Christians in the Medical Field are at an Acts 5:29 Crossroads

And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, 28 saying, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man’s blood on us!”But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:27-29) 

At what point do we disobey civil government? There is a simple answer to that question. We disobey civil government when obedience would be a sin against God.

There are two significant developments recently that have clearly put believers over the Acts 5:29 line. The State of Washington is passing a “gender-affirming” bill that strips parents of their parental role in caring for their children emotionally and spiritually and paves the way for children to be taken out of the home if parents do not obey the state’s mandate for gender ideology.

The second event concerns medical care in the US Navy. In a secretly recorded presentation, a Navy nurse described talking about gender issues with dependent children as young as twelve years old and declared that it is existing Navy policy to deny Navy personnel access to their children’s medical records after 12 years old.

In our own church, a mother was denied access to her sixteen-year-old son’s medical records even though the son was standing right there asking that his mother be given access.

Christians in the medical field are in an Acts 5:29 moment. 

Is it a sin for a Christian, and a medical professional, to withhold information from a parent that is necessary for that parent to fulfill their biblical responsibilities toward their child?  To me, the unqualified answer is yes—regardless of what the law says. And it does not matter whether the parent is a believer or an unbeliever. God has still given that parent the responsibility to raise that child.

This is about obeying God rather than men. Believers cannot become complicit in the indoctrination, potential kidnapping, and destruction of children in this way. If Christians give up on this, they might as well give away their Christianity altogether.

If you don’t stand against this, you won’t stand against anything.

The gospel is our only hope, but obedience to God is our overriding ethic. We must fulfill His commission in His way.

We are now at that “deny Jesus or go to jail” or “deny Jesus or lose your job” moment. May God grant His servants the peace and boldness to do the right thing no matter the cost.