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To: Pelham; hchutch
There are a few loudmouth Christians (Gary North and other "theonomists" and "Christian Dominionists" come to mind) who demand that we stone people to death for blasphemy and such. Do you judge all of Christianity by the conduct of people like Gary North? Or do they get some sort of pass?

I know I've seen you post a similar accusation in the past. North is widely published, so a quote of his should be easy to provide- where's your evidence that he says this?

Reason Magazine, November 1998, "Invitation to a Stoning". Read it and weep.

202 posted on 12/10/2003 4:28:23 AM PST by Poohbah ("Beware the fury of a patient man" -- John Dryden)
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To: Poohbah
That Reason piece provides no footnotes. There's no way to check the quotes for accuracy or context.
242 posted on 12/10/2003 6:49:36 PM PST by Pelham
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To: Poohbah; Valentine_W
Actually there seems to be a problem with the Reason article. Olsen has this to say:

So when Exodus 21:15-17 prescribes that cursing or striking a parent is to be punished by execution, that's fine with Gary North. "When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime," he writes. "The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death."

In fact North says something quite different. He devotes over 30 pages of his book "Tools of Dominion" to developing this subject, and finally on page 310 you find:

"At the beginning of this chapter, I raised the question of the parents' willingness to take a rebellious son to court. Would they do this if the death penalty were inescapable upon his conviction? Probably not. The key question then is this: Is the death penalty absolutely required by the pleonasm of execution? The point I have tried to make in this exposition is that this pleonasm applies only in cases where the State is authorized to initiate the prosecution., i.e. in cases where there is no earthly victim who can bring charges."

"This is not the situation in cases involving a rebellious son. Parents can and must bring their son before the civil authorities and complain about his conduct. God requires them to bring him to the civil court. Then judges would then enforce a penalty specified by the parents, although they might first recommend an appropriate penalty. The son would obey his parents far more readily in the future, since he would know that the parents could take him back and insist on escalating penalties up to the death penalty if he committed similar infractions again. This fear would reinforce the parents' authority in the home."

North goes on to say

"This law, Rushdoony perceptively argues, is a law against the development of a professional criminal class.

251 posted on 12/10/2003 8:11:44 PM PST by Pelham
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