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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