RIVERSIDE, Calif. (BP) – Pro-life advocacy ministry Stand For Life is touring college campuses to engage students, churches and communities in building a society that values and protects all of humanity as created in God’s image.
California Baptist University (CBU) is the next stop on the tour that launched Sept. 26 at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, continues with Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and ends with Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tenn.
The tour is designed to educate, equip and join university communities in building a society where everyone has inherent value and is treated with dignity based on Scripture, said Stand for Life CEO Elizabeth Graham.
“We want individual students to understand what does it mean to be created in the image of God as a human person, and what does that mean for the way in which I live out my life,” Graham said. “That has very significant implications.”
Benjamin Watson, Nick Vujicic, Shane & Shane, Trip Lee and Kevin Elijah “KB” Burgess are among special guests and ministers participating in the tour that stops at CBU Oct. 31. Morning and evening chapels will engage students and community members.
Stand For Life is working against a flawed culture that teaches everything is acceptable, Graham said.
“What we’re seeing culturally is this reengineering of the culture to accept this flawed vision of the human person” that erroneously teaches “you can be and do anything that you want, or whatever pleases you or makes you happy,” she said. “We have to work to counter that.
“It’s important for us to put forward consistently a culture of life, rooted in our understanding of what it means to be created in the image of God.”
At the Sept. 26 stop at Cedarville, Graham said, 4,000 students attended a morning event and 3,000 community members attended an evening event.
Stand For Life is developing various Bible-based curricula to engage churches, individuals and groups in its work, incorporating Genesis 1:26-27 and continuing with Old and New Testament verses.
“We want everyone to see if someone is a human person, from conception to natural death, they are one who bears the image of Christ,” she said, irrespective of their ability to contribute to society. A pre-born child is seen as just as valuable as someone in the end stages of life with dementia, perhaps at risk of physician-assisted suicide.
“So we have a responsibility to care (for) and defend all of life, and we cannot apply that just however we feel. Or when we look at someone and say they’re not as vulnerable as this other population,” she said. “I read the Scriptures to understand that a vulnerable population is a vulnerable population. That has implications for how I live out my life, for how I defend, affirm and protect individuals who are vulnerable, because they’re created in the image of God.”
Stand For Life is working to include secular campuses on the tour, part of a multifaceted outreach also targeting churches.
“We want to see more churches involved. We want to see more individuals in churches connecting with organizations, resourcing moms and children and families,” Graham said. “We believe that the church, the body of Christ, is the answer to what we see as an abortion crisis, a global orphan crisis.”
Graham believes that as the church embraces orphan care, “it would be a beautiful picture of heaven on earth.”
Stand For Life’s curriculum and other resources are available at StandForLife.com.
