The Constitution is not a living organism. It’s a legal document, and it says what it says and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.
—Antonin Scalia—
The Word Foundations article that was published on July 3, 2015—one week after the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Obergefell—began with this observation: “Americans now live in an oligarchy—a form of government that can be described as rule by a few. This is but one of the lessons coming out of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case in which the Court redefined marriage in America to include same-sex couples.”
In his dissent in Obergefell, Justice Antonin Scalia expressed this sentiment far more eloquently and forcefully than anything I could have written. He wrote,
I join The Chief Justice’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.…
[I]t is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create ‘liberties’ that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.
Justice Scalia understood that claims that the Constitution enshrines liberties it doesn’t even mention actually threaten the Constitution itself, as well as the liberties it upholds and seeks to protect. He believed in interpreting the Constitution based on the words in it and the clear intent of its framers. This approach sometimes is called originalism. (See a brief article on originalism here.) Originalism stands contrary to the idea that the Constitution is a “living, breathing document” that changes with the times. Ironically, progressives use the idea that the Constitution is “living” as an excuse to ignore what it says and what it means—essentially rendering it null and void.
Justice Scalia consistently applied his Constitutional philosophy in case after case. We see it shine brilliantly in the following exchange between Piers Morgan and Scalia in this CNN interview from 2012.
Significantly, Justice Scalia’s approach to interpreting the Constitution parallels the way we as believers should interpret the Bible. Writing in an article published at www.americandecency.org, Steve Houston observes that the Bible is authoritative, but that today far too many Christians and churches are treating it as if it should bend and be shaped by the times. This is an erroneous idea! Rather than making adjustments in their lives to fit the Bible and the Constitution, progressives in both legal and religious realms “desire to change these documents to fit their lives, their thoughts, and their desires; thus ‘remaking the world (and the Word) in their own image.’” Houston further observes that interpreting the Constitution and the Bible correctly may not always lead the interpreter to a conclusion he or she likes. As Scalia once said, “If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.”
The Constitution thus challenges us—and the Bible does as well. As a devoted Christian and a devout Catholic, Scalia took the Bible seriously, just as he took the Constitution seriously. In 1996, Chuck Colson honored Scalia in a BreakPoint commentary. Colson briefly cited examples of some of the justice’s keen legal insights, and then he showcased statements he had made in a speech to Evangelicals meeting in Jackson, Mississippi. Colson declared, The
Roman Catholic justice from Brooklyn told his audience that our culture has moved beyond skepticism to open hostility towards Christianity.
Taking his cue from Corinthians, he said “the [worldly] wise do not believe in the resurrection of the dead.…So everything from Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred.”
Scalia then noted that cretin—a synonym for moron and imbecile—is derived from the French word for Christian. Scalia said, “That’s the view of Christians taken by modern society.…Surely those who adhere to…Christian beliefs are to be regarded as simple-minded.”
Then he brought the crowd to its feet when he told them, “We are to be fools for Christ’s sake.”
Our response, Scalia said, ought to be to “pray for the courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.”
Antonin Scalia received plenty of scorn for his statements. Washington was abuzz with ridicule. How dare a justice of the Supreme Court talk about religion? This was typical, as Scalia regularly swam upstream against the prevailing worldview of the day and received a great deal of negative criticism. Yet he remained consistent.
Jerry Newcombe once asked Robert Bork, who in 1987 was denied a seat on the Supreme Court because of his conservative Constitutional views, why so many Supreme Court justices believed to be conservative changed their perspectives over time and morphed into liberals. In his reply, Bork cited the intellectual environment of the Court and its justices, as well as the liberal bent of the mainstream media. If a justice rules a particular way, he or she is praised by the news outlets and by progressive pundits in Washington. It’s seductive. On the other hand, when the justice rules another way he or she gets hammered with criticism. These forces have an impact. Yet Scalia didn’t move. Why? Newcombe believes it was his strong faith in Christ. Scalia understood that identifying oneself with Christ was costly, and that doing the right thing also was costly. This is why he spoke joyfully of being a fool for Christ’s sake and of praying for strength to endure the world’s hostile response.
In his speech in Jackson, Colson said (and I would add through his life as well) Justice Antonin Scalia “reminded us of something we’d rather forget: that a world that has rejected the Truth Himself will naturally reject those who live by His word. Thank you, Justice Scalia,” concluded Colson, “for courageously speaking out and reminding us that acceptance by a hostile culture isn’t the goal for those who follow Christ. But bearing witness to the ‘truth which is in Jesus’ is.”
Today we echo Chuck Colson’s praise and honor the life and memory of Antonin Scalia.
Copyright © 2016 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All Rights Reserved.
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