Westboro Baptist Church & the Supreme Court

One would be hard-pressed to find in the rantings of Westboro Baptist Church picketers anything resembling the biblical gospel.

[As Ed Stetzer (@edstetzer) said, the only thing correct in the name is the congregation's location.]

Even finding an example of biblical prophecy -- the "forthtelling" which indicted God's people for violations of the covenant relationship -- in Westboro's picketing seems an effort in futility.

Yet as much as biblical Christ-followers cringe at the apparent distortion of the biblical gospel, the abuse of the prophetic role in society, and the consequent maligning of the gospel and God,the Supreme Court is right.

Under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, the government has no right to decide what constitutes a true church, what constitutes a biblical -- or even true -- message, or what people claiming the name of Christ can shout from a street corner.

In short, the Supreme Court is not a "repugnance cop."

If it were, we would look much more like the Middle East despots who are even now being toppled in part because of such behavior.

And, given the world-wide tenor of attitude toward Christian belief, American believers should be thankful that for now our government protects the right of believers not only to practice their faith free of public intrustion, but also to talk about it openly.

This is good news in light of the problems that open-air evangelism is experiencing in Michigan, outside an Islamic festival. Good news in light of the United Kingdom's disqualification of foster parents because of their biblical belief against homosexuality. Good news in light of the killing of a Pakistani minority minister who refused to prosecute Christians. Good news, indeed.

So while Christ-followers pray for Westboro members to examine their hearts and words, we express our thanks to God that Westboro is still able, in this country, to reveal even uncharitable hearts and express even hurtful words without repercussion.

Do Words Mean Things?

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, like many nominees, has come under fire for the things she has said.

In defending her judicial philosophy that she would hope that a ‘wise Latina’ would make a better judgment than a white male, Judge Sotomayor pointed to a remark that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had made: that a wise woman and wise man should be able to come to the same conclusion. Judge Sotomayor, contrasting their respective statements, concluded that Justice O’Connor could not have meant what she said.

Judge Sotomayor also defended these and other of her remarks by claiming that she was ‘misunderstood’.

Let’s review: a justice is required to take the words of another, apply them to a set of facts, and issue a ruling that explains the application of words to facts.

In Judge Sotomayor we have a Supreme Court nominee in whom are combined first, the presumptive ability to discern what a Supreme Court Justice could not have meant by her plain words, and second, the almost unbelievable inability to make herself ‘understood’.

RUNNING THE COUNTRY 5-4

In the past week the US Supreme Court has issued rulings in two controversial and closely-followed cases by the narrowest of margins: five votes to four. In the first, the Court told the State of Louisiana that it could not impose the death penalty on those convicted of raping children. In the second, it told the District of Columbia that it could not ban firearms.

Is there anyone in the United States who agrees with both of them?

Most who would support the rights of law-abiding DC citizens to own guns (and honor the Second Amendment) would also support the right of a state to execute criminals (and honor the Fifth Amendment). Most who oppose the death penalty in general, and as it is applied to rapists in particular, would also support gun control. Thus those who were dismayed by the death penalty case found themselves rejoicing in the gun rights case, and vice versa.

The very fact that so many Supreme Court cases are being decided by one vote is an indication not that the best legal minds in the US disagree about the law, but that we are permitting the Court to decide issues best left to the States and to Congress. In essence, one vote has determined whether citizens may continue to exercise a right that has been enjoyed for 230 years, and one vote has determined that 4.5 million Cajuns may not put to death a criminal that they have democratically decided deserves that punishment.

The Framers and the Constitution they devised were not nearly as schizophrenic as the Court has become in passing on them.

It is decisions like these -- groups of inconsistent decisions -- that lead one to the conclusion that the Court is no longer the Judicial Branch, but has become the third house of Congress.