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The State Cannot Give Lesser Protection to Religious Speech than it does to Political Speech

09 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in law

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Capital Hill Baptist, Cruz, first amendment, law

Freedom of speech “is essential to our democratic form of government.” Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty., & Mun. Emps., Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448, 2464 (2018). That freedom prohibits the government from “regulat[ing] speech based on its substantive content or the message it conveys.” Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 828 (1995). And as a corollary, it ensures that the government “may not favor one speaker over another.” Id.

Introduction to Amicus brief filed by 34 Senators in favor of the petition of Capital Hill Baptist Church.

Why Would the State Seek to Regulate Biblical Soul Care?

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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Biblical Counseling, Counseling and Legal Issues, law

This is the introduction to a lecture which I will be giving at the ACBC Conference this fall . Since this is an early draft, some or all of this may be rewritten, revised, or simply rejected. But I often think things through by writing them out. Since this is a draft, if you do happen to have an opinion, I would be happy to hear it so that I can make the necessary changes. 

 

The answer to this question will be a bit complex, for two reasons. First, the question concerns the interaction of law and religious practice. Second, the culture as a whole is the process of a fundamental shift; and, as the culture shifts so does the law. Therefore, to answer this question I will need to build an argument in sections, block-by-block.

The Quick Answer

There is an easy answer to this question; it is unpacking the elements which will take time. The State seeks to regulate Biblical Soul Care, because we look like Cognitive Behavioral Psychologists who use religious language for certain predetermined ends.  We are just scoff-laws who simply refuse to take the licensing examination and abide by the agreed-upon ethical standards.

The State is completely unconcerned with the fact that we use the Bible, call ourselves Christian, ask people to pray or any similar aspect of our counsel. As I was preparing for this lecture, I read a blog entry on Scientific American concerning the use of tarot cards and astrology as the basis for psychotherapy.

The author plainly favors what he labeled “evidence based” therapies of the more traditional form. And yet ended with the following observation:

Research into the brain and mind, I have argued on this blog and elsewhere, has yet to produce truly persuasive theories of and treatments for mental illness. As a recent essay in a British psychiatric journal argues, “it is still not possible to cite a single neuroscience or genetic finding that has been of use to the practicing psychiatrist in managing [mental]  illnesses despite attempts to suggest the contrary.”

This failure helps explains why people still turn to Freudian psychoanalysis, although it does not stand up to scientific scrutiny, and to an even older mind-therapy, Buddhism. And it explains why many people in distress turn to astrology, tarot cards and other pseudoscientific methods. May they find the solace they seek.[1]

But rather than dunk on our psychiatrist friends, I wish rather to make another point. A perfectly reputable psychiatric source is willing to accept – at least tolerate – the use of pseudoscience in the practice of psychotherapy. If you read the post yourself, you can find citations to other reputable practitioners who are willing to permit the use of admittedly unscientific methods because merely being convinced that it will help is usually enough to bring some relief.

Therefore, if you want to talk about Jesus and prescribe a course of prayer, you are free to do so. But, we only ask that you get a license first.

And in a world where hairdressers need official training and an occupational license, we should not be surprised that something as significant as dealing the human heart requires some standard.

Thus, we should not be surprised that the State would seek to regulate therapists no matter what they use as the basis for their therapy. And so, if a pastor wants to preach and pray and engage in rituals, he may. But -as the representative of the State will say -if that same man wants to start engaging in therapy, he should be regulated. He can engage in his religion without a license; but therapy, that is for the State to regulate.

[1] John Horgan, “Astrology, Tarot Cards and Psychotherapy,” Scientific American (blog), February 24, 2020, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/astrology-tarot-cards-and-psychotherapy/.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation LV

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Exegeting the Heart, law, Scripture, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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Conviction, Exegeting the Heart, law, Scripture, The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe

MEDITATION LV
Upon a Looking Glass

mirror

 

What is that which commends this glass? Is it the pearl and other precious stones that the frame is set in, is richly decked and enameled? Or is the impartial and just representation that it makes according to the face everyone who beholds himself bring unto it? Surely the ornaments are wholly foreign and contributing no more to its real worth than the case does onto the goodness of the wine into which it is put; or the richness of the plate [silver] to the cordial in which it is administered?

That for which the glass is to be esteemed is the true and genuine resemblance it makes of the object which is seen in it, when it neither flatters the face by giving any false beauty to it, nor yet injures it by detract ought [anything] from it.

To slight [think less than proper of] then or neglect the glass for the meanness [lowliness, lack of ornaments] of its case, and to value it only for its gaiety [beauty, appearance] is no better than the folly of children or the brutish ignorance of those who judge a book by its cover and not by the learning that is in it.

For quarreling with a glass for its returning a most exact and absolute likeness of the face that is seen in it is to despise it for its excellency and come from no other ground than a conscious of some guilt [here, a fault, not necessarily a moral failing].

Is it not for this very respect that beautiful persons both prize it and use it happily too much? It being the only means whereby they come to be acquainted with their own comeliness [beauty] and to understand what it is that allures the hearts and eyes of all toward them.

Who then but those who features nature has drawn with a coal rather than a pencil, or whom age and sickness have robbed them of what they formerly prided themselves in, shun the familiar use of it [use a mirror regularly]. Or be angry when they look into it, as if it upbraided them [rebuked them], rather than resemble them.

Phyrnethe famous harlot throws passionately away her glass saying, As I am, I will not; as I was, I cannot behold myself. And yet is this not anger against the glass causeless [without a reason]? Does it make gray hears upon the head? Or the pock-marks and wrinkles upon the face? Or does it discovery only what age and disease have done? And let them see what they cannot conceal from others?

Now what does all this argue but an averseness in men to understood the truth of their condition and a willingness through self-flattery to deceive themselves in thinking of what ever they have above what is meet [appropriate, fitting]? Great must be the impatience against truth, when the silent elections of the glass that vanish as soon as it is turned from, kindle such dislikes in the breast as to make it cast them from them [one anger throwing the mirror] for doing only the same to them which it does to others.

Here methinks [I think] we may find the ground that carnal men [one who is in the flesh, and does not have the Spirit of God] are offended at the Word, both in putting scorn and contempt upon it by the low and mean [base, foul] thoughts they have of it; or else by the anger they express against it, in throwing this blessed mirror from them in as great, though not so good, a heat as Moses did the tables which he brake beneath [at the foot of] the Mount [Ex. 32:19].

Some pick a quarrel with the plainness of the Word, as if it wholly wanted [lacked] those embroideries of wit and art that other writings and discourses abound with, and had none of those quaint expressions that might win the affections of them that converse [here, read] with it.

But is not this to make such use of the Word as young children do the glass, more to behold the babies in their own eyes, than to make any observance of themselves.

Is the Word writ or preached to have its reflections upon the fancy [vain imagination] or upon the conscience? Is it to inform only the head or reform the heart? If the inward man be the proper subject of it, the simplicity of conduces to that great end than the contemperation [accommodation] of it with humane mixtures [adding or mixing in something which would make it accommodating to “polite” speech].

It is not the painted but crystal glass by which the object is best discerned.

Others again are not a little displeased with the Law or the Word of God, because when they look into it both their persons and their sins are represented in a far differing manner from those conceptions they ever had of one or the other. In their own eyes, they are as Absaloms without any blemish; but in this glass they are as deformed lepers and spread with a uniform uncleanness: and who can bear it to see himself thus suddenly transformed into a monster?

Now their sins which they judged to be as little as the motes [a mote is a speck of dust] in sunbeams, appear in amazing dimensions, and it is to them not a looking glass but a magnifying glass. Thoughts of the heart, glances of the eye, words of the lips, irruptions of the passions are all censured by it as deserving death, and there is nothing can escape it, which as a rule it will not guide or as a judge condemn.

O how irksome this must needs be to carnal and unregenerate men who abound with self-flattery and presumptions of their own innocence and righteousness who can as with little patience endure the convincing power of the Word as sore eyes the severe searchings of the light.

We need not wonder that the Word has so many adversaries who take part with Nature against Grace, setting their works on wits by distinctions and blended interpretations to make it as a glass breathed and blown upon, which yields nothing but dim and imperfect reflections.

Is there anything that the Word does more clearly assert than the loathsome condition of Man’s nature with which comes into the world? Is it not expressed by the filthiness of the birth every child is encompassed with when it breaks forth from the womb? Is it not resembled to the rottenness and stench of the grave into which Man is resolved when he is said to be dead in sins and trespasses?

And yet how many when they view themselves in this glass give out to the world that they can see no such thing?

Celestius of old [a follower of the heretic Pelagius, 5th century] thought the original sin was matter [of the substance] of dispute rather than faith. And some have been so bold of late as to call it [original sin] Austin’s figment [a figment of Augustine’s imagination].

But the more injurious to this divine mirror of truth, the more it behooves every good Christian to be studious in vindicating it from the scorns of such as despise it for its simplicity [clarity] and from the impieties of others that seek to corrupt its purity; and to show for what cause others hate it, he [the Christian] most affectionately loves and prizes it.

Thy Word is very pure, says David, therefore thy servant loves it. [Ps. 119:140]. Can you do God better service, while you honor his Word which he has magnified above all his Name? [Ps. 138:2] Or can you do yourselves more right than to judge yourselves by that which is so pure that it can neither deceived nor be deceived.

What though it present you with sad spectacle of your sins, which may justly fill you with shame and self-abhorrence; does it not also show you your Savior, who is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. And cannot this joyful sight raise you more than the other sight can cast you down?

O fear not to see your sin, when you may at the same time behold your Savior. A mourning heart is the best preparation for a spiritual joy, and serves to intend the height of it, as dark colors do set off the gold that is laid upon them.

Give me, therefore, O Lord a broken and relenting heart
That sin may be my sorrow
And Christ may be my joy;
Let my tears drop from the eyes of faith
That I may not mourn without hope
Nor yet rejoice without trembling.
Let me see my sins in the glass of the Law
To humble me,
And my Savior in the glass of the Gospel
To comfort me
Yea, let me with open so behold his glory
As to be changed into the same image
From glory to glory.

20 Saturday May 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in law, Philosophy, Politics

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Ethics, law, Law and Revolution, Melanchthon, morality

When people speak about separation of religion and politics, particularly “legislating morality” as improper, they display a stupendous ignorance. 

For example, why is it wrong to lie to get someone’s money? Well, that is fraud. Why is fraud wrong? Because it is lying? Why is lying wrong? The answer to that question is itself a moral proposition. 

Morality is either a type of aesthetics or is based upon some sort of transcendent proposition: some morals may be more functional than others (everyone lying would soon destroy all commerce), but even caring about the effects is a moral decision.

The basic premises of Western law have a theological basis – a legislative morality: Consider this proposition:

God has ordained contracts of various kinds, Melanchthon wrote, to facilitate tate the sale, lease, or exchange of property, the procurement of labor and employment, and the lending of money and extension of credit.” God has called his political officials to promulgate general contract laws that prescribe “fair, equal, and equitable” agreements, that invalidate contracts based on fraud, duress, mistake, or coercion, and that proscribe contracts that are unconscionable, conscionable, immoral, or offensive to the public good. Melanchthon was content, for the most part, to state these general principles of contract law in categorical form. Occasionally he applied these general principles to specific cases. He condemned with particular vehemence loan contracts that obligated debtors to pay excessive rates of interest or entitled creditors to secure the loan with property whose value far exceeded the amount of the loan, unilateral labor and employment contracts that conditioned a master’s obligation to pay on full performance from the servant, and contracts of purchase and sale that were based on inequality of the exchange.

Law and Revolution II

Howard J. Berman

Harvard University Press 2003

Masterpiece Cakeshop

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Culture, Uncategorized

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Culture, first amendment, law, Masterpiece Cakeshop, politics

The First Amendment prohibits the government from telling private citizens “what they must say.” Agency for Int’l Dev. v. Alliance for Open Soc. Int’l, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2321, 2327 (2013). It is undisputed that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (the “Commission”) does not apply CADA to ban (1) an African-American cake artist from refusing to create a cake promoting white-supremacism for the Aryan Nation, (2) an Islamic cake artist from refusing to create a cake denigrating the Quran for the Westboro Baptist Church, and (3) three secular cake artists from refusing to create cakes opposing same- sex marriage for a Christian patron. App. 78a; App. 297a-App. 331a.

Neither should CADA ban Jack Phillips’ polite declining to create a cake celebrating same-sex marriage on religious grounds when he is happy to create other items for gay and lesbian clients. See Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2607 (2015) (“[T]hose who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”).

Here’s the rest of the brief

This is interesting, because it was not the refusal to sell anything: rather, the issue is whether the government can compel speech.

More:

Because of the artistry associated with custom cakes, Phillips also honors God through his work by declining to use his creative talents to design and create cakes that violate his religious beliefs. App. 282-283a, ¶¶ 57-58, 62. This includes cakes with offensive written messages and cakes celebrating events or ideas that violate his beliefs, including cakes celebrating Halloween (a decision that costs him significant revenue), anti-American or anti- family themes, atheism, racism, or indecency. App. 283-284a, ¶¶ 61, 63-64. He also will not create cakes with hateful, vulgar, or profane messages, or sell any products containing alcohol. Id., ¶¶ 59, 61.

Consistent with this longstanding practice, Phillips also will not create cakes celebrating any marriage that is contrary to his understanding of biblical teaching. App. 276-277a, ¶¶ 21, 25. As a Christian, Phillips believes that God ordained marriage as the sacred union between one man and one woman, a union that exemplifies the relationship of Christ and His Church. App. 274- 275a, ¶¶ 10-15. And Phillips’ religious conviction compels him to create cakes celebrating only marriages that are consistent with his understanding of God’s design. App. 275-277a, ¶¶16-22, 25. For this reason, Phillips politely declined to design and create a cake celebrating Respondents Craig’s and Mullins’ same-sex wedding, App. 287a, ¶ 78, but offered to make any other cake for them, id., ¶ 79.

 

This was not bigotry: he did not refuse to sell them anything. He merely treated the couple the same as he did every other patron: there were some-things Jack would not say. Irrespective of how one feels about the underlying wedding, one should be concerned if the government can force speech under threat of penalty. Think of it this, would you like President Obama or President Trump (or both) telling you what you had to say? You can’t pick the guy “on your side”.

 

 

Orthodox Paradoxes: Concerning the Law

06 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Theology, Uncategorized

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law, Orthodox Paradoxes, Puritan, Ralph Venning, The Law

XII Concerning Law [the original had no title here]

85 [mis-numbering in original]. He belives that the law was from the beginning; and yet he believes that it was first given to Moses.85. He knows that when the Law was given, it was said, do this and live; and yet he believes that there was no covenant of works since Christ was promised.
86. He believes that circumcision is cast out of the Church, and yet he believes that every saint is a circumcised person.
87. He believes that Christ obeyed and fulfilled the Law for him; and het he believes that the Law is to be observed by him.
88. He believes that the Law as to be abolished, and yet he believes that Christ came not to destroy it.
89. He knows that there is a curse denounced against them that break the Law, and yet he believes that he shall not be cursed though he has never kept it.
90. He knows that he cannot be justified by the law, and yet believes that the law cannot but justify him.
91. He eagerly pursues the works of righteousness, but does mot peremptorily rejects the righteousness of works.

An Ancient Plea for Judgment Day

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Old Testament Background

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Egypt, Judgment Day, law, Moral Law, Old Testament Background, Romans 2

This is a text written on a tomb from the 6th Dynasty Egypt (2345-2181 B.C.). The supplicant lists out his moral deeds, his care for the weak, his mercy & kindness, apparently as a sort of plea for Judgment Day. The text makes sense in light Paul’s argument in Romans 2:

Romans 2:12–16 (ESV)

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

INSCRIPTION OF NEFER-SESHEM-RE CALLED SHESHI:

(1) I have come from my town,
I have descended from my nome,
I have done justice for its lord,
I have satisfied him with what he loves.
I spoke truly, I did right,
I spoke fairly, I repeated fairly,
I seized the right moment,
So as to stand well with people.
(2) I judged between two so as to content them,
I rescued the weak from one stronger than he
As much as was in my power.
I gave bread to the hungry, clothes 〈 to the naked 〉,
I brought the boatless to land.
I buried him who had no son,
I made a boat for him who lacked one.
I respected my father, I pleased my mother.
I raised their children.
So says he (4) whose nickname is Sheshi.

STE
Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973–), 17.

Science and the Beauty of God

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Art, Vern Poythress

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Beauty, law, nature, New Yorker, Physics, Redeeming Science\, Science, Surfing the Universe, Vern Poythress

In “Surfing the Universe,” Benjamin Wallace-Wells, of physics as a search for beauty:

Physicists have long looked to higher math for insights into the workings of the universe. “If a figure is so beautiful and intricate and clear, you figure it must not exist for itself alone,” John Baez, a professor of mathematics at the University of California at Riverside, said. “It must correspond to something in the physical world.” This instinct—the assumption that beauty will stand in for truth—has become a habit. Some physicists now worry that string theory’s mathematics have grown permanently unmoored from the real world—an exercise in its own complexity. And so modern theoretical physics has become, in part, an argument about aesthetics.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/07/21/surfing-the-universe

Interestingly, Poythress explains that seeing such beauty is right, because such beauty is a disclosure of God:

Scientific laws, especially “deep” laws, are beautiful. Scientists have long sifted through possible hypotheses and models partly on the basis of the cri­teria of beauty and simplicity. For example, Newton’s law of gravitation and Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism are mathematically simple and beauti­ful. And scientists clearly expect new laws, as well as the old ones, to show beauty and simplicity. Why?

 

The beauty of scientific laws shows the beauty of God himself. Though beauty has not been a favorite topic in classical expo­sitions of the doctrine of God, the Bible shows us a God who is profoundly beautiful. He manifests himself in beauty in the design of the tabernacle, the poetry of the Psalms, and the elegance of Christ’s parables, as well as the moral beauty of the life of Christ.

 

The beauty of God himself is reflected in what he has made. We are more accustomed to seeing beauty in particular objects within creation, such as a butterfly, or a lofty mountain, or a flower-covered meadow. But beauty is also displayed in the simple, elegant form of some of the most basic physical laws, like Newton’s law for force, F = ma, or Einstein’s formula relating mass and energy, E = mc2. Why should such elegant laws even exist? Beauty is also dis­played in the harmony among different areas of science, and the harmony between mathematics and science that scientists rely on whenever they use a mathematical formula to describe a physical process.

 

Poythress, Vern S. (2006-10-13). Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach (Kindle Locations 369-377). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

 

The Essential Battle is the Meta-Battle

26 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Uncategorized

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law, Lawyering, Meta-Battle, Narrative, New Yorker, Sun Tzu, Ted Cruz, Toobin

“In both law and politics, I think the essential battle is the meta-battle of framing the narrative,” Cruz told me. “As Sun Tzu said, Every battle is won before it’s fought. It’s won by choosing the terrain on which it will be fought. So in litigation I tried to ask, What’s this case about? When the judge goes home and speaks to his or her grandchild, who’s in kindergarten, and the child says, ‘Paw-Paw, what did you do today?’ And if you own those two sentences that come out of the judge’s mouth, you win the case.

George Herbert, Prayer II (Annotated)

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in George Herbert, Literature, Prayer

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2 Corinthians 5:16–21, Atonement, Curse, Ephesians 2:13–18, Galatians 3:10–14, George Herbert, Hebrews 4:14–16, Isaiah 40:11, James 4:1-4, John 14:13–14, John 3:18, law, Love of God, Matthew 7:7–11, Mosaic Law, Moses, poem, Poetry, Prayer, Psalm 104:27–30, Psalm 121:1–2, Psalm 5, Psalm 5:1–2, Psalm 5:3, Psalm 90:3, reconciliation, Romans 5:1-2., Romans 5:6–11, Romans 6:1–4, Romans 7:4–6, Romans 8:1–4

This poem on prayer by George Herbert builds its case upon a dense theological argument and biblical allusion. Without rightly understanding the theological and biblical case being made by Herbert, one will misunderstand Herbert’s praise. Herbert’s access to God in prayer comes directly through the incarnation and atonement of Christ. 

¶    Prayer. (II)

       OF what an easie quick accesse[1],
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
       May our requests thine eare invade![2]
To shew that state dislikes not easinesse,
If I but lift mine eyes[3], my suit is made:
Thou canst no more not heare, then thou canst die[4].
       Of what supreme almightie power
Is thy great arm[5], which spans the east and west,
       And tacks the centre to the sphere!
By it do all things live their measur’d houre[6]:
We cannot ask the thing, which is not there,
Blaming the shallownesse of our request[7].
       Of what unmeasurable love[8]
Art thou possest, who, when thou couldst not die,
       Wert fain[9] to take our flesh[10] and curse,[11]
And for our sakes in person sinne reprove,[12]
That by destroying that which ty’d thy purse,
Thou mightst make way for liberalitie![13]
       Since then these three wait on thy throne[14],
Ease, Power, and Love; I value prayer so,
       That were I to leave all but one,
Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go;
I and deare prayer would together dwell,
And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell.[15]

For annotations,  Continue reading →

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