What Christians Can Learn from Ginsburg and Scalia

Sept. 20, 2020

 How could two people with different and opposing worldviews be able to “get along”

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at the age of 87 on Friday due to complications from cancer. Judge Ginsburg was the second woman appointed to the United States’ highest court and served for 27 years, becoming a judicial, progressive, feminist, and pop culture icon. Lawmakers from across the aisle praised Ginsburg and her legal legacy.” [1] Preceding her in death was her “best buddy,” Judge Antony Scalia. In 2013, a law student set their bond to music in an Opera. Toward the end of the opera Scalia/Ginsburg, tenor Scalia and soprano Ginsburg sing a duet.  Here is the part of the statement Ginsburg released to honor Scalia upon his death:

 “We are different, we are one,” different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve. From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots — the “applesauce” and “argle bargle” — and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion.” [2]

Scalia sent her roses on her birthdays.  They spent New Year’s eves and many social events together.  They were truly “friends” but held diametrically opposing worldviews about the law.

This, I fear, is not the comity we have today.  As one opening scene in The Lord of the Rings says “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.}  It is not an instantaneous change, but one that has been building for a long time. The change is occurring in religion, in culture, in the political realm (including the churches of Christ).  Irreconcilable polarizations are occurring.   In Christian religion and in the churches of Christ, we have those who believe that there is a definite “pattern” for how one is to “do church” and anything else is heresy. Then, we have those that believe there is no pattern of anything if “we love God and each other.” In culture, we have those who adhere to basic Judeo-Christian morality and those who believe each person creates his own morality. Sometimes it is the morality of the “group” they identify with, that is “true” morality.  One group believes in absolute truth.  The other in “all truth is relative.”  Or truth is determined by those in power.   In politics we have those who hold to the original meaning of the constitution and those that believe the constitution should be a “living document.” One believes the Creator and natural law endows individuals’ rights with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  One believes the state grants rights in accordance with scientific enlightenment. 

We have collisions of different worldviews.  The change is total incomprehension between the different worldviews, whether religious, cultural, or political.  We isolate ourselves in geographical, cultural, or political groups with little interaction between each.  I encountered this myself years ago when giving a seminar in Hartford, Conn.  I was going to dinner with the company supervisor and his wife who began discussing culture and politics.  I was incredibly quiet as their worldview was different to what I experienced in Dallas, Texas.   It takes some degree of understanding and give and take if any type of reconciliation is possible.  It takes mutual respect.   If, however, there is no common understanding of truth or a common understanding of major cultural values, how can this occur?” 

Now each party in these disputes is bent upon the destruction of the other.  Extermination is the goal.   Whether it is in religion or politics when events reach this level of animus civil war occurs.  But, I can hear my fellow Christians say: “You can’t compromise with the truth.”  Do we think we are the only ones who think they know the truth.?  Are we so myopic we think our generation is the only one with the wisdom to discern God’s will?  It is arrogant to dismiss great theologians of the past and to think they had no insight into God’s word—and this is more than those in our Restoration movement.  Paul teaches something different.  We are to not “despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.”[3]   We are to listen to what the theologians say, then, take the good, and avoid the bad.

 What can we do to avoid such a catastrophe?   We can emulate Ginsburg and Scalia.  Though they had different worldviews, they were “best buddies.”  They did things together. They genuinely respected each other as fellow human beings.  We must “in humility value others above ourselves,” We can remember that person who has a different political or religious worldview was made in the image of God just as we are. They might even have a perspective we need to consider.  We need to project the salvation image of Micah: “Each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid.  For the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.” [4]  We need to remember “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love  mercy and to walk humbly^[a] with your God.”

[1]

https://www.npr.org/2016/02/15/466848775/scalia-ginsburg-opera-commemorates-sparring-supreme-court-friendship[2]

[3] I Thess. 5:20

[4] Micah 4:4