Justice, Race and Relatives with Wm. Difenderfer, Esq.

Where do you go when you get in trouble? I mean real trouble. Since this is Church Hurts And you may be trying to outthink me and are guessing I am about to launch into the availability of the God of the Universe in prayer, but not today. Today I am asking this in a really tactile visceral way. I mean the kind of trouble where you may be standing alongside the road with a policeman telling you to show your hands. Your heart is beating fast. Your mouth wants to protest your innocence but you aren’t allowed to talk. Turn around. Put your hands behind your back. 

I find it interesting how many hot topics today end up in the legal arena. Race? Are Blacks being treated right by police and in the courts? Legal. Religion? Do Governors have the right to limit church attendance yet not protests? Legal. Politics? Should the President nominate a Supreme Court Justice during the election season? Legal. Somehow the law and lawyers just seem to keep getting dragged into the discussion.

Many people are not aware that historically theology and the law were sister disciplines. If that seems confusing to you, go back and try to read a theology textbook from the 17th Century. Each word is carefully selected and parsed, closely analyzed for accurate meaning. Any good explanation of the Gospel is always in the context of the Old Testament Torah, or Law. Paul’s epistle to the Romans explains that quite well.

Do you understand why a sculpture of Moses holding two tablets is centered above the portico on the East Side of the Supreme Court? Legal details can be confusing, but one should have no doubt that the big laws, “Thou shalt not kill.” “Thou shalt not steal.” “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” weren’t made up by our founders. Learning to respect other people and get along in society has been a challenge of the human race as long as it has existed.

So today we are turning not to a theologian, but to an attorney. He’s not uniquely spiritual or church qualified. In fact, he is one of those attorneys you hope you will never need, a “Criminal Defense Attorney”. He has argued in over 7 cases where the prosecution was seeking the death penalty. Murderers, rapists, and thieves, or at least those accused of such, have sought out this man in their moment of desperation. 

Let me bring him in: 1978 Student Body President of Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania: William Difenderfer, Attorney at Law from Pittsburgh, PA. Welcome to Church Hurts And.

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