Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

"The Freedom of the Church (New Revised Standard Version)"

By Rick Garnett

When it rains, it pours (interesting church-state scholarship, that is).  Following up on my post about Paul Horwitz's new paper, here's another great offering on the same general topic, by John Inazu, called "The Freedom of the Church (New Revised Standard Version):

Significant discussion about the “freedom of church” has recently emerged at the intersection of law and religion scholarship and political theology. That discussion gained additional traction with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hosanna-Tabor v. E.E.O.C., which recognized the First Amendment’s “special solicitude” for religious organizations. But the freedom of the church is at its core a theological concept, and its potential integration into our constitutional discourse requires a process of translation. The efficacy of any background political concept as legal doctrine will ultimately stand or fall on something akin to what Frederick Schauer has called “constitutional salience.” 

The existing debate over the freedom of the church obscures these insights in two ways. First, its back-and-forth nature suggests that translation succeeds or fails on the level of individual arguments. Second, its current focus on a mostly Catholic argument neglects other theological voices. The kind of cultural views that affect constitutional doctrine are less linear and more textured than the existing debates suggest. This paper adds to the discussion a Protestant account of the freedom of the church: the New Revised Standard Version. Part I briefly sketches the process of translation that any theological concept encounters in the path to constitutional doctrine. Part II summarizes the current debate in legal scholarship about the freedom of the church. Part III introduces the New Revised Standard Version through three prominent twentieth-century theologians: Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Stanley Hauerwas. Part IV assesses the possibility of translation, and Part V warns of the theological limits to translating certain theological concepts. The New Revised Standard Version reinforces some of the normative claims underlying the Catholic story, but it does so through a Protestant lens that is somewhat more familiar to American political thought. It also differs from the Catholic account in two important ways: (1) by characterizing the church as a witnessing body rather than as a separate sovereign; and (2) by highlighting the church’s freedom in a post-Christian polity.

I'm really honored that a scholar as prolific and interesting as Inazu has taken such care to respond to some of my own efforts -- and to press my arguments and claims, and to make me re-think my own views.

Much to my own (and, I'm sure, my dean's and my editor's!) disappointment, I'm a few years behind on my "Freedom of the Church" book project.  On the bright side, the book will be much better for having the benefit of Inazu's and Horwitz's criticisms and improvements. 

"The Freedom of the Church Without Romance"

By Rick Garnett

Paul Horwitz has posted a must-read paper called "The Freedom of the Church Without Romance."  It's an important piece, by an important scholar, on an important subject.  In it, Paul engages -- carefully, critically, fairly, challengingly -- with some of my own efforts to think through the "institutional" dimension of religious freedom.  Here's Paul's abstract:

This Article is part of a symposium issue titled "Freedom of the Church in the Modern Era." Freedom of the church, roughly, connotes the independent nature or sovereignty of the church. The most dramatic moment in its development was the eleventh century Investiture Controversy, with its confrontation between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV at Canossa, but it has a long prior and subsequent history. Recently, with the renewed scholarly interest in the institutional rights of churches and religious organizations and the Supreme Court's decision affirming the "ministerial exception" doctrine in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, the idea of "freedom of the church" has taken on new champions--and critics. 

This Article, from an author who has written supportively about freedom of the church and/or religious institutionalism in prior work, takes a deliberately unromantic look at freedom of the church. It evaluates it through two useful disciplinary lenses: history, and the economics of religion. Both historical and economic analysis of the concept of "freedom of the church" suggest the following conclusions: (1) The concept should be treated carefully and with a full awareness of its mixed history, without undue romanticism on the part of its champions, or a confident conclusion on the part of its critics that it is no longer necessary. (2) Whatever the concept of "freedom of the church" means today, the present version is decidedly diminished and chastened, a shadow of the medieval version. Supporters of freedom of the church should welcome that fact. Freedom of the church persists, and may have continuing value, precisely because it has become so domesticated. (3) There are solid historical and economic grounds for some form of freedom of the church or religious institutional autonomy. In particular, religion's status as a credence good, whose value and reliability is certified by religious agents such as ministers, strongly suggests that state interference with religious employment relations can be dangerous to a church's well-being and long-term survival. (4) The history and economics of religion also teach us something about the optimal conditions for freedom of the church--the conditions under which it is likely to do the most good and the least harm. In particular, they suggest that champions of freedom of the church ought to welcome religious pluralism and a strong non-establishment regime. 

The Article closes with some speculation about why there has been a recent revival of interest in freedom of the church, including the possibility that its resurgence, even if it is fully justified, also involves an element of rent-seeking by religious institutions. 

There are two broader underlying suggestions as well. First, there are good reasons to support some version of freedom of the church, but it deserves a more critical and nuanced examination by friends and adversaries alike. Second, legal scholars writing on church-state issues have paid far too little attention to the literature on the economics of religion.

My quick-reaction to the Gosnell verdict

By Rick Garnett

Here's the instapunditry I did for National Review Online yesterday:

It is a good thing that the Philadelphia jury convicted Kermit Gosnell of
murder, because it is in fact clear that he committed murder. For the jury to
have done otherwise, given the graphic, detailed, and not-meaningfully-contested evidence, would have been a gross and depressing injustice. It would have delivered a huge blow to the rule of law in the City of Brotherly Love if the
members of the jury had allowed themselves to be distracted or confused by
Gosnell’s lawyers’ overheated attempts at obfuscation, by baseless charges of
“racism” and “elitism,” or by a distortionary dedication to an extreme version
of the pro-abortion cause.

It will be tempting to “move on.” But the temptation should be
resisted. Gosnell did horrible things to women and still-living babies, and
laughed about it, and it would be comforting to many of us if he were a Hannibal
Lecter–type aberration. And, of course, in many ways, he is. Yet his ability to
reduce unborn and “unwanted” children to objects, whose pain and death were
material for jokes, differs more in degree than in kind from the dignity-denying
premises underlying our abortion laws generally. We should take more time to
think, and worry about, this fact.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Abortion on Trial

By Robert George

Late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been convicted of first degree murder for killing babies after delivering them alive. The trial now moves into the penalty phase, and we wait to hear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty. But Dr. Gosnell is only the front man; and the real trial has only just begun. The defendant is the abortion license in America. The Gosnell episode highlights the irrationality of the regime of law put into place by the Supreme Court in 1973 and fiercely protected by Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the polticians they and other "pro-choice" advocacy groups help send to Washington and the state capitols. Something as morally arbitrary as a human being's location---his or her being in or out of the womb---cannot determine whether killing him or her is an unconscionable act of premeditated homicide or the exercise of a fundamental liberty. Yet something like that is the prevailing state of American law under Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Its incoherence and indefensibility have been laid bare by the prosecution of Dr. Gosnell. Whatever now happens to him, it will no longer be possible to pretend that abortion and infanticide are radically different acts or practices. If we are to condemn snipping the neck of a child delivered at, say, twenty-four or twenty-six weeks to kill him or her, how can we defend dismembering or poisoning a child in the womb at twenty-six, thirty, or even thirty-four weeks? And even more fundamentally, if we are bearers of inviolable dignity and a basic right to life in virtue of our humanity, and not in virtue of accidental qualities such as age, or size, or stage of development or condition of dependency---if, in other words, we believe in the fundamental equality of human beings---how can a right to abortion (where "abortion" means performing an act whose purpose is to cause fetal death) be defended at all?

"Go home now," Cardinal Roger.

By Patrick McKinley Brennan

The Los Angeles Times expresses confusion, as we all should, about what the heck is going on in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  Three months ago, Archbishop Gomez relieved his predecessor, Roger Cardinal Mahony, of "public duties" in the Archdiocese, including, according to a spokesman for the Archdiocese at the time of Archbishop Gomez's announcement, celebrating the sacrament of confirmation.  At the moment, however, the Cardinal is traveling around the Archdiocese celebrating that sacrament "every week" (his own words) and telling those who question him about it to "go home now" (his words). Meanwhile, Archbishop Gomez refuses to comment.  

Cardinal Mahony's mishandling of his clergy's abuse of children boggles the mind and saddens the heart.  A decade after Cardinal Law was pressured into resigning for his own mishandling of such abuse, Mahony continued the mishandling right up until he submitted his resignation as required at the age of 75, and his successor, who surely knew much or all of what Mahony had done to hide the abuse, distanced himself and the Archdiocese from Mahony only when files Mahony had endlessly litigated to keep secret became public. Two years Archbishop Gomez waited, and when at last he relieved Mahony of his "public duties," he did so only for purposes of a phony publicity stunt, it would now seem.  

Only the Pope can discipline a Cardinal, but Archbishop Gomez has jurisdiciton over the confirmation schedule in his own Archdiocese.  We can hope that Pope Francis will ground Cardinal Mahony and turn off his self-serving blog.  We can also hope that Archbishop Gomez will do right by the faithful of his Archdiocese and *in fact* relieve Cardinal Mahony of his public duties in the Archdiocese.  Members of the hierarchy need to stop scandalizing the faithful.  Enough already.  It is Cardinal Mahony who should "go home now."  If Pope Francis seeks to "rebuild" the Church, Cardinal Mahony's public presence is only impeding that all-important work.  Public penance for the Cardinal would be a help to that work on which turns, after all, the salvation of souls.  Archbishop Gomez's integrity is on the line here as well, and the jury -- including in the form of the LA Times -- is observing the evidence as it pours in.         

The Tragedy of Religious Freedom: Available Now

By Marc DeGirolami

I'm pleased to announce that my new book, The Tragedy of Religious Freedom, is now available The Tragedy of Religious Freedom for purchase from Amazon (official publication date is June 1). Here is Harvard University Press's page for it. The book is specifically about the First Amendment religion clauses but it also involves more general questions about the relationship of legal theory and legal practice, and the tasks that legal scholars set for themselves. I hope that it will appeal to folks interested in those rangier questions as well as to readers with particular interests in religious freedom and conflicts among civil rights.

Here are the blurbs on the jacket:

“The Tragedy of Religious Freedom is a first-rate contribution to the law-and-religion conversation. This conversation—how to think about, and how to effectively protect in law, religious freedom in a constitutional democracy—is a lively and timely one, and DeGirolami is an impressive participant.”—Richard W. Garnett, Notre Dame Law School

“A sophisticated and thoughtful book, which offers fresh insights on a central question of religious liberty.”—Philip Hamburger, author of Separation of Church and State

It's a wonderful time of ferment and new thought in law and religion scholarship. I'm delighted (and lucky) to be able to participate in this work. Thanks, also, to my fellow MOJ posters, many of them seasoned authors, for generously indulging frequent posts from the overexcited, less distinguished new guy who never wrote a book before. 

Friday, May 10, 2013

Phenomenology of law

By Patrick McKinley Brennan

Legal Affinities: Explorations in the Legal Form of Thought is now available for purchase, and it's selling like hotcakes.  Don't miss out!  As previously mentioned, the book's eight chapters are studies of law's phenomenology inspired by the pathbreaking work of University of Michigan law professor Joseph Vining.  The chapters are by Joseph Vining, Jefferson Powell, Rev. John McCausland, James Boyd White, Jack Sammons, Judge Noonan, Steve Smith, and Patrick Brennan.  If you've never read Vining, let me suggest that you do yourself the favor of picking up a copy of his masterpiece From Newton's Sleep, about which Mary Ann Glendon said this:  "This original book by distinguished Michigan legal scholar Joseph Vining finds surprising treasures hidden in lawyers' ways of knowing.... He challenges with equal vigor the widely held notions that law can be reduced to processes and rules, or to power relations, or to meaningless signs and marks."

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Same-Sex Marriage in Minnesota

By Thomas Berg

The Minnesota House passed a same-sex marriage bill today, 75-59.  The predictions are that the Senate will pass the bill (assuming the working out of conforming amendments) on Monday.

For the record, here are two letters that our two groups of religious liberty scholars (including Rick and me in the first group, and Michael Perry and me in the second, pro-same-sex-marriage group) sent to Minnesota legislators arguing for stronger religious liberty provisions.  (The archive of various state letters is here.)  I also gave input arguing for strong religious liberty provisions in MN at earlier times including during the drafting.  In some ways the results are reasonably protective of religious liberty -- partly because the bills incorporate Minnesota's reasonably strong existing exemption from sexual-orientation nondiscrimination laws -- but they also leave some important matters unprotected.

Interestingly, there was a proposed amendment to eliminate the term "marriage" from the statutes and replace it with civil unions for all couples (leaving religions or anyone else free, of course, to perform marriages).  That effort was launched by Republicans, but it got a few DFL (Democratic) votes.  It lost, 111-22.

Leadership by Deception—the Path to the New Totalitarianism

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

 

Recently the state of Rhode Island joined the ranks of those jurisdictions providing for the recognition of same-sex marriage. Within the U.S., Rhode Island makes the tenth state which recognizes the redefinition of marriage. Other jurisdictions, perhaps Delaware, will soon follow in this move that, superficially, is based on the false arguments of justice by ensuring equality for all. I, along with others, have addressed the equality issue in the past from a variety of perspectives. Some of us have incorporated into our arguments the “what” and the “why” of the Church’s teachings on the nature of marriage, while others have chosen a different course. As this weblog is dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory, we need to be aware that there are standards promulgated by the Church, which include the writings of Blessed John Paul II and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, instructing Catholics who hold public office on how they are to conduct the efforts made in the execution of their offices which impact public policy and the law. These texts also offer guidance to other people of good will regarding what should be done and what should be avoided in the execution of the responsibilities as public officials and servants of the common good. The Church’s instructions and guidance are not just the doctrine of the Church applicable to Catholics; they also constitute wise counsel for the better governance of societies that are presumably geared to pursuing the common good. This counsel is particularly applicable to democratic institutions of governance, but even democracies, when the compromise their values, becoming thinly disguised totalitarianisms, as Blessed John Paul II noted some years ago. The evidence is building that on a number of fronts our democratic institutions of the West, particularly those of the United States, are being transformed into thinly disguised totalitarian states.

Last week The New York Times [HERE] published an op-ed contribution of Governor Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. The opinion piece was entitled “Why I am Signing Marriage Equality into Law” and presented the Governor’s case for the dramatic change in the redefinition of marriage in Little Rhody a jurisdiction of great fondness to me since, amongst other reasons, it was the last jurisdiction in which I practiced law before entering the Society of Jesus. However, this fondness has been challenged by the Governor’s recent advocacy piece heralding Rhode Island’s move to join those other jurisdictions which recognize same-sex marriage. I realize that the Governor and I do not share views on some of the important issues of the day: he is pro-abortion, and I am not; he is in favor of the use of embryonic stem cells, and I am not; and he holds a very different view about church-state relations from mine. And now, he and I see the meaning and nature of marriage from the antipodes. Allow me to elaborate upon the deceptive statements advanced by the Governor which were used to justify his advocacy for same-sex marriage and which will have a widespread impact on movement of this political juggernaut around the country and the world. (Deception had often been a crucial tool for totalitarian systems to convince the public that what the state is doing is both right and smart, but in fact is neither.)

The Governor first of all advances an interesting take on the primacy of equality and “equality’s” justification for same-sex marriage. I have addressed the equality argument on these pages in the past, most recently HERE. While the Governor states that the legislation institutionalizing same-sex marriage “will be gratifying for many reasons,” the first reason he notes is that it will instantiate “full marriage equality.” He does not explain what he means by “equal” and “equality”; neither does he assert that anyone, be he or she heterosexual or homosexual, is treated equally before the law regarding the traditional requirements for marriage, which is not a private matter or contract as the Governor suggests but is, in fact, a public institution which bears on the common good of society. As I have previously argued on many occasions including the Mirror of Justice, regardless of one’s sexual orientation, everyone is treated the same under the marriage laws which define the institution as an exclusive union of one man and one woman—a position with which the Church’s teachings agree and impart. It would have been helpful for the Governor to explain why same-sex couples—or any other group for that matter—are denied “equality” under the traditional definition of marriage, but perhaps he agreed with then Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts who, in November of 2003, realized that the definition of marriage had to be radically altered to satisfy the political juggernaut behind the recognition of same-sex unions; thus, she redefined it on the basis of this “vital social institution” as being based on the “exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other” so that “mutual love and mutual support” can be nurtured and bring “stability to our society.” She further offered a new definition of marriage by “using the rubric of due process” to redefine this important public institution not with reasoned argument but with the pen of a political theorist. But here we need to take account of the fact that her redefinition was based on pretext rather than objective reality that is comprehendible to objective human intelligence. The Governor has made the same mistake as Margaret Marshall, C.J.

Another reason presented by the Governor in defense of his action is that the redefinition of marriage is “the right thing to do.” The basis of the justification for this argument is the coincidence of a hoped-for economic recovery for Rhode Island which has been an “outlier” but must now be an active participant in economic recovery. He argues that Rhode Island is surrounded by states which have incorporated same-sex marriage recognition into their laws. While it is suggested that these jurisdictions (e.g., New York, Massachusetts, and Maine) have made solid economic recoveries, he does not present data supporting the contention. In the words of Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the film “Jerry Maguire,” show me the money! The Governor does not; he merely relies on unsubstantiated theory. Still, he does not want Rhode Island to be left out of the perceived economic recovery he argues will follow when Rhode Island joins the same-sex marriage movement.

A theoretical justification used by the Governor to support his decision to sign the same-sex marriage legislation into law is his reliance on the work of the urban theorist Richard Florida who contends that those urban regions which have high concentrations of technology workers, artists, and persons with same-sex attractions and practices (whom are identified as “high bohemians” and members of the “creative class”) are vital to economic development. I gather if you don’t fall into these categories identified by Professor Florida, you are not vital to economic development and recovery. Moreover, the Governor, by accepting the Florida thesis, ironically introduces a new form of class warfare into the social fabric, and class warfare or class competition is antithetical to Catholic teaching, but I digress. I hasten to point out that Professor Florida’s stance on economic development has been strongly critiqued by other academics known for rigorous standards in social science research. However, these criticisms were not acknowledged by the Governor, again perhaps because these critiques would not support his action in signing the same-sex marriage bill into law.

Perhaps the Governor tacitly recognized the problems with this aspect of the Florida thesis; consequently, he reinvents the argument of support based on the research of “many experts”, including Florida, who contend that there is “a strong correlation between tolerance and prosperity, particularly in high-tech sectors.” The Governor emphasizes the issue of tolerance, but he does not explain what tolerance means. I have explained elsewhere that in today’s political environment tolerance is frequently used as a means of eliminating opposition to the insistence that all comply with the positions asserted by the state whether the need for universal compliance is necessary or not. I contend that this is meaning of “tolerance” is used by public officials who view that moral concerns are not matters of public concern. However, in fact they are and they must be if the authentic common good is of concern. But the Governor dismisses quickly what he considers “convictions of personal morality.” He does not consider the arguments dealing with public morality. Instead, his concern is on “job creation” for Rhode Island and “tolerance” of the Florida thesis is crucial to Rhode Island’s economic recovery in his estimation. He does not pause to suggest that holding onto the wisdom of traditional morality might actually have the means of making Rhode Island an oasis that would attract the “talented” to a state which has not capitulated to the relentless force of the same-sex marriage juggernaut. Strangely the Governor reinforces his advocacy for same-sex marriage by the thin hedonistic argument that the “talented workers who are driving the new economy—young, educated and forward-looking—want to live in a place that reflects their values.” And what are these values? The Governor suggests that they are based “not simply out of a sense of justice, but because diversity makes life more fun.” While fun is important to most people, sound public policy that counters the hedonistic attitudes upon which the Governor relies is critical to good governance. Again, the words of Blessed John Paul II are instructive here: a democracy without values or the proper values is a thinly disguised totalitarianism. Has the Governor decided to join the ranks of the thinly disguised totalitarian systems of the present age? It would seem so.

Why do I suggest this? I turn to his disingenuous conclusion he offers that the current political trend is to accept the “belief in marriage as an institution” which requires “a desire to keep government out of our personal lives.” But marriage is not simply about personal lives and privacy; it is, rather, a critical public institution that necessitates sound public policy which escapes the Governor’s rationalization of what marriage is all about and why traditional marriage is important to the future of the human family. He concludes his rationalization by again relying on the false equality argument which once more escapes definition. He contends that he does not want Rhode Island to cling to “old prohibitions” which he assumes are detrimental not only to economic recovery but also to the flourishing of society. He sees these “old prohibitions” as discriminatory, but he does not examine whether the discrimination against same-sex marriage advocacy is just or unjust. This distinction of “just” versus “unjust” is also relevant to Catholic teaching and the making of sound public policy. For the Governor, marriage depends on the ability to marry the person one loves, but as I have also pointed out, this argument is insufficient. There are sound reasons why authentic equality is not unjustly interfered with when the laws prohibit persons from marrying “the person they love.” These sound reasons included age, degrees of consanguinity, and communicable disease. Strangely, the Governor’s sentiments that the new law will enable people to marry “the person they love” is untrue as the new legislation retains many of the “old prohibitions” that I just mentioned. Yet the Governor remains confident that equality will be served as the legislation will accomplish “the right thing and the smart thing” which “are one and the same.” Unfortunately for him, his action was neither. Objective intelligence comprehending the intelligible reality does not agree with the position and argument advanced by the Governor, but the political juggernaut of which he is a part still plows ahead on its non-deviating course. In the meantime the sound values which the State of Rhode Island adhered to in the past have been sacrificed to the thin values that are aligned with new totalitarian system identified by Blessed John Paul II.

 

RJA sj

Dallas Willard, R.I.P.

By Thomas Berg

Dallas Willard died Wednesday at age 77.  He was a USC philosophy professor and an important evangelical author whose writings on spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines helped greatly increase evangelicals' attention to those features of Christian faith and thought.  Christianity Today has full coverage.  Among his many, many works and activities on spirituality, moral reasoning, and philosophy, Dallas gave counsel to the group of evangelical and Catholic law profs (several from this blog) who are engaged in a project "Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law."  MOJ-friend Bob Cochran of Pepperdine Law School sends these reflections on Dallas's life and death: 

Dallas was a friend, mentor, and co-author.  He and I will publish an article on "Jesus and the Civil Law" in the forthcoming book, "Law and the Bible:  Justice, Mercy, and Legal Institutions" (InterVarsity Press).  My mind has been very much on Dallas in recent weeks.  His daughter Becky has been sending me (and others) updates. 

I met Dallas about 15 years ago, after having read some of his books.  He was giving a series of lectures at Pepperdine.  We went for a walk between lectures and he gave me some very helpful advice on a book "Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought," that was in the works.  One of the things that Pepperdine made the speakers in this particular series do was to tell their lives' stories.  Some speakers resisted.  Dallas, coming from a Southern Baptist background, was used to giving testimonies.  The most striking detail of his story was the following:  Dallas came from a farming family.  Though he did quite well in high school, and had a special love for philosophy, his father thought that the best way for a person to grow up was to work for a time as a migrant worker.  Dallas traveled throughout the South as a migrant agricultural worker.  At night, he slept in the open air, but would stay up late reading Plato by candle light.   What a picture. 

On several occasions, I described a program to Dallas that we were having at Pepperdine.  He always wanted to come.  He was quite interested in Christian faith being manifested in the law and the life of lawyers.  His reasoning was something like this:  We all have our own kingdoms-the areas of life over which we have influence.  We pray "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done."  His Kingdom comes, in part, as Christians take their kingdoms and seek to conform them to God's will.  They should ask, what would Jesus do if he were me-a corporate lawyer, a law professor, or a migrant worker?  Dallas was always interested in how we were working these things out at Pepperdine.  I think he always agreed to come to my programs.  My next question was always, "Would you comment on what is said?"  He always said he wanted to come anyway; it was not necessary that he comment, but he would be glad to do anything he could to help.  I always said that having him comment would help.  (Dallas's daughter Becky always got mad at Dallas and me because she was supposed to control his calendar.)  Dallas approached every topic from a fresh angle.  Over the years, he came, listened, and commented on:  Steve Smith's assessment of whether there is a higher law, Ellen Pryor's thoughts on being a Catholic and a lawyer (and whether Luther was more realistic), the relationship between evangelical and Catholic views of law (thereby influencing the soon-to-be-released "ECT on Law"); and what the Bible (Jesus in particular) might say about the civil law. 

I saw Becky in church on Sunday.  They knew the end was near.  Just seeing her and her family moved me to tears, as we sang songs of God's faithfulness.  I once heard Dallas say that Christians should take a somewhat cavalier attitude toward death.  I asked Bill (Dallas's son in law) about that on Sunday.  He said that Dallas's practice was as good as his theory.  I got an email this morning from Becky.  She said:  "His passing was quiet and gentle. We know that he was willing to stay and continue his work, but his longing was to be home with Jesus. In the day before his passing, he shared part of what he was experiencing: The veil was parting and revealing the glorious reality of the great cloud of witnesses."  (She is not given to overstatement.)  If I were a better person, I would be glad that he is now among them.  For now, what I know is that I will miss him and I am thankful that God made such a person.  

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