Is Jesus enough?

Gary North is son-in-law of R.J. Rushdoony, the "father of Christian Reconstructionism."

Pick out those troubling verses in the Hebrew Bible - all of them - and imagine them being implemented. No more shrimp and lobster for you!

Here's his solution to cursing one's parents:

"When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime (Ex. 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death. Clearly, cursing God (blasphemy) is a comparable crime, and is therefore a capital crime (Lev. 24:16). - Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1986), pp. 59-60

Is Jesus enough?

"The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant – baptism and holy communion – must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel. The way to achieve this political goal is through successful mass evangelism followed by constitutional revision."

- Gary North, from The Myth of Pluralism (bold italics mine)

Seems to me that this is the very same elevation of the concept of "law" that got Jesus crucified.

Next time you read Paul's writings about the law, grasp them not as speaking of "Jewish law" (almost a caricature about what is packed into his writings on law) but view them in light of the law in general. His writings are quite penetrating and relevant when viewed this way.

We are once again becoming (or have become) a society not of freedom but of laws.

The law is not the solution; Jesus is. And the law is not the way to introduce people to Jesus. The failue is not the law; the failure is the church (i.e. his body, i.e. his followers).