There is No I in Team!

I love football and I am a big Dallas Cowboy fan. I guess you can image how disappointed I was to see what was commonly reported to be one of the more talented teams in the NFL go crashing down at the end of the season. Of course all the armchair analysis pointed to many reasons why a team as talented as the Cowboys could not make it happen last season. However, one of the more astute analyses I encountered came from my son Jamaal, who is a lifetime Cowboys fan. Jamaal’s analysis basically said although the “Boys” had the talent to win it all, they did not play as a team. “The Cowboys simply did not play as a team, but rather as individuals.”

Could this be a major reason why the pro-life movement is not winning the struggle against the culture of death and the community of pro-aborts? One of the great challenges of the pro-life community continues to be their need to connect with, and work with the black conservative pro-life movement. Any astute observer recognizes that the conservative black community stands four square with the pro-life community on issues of life and traditional marriage.

Most of our friends in the majority community acknowledge there is a need for us to connect with one another in order to present a unified front against our common foe. However, more has to be done to include black conservatives in the planning and development of strategies and tactics that would facilitate greater mobilization of our respective communities across our country. The Pro-life movement has not maximized for mobilization en-masse with black folks who agree wholeheartedly with the fundamental suppositions of the pro-life movement. Frankly, there has been an incredible disconnect between the majority community and the black community. Our community is being devastated by Plan Parenthood’s targeted efforts to make pre-natal murder a common practice among us. The black community constitutes 35% of all pre-natal murders performed in America. We deeply desire to work as a team with our allies.

I have been involved on and off in the struggle for life since 1983. I have worked with white warriors who have helped to rescue babies all over Dallas. There has been incredible support from individuals; I’m sure all over this country that those who worked together with black individuals with some degree of success would agree that the joint effort make the task easier. Working together we have witnessed the closing of clinics and helped mothers turn away from the door of abortionist. However, you must know that occasionally, during this football season the Cowboys quarterback, Tony Romo would throw a touchdown to Terrell Owens. But, one touchdown very seldom won the game. Having a few successes is good, but we want to win the game. We need to plan and develop together a national strategy in order to win the game.

As things are currently, the pro-life community is facing an incredible challenge. We are witnessing a rapid fire administration that seeks to establish laws, and executive orders that will set back all that we have accomplished over the years to keep the culture of death in check, and to slow down their programs of death.

The results of this presidential election have put us in a position of having to recalibrate our strategies and methods to stay in stride with a clever and subtle foe that slickly hisses, “no one is for abortion, only for a woman’s right to choose.” As we recalibrate a strategy to show how we will move our team over the next four years, let us take a lesson from the Cowboys and play this one out as a team.

The black pro-life movement is a natural ally in the struggle to end the scourge of baby murder in our country. We are being impacted by it at an alarming rate. Our contribution is to mobilize the black community and bring their collective voices to the table to speak out against this evil practice. Our voice when heard cannot be ignored or misrepresented as trying to besmirch the first black President. He is from our community and he most not ignore our cry to stop the killing of our children. When we collectively bring to the nation’s consciousness the horrors of baby killing in our communities and how it is practiced in unabated furor we will win the day. For the next four years, we need to play this one out as a team if we are to win!

Pastor Stephen Broden
Fair Park Bible Fellowship
Dallas, Texas