his blessings, and nearly his life. I think that, in this regard, Briarwood has left its first love toward the unborn, at least.

Ironically, it was at a Briarwood event that I was first shown photographs of both living pre-born and aborted babies. This impacted me more strongly than any moral discussion. And, a few years ago a young woman who had been told of the dangers to women of induced abortion told me that she had decided against aborting her child, and walked away from a scheduled abortion appointment at Planned Parenthood upon seeing a photograph of a child aborted at the approximate age that her baby was at the time. I know of many other women whose children were spared the abortionist's knife because of these pictures, a ministry some people shrink from and disparage because it is more important to them to impress people than to impact them with the reality of induced abortion.

I am very sorry that you saw fit to respond to us as you have; again, I think that retractions are very much in order, both to the Birmingham News and its readership, to osa@operationsaveamerica.org, and, last but hardly least, to G-d, the ultimate Samaritan.

He gave Peter a chance to "unsay" each of his three denials. Every week represents a chance for you to lead Briarwood members towards repentance at the local death mills.

Also, I'm told that there will be a really good organized effort beginning in September for direct intervention, intercession, and community education all in one; for more information on this, please see www.40daysforlife.com; you may want to join this effort, or organize something similar. At least don't cut off your nose to save your face!

Thank you so much! RSVP ASAP,

jlspear