Murder Nov 10^th

Last night I watched a wonderful performance by a very excited guy; clad in a suit, his jacket flapping as he moved, he pranced quickly from one side of the stage to the other screaming his Christian message and holding what he said was his Bible high above his head. He was telling his audience that the Bible had instructed them to kill all homosexuals. This fascinating performance continued for some time as the Pastor Kevin Swanson became so agitated that I thought he would slip into a grand mal seizure right on stage, or perhaps have a stroke.

So is this guy a “one off,” an outlier? No he is not; the man has company. There is also Phil Kayer leader of the Dominion Covenant Church; there is Joel McDurmon, President of the Christian Reconstructionist Group, American Vision. The aim of McDurmon’s group is to make the country into a theocracy under Mosaic Law. (Which, by the way, is somewhat similar to Sharia Law.)

Pastor Kevin, at the conclusion of his performance, had several Republican Presidential contenders appear on stage with him; there was Senator Ted Cruz, Governor “Bobby” Jindal and former Governor Mike Huckabee. Their appearance on stage with this guy was risky, but surely carefully scripted. Not one of them was asked if he agreed with the principle theme being pushed by Pastor Swanson which was the immediate murder of all gays. Ted Cruz was asked what the first thing he would do every morning if he should gain the White House. He said that he would get down on his knees; that answer seemed quite satisfactory to the audience even though he didn’t discuss killing any gays. I guess you take what you can get.

So what is this Mosaic Law all about? It’s about Jewish law during the time of Moses as contained in the Torah (aka Pentateuch), the first five books of the Bible. Under Mosaic Law many misbehaviors could get you stoned to death and it’s true that being homosexual was one of them, but far from the only one. If your son was disrespectful and swore at you he could be taken before the elders who would then stone him to death (Lev 20:9). If you discovered that your new bride was not a virgin you could take her back to her father’s house where she would be stoned to death (Deut. 22: 20-21). If you decided that another outfit’s god was better than Jehovah and you became an apostate you could also be stoned to death (Deut. 13:1-10). Stoning was obviously the preferred method of execution for violations of Mosaic Law of that time. Stoning did involve the whole community, or at least a considerable part of it. Where we have the death penalty the death itself is not a community effort even if the guilty person is condemned by a jury.

Also Mosaic Law death penalties had no expensive appeals and delays that I know about, and of course rocks were cheap.