A lawyer-friend (and reader of this blog) has submitted his application for appointment to the judicial bench. Considering the legal precedents handed down over the past week (and that the Mass. Supreme Court is about to legalize gay marriage), we know how important good judges are. So I ask you to pray for my friend that he would receive his appointment. We need men like him on the bench.
Craig,
That’s an oversimplification of Scripture and to read it like that would be fundamentalism and literalism. To try to explain in less than book length, the laws of the Old Testament were given to help form mankind when we like children, i.e. before Jesus came. But when Jesus came he freed us from the proscriptions of the law. (Galatians 3:23)
That doesn’t mean that every rule was thrown out, just that the unnecessary rules were because they were not needed for salvation. However, other rules save us from those things that are bad for us and that do impact our salvation. Many of them are found in the Old Testament, like the Ten Commandments, and others are in New Testament, in the Gospels and the Letter to the Romans, which includes the proscription against homosexuality.
To turn your argument around on itself, if none of the Old Testament rules don’t apply to us any more, then why bother following the Ten Commandments? If not, I’ll be coming by your house later to kill you and steal your stuff.
Craig, I didn’t say that we are to ignore the OT except for the 10 Commandments. You should re-read what I wrote carefully.
I said that Jesus freed us from the Law, but that some parts of the Law remain in His teaching. If we were the ones responsible for deciding what applies to us, that would be one thing, but Jesus left us the Holy Spirit who guides the Church in defining how to apply the teachings of Christ to life.
If we are free to decide what is Truth, without reference to Scripture or the teachings of Christ handed on through the Apostles and the Church, then what’s the point of being Christian? Let’s just set up our conditions of salvation and forget Him.
As for your second comment, you don’t need to appeal to religion specifically to make judgments. But a judge needs to have some measure within himself to judge right and wrong. I would rather have a religious judge than a judge who believes there is no right and wrong, i.e. an arbitrary judge.
Craig, you and I seem to agree on one thing: I don’t want judges who legislate from the bench, but follow the law and the Constitution as written, just like Scalia and Thomas.