Gray's Gospel
The book of judges | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
So many issues to take from this article. But the most glaring has to be this:
Just before 12:30 p.m. almost every Tuesday, Judge James Squier leaves his 312th Court and heads upstairs to the seventh floor of the Harris County Family Law Center.There, in an associate judge's chamber, he joins 15 or 20 other courthouse Christians — lawyers, bailiffs and clerks — for Bible study. The group spent about two years combing through the book of Matthew, and another two on Acts. Right now, they're about a year into John.
"Isn't that a problem?" I asked Squier recently. He knew I wasn't talking about the study group's less-than-blistering pace. I meant the very existence of courthouse Bible study. To me, Bible study sounds like "church," and the Harris County courthouse sounds like "state." Aren't church and state supposed to stay separate?
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It bugs me that a schmoozing opportunity on county property effectively bars Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and anyone else unwilling to praise the Lord, Protestant-style.
But again, what do I know? It's legal.
The first issue is how in-tune Gray is with reality to think that anyone is barred (effectively or otherwise). Secondly, Catholics, last I checked, don't have much of a problem with the New Testament. Is Gray implying that they simply aren't "Bible Study" types?
Gray is, in essence, making controversy where there is no controversy. There's one semi-salient issue worth touching on, however. That being that this gathering becomes a power lunch rather than Bible Study. But it doesn't exactly strike me that Gray is too concerned about the group leaders maintaining the group as a study group so much as she's "bugged" by people reading and talking about the Bible on county property. I'm not sure it would be any different if the group relocated to Second Baptist (which would make it even more exclusionary - but that's not a genuine concern on Gray's part).
There's also no comparable word on Gray's views toward the National Prayer Breakfast gathering in Washington. Having just finished Tony Hall's "Changing the Face of Hunger," I was reminded of some of the benefits of people on all sides meeting in such study groups. Maybe Gray should start with that book ... if, of course, she's genuinely interested.
I'd be more concerned about whether this violates the Open Meetings statutes (if those apply to judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and clerks).
I say let them worship; after November 2008 all those Republicans will have to find another place to study their Bibles anyway, because they're getting voted out of office.
I have to admit, this arrangement makes me uncomfortable. If I knew that my opposing counsel was participating in a bible study group with a judge, magistrate, or marital master, I would have very real concerns about impartiality.
As for the part about Catholics being accepted at a bible study, it isn't all that cut and dried. Most of the bible study groups that I have come across over the years have a decidedly conservative, literalist tone. This is not especially compatible with Catholic theology, which draws not only from Scripture, but from church tradition, encyclicals, and the writings of the Church Fathers.