Previously, it has been discussed that Christians should refuse funding for Jim Daly’s Focus on the Family due to Daly’s temporary implementation of a poisonous jab mandate. At the time, we here reflected that Daly had everything to gain by standing firm, especially as corporate America was putting the brakes on their mandate policies in the leadup to the Supreme Court’s half-hearted ruling on the mandates.
On June 14th, FOTF hosts its annual SeeLife livestream which is a glorified fundraiser masked as a conference in an effort to raise money for ultrasound machines which can then be gifted to pregnancy centers across America. FOTF seeks $4 million believing that they can “soften hearts and save lives.”
In organizing their livestream, FOTF has recruited a speaker pool of non-Christians to speak on behalf of their fundraiser conference. The lineup includes Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Jeanne Mancini, and Daniel Lipinski.
Ben Shapiro is an orthodox Jew, a fact plainly obvious to most people. Why is a Christian organization recruiting a known nonbeliever to speak at their event? The answer is likely money. Shapiro and Owens are faces of the Daily Wire to which they believe will attract donations. Through Facebook replies, Focus on the Family has indicated that it is necessary to partner with those even if there is significant theological disagreement provided they are passionately pro-life, of which they label Shapiro. Perhaps, if he were the only questionable speaker, this position might be more passable, but it is part of the larger pattern in the lineup.
Candace Owens brands herself as a Christian but was apparently very supportive of Dave Rubin’s surrogacy to the point where she was picking out strollers for him, a fact alleged by Rubin. Surrogacy is not pro-life and is abortion adjacent as the ratio of embryos is not 1:1 but over 15:1. In other words, there are probably a dozen embryos that were created for Rubin of which only one was implanted into the surrogate. Focus on the Family is incredibly weak on the issue of surrogacy, having only one two articles available, the most recent of which being in 2019, and making no definitive condemnation of the practice. This is not a complex theological issue. There is no reason a think tank organization like FOTF does not have a strong stance on an issue relevant to their mission.
Then there is Jeanne Mancini, who is President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund. Mancini is one of many signatories who condemned Louisiana Bill HB 813, which would have classified abortion as a homicide. This is the same letter that was signed by the ERLC and National Right to Life. She is not pro-life, she is pro Big Baby.
In an appeal to democrat Catholics, Focus on the Family has Daniel Lipinski as a speaker. Lipinski was a democrat congressman from Illinois who was member to the Pro-Life Caucus in Congress before being successfully primaried in 2020. He has voted in favor of a 20 week abortion ban has been against federal spending on abortion are hardly extreme positions, except to those on the left. Most notably, he voted against the ACA (Obamacare). While he is supposedly pro-life, he is also pro-homo. Lipinski stopped publicly defending traditional marriage once the Supreme Court redefined marriage. Furthermore, Lipinski supported measures to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and in 2019, voted for the Equality Act. He has no business speaking on behalf of a Christian organization.
When an organization hosts an event, the speaker lineup matters. It is a concern of association. Whether political or not, guest speakers are a reflection of the organization and its underlying values. They are using nonbelievers in an effort to gain legitimacy with the world and raise money. Is there no shortage of pro-life Christians to chose from that they have to recruit from outside the church? Or would that mean inviting speakers like Jeff Durbin, who probably has some choice words for the pro-life industry and people like Mancini.
Focus on the Family would rather take the palatable approach to the pro-life movement in raising money for ultrasound machines, which could be better spent lobbying pro-life legislation that will end abortion across America. Perhaps in California or Maryland, these machines might be useful, so that women can see that which they might choose to murder, yet it does nothing to end abortion and the lives saved are numerically trivial as medication induced abortions become more commonplace.
Boycott Focus on the Family. Support real pro-life organizations instead.
