laws on Reform

Caesar hoped to reform men by changing institutions, and laws; Christ wished to remake institutions, and lesson laws by changing men.

Interpretive strategies have gone through cycles of strict-constructionist (or Originalism) and broad-constructionist (or Living Constitution) perspectives. Originally the procedure of interpreting th...

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

It usually takes a hundred years to make a law; and then, after it has done its work, it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.

The cornerstone of this Republic, as of all free government, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or w...

When the state is most corrupt, then laws are most multiplied.

The courts have been expected to fill the void created by the decline of church, family and neighborhood unity.

The purpose of the law is to prevent the strong from always getting their way.

You cannot make men good by law.

If you make 10,000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded upon the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

The law is harsh and cannot help us to receive forgiveness. In Craddock Stories, a collection of outstanding stories by Fred Craddock, is the following account with one who could understand law, but ...

In much of contemporary society, we are only willing to focus on God’s love and grace, rarely on God’s wrath or even judgment. This story is a good reminder that God’s relationship towards us is multi...

Horace Gray was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During one of his cases, a criminal was about to be released, not because he was innocent, but because of a technicality. As Gray prepared to relea...

A unjust law, is no law at all.

No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subjects on which he is to legislate.

Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak.

Many people have misinterpreted the separation of church and state to mean that religious views shouldn’t play a role in public discussions and lawmaking. Someone might say, “We shouldn’t restrict abo...

Many of the modern controversies surrounding the Bible—for example, human sexuality, creationism and the “openness” of God—revolve around questions concerning hermeneutics. The science of hermeneutics...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

So what is the purpose of the Old Testament law? The law reveals God’s righteous character, but it can’t make us righteous (Gal. 2:21). The law is a tutor to teach us about the Savior, but it can’t sa...

Christ's miracles were not the suspension of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order. They were a reminder of what once was prior to the fall and a preview of what will eventual...

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.

I remember the first time I drove by myself. I had the ability to drive wherever I wanted, with whomever I wanted, however fast I wanted. With the steering wheel in my hands, I had freedom and power. ...

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

In his 2008 book, Just Courage, Gary Haugen, a lawyer by training, describes an interesting legal precedent known as “void for vaugeness.” Haugen used the precedent to illustrate how vague ideas of Bi...

In Arkansas, it is illegal to pronounce Arkansas incorrectly. It is illegal to build, maintain, or use a nuclear weapon within Chico, California, city limits. In Connecticut, a pickle fit for human co...

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of...