Hobby Lobby Owner Steve Green Urges Christians to Stand Up for Faith to Government Mid Struggle for Religious Freedom

Sep 16, 2014 01:51 PM EDT

Hobby Lobby
Demonstrator react to hearing the Supreme Court's decision on the Hobby Lobby case in June 2014.

Hobby Lobby owner Steve Green recently encouraged Christians to stand up for religious freedom, warning believers that "there are struggles that have never been faced before."

"There are struggles for religious freedom in America," Green said on a video at an event held by First Baptist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, Raw Story reports. "Just a few years ago we never would have imagined we would have filed suit against our own government, the government that we love.

"But there are challenges. There are struggles that people of faith are facing today that have never been faced before."

Green urged Christians to "stand up and let their voice be heard through the ballot box, and if need be, to file suit".

"If we don't stand up and fight for the freedoms that our founders fought for then we very well may lose some of those," he warned.

A committed Christian, Green is no stranger to standing up for his beliefs to the U.S. Government.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Green after his company refused to offer its employees the morning after and week after pills as part of Hobby Lobby's health insurance plans, arguing such contraceptives could lead to an abortion.

"These abortion-causing drugs go against our faith, and our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families," Green said in a statement last year.

"We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate."

On Sunday, Steve Green further clarified: "The bottom line is we believe that life begins at conception, and for us to be a part of taking that life violates what are deeply held beliefs are, and so we just said we didn't want to freely provide those or pay for them for employees.

"That doesn't prevent them from having access to them, but for the government to tell us that we had to provide those to our employees for free was a problem for us and why we decided that we had to file suit.

"We cannot be part of taking life, whether it [the court case] was a win or a loss, we just felt like we were in God's hands and whatever cost he would of have asked us is what we would be willing to pay."