On
June 23 of this year, Rev. Charles Moore stepped out of his car in a shopping
mall parking lot in Grand Saline, Texas and set
himself on fire. The retired United Methodist pastor was 79 years old and was a
life long advocate for social justice. He died later that night at Parkland
Hospital in Dallas -- leaving behind a trail of notes and a lifetime of
activism to offer an explanation for his dramatic act. As social justice
advocate Reverend Jeff Hood told The Huffington Post, Rev. Moore was trying to
send a message with his dramatic act -- both to the United Methodist Church and
to the country at large. "Reverend Moore thought this was going to be a
whole lot bigger of a deal than it turned out to be," Hood told HuffPost.
"He expected it to make national news."
The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
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