Matt Martens

Finalizing a brief for filing on Monday defending the religious liberty of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod.

Over the years, I’ve worked on cases defending the religious liberty of Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.

O that wonderful cross
O that wonderful cross
Bids me come and die
and find that I
may truly live

I’m all for deporting aliens committing violent crimes.

But what protects citizens from being labeled aliens and deported if the govt’s theory is that merely saying you are a criminal alien is enough to deport you and you are entitled to no due process to challenge that claim?

From as young as I can remember, I’ve believed that God created the universe.

This year I spent some time reading more about scientific materialism (naturalistic evolution).

I end the year more convinced than ever that theistic creation is the only thing that makes any sense.

Every year I look forward to the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl.

Biblical Justice Requires Strong Rules of Evidence ‘Framed’ reminds Christians we'd do well to heed Scripture's admonition about not "siding with the many, so as to pervert justice” for the accused (Ex. 23:2). Some might have been framed.

"We tend to think of the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt as designed to protect the accused. But its theological origin was as a means to protect jurors’ souls from the sin of convicting an innocent person." @martensmatt1.bsky.social
www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/fram...

Biblical Justice Requires Strong Rules of Evidence ‘Framed’ reminds Christians we'd do well to heed Scripture's admonition about not "siding with the many, so as to pervert justice” for the accused (Ex. 23:2). Some might have been framed.

As he put it, “Our procedure has been always haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream.” Today, we know that what Hand dismissed is too often a real-life nightmare.

www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/fram...

Biblical Justice Requires Strong Rules of Evidence ‘Framed’ reminds Christians we'd do well to heed Scripture's admonition about not "siding with the many, so as to pervert justice” for the accused (Ex. 23:2). Some might have been framed.

My review of @JohnGrisham’s new book, “Framed”:

One hundred years ago, the legendary jurist Learned Hand dismissed the idea that the American criminal justice system, with all its procedural protections, could convict an innocent person…

President Biden pardons his son Hunter Biden | CNN Politics President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month on gun crime and tax convictions, marking a reversal as he prepares to leave office.

A deeply corrupt act for which he should be impeached.

The pardon power is not a tool for personal family advantage.

His Justice Department sent other people’s sons to prison for violating the same statute.

www.cnn.com/2024/12/01/p...

“Being able to assign an irrational cause for the other person’s beliefs is a powerful weapon in a cultural conflict.”

— Prof. Phillip E. Johnson

“The call to deny yourself, to take up your cross, and to lose your life for Christ’s sake is not bad news.”

— Pastor Erik Naylor, Lahaina Baptist Church (Maui, Hawaii)

“Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is nothing else.”

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Some Christians—those who happen to have the right talents—should be economists and statesmen, and … all economists and statesmen should be Christians, and … their whole efforts in politics and economics should be directed to putting ‘Do as you would be done by’ into action.”

— C. S. Lewis

Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Isa. 40:21-23

“Patriotism . . . is, of course, far better than individual selfishness, but . . . it is inferior to universal charity and should always give way to universal charity when the two conflict.”

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Does it not make a great difference whether I am the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself.”

— C. S. Lewis

“The Christian . . . does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

— C. S. Lewis

Important question today:
Cranberry sauce.

Canned?
Or
Fresh?

Canned for me. I even like the little can shaped ridges. 😂

Maui:

Just landed back in the US after 11 days in Ch!n@.