STEMBERGER: Are You Willing to Stand Alone?

On October 1, the New Louisiana Foundation held its annual Champions of Change gala in Lafayette, Louisiana. Among the guest speakers were Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry, and Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Each of those speakers provided valuable insight into their roles and the unique challenges facing the government agencies they are charged with overseeing. But one more speaker did something entirely different. John Stemberger came to Louisiana and asked a question.

Not a complicated question nor one that required a lengthy explanation to understand.

When the time comes, are you willing to stand alone?

Stemberger, president of Liberty Counsel Action and senior counsel with Liberty Counsel, posed that question near the beginning of his remarks and returned to it again at the end. Everything in between was an examination of what it means to have the courage to hold a conviction when doing so is difficult, unpopular, or costly.

Before getting there, however, Stemberger offered some observations about Louisiana. Coming from Florida, he joked that his home state may have Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis, but Louisiana has developed an outsized influence of its own in national politics, law and public policy. Stemberger pointed to leaders like Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise and John Kennedy.

He pointed to several legal and cultural battles originating here that have implications far beyond the state’s borders. Stemberger then referenced disputes involving religious liberty, the Ten Commandments, voting rights, online child protection, parental consent, age verification and gender identity.

He also discussed Liberty Counsel Action’s campaign raising concerns about chemical abortion drugs and wastewater — an issue the organization has been publicly pursuing — as another example of a policy fight he believes may ultimately have national implications.

But those issues were largely the backdrop for Stemberger’s broader message. His real subject was courage. And particularly the kind of courage required when a person discovers that conviction may require standing apart from everyone else.

Lovers of Truth

Stemberger’s first principle was straightforward — to have the courage to stand alone, a person must first become a lover of truth. He described a culture overwhelmed by competing claims, deception, and rapidly changing social norms. Institutions and ideas that previous generations largely regarded as settled, he argued, are increasingly questioned or discarded.

For Stemberger, that creates a fundamental problem. A person cannot courageously defend something unless he first knows what he believes to be true. He invoked the biblical warning against calling evil good and good evil and repeatedly returned to another scriptural warning — do not be deceived.

Deception, Stemberger observed, has a peculiar characteristic. A person who is genuinely deceived does not know he is deceived. Once the deception is recognized, it ceases to be deception. The antidote, he argued, is truth. “Speak the truth, love the truth, study the truth, know the truth,” he told the audience, “and finally stand for the truth.”

He illustrated the point with a story from his first day as a student at Florida State University. Stemberger recalled entering a politics and ethics class in 1985, where the professor openly announced that the course would be taught from what he himself described as a strongly liberal perspective. Stemberger eventually wrote his final paper on Plato’s Republic and the development of moral absolutes. He received a D grade. The experience stuck with him.

Decades later, he used it to make a larger point  — if someone intends to stand alone, that person must first believe there really is such a thing as right and wrong and must be willing to discern between them.

Standing Alone Is Not Rebellion

Stemberger’s second point added an important qualification. Standing alone, he said, does not mean simply being defiant. It is not rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It is not stubbornly insisting that one’s personal opinion must prevail. Nor does it mean destroying relationships over insignificant disagreements. The question, he suggested, should instead be whether the matter is important enough to justify the stand.

“What is the real issue?” he asked. “What is the big picture here?” Stemberger described the object of such courage as standing for what is true, good and beautiful. That distinction runs throughout his message. Courage, as he described it, is not measured simply by someone’s willingness to fight. It depends upon what that person is willing to fight for.

The speech also recalled Benjamin Franklin’s proposed motto for the young United States: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” That’s worth considering. Resistance is not automatically virtuous simply because it is resistance. It’s the cause that sets it apart.

Greatness Often Begins Alone

His third principle was drawn largely from history. Stemberger challenged the audience to identify truly consequential figures who never faced a moment when they had to stand apart from others.

He then moved quickly through biblical, church and secular history. Noah stood apart from the world around him. Abraham faced an extraordinary test of faith. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused an order to bow before the Babylonian king’s image despite the threat of death. David walked onto a battlefield to confront Goliath. Daniel continued praying despite the king’s decree. Queen Esther risked her life by approaching the king to save her people. John the Baptist, an unconventional figure by any standard, proclaimed his message without concern for social acceptability.

Then Stemberger turned to Mary, the mother of Jesus. He asked the audience to consider the extraordinary social pressure a young, unmarried woman would have faced after becoming pregnant in that culture and the courage required to accept circumstances almost no one around her could initially understand.

From biblical history, Stemberger moved into church history. He pointed to Athanasius of Alexandria, remembered for defending foundational Christian doctrines amid enormous theological and political opposition — giving rise to the expression Athanasius contra mundum: Athanasius against the world.

Then came Martin Luther. Stemberger recounted Luther’s refusal to recant his teachings when confronted at the Diet of Worms and the conviction that a person should not act against conscience. Whatever else followed from the Reformation, Stemberger’s point was that history changed because someone reached a moment when conformity would have been easier and chose otherwise.

Washington at Trenton

Stemberger then turned to the American Revolution and George Washington. Americans sometimes view the founders, he suggested, almost as superhuman figures. But they were people much like those sitting in the room — people with different professions, levels of education, resources and abilities. Washington, however, stood unusually tall among them.

He focused particularly on the desperate circumstances surrounding Washington’s decision to cross the Delaware River and attack the Hessians at Trenton in December 1776. The Continental Army was suffering. Morale was collapsing. Enlistments were expiring. Soldiers lacked adequate equipment, clothing, and supplies. Washington himself recognized just how precarious the American cause had become.

Yet rather than retreat from the danger, Washington proposed something audacious. Cross the Delaware. March through brutal winter conditions. Attack!

Stemberger emphasized that even some of Washington’s own officers were less than enthusiastic about the plan. Washington proceeded anyway. The victory at Trenton became one of the pivotal moments of the Revolution.

For Stemberger, the lesson was not simply military. Leadership sometimes means seeing something others cannot yet see — and accepting that there may be a moment when the leader must proceed without the comfort of consensus.

Wilberforce and Persistence

Stemberger next turned to British parliamentarian William Wilberforce and the campaign against the slave trade. When Wilberforce began pressing Parliament to abolish the trade, the institution of slavery was deeply intertwined with British economic interests. Opposition was formidable. Victory was not immediate.

Wilberforce returned to the issue year after year, suffering repeated legislative defeats before Parliament finally abolished the British slave trade in 1807. The abolition of slavery throughout most of the British Empire followed years later.

Stemberger used Wilberforce to illustrate another component of standing alone that can easily be overlooked — persistence. Standing alone is not necessarily a dramatic speech, a courageous vote, or a confrontation. Sometimes it means losing, then returning to lose again, and returning for years.

Be the Nickel, Not the Play-Doh

Stemberger’s fourth principle concerned character. He illustrated it with an intentionally simple analogy. Press a nickel into a piece of Play-Doh, and one of those objects will conform to the other. The nickel changes the Play-Doh. The Play-Doh does not change the nickel.

“We need to be the nickel and not the Play-Doh,” Stemberger told the audience.

His larger point was about influence. A person of character should not simply absorb whatever values, expectations, or pressures happen to surround him. Character provides enough substance for a person to affect his surroundings rather than be continuously reshaped by them.

In Stemberger’s framework, the willingness to stand alone is therefore not separate from character, but evidence of it.

Standing Alone Does Not Mean Staying Alone

Then came an important paradox. God may require someone to be willing to stand alone, Stemberger argued, but that does not mean the person is supposed to remain alone. Christianity itself is built around relationship and community. People need one another. Movements need people. Causes need people. Someone may begin alone, but meaningful change rarely ends there.

Stemberger pointed to the very gathering at which he was speaking as evidence of that principle: individuals who begin by appearing alone before a city council, government body, or community can eventually discover that others share their concerns.

That led directly to what he called the leadership paradox.

Picture someone sitting at a public meeting. He knows something needs to be said. His heart is pounding. He would rather remain seated. Speaking may attract unwanted attention, criticism, or ridicule. Then he gets up anyway. According to Stemberger, something interesting happens at that moment. Other people watching may have been thinking the same thing. They simply did not want to be first. The person who was willing to stand alone suddenly becomes a leader — and discovers he was not nearly as alone as he thought.

Leadership, in that sense, begins when someone is willing to go first.

When Stemberger Had to Make the Choice Himself

The final extended example was personal. Stemberger is an Eagle Scout, and scouting played an important role in his own life and in the lives of his sons. When the Boy Scouts of America began reconsidering its policies concerning openly gay members, Stemberger initially sought to organize support for the organization’s existing policy. He knew national scouting leaders. He understood the organization. And he believed strongly in what scouting had represented.

As the organization moved toward changing its policy, however, Stemberger faced the very dilemma at the center of his speech. Opposing the direction of an institution he loved was not something he wanted to do. He described agonizing over the decision.

Scouting was woven into his conception of American culture. He had relationships inside the organization. His own children participated. Taking a public stand could cost him friendships and standing within that community. Yet he eventually concluded that he had to act.

Stemberger helped organize opposition to the policy change. His side ultimately lost the fight inside the Boy Scouts. He recalled removing his scouting uniform for the last time after the national decision — a deeply painful moment for someone whose connection to scouting stretched back to childhood. But the story did not end there.

Afterward, Stemberger and others gathered representatives from different Christian denominations, scouting backgrounds, and youth organizations to begin developing an alternative. That effort became Trail Life USA, a Christ-centered scouting organization for boys.

What began with losing a battle within an institution eventually led to the creation of something new. For Stemberger, it was perhaps the most personal illustration of his message. Standing alone does not guarantee that you will win the battle you originally intended to fight. Sometimes it changes the battlefield entirely.

One Candle

Stemberger ended where he began. He told the audience that Christians should not expect cultural comfort. Those publicly expressing traditional Christian convictions, he said, increasingly encounter hostility rather than affirmation. That reality, he argued, demands greater thought, strategy, and courage.

But his conclusion was not built around politics. It was built around a candle. Imagine, Stemberger said, that every light in the room suddenly went dark—complete darkness. One person lights a candle. Immediately, everyone can see it. The darkness does not have to agree with the candle. It does not have to vote on whether the candle should shine. The candle does what light does simply because someone was willing to light it. And it only takes one person to begin.

Stemberger made clear that he was not delivering the message as a rebuke to those in attendance. Quite the opposite. He recognized that many of the people listening had already paid prices for their convictions — lost friendships, lost opportunities, sacrifices of money or time with family, and other costs that few people may ever fully recognize.

His final words were therefore both gratitude and challenge. Would they continue to be the candle? Would they continue to pierce the darkness? And when that inevitable moment arrived — when conviction became inconvenient, costly, or lonely — would they still be willing to stand?

John Stemberger carried that question from Florida to Louisiana.

When the time comes, are you willing to stand alone?

Our Mission

In some ways, Stemberger was preaching to the choir. Many people in the room already understood the cost of standing against the prevailing current. But his message also sounded remarkably familiar — almost like a history of how organizations such as ours come into existence.

It often begins with one person willing to speak when everyone else remains silent. Maybe it is at a council meeting, a public hearing, or before some government board. Someone stands up, asks the uncomfortable question, or says what others are thinking but are unwilling to say aloud. Then something happens. Others realize they are not alone. One voice becomes several. A leader emerges. Activists step forward. Members join. Sponsors and donors decide the work is worth supporting. What began as one person willing to stand alone becomes a group willing to stand together.

That is how movements are built. Stemberger used the image of a candle piercing the darkness. It is a fitting image, particularly when considering the historical figures he described. Our work often requires something more like a flashlight. We shine it into the dark corners of government — into records, meetings, budgets, decisions and actions that might otherwise escape public attention. And when that light reveals something important, we point others toward it.

The tool may be different, but the principle is the same. Someone has to be willing to turn on the light. But it takes many to keep it powered, keep it pointed in the right direction, and make sure the darkness does not return.

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