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8.16.2007

"STATE IS A PUBLIC... REBELLION AGAINST GOD." PHIL BERRIGAN

MUST READ: FOREWORD AS IS EVERYTHING AT THE JONAH HOUSE SITE by Philip Berrigan.

Some quotations from Phil Berrigan on Law:
  • the Bible gave human law ample treatment. 1st Samuel 8th chapter, for example, exposes the State as a public, bureaucratic rebellion against God.
  • the law, like the State is inherently flawed and violent -- its function to legalize a rebellious State.
  • Paul's Letter to the Galatians -- his most sustained indictment of human law.
  • The genesis of the State then, ancient or modern, is rejection of God, rebellion against God. "They have not rejected you [Samuel], they have rejected me as their King." (1 Sam. 8:7)
  • As the ruling hierarchy told Pilate: "We have no King but Caesar." (John 19:15)
  • Paul equates the law with sin and death -- sin because law has nothing to say to sins of omission, and death because most will draw their morality from the law.
  • The morality of most Americans is legalized. To become "law abiding" is to fear the penalties of the law, to become house-broken, domesticated.
  • Morality limited by the boundaries of the law is spiritual death.

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