Why are we back in Keswick?

Brephos sends CBRUK Public Education Team to Keswick again with prenatal living imagery and powerful heartbeat sound

On Friday 18^th July, a small team of five CBRUK educators displayed two banners in Keswick town centre showing images of living babies inside and outside the womb, drawing particular attention to the recent vote by MPs in favour of abortion up to birth.

They also played the compelling sound of a prenatal heartbeat via a mobile speaker.

This is after an article in the local newspaper confirmed that the Town Council was collaborating with local businesses to try to keep the display away.

Allegedly a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) is now in action against the display.

Nevertheless CBRUK is planning to display again this week, this time with a larger team.

Brephos is the Church-facing arm of the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK (CBRUK).

Why are we back in Keswick?

In the Summers of 2023 and 2024 we brought our Public Education Display to Keswick during the Keswick Convention, with the aim of engaging Christian Convention-goers in particular, with our single image of a living baby in the womb, and with a survey to find out Christians’ views on abortion and what sort of attention the issue gets in their churches.

Whilst hardly large enough to be statistically conclusive (180 surveyed across the two years), the data indicated some interesting and important phenomena. Chief among them: about half of the respondents said they had heard nothing at all about abortion in their church over the last five years. This is striking, given that abortion is, numerically, the greatest injustice not only of our day but in all of human history. The relative silence is conspicuous. This underlines the urgency of engaging Christians on the issue of abortion – so few hail from churches where the issue is being addressed in any way at all. And if we can’t reach the Church, how can we reach the nation?

Since last Summer, the baby genocide has only grown more severe. Another quarter of a million babies have been sacrificed in our nation, and MPs have just voted to legalise abortion up to birth.

Our aim in Keswick this year is simple: we want to educate Christians in particular on the scale and nature of this genocide taking place on our watch, especially the latest developments to do with abortion up to birth, and to call Christians to meaningful action on behalf of our voiceless neighbours.

Engaging other members of the public – locals and holidaymakers – is a (positive) side effect of our targeting the Convention-goers. As with all public education work, the message goes out wider than the main target audience.

This is the reason we returned to Keswick this Summer.

But they don’t want you there!?

Particularly since last year’s display, it has been widely publicised that some local individuals, together with the Town Council, and the leadership of Keswick Convention itself, have expressed their opposition to our being there. Why then are we coming back, when we’re “not welcome”?

The first thing to say is that many do welcome our being there, including amongst the locals. Moreover our reception by Convention-goers themselves (the target audience) has been overwhelmingly positive. On Friday we received supportive and grateful comments from both constituencies.

But more importantly, the opposition of some in no way negates our aforesaid purposes for being there. The baby genocide is real and getting worse, and it must be exposed and Christians must be called to meaningful action.

Faithful gospel work, prophetic ministry, and real social reform are typically met with some level of opposition. Spiritual warfare is real and such is to be expected. Those who think that the disgruntled reactions of some should automatically cause us to pack up and go home simply don’t understand this.

Your display is pointless/counterproductive: you’re just making people angry!

It is on the face of it perhaps understandable that if people see a “negative” response they assume that what we’re doing “isn’t working”.

Rather than repeating arguments in full here, do read this article to explore this question further.

Why don’t you just get a stall inside the Convention?

We first got in touch with the Convention more than two years ago to offer a lecture of some kind or a seminar. This they declined, which is entirely their prerogative of course.

We then asked for a stall or exhibition space, and never heard back. Again, entirely their prerogative: it’s up to them to whom they offer space within their own event and on their own property.

So we decided to go down the public education route – which we do all over the nation in various locations, often with a view to targeting particular people groups (e.g. students). We kept the Convention in touch with our plans.

When the question of exhibiting resurfaced, it turned out we would not in any case be eligible because we are not a charity (we are a limited company), and all their space-holders are charities. Again, totally fine. Their prerogative.

Public education has proven to be an excellent way to reach Christians with the message. The way in which it has also exposed the opposition from some in the town, and from the leadership of the Convention itself, in no way detracts from that.

Is this protest/provocation?

In my communications with Keswick Convention this year, I have been explicit about the above, that what we are doing is education, and we are not here to protest anything they are doing or to provoke debate with them. We are here to educate Christians. Our educators on the ground have been instructed to engage – as ever – on the issue of the baby genocide itself and the of response (in this case) the Christians they are talking to. They are not there to discuss the Convention’s response.

In general we do not protest. We educate. Abortion when exposed protests itself.

Why wouldn’t we go back this year!

In a sense the simplest answer to the question of why we are back this year is that – as last year – one of our educators, who faithfully stands up in the public square month by month, highlighting the humanity of the unborn child and exposing the inhumanity of abortion, requested that we do so. These educators are trained and encouraged to think about how to get the message out as effectively as possible in their own regions. This educator correctly saw the strategic significance of reaching so many Christians at once.

To say “no” to this educator would require justification.

Because “they” don’t want us to be there? Is that a good reason to forsake the unborn, when they need us more than ever?

Because it might be a reputational own goal; people might perceive Brephos/CBRUK as vindictive provocateurs? Is that a good reason to back away? Is that what we’re here for, to curate our own image, build our own “ministry”?

In the end we saw it like this: perhaps this will be "bad" or at least inconvenient for “us”, but we believe it will be good for the babies and good for the mothers and ultimately good for the Church, so we have to do it.

We could find, after considerable deliberation and internal debate, no defensible reason not to go back to Keswick this year.

How has it been going?

Our team leader on the ground described the first display as "colourful".

Our latest podcast episode discusses in some detail what actually went down with Carolina, a CBRUK staffer and public educator who was there herself.