Light in the Darkness: Bethany and Ryan Bomberger and the Radiance Foundation

A husband-and-wife duo takes on the culture wars with a message of hope

Bethany Bomberger at a read-along of "Pro-Life Kids!" (Copyright Ryan and Bethany Bomberger)

“To every girl out there ... you are so precious. God designed you beautifully and uniquely. Whether you’re a princess or whether you’re a warrior (or if you’re a princess warrior), love who you were created to be!”

So reads the dedication to a new book, “She Is She,” and those words describe as well as any the theme of this colorful exploration and celebration of what it means to be female. Aimed at children aged 2 to 8 and with lively illustrations by Ed Koehler, “She Is She” begins with these three declarations: “She is she,” “She is not he,” and “She is not we.” From there, the book describes females as mothers, daughters, and sisters; gives subtle bits of standard scientific information about our genetic makeup; and shows the girls depicted in the story imagining themselves in various professions and becoming strong, principled women.

In short, “She Is She” contradicts what so many in our society today are professing about gender and sexuality. To write such a book in so hostile an environment requires courage, vision, and a belief in straight-up truth.

Fortunately, authors Bethany and Ryan Bomberger possess all three of those virtues in abundance.

Letting the Light Shine

The Bombergers are the co-founders of the Radiance Foundation, a faith-based, educational, life-affirming nonprofit. In their mission statement, this husband-and-wife team forthrightly state their intentions: to illuminate the truth that every human being has worth, to educate others about “culture-shaping issues,” and to “motivate people to put truth and love into action.”

“Foundationally, we believe every human life has a God-given purpose,“ Ryan said. ”Because of that, we see things differently. We refuse to look through the world’s broken lenses. We look through the breakthrough filter of Christ.”

“One of our slogans at the Radiance Foundation is ‘Life has purpose,’” Bethany said. “When we look at where God has placed us in history, we realize that we are placed where we are on purpose and for a purpose.”

Actions to back up these words can be found on The Radiance Foundation website. Published in 2019, their book “Pro-Life Kids” was designed to “convey an age-appropriate pro-life worldview to children,” according to Amazon. And soon, “She Is She” will be joined by “He Is He.”

But those publications represent only a small portion of the Radiance Foundation’s work. Its website features scores of essays and op-eds defending a child’s right to life, promoting adoption, and refuting critical race theory. Here, too, is a collection of videos featuring Ryan addressing these issues at conferences and on various national news platforms.

Because of their passion and their bold, outspoken stance, particularly on issues of life, the Bomberger duo has generated coverage from media outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, and CNN.

To all these projects, the Bombergers bring complementary skill sets: Bethany taught for years in public and private schools, and Ryan, who studied marketing and graphic design, worked for several years in advertising.

“After we got married, it wasn’t long before we started the Radiance Foundation because we were already doing these things,” Bethany said.

Like all of ours, however, there’s more to their story than their academic credentials and their work history.

Coming Together

Bethany grew up in New York and Connecticut in a pro-life, Christian household, attending a large nondenominational church that she describes as “Christian light.” After graduating high school, she attended Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and then entered Virginia’s Regent College, now Regent University. Ryan also graduated from Messiah but ahead of Bethany, and they didn’t meet until she was a graduate student at Regent.

Although Ryan had also attended a nondenominational church in his youth, his was a different sort of adolescence. He was the oldest of 10 children adopted by a Christian couple in Amish country, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. That household eventually included 15 people.

“Our parents poured their faith into us,” he said. “When you see how those who would be so easily written off are actually loved like crazy, there’s no such thing as an unwanted child. We’re all wanted by someone.”

A photo captures the entire Bomberger family. (Copyright Ryan and Bethany Bomberger)

The couple met when Bethany was putting together a fundraiser for a pro-life center, an event that involved a local band in which Ryan was the lead singer. They clicked, but six years passed before they would marry.

“We took the scenic route,” Bethany said with a smile, summing up that gap in time.

That scenic route included some bumps in the road.

“I battled depression in graduate school,” Ryan said. It took him several years to fully conquer that darkness. “Once I was freed from that, I pursued Bethany. And there’s no love like Bethany in my whole life.”

Bethany was teaching full-time. Feeling isolated, she entered into a relationship that left her alone and pregnant. However, on Valentine’s Day 2004, her life took an incredible turn when she entered a pregnancy center and saw her daughter’s beating heart on an ultrasound.

Remembering that image and that moment, she said, “The Lord called me back to Himself and wrapped His heart around my heart and her heart.”

Later that evening, she took out an old journal and found Psalm 34:5 in the margin of an entry: “Those who look to him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame.”

Today, Bethany and Ryan have four children, two of whom are adopted: Radiance, age 18; Mikai, 15; Aliyah, 14; and Justice, 12.

The Bomberger family: Ryan and Bethany, with their children Radiance, Mikai, Aliyah, and Justice. (Copyright Ryan and Bethany Bomberger)

Joining Up

That principle of the Radiance Foundation—“Life has purpose”—is also a guiding light for the Bomberger family. As Bethany explained: “I tell my children, ‘You were born to bring heaven to earth. You are here to speak life and light into a culture that is dark and dying.’ We are called to be a city on a hill.”

Bethany and Ryan believe that message can serve as a North Star for everyone. When asked what ordinary Americans can do to stand against the dark culture that has spread its shadow across America, Ryan suggests this starting point: “People need to learn. We should be factivists. Everybody can do that just by learning what’s truly going on.”

The idea of becoming a “factivist” is key to several of Ryan’s articles and online videos. Given the state of muddled reporting from so many in our corporate media, he believes that people should dig into a news story and separate truth from misinformation and speculation.

Bethany recommends volunteering for some worthy cause, such as a pro-life center.

“Become a mentor for someone others would write off as hopeless, and be that hope,” she said.

Standing Strong

The Bombergers are no starry-eyed idealists whistling their way through the dark and reassuring themselves that all will be well. Every day, they confront head-on the enormous problems facing our culture: the denigration of religious faith, the threats to free speech, the attack on the traditional views of sex and gender, and the abortions that have ended so many lives in the womb, particularly in the black community.

Despite these fierce and ongoing battles, hope and joy sustain these two warriors of the culture wars. You can hear it in their voices, you can see it in the videos of their children on the Radiance Foundation website, and you can read it in their books, such as “Pro-Life Kids” and “She Is She.”

As Ryan said, “Having the right source of hope is in the Lord. Jesus is our hope. And when you have hope, it changes your trajectory.”

In his recent “Letter to the American Church,” Eric Metaxas points to devastating similarities between today’s church in America, particularly its leadership, and the church in Germany in the 1930s, which by its silence and even complicity abetted the rise of the Nazi regime.

Bethany and Ryan Bomberger with author and radio host Eric Metaxas (L). (Copyright Ryan and Bethany Bomberger)

Near the end of his book, Metaxas wrote, “Will we trust God who tells us that victory will be given into our hands and that we must fight with all we have? Or will we, like the twelve thousand pastors in Germany, hang back and see which way the wind is blowing, and in our inaction guarantee that evil prevails?”

In their ministry through the Radiance Foundation, Bethany and Ryan answer those questions by fighting every day with all they have—the weapons of faith, hope, love, truth, and joy.