(JTA) – Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said in 2014 that judges should be “people of faith” and have “a biblical view of justice,” specifically the New Testament. Whitaker made his remarks as a Senate candidate in a debate of four Republican hopefuls sponsored by the Iowa Family Leader, a conservative Christian organization, that he would be “very concerned” by a judge with a “secular worldview.” The quotes come from a report by a Des Moines Register columnist following the debate.

Whitaker at the debate was responding to a question asked by moderator Erick Erickson, then a popular conservative blogger who later founded the news website the Resurgent, which asked “what criteria” they would use “to block President Obama’s judicial nominees.” Whitaker in response said he would demand that federal judicial nominees be “people of faith” and “have a biblical view of justice.” Erickson asked: “Levitical or New Testament?” according to the Register columnist. “I’m a New Testament,” Whitaker said.