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Final Thoughts on Our Constitution

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As we began this conversation I was not sure what direction it would take. How would we agree? How would we disagree? One of my former teachers used to say that we have to rise to the level of argument. That is, we have to so clarify our terms and our meanings such that our claims and counter-claims can actually engage each other. I think we’ve achieved some degree of that, and I want to again express my appreciation for this project and to Kathy Lee for pressing me to think harder about justice and our constitutional order. While there is no doubt we will not have exhausted our exploration of this issue, I think we’ve clarified some things and done so with more light than heat.

Kathy’s last entry posed several incisive questions. In this final contribution to this month’s conversation, I’ve organized my response as answers to a series of questions. I’ll conclude by posing a question for Kathy and myself, and the readers.

Some Final Thoughts

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Points that Micah raised in his second essay floated through my mind as I listened to Justice Mary Yu speak at Whitworth last week.  Justice Yu is one of six women on the Washington State Supreme Court. Her mother was a Mexican immigrant who came to this country illegally then naturalized; her father was a Chinese immigrant who also came to this country illegally then became a citizen. Justice Yu is also the first openly gay member of the Court and a member of the Catholic Church.

A Perspective on Perspectives

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It was wonderful to read Kathy’s opening essay for our conversation, for I think we hold some key commitments in common, as well as some applications of those commitments as to how we should think as Christians about politics, the common good, and the Constitution. We have some differences as well, to be sure, but I think we will be able to explore our common ground and any differences in helpful ways. In the remarks that follow I will express my agreement with many of Kathy’s observations, articulate a potential area of disagreement, and raise some questions about judges and critical theory that may further illumine our different approaches to our topic.

Response to Micah Watson’s “The Constitution and Agreeing on How to Resolve Our Disagreements”

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As someone who has taught courses related to American governmental institutions, including constitution law, for more than years than I like to think about, I appreciated very much Micah’s overview of the functions of a constitution. In fact, I may ask his permission to use a section of his essay in a future class. In my presidency class the other day I posed the question, “What is constitutionalism?” and was taken aback by the few who had an answer readily at hand. Obviously, I need to say more about constitutionalism in lower level courses, and Micah’s overview is invaluable. As Micah points out, a constitution expresses aspirations of a people, allocates and limits powers, and provides structure through which a polity can make more laws.And I could not help but think that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have said a hearty amen to Micah’s statement: “To the extent that the ideals are misguided and even antithetical to human flourishing, Christians should not be informed by but attempt to transform (witness to, change) a constitutional system through both ordinary and extraordinary politics.”

Before turning to questions I have about Micah’s essay let me state my views on the Obergefell decision. Given my previous essay, it will not come as a surprise that I rejoiced in the Court’s decision. In fact, I was in Washington, DC, outside the Supreme Court, when the decision was announced and celebrated with the hundreds of people there.

Christians and the Limits of Law

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At the outset let me state what might be called my first principles. As a Christian and as a citizen of the United States, I view the Constitution both as a constitutive document for this country and also a ‘living’ document. It is, like the Bible, a text that requires interpretation; it is not self-interpreting. Because I have taught constitutional law I cannot help but then think of the Constitution as connected to judges, ultimately to the Supreme Court justices. I place myself within the Reformed tradition, and so view government as an institution that can be used to achieve justice.

While today I readily affirm the Constitution’s importance in creating our governmental structure as well as setting out aspirations, I grew up in a faith tradition which did not affirm the Constitution because the document omitted any reference to God’s sovereignty over all of life.

The Constitution and Agreeing on How to Resolve our Disagreements

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Introduction

There are so many different angles and questions wrapped up in this topic’s leading question that it requires some disentangling before we can get into substantive claims about how to answer the question. We have no shortage of disagreement about how Christians should think about public policy, let alone how the Constitution should inform this thinking. Christians have a two-thousand year history of disagreement about how to interpret and apply the Bible, and Americans have been wrestling with how to interpret the Constitution for 228 years. Moreover, much depends on how we understand the purposes and functions of a constitution in general, and then the specific content of the U.S. Constitution in particular. There are a lot of moving parts. Unlike some of the other topics under consideration in this series of Respectful Conversations, it’s not obvious at first what a traditional and a progressive approach will have in common and on what points they will differ.  I will proceed by laying out a series of claims—some descriptive and some normative—that will move from the general and hopefully less controversial to the more specific and probably contested. I’m grateful to have this opportunity to think together with Kathy Lee about these matters.

Interlude: Christian Values Underlying Respectful Conversations About LGBT Issues

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I believe that every decision a person makes is informed by one or more value commitments. If you dig beneath the surface of any decision, you will uncover underlying commitment to something judged to be “important.”

Therefore, as the third round of my nine-round electronic conversation on Human Sexuality draws to a close, the reader may find it helpful if I lay bare my value commitments that underlie this eCircle; the value commitments that constitute my most fundamental reasons for embarking on this challenging and controversial project.

The Christian values that informed my decision to undertake this project are Truth, love, and Christian unity, the bare contours of which I will now briefly outline. 

Science, Faith, and Sexual Orientation: Concluding Thoughts

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Thank you, Chris, for your gentle and empathic spirit. And thank you for so aptly summarizing the gist of my first essay. You listen well. I now understand why you are so gifted at helping people create healthy relationships!

To clarify, I did not intend to imply that those who seek to honor a traditionalist biblical position on marriage are being hateful or mean-spirited. I simply wanted to note that the faith community’s understanding of a) marriage, and b) biblical wisdom about sexuality has evolved over time, and continues to do so. Perhaps, as the “Reformed and ever-reforming” perspective suggests should happen, the Spirit is continuing to work . . . as some of today’s biblical scholars, supported by psychological science, are leading us to rethink old ideas. Jesus beckoned us to worship God with our minds, which surely means being open—as you have demonstrated yourself to be—to continuing natural and biblical revelations.

Chris’s 3rd and Final Post: Science and Same-Sex Orientation and Behavior

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A friend recently wrote “an argument among friends lies at the heart of our enterprise as Christian scholars. We each aim to give witness to the truth . . .”
As scientists and Christians we are eyewitnesses to God’s Truth. What an awesome endeavor!
We are eyewitnesses to His truth when we study nature as found in the observable created world, experiencing His reality and catching a glimpse of the holy in the everyday things around us—in a loving touch, in the gift of attention, and in the smile of a stranger.
Yes, even in an argument with a friend.