Thursday, September 21, 2006

Texas Churches At Center Of Controversy

Texas Churches At Center Of Controversy Two Texas churches are appearing before the high courts of that state in defense of their exercise of church discipline in cases involving adultery. The cases are expected to set some legal precedent. Plaintiffs are arguing that the churches' practice violates their basic freedoms and makes something illegal that state law does not. It will be interesting to see if the courts will support the churches' freedom to exercise religion and pursue purity and holiness through discipline.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The article doesnt provide enough information. What did the pastors do before sending the letter? Did they first talk to the individuals and is the sin unrepentant? Are the individuals still official members or they already resign their memebership?

samurai said...

Thnak you for bringing this to my attention...

An interesting thing about the seperation of church and state... isn't this exact thing the reason it is in the Constitution?

And not the other way around?

FellowElder said...

Anonymous,
This post (http://purechurch.blogspot.com/2006/06/keeping-church-pure-through-discipline.html#links) has more background and links to another article on the issue. Hope it helps. From what I can tell, it seems the church acted appropriately and not hastily. But, that's a fly on the wall perspective.

Samurai, seems we've been pursuing the separation clause with great zeal while increasingly infringing on the free exercise clause for some time.

Thabiti

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,

Incidentally, the phrase "separation of church and state" came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, and appears nowhere in the Constitution.

Gail said...

interesting...i'm sure this is only the beginning