[Vision2020] Re: Public Defender Religious Issues

[Steve Wells]

 >But I think you are misreading his article. Nowhere does it call for 
the execution of homosexuals, non-believers, and disobedient children.<

Really? Well, let's read it again, Debbie.

"The Scriptures set forth clear standards of judgment for many offenses. 
Capital crimes, for example, include premeditated killing (murder), 
kidnapping, sorcery, bestiality, adultery, homosexuality, and cursing 
one's parents (Ex. 21:14; 21:16; 22:18; 22:19; Lev. 20:10; 20:13; Ex. 
21:17).

"In contemporary American jurisprudence, none of these offenses is 
punishable by death, with the occasional exception of murder. The 
magistrates have dispensed with God's standards of justice. Some 
Christians believe this is an improvement. They would be horrified to 
think that the "harsh" penalties of the law should still be applied. 
Sometimes this is the result of the mistaken belief that the Old 
Testament has no further application after the advent of Christ."

Notice that Mr. Dickison includes homosexuals and children who curse 
their parents in the list of offenses "punishable by death". And he says 
that these penalties "should still be applied." The idea that the Old 
Testament laws and punishments do not apply after Christ is, to him, "a 
mistaken belief."

It's true that this quote does not mention non-believers. But he gets to 
them a little later in the same article (Your Eye Shall Not Pity).

"If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the 
wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly 
entices you, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods,". . . you shall 
not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor 
shall you spare him or conceal him; but you shall surely kill him . . . 
(Deut. 13:69). …

"If the crime is one for which God requires death, then death must be 
the punishment. Your eye shall not pity."

So this "crime" too, "is one for which God requires death." If you 
insist on believing in the wrong god, you must be killed.

To Mr. Dickison, "death must be the punishment" for homosexuals, 
disobedient children, non-believers, and for the many other crimes "for 
which God requires death." It's no "leap" to say that, because it is 
precisely what he said.