sprucegoose: How To Avoid Jury Duty

About Me

Location: MInneapolis, Minnesota, United States

I am now a simple Grandpa who's life is made richer as each grandchild is born. My wife and I have raised five children and the 30 year love labor of raising them has begun to yield sweet fruit..... And then there are fruits of 30 years in ministry ... I am a satisfied old man full of the joy of the Lord.

Friday, February 04, 2005

How To Avoid Jury Duty

An interesting item from the World magazine blog.
The Colorado Supreme Court is reviewing whether a death-penalty sentence should stand after it was discovered several jury members consulted Bible passages in making their decision for capital punishment. Prosecutor Stephen Bernard argues that religious beliefs are not prejudicial or extraneous to a trial. State Justice Gregory Hobbs suggests religious passion or prejudice do not belong in a court proceeding and asks poignantly whether the Bible is part of Colorado law. Bernard’s response: “Passion and prejudice is not, but morality is.”
The only time I was ever asked to appear for jury duty was about 18 years ago. I was called in for a panel that was to try a case involving a prostitute. First the lawyers asked me what I do. I told them that I was a pastor. Then the lawyers asked my my thoughts about the case I simply said " I don't know wither what applies here is 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' or 'the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God' "
The lawyers conferred with the judge and I was politely dismissed. I have never been called again.

2 Comments:

Amber Lynn said...: How could someone's beliefs NOT guide them to a decision, regardless of what the beliefs are. That is quite non-sensical.; 12:30 PM, February 04, 2005
Silvertongue said...: So, courts don't like people who think black-and-white and understand all of life in a moral-religious context, aye? No surprise there. So, to them, if the Bible is not an acceptible source for attaining a perspective on justice or morality, what exactly is? The editorial column of the New York Times, I suppose. Oh, wait, that's the whole paper.

This speaks volumes about the lunacy and the dangerous compartmentalization of thought required for a residual puddle of what used to be a human soul to fail to see the link between religion and morality, and further their link to and claim of sovereignty over matters of justice. What's a court trial about if not morality? Is sentencing now a social-science experiment? Or perhaps it's a new form of entertaiment? Maybe it's just government paperwork like filing your taxes--no real point, it's just what we do.

"Justice? What's that?"

Postmodernism makes me so sick. This intellectual poisen has absolutely deconstructed the ability of Americans to think and especially to introspect--to think about their own thinking. Americans don't think anymore. They don't reason; they just react, or feel, or mindlessly blurt out some vague theory about a situation.

And you know what? This is the biggest obsticle that we all have in confronting and evangelizing on college campuses. You can't just tell people the gospel anymore. You can't even explain it to them. First, you've got to labor to undo the systematic deconstruction of their minds that their professors, MTV, and Hollywood have labored so passionately to accomplish. And even when you get them in the church, if you dig hard enough and long enough into their minds, you find heresy there buried under a mountain of code words and parroted, redifined phrases.

Great is our challenge. Good thing we don't face it alone.; 10:27 AM, February 05, 2005