Category: Law and Policy

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Biblical Seminary Culture Justice Law and Policy

Gleanings Laws for Today

In Missional Theology I, we were required to write  contemporary paraphrase of the gleanings laws in Lev. 19:9-10 and Deut. 24: 19-22. Here is mine:

Now when you develop ever more sophisticated global communication networks that facilitate creativity and trade, when you discover new medicines, when your lands produces the abundance resulting from advanced farming and husbandry technologies and genetically modified stock and seeds, when your study of the human genome yields new insights about human health, when you create new cultural and technological goods from the traditional and biological resources of the South, you shall not seek all the rents available to an efficient monopolist under a strong intellectual property regime; you shall leave a portion of the rents to the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger. You shall permit the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger to access your technologies and information on equitable terms that promote their welfare and development. You shall remember that you were once a developing country and the LORD brought you freedom and abundance; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

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Law and Policy Spirituality

How to Handle the End of Christian America

An excellent essay by Craig Detweiler.

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Justice Law and Policy

The Torture Lawyers

When I first heard that the Obama administration was considering whether to prosecute lawyers who crafted the “torture memos,” I was very concerned.  It sounded like a witch hunt, and worse, like an impingement on the sacrosanct freedom of legal counsel to render advice.  This piece by Brian Tamanaha, however, powerfully explains why my concern was to a large extent misplaced.  Tamanaha, by the way, is no wishy-washy liberal.  His book Law as a Means to an End: Threat to the Rule of Law is an important argument for the recognition of normative-moral principles for legal theory, which every Christian interested in legal theory should read.

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Culture Justice Law and Policy

Terminology (and Ideas) for Engagement with Muslims

Chris Seiple of the Institute for Global Engagement, a Christian think tank on foreign policy issues, offers these excellent guidelines for how we should speak of engagement with Muslims throughout the world.  Over and over again, IGE shows itself to be one of the most thoughtful Christian voices on U.S. foreign relations to be found anywhere.

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Law and Policy Spirituality

Watching History

I watched the innaguration of President Obama in the law school auditorium. The room was packed. Some people wept. One woman lifted her hands in the air when Rick Warren prayed (though a few people boo’ed Warren). The entire room stood when the oath of office was administered. People clapped and cheered as though they were present at the ceremony. There was a mood in the room, not only of hope, but also of relief.

I think those of us from middle and upper-middle class conservative church backgrounds just don’t fathom the depth of disenfranchisement felt by so many people during the Bush years. Even more than ever, it seemed clear to me today that our alignment with Republican politics has been profoundly unfaithful to our calling as the Church. Yes, there are things our conscience as the Church requires us to speak clearly about. I think, I hope, that we’re learning how to do that with true independence and humility.

I feel proud and grateful to have been able to witness the first African-American President’s innaguration. I also feel proud and grateful to be among such an amazing group of colleagues and students. And I feel energized to keep about the work of faith, truth, justice, renewal and hope in allegience to and by the grace of Jesus the Redeemer.

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Law and Policy Photography and Music

MLK

Watch this, then listen to Richie Haven’s new version of We Don’t Get Fooled Again.  ‘Nuff said.

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Justice Law and Policy

RJN RIP

Richard John Neuhaus has died.  His book The Naked Public Square:  Religion and Democracy in America had a formative influence on me years ago, his involvement with Chuck Colson in Evangelicals and Catholics Together was historic, and his journal First Things remains vital.  In recent years I’ve become more critical of the neoconservatism that Neuhaus represented, but all of us who think and write and act on the role of faith in public life today owe him a debt of gratitude.  RIP.

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Historical Theology Justice Law and Policy Religious Legal Theory

God's Joust of History

To be sure, God’s plan and our history are not identical.  God’s plan consists of much more than what God chooses to reveal to us or what we are able to discern of it.  Much of what we see appears to be the work of a concealed God, even at times a seemingly capricious God.  In Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) colorful image, history is ‘God’s mummery and mystery,’ ‘God’s joust and tourney.’  History is ‘God’s theatre,’ in which the play cannot be fully understood until it ends and until we exit.  To equate one act or actor, one speech or text, with the divine play itself is to cast a partial and premature jugment.  To insist on one interpretation of the play before it ends is to presume the power of eternal discernment.  To judge the play on the basis of a few episodes is to insult the genius of the divine playwright.

— John Witte, Jr., God’s Joust, God’s Justice:  Law and Religion in the Western Tradition.

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Law and Policy

Evangelicals and the Election

A long string of interesting and disparate posts from the Christianity Today blog.

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Law and Policy

Making History

This morning I participated in history.  I walked into the Midland Park, New Jersey Public Library, the polling site for my district.  Three elderly ladies staffed the table where I signed the voter log and received a paper ticket indicating my eligibility to vote.  I stepped up to the voting machine (there was no line) and handed another elderly attendant my ticket.  She threaded the ticket onto a long string full of tickets.  I walked through the curtain and paused for a moment to consider the privilege I was about to exercise.  In a moment I would press a button to submit my vote for (arguably) the most powerful political job in the world.  The campaign had been fierce and both sides offered wonderfully path-breaking choices — a black man for President or a woman for Vice President.  There were no guns.  There was no blood, no fear, no coercion.  Just me and some buttons.  I made my choices and left in peace.  History won’t remember my vote, but it will remember this day.