A handful of bold Christians who have taken a stand for their faith spoke at Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand summit on Saturday, during a panel entitled “Profiles in Courage.” FRC President Tony Perkins explained the panel’s purpose, “When men and women like this are attacked for standing for the biblical truth, … what are we to do? Stand with them? Absolutely.” He continued, “Because when we stand with them, guess what? The Left is going to back off, because they’re hoping that we will shrink back into the shadows and will be intimidated because they put their target on individuals like this.” He emphasized, “We should boldly stand with men and women who come under attack for their stand for truth.”
One of those men was Luke Ash, a bi-vocational pastor at Stevendale Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who was fired from his second job as a library technician when he refused to use a transgender-identifying co-worker’s “preferred pronouns.” Ash likened his situation to that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Book of Daniel. “They were given the option. You know, Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Are you going to change course? … I’m going to give you another opportunity.’ And I love their response,” Ash recalled. “The response they gave was that ‘God is able to deliver us and He will deliver us. But even if He doesn’t, let it be known to you, O King’ — and I just imagine these Hebrew boys looking this tyrant in the eye, saying, ‘Let it be known to you, O King, we’re not going to worship false gods and we’re not going to bow down to the idol that you’ve set up.’”
Another of the courageous Christians who spoke was Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby (R), who was formally censured earlier this year after calling out the state’s Democratic leadership for allowing biological boys to compete in girls’ sports, even after President Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting it. “It was just so incredibly unfair. And this has been going on in Maine for several years, and I just couldn’t stay silent,” Libby recounted. She posted a photo of a biological male who had come in fifth in pole vaulting as a male next to a photo of him coming in first place when competing against females. “The Speaker of the House called me the next day and said, ‘You’ve put this young man in danger’ — or ‘this person,’ he didn’t say ‘young man,’ I don’t think — ‘You’ve put this individual in danger. Take down your post.’ And I refused to do so.”
New York Families Action Executive Director Jason McGuire also faced the ire of the Left after campaigning against “a candidate who did not share our pro-life values.” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) subsequently targeted McGuire over a clerical error, issuing subpoena after subpoena, combing through millions of dollars of financial records, and even demanding copies of sermons McGuire had written. Facing such lawfare, McGuire eventually agreed to accept the charge of two misdemeanors James had leveled against him and was sentenced to nearly 60 days of intermittent incarceration.
“So we’ve been through a lot, and so we said at that point, ‘This is a technical violation of the law. We’ll accept the two misdemeanors and hopefully this will all go away. That was our plan,” McGuire recalled. “I walked into the courtroom and no sooner had I signed the paperwork taking the two misdemeanors than they hit send on a press release out of the attorney general’s office that accused me of a litany of things that simply were not true,” he continued. “And I believe that the attorney general knew they could not get us in court, and so they would get us through the politics of personal destruction. I remember President Donald Trump once saying, ‘They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you. I’m just in the way.” And that became very apparent in that day, that they were coming after us and the values that I represent.”
“Letitia James has targeted pro-life pregnancy centers in my state. She’s gone after others. But in my particular case, again, they requested copies of my sermons. They required that subpoena. We refused to turn them over,” McGuire recounted. “Not because we’re afraid of what is in those sermons, but because government doesn’t have the right to censor what I preach or what I say. When they requested lists of attendees at public events that I held, the donors that gave at those events, we refused to turn those things over because government does not have the right to put that chilling verdict down on free speech of those who support our organization,” he continued.
Instead, James subpoenaed bank records to target donors and New York Families Action in a “backhanded” way. “That’s what the Left will do when given the opportunity. So it’s not just about Jason Maguire or New York Families Foundation, it’s about what they want to do to every organization, to all of us who share conservative values. They seek to silence us and we must not allow it to happen.”
Perkins observed of the hardships that Ash, Libby, and McGuire had faced, “Many of us in the Christian community, we want to avoid conflict, we don’t look for conflict. And one of the things I look for, for those I stand with, are those who are not looking for a fight, but they won’t run from one,” he said. “We should never start anything, but we should never run from anything when we’re standing for truth.”
The trio of courageous Christians also shared how they have been supported by their fellow Christians and how Christians can encourage each other to take a stand. “If something like this happens, you should find a band of happy warriors and go to work,” Ash advised. “We have been too apathetic, we have let the buck pass, we have punted on pronouns, we have punted on a bunch of different kinds of things. What we have to remember is that if I don’t fight, my kids will have to fight, and I don’t want my kid to have to fight a battle that I cowered in.”
“Hearing from my brothers and sisters in Christ was such an encouragement. And you’re right, it is an encouragement to others,” Libby observed. “After I took my stand, we saw young women around the state sharing their experience. I had no idea there was a senior in northern Maine who had been forced to change with a biological male in her locker room in seventh grade five years ago, but she spoke up and talked about her experience,” she shared. “Courage does beget courage. The folks standing with me made it possible for me to stand, to be encouraged, and then for others to stand as well.”
McGuire shared that his friends and supporters would gather outside the jail every Friday evening before his intermittent incarceration began and pray with him. “God’s people stood with us. I have not had one believer say to me, ‘Man, how could you do that?’ They all said, ‘Yeah, we know what this is. We want you to know we’re with you.’” He recounted an episode that always “struck” him from the prayer meetings: “There’d be one man in particular, and he would always pray something like this, he would say, ‘Lord, forgive us because we’re a part of the reason why Jason is here. Our apathy, our failure to turn out in the elections, to vote for people who are righteous, has led people who are wicked to rule, and has led to where Jason is today,’” McGuire recounted. “To hear him own that corporately and to begin to pray that people would pray, vote, and stand. That just struck me. And it has hit me that he would identify with me in that way. And it’s waking up believers around my state, and I trust around the country, to say, ‘We’ve got to take a stand for the values we care about. This might be our last best stand.’”
