Tim Keller's "Justice" Demeans Grace and Mercy

There’s a debate raging in evangelical Christianity. One side of the debate is led by Tim Keller, author of the book Generous Justice. To oversimplify greatly, Keller suggests Christians should be engaged in social justice. On the other side is a group led by several evangelical luminaries, with perhaps John MacArthur as the leader. This group has published The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel. I don’t intend to critique Keller’s book, I haven’t even read it. Neither do I intend to express an opinion on the wisdom of issuing “Statements” like MacArthur’s. I’m agnostic on that, although I have read much of the statement and agree with all that I read. Rather, I want to take issue with Keller’s use of the term “justice.”

In explaining his ideas, Keller cites Jesus’ parable of The Good Samaritan. Keller describes the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable as doing “acts of justice.” I think Keller’s using the word “justice” in this way is confusing and counter-productive. I think Keller is confusing “justice” with “grace” or “mercy.” I think by taking acts of grace, mercy, or charity and calling that “justice,” Keller demeans the concepts of grace and mercy and diminishes the Christian obligation.

These words have long-accepted meanings. Plato’s definition of justice, “giving every man his due,” still is widely accepted. And as we all know from Sunday school, “grace” is giving someone something good that they don’t deserve, while “mercy” is withholding something bad that they do deserve. In the Bible, justice, grace, and mercy frequently go hand-in-hand. For example, in the Deluge, God delivered justice to humankind, while Noah and his family received grace and mercy. Sodom and Gomorrah received justice at God’s hand while Lot and his daughters got grace and mercy. As Christians, we understand that God’s justice was poured out on Jesus on the cross, while we, His people, get grace and mercy.

When Keller uses the term “justice” to describe good things that one person does for another, I think what he’s really describing is “grace” or maybe even “mercy.” Did the Good Samaritan owe the man who fell among thieves the help that he delivered? Was that justice? Or was he extending grace or mercy? Oh, Jesus was teaching a moral obligation to help people like the man who fell among thieves, to be sure, but I think Keller’s chosen example illustrates grace, not justice.

This isn’t just semantics, for when we describe the Christian obligation to help those in need as “justice,” we strip the parties involved in the acts of kindness of a proper response to the situation. My obligation as a Christian is to go beyond mere “justice,” giving people what they deserve. I am to extend grace and mercy. I understand why Keller uses the wrong word, he’s politicizing the idea. In America, we have a long tradition of the government not requiring its citizens to do good. We must do justice, but we need not extend charity. The charitable obligation is enforced, if at all, only privately, not by the state. So to justify compelled charity (an oxymoron, I know), we instead call it “social justice.” The state can compel us to do justice, to pay what we owe. But this verbal sleight of hand deprives those doing the good of the opportunity to extend genuine Christian charity. After all, if it’s owed, then the benefit is merely paying what is due, not giving out of Christian charity.

Many probably would suggest that “justice” is the correct word to use here because in many social circumstances some people have been systematically disadvantaged and therefore are owed something from the rest. Perhaps. My problem, though, with Keller’s use of the term, especially in conjunction with teachings such as Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is that frequently people are in trouble because they deserve to be in trouble. They’ve made bad, often wicked, choices, and they are suffering the consequences of those choices. Social “justice” would not reach that person, and yet I believe Christian charity should. Using the term “justice” instead of “grace,” “mercy,” or “charity” tends to cramp the true Christian obligation and deprive the believer of the opportunity to voluntarily sacrifice for the good of others.

Just as troubling, calling charity “social justice” deprives the person helped of the opportunity for gratitude. What was the proper response of the man attacked by thieves to the Good Samaritan who helped him? Well, if the Samaritan were only doing justice, only delivering what the man was owed, then his response might be “What took you so long?” But if the help extended by the Good Samaritan is seen as grace, mercy, or charity, then the proper response is gratitude, and that proper response will edify both helper and helped. And if you don’t think calling charity “justice” can inculcate a spirit of entitlement and ingratitude, then I respectfully suggest that you are not paying attention to what is going on in our society today.

I want to hasten to clarify that I am not criticizing Tim Keller generally. I am sure that I agree with eighty per cent of what he says and teaches. And I think his emphasis on the charitable obligation of evangelical Christianity is much needed – we’ve been leaving such important work to the Roman Catholic Church for far too long. But I think that attempts to politicize the gospel, both on the left and on the right, end up in the ditch, and that is where I fear Keller’s ministerial commitment to social “justice” is headed.

My libertarian message: "If you need a club, a car, or a torch to deliver your message, it's not free speech."

As I have been reflecting on the Charlottesville tragedy, I can't help thinking that the Supreme Court of United States encouraged that result with its decision in Snyder v. Phelps. The Phelps family are the "God hates fags" cultists. The Snyder family is a national treasure -- a gold star family. Not surprisingly, the Phelps family has trouble getting anyone to pay attention to their hate. So they hit upon an idea -- let's "protest" the funerals of fallen war heroes. Then people can't ignore us. And so they did, and the Snyder family took them to court under the long-accepted tort doctrine of intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED"). Under this cause of action, a defendant who intentionally or recklessly inflicts severe emotional distress on a victim through extreme (very unusual) and outrageous (very bad) conduct can be held legally responsible for the severe emotional distress that they intentionally inflict. Not surprisingly, the Snyders won their civil suit, and the Phelps family appealed all the way to the Supreme Court claiming that the First Amendment protected their funeral "protest" stunt. The Supreme Court (except for Justice Alito) agreed with the Phelps family.

And so the law of the land is that staged stunts that get out a message by intentionally hurting other people are constitutionally protected free speech. I think that's nonsense. 

I'm not suggesting that the government should be allowed to sanction mere hateful words. It's important to remember that the Snyder family did not sue the Phelps family because of the hatefulness of their message. I'm attuned to the danger of attempts to regulate so-called "hate speech," but the Phelps family was not being held responsible for their message. The offensiveness of the message isn't the point. It's the mode of delivery. The Phelps family is perfectly free to deliver precisely the same message in a variety of ways (and they do). What they should not be allowed to do is intentionally inflict severe emotional distress on other people to get attention for their message. The trial court found by a preponderance of evidence that the Phelps family did more than spew hate. 1) They targeted mourning family members at the funeral of their young son. 2) They intended to cause severe emotional distress. 3) They successfully caused severe (probably clinical, akin to a physical injury) emotional distress. 

I think the First Amendment "absolutely" protects messages, but not delivery methods (at least not delivery methods beyond normal speech and press). This brings me back to Charlottesville. I believe the road to the Charlottesville tragedy started with the flag burning case. Justice Scalia was one of my judicial heroes, but I think he went off the rails constitutionally with the flag burning case. I think flag burning should be protected, but it just isn't speech. Once we start providing constitutional protection for expressive stunts like burning a flag, why not protect other stunts like burning a cross, or protesting a funeral, or marching around carrying torches, or plowing a car into a crowd?

Many Justice Scalia fans proclaim themselves "First Amendment absolutists." But is that really possible? Let's see. If I am a rabid statist, do I have an absolute First Amendment right to get my message out by carving "down with liberty" onto the side of the pickup truck belonging to the most libertarian/small government person on campus? Those are words I put on the truck, so they're absolutely protected, right? (Remember this has nothing to do with the offensiveness of the message.) Consider another example. Let's assume that you have six kids, and I think your population explosion is over-burdening the planet, so I go to your four-year-old's preschool and walk up to her on the playground and follow her around screaming "I wish your dad knew about birth control." Those are words, so they're absolutely protected, right? If I do that, and you try to sue me in a civil suit, that's prohibited government regulation, right? I speak as a fool. Clearly the right to express yourself is not absolute. Some speech delivery methods, such as a scrawled message on a pickup or screaming in a toddler's face, might be actionable as a trespass to chattels or an IIED, the First Amendment notwithstanding. We can have a discussion about whether what the Phelps family did ought to constitute IIED. I think it should, and the trial court agreed with me. I have no problem giving a plaintiff a cause of action in circumstances like Phelps or like the harassing of the child scenario I suggested. So the Phelps message may have been constitutionally protected, but the method of delivery should not have been. Getting in the face of a two-year-old and screaming threats would not be merely "hateful words," it would be verbal violence.  I'd call what the Phelps family did a form of "verbal violence" targeting vulnerable victims, not utterly unlike screaming in the face of a small child.

It's a pretty subtle distinction I'm making. People can say what they want, but they still should be responsible for how they deliver the message. If I'm a statist and want to get out my big government message by picketing the biggest libertarian on campus, would the First Amendment protect my right to stand outside his car holding up a sign that said "Down with liberty"? Would the First Amendment protect my right to scratch "Down with liberty" into the paint of his truck? Is there a difference? I think the difference is the mode of delivery. The first way of getting my message out isn't a tort. The government shouldn't prevent me from doing that. The second method is a tort (trespass to chattels). I think the First Amendment doesn't privilege the tort. The Snyder v. Phelps court disagreed with me, but I think there is a difference between protecting speech that is otherwise tortious (like burning a cross in front of someone's house, which I'm not even sure constitutes speech, although I think Scalia would have thought so) and pure speech that does not constitute a tort. 

This was not a case of the government targeting the speech of the Phelps family with a regulation made for them. The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress existed long before the Phelps family started inflicting emotional distress for attention. The tort wasn't created for them, but it fits. And it was crafted taking First Amendment values into consideration, hence the limitations on the cause of action. 

The Phelps family argued that they had a permit and complied with its terms, but the permit didn't entitle them to do whatever they wanted in the permitted space. They couldn't set off explosives or lob rocks at bystanders. They couldn't amplify their voices so as to damage the hearing of those around them. Existing tort law provided that if they targeted vulnerable people and caused clinical emotional injury, they would be liable. I can't imagine that their permit purported to wipe out existing tort law. 

I think much of the support of the Phelps case comes from our mothers. My mother taught me "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." With all due respect to my mom, and probably yours, they were wrong. Words frequently do hurt. That's why there's a long rabbinic tradition grounded in Biblical principle prohibiting lashon hara. I'm not saying that all harmful speech should be actionable, but all American jurisdictions have determined that when someone uses extreme and outrageous methods to deliver speech as a weapon to inflict severe emotional harm, the wielder of the damaging words is responsible for the harm the words do. In Snyder v. Phelps, a civil court determined that the Phelps family's conduct (including their speech but not limited to their speech) was extreme, outrageous, calculated to inflict severe emotional distress and did, in fact, inflict such distress. 

The Phelps decision was an authoritarian decision. I'm a political libertarian, but most of my political friends and allies are conservatives. They sometimes wonder aloud how a libertarian like me can advocate government regulation of speech. Conservatives always get libertarianism wrong. Libertarianism doesn't mean everyone does what they want without consequence. It means everyone is responsible for the consequences of their own voluntary actions. Some libertarians feel torn between the private right of victims to be free from intentional inflictions of emotional distress and the right of victimizers to do and say whatever they want. I think this conflict stems from a misunderstanding of libertarianism. Libertarianism is based in personal responsibility. Everyone bears the consequences of their own choices, and they're not allowed to impose the costs of those choices on others without recourse. The version of libertarianism that says everyone gets to do what they want without regard to the consequences isn't libertarianism at all. I would call that libertine, not libertarian. 

Eight authoritarians on the Supreme Court insisted that their political values trumped the Snyders' private right to redress for severe emotional harm intentionally inflicted on them by the Phelps cult. Providing an outlet for people to get redress against wrongdoers isn't big government, it's a minimum role for government. Government telling me I have to put up with extreme and outrageous verbal abuse at my son's funeral or that I have to tolerate false and defamatory savaging of my reputation because of the First Amendment, that's big government. 

None of this suggests that any of the "speech" at Charlottesville last year was actionable. It probably wasn't. But I think the events of that tragic weekend should cause us to reconsider what I see as the Court's mistake in Snyder v. Phelps. Speech is protected. Delivery methods should not be.

Jeff Sessions and Russell Moore Both Misuse Romans 13 in Political Debate

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently caused a bit of a stir by citing Romans 13 in a speech on immigration enforcement. Ever since, every Tom, Dick, and Harry seems to be a biblical scholar with the firm opinion that General Sessions got Romans 13 wrong. As someone who has thought and written about Romans 13 for decades, I thought I might add my amateur critique of General Sessions’ exegesis.

Here’s what he said:

If you violate the law, you subject yourself to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul in his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for His purposes. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent and fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing that protects the weak and protects the lawful.

First General Sessions clearly is right that Paul’s statement in Romans 13:1 is a command backed by Paul’s apostolic authority, which he cites at the very beginning of his letter to the Church at Rome. However, I have to quibble with the General a little. Paul’s command to “every soul” (and that includes animals, by the way) is not to “obey.” He commands them to submit. It is possible to obey without submitting, and it is possible to submit without obeying. Usually the two go hand-in-hand, so I don’t want to be too hard on General Sessions for this mistake.

A more fundamental error is that General Sessions relates Paul’s command to “the government.” Paul does mention rulers later on in the passage, but Romans 13 never mentions “government,” as such, and Paul’s command is to submit to “powers.” Again, I can’t really blame General Sessions for getting this wrong. Pretty much all modern English translations of the Bible translate the object of the obligation of submission as something like “governing authorities.” Imho, that’s a horrible translation. As usual, the King James pretty much gets it right – “higher powers.” I think the word “superiors” works quite well. Rulers are one example of this. Bosses at work are another. This list could be quite long. Paul went out of his way when setting up this command not to limit it to political rulers but rather to extend the obligation of submission to all superiors.

General Sessions then gives his understanding of the reason for the obligation of submission: “because God has ordained the government for His purposes.” The problem, here again, is that Paul isn’t talking about government. He’s talking about “the powers that be.” Romans 13 is not a tract on government. It is a tract on God’s sovereign rule over all “powers.” God puts all powers in place for His purposes. Therefore, we can safely submit to those powers.

General Sessions then proceeds to describe what he thinks is God’s purpose for government: “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent and fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing that protects the weak and protects the lawful.” Now I happen to agree with both of those sentences, but that is not what the Apostle Paul is talking about in Romans 13. In fact, those hallmarks of our government did not necessarily characterize the governments in place to which Paul was commanding submission. Paul’s point was not “you should obey government because government is good.” Paul’s point was “You can safely submit to your superiors because God is sovereign, has those superiors on a leash, and will use those superiors for your good.”

I recently submitted my grades for the spring, so I am in a grading mood, and I would have to give General Sessions’ exegesis a C-. Honestly, it’s not significantly worse than what I’ve heard all my life, but if you’re going to cite Romans 13 in a political speech, you probably should be a little more careful.

I won’t bother grading the many (other) amateur critics of General Sessions’ exegesis, but I do want to look at one critic who should know what he is talking about. Here’s what Dr. Russell Moore said:

Romans 13 does not mean that any law that the government passes or carries out is a good law or a just law. Romans 13 simply means that the governing authorities are put in place for a reason, and the reason the Apostle Paul says there in Romans 13 is to commend that which is good and to punish that which is evil. It is hard for me to imagine that children clinging to their parents in a very, very difficult time could be classified as evil. I think I understand what the attorney general is trying to say which is that we have a rule of law and we ought to observe that rule of law. I agree with that.

Dr. Moore’s first sentence stating that “Romans 13 does not mean that any law that the government passes or carries out is a good law or a just law” clearly is correct. Of course, General Sessions never suggested otherwise. And yet, Paul commanded all “souls” to submit to their superiors, never mentioning whether those superiors where good or just. In fact, most, at the time, were not. Dr. Moore goes on to say that “Romans 13 simply means that the governing authorities are put in place for a reason.” Well, Romans 13 means a lot more than that. But so far, Dr. Moore appears to agree with General Sessions. Dr. Moore then describes that reason: “to commend that which is good and to punish that which is evil.”

Having established what he sees as “the purpose for government” (something Romans 13 does not directly address), Dr. Moore then goes on to critique President Trump’s immigration policy because “It is hard for me to imagine that children clinging to their parents in a very, very difficult time could be classified as evil.” There is plenty wrong with what Dr. Moore is saying now. His argument essentially is that Romans 13 provides a yardstick by which we can measure the obligation of submission. When a superior fails the essential purpose of government, then the obligation of submission evaporates. But Romans 13 never sets out an imperative norm for government. Rather, it sets out an indicative description that God uses all superiors, including rulers, to praise evil and to punish good, at least in some sense. By taking it upon himself to pass judgment on whether the administration’s immigration policy lives up to the non-existent Romans 13 standard, Dr. Moore has enthroned himself. God can and does use bad superiors to accomplish good purposes. The Bible and history are full of examples. The Christian’s obligation is to submit, even when he can’t obey for reasons of morality.

Dr. Moore then closes by agreeing with General Sessions' fundamental point about the rule of law, which is a good point, but has nothing to do with Romans 13.

Overall, I have to give Dr. Moore a D+. Basically, his exegesis is the same as General Sessions’ and suffers from the same defects. But Dr. Moore adds the additional defect of gutting Paul’s essential teaching by twisting it into something it was never intended to be, a measuring stick by which the believer can determine whether he owes an obligation of submission to superiors.

I have written much more on Romans 13 in an article that surveys historical commentaries on the passage and a few historical political disputes (the American Revolution, the Third Reich, and Apartheid South Africa) in which Romans 13 was deployed on both sides of the political argument. Here is the way I concluded that article: “I see the approach of many Christians from the Middle Ages forward, who have used Romans 13 either to justify or to condemn particular governing regimes (a practice that continues to this day) to be almost entirely beside Paul’s point. In this, I think my view is consonant with that of the non-resistant Anabaptists and with the Lutherans, particularly including Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

Oh Be Careful, Little Mouth, What You Sing

I write this from an uncomfortable place -- I'm afraid right now. Our church’s excellent music leader recently announced that he’s leaving for another ministry. I’m very hopeful that his new ministry will expand the borders of his influence for the kingdom, but, perhaps selfishly, I’m afraid for our church. Our present music director is impeccably trained and musically talented. It shows in his work. He also exhibits some affinity for music with theologically rich lyrics. I know these traits are not all that common in worship leaders. Not long ago, my family spent a few months visiting many churches around the area. We saw enough to know that there is reason to be afraid, very afraid. With one or two exceptions, the music ministries at the several churches we visited left very much to be desired. It's clear that our present music director will not be easily replaced. I’m afraid he’ll be impossible to replace. I tend to trust the powers that be at our church, but I’m still afraid. Here are three characteristics I’m hoping they’ll look for in a replacement, in order of importance to me.

1) Theologically rich lyrics. First, I want a music director who is committed to theologically rich lyrics. For the few people who pay attention to my Facebook page, you’ve seen me ride this hobby horse before. I favor songs like one of my favorites, "Arise, My Soul, Arise." Every time I sing this song, I am enriched by the profound soteriological concepts beautifully expressed there. If you wonder why I sometimes bemoan some contemporary Christian worship songs, I challenge you to try this experiment. Take a week or two teaching your way through "Arise, My Soul, Arise" with your child. Then take a week or two teaching your way through today’s most popular 7/11 chorus. See the difference?

I can’t help but see a connection between the present popularity of “substance-lite” lyrics and a diminished view of God. My view of God was developed, in part, by singing songs like “Immortal, invisible, God only wise, In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.” (That’s just the first verse.) My kids learn about God by singing “You're a good, good father, It's who you are, it's who you are, it's who you are.” There’s more of the same to this song, but that pretty much covers the theological content. Perhaps I should not be surprised that I now see the “big man upstairs” attitude toward God (which used to be limited to the world outside the church) finding its way into evangelical Christianity when we are diminishing the language that we use to describe Him within the church?

I understand that I am swimming against the current here, but I am convinced that the “dumbing down” of corporate worship parallels the debasing of our broader culture. Many worship songs tend to be purely emotional, stripped of any substantive doctrinal content. Similarly, modern American political campaigns are emotional affairs, denuded of any policy substance. "Kasich seems like a nice guy." "Cruz's smile creeps me out." These are real "reasons" real people have given for supporting a political candidate. And should we be surprised? Fox and CNN have for decades been peddling an infotainment product that is long on pretty faces and short on substance. They get us riled up, but they don't teach us anything. And so we see the rise of substance free candidates who engage voters on a purely emotional level. That’s bad for politics. I think it’s worse for worship.

Let me clarify a couple of things that I am not saying. First, I am not saying that worship should be stripped of emotion. To the contrary, I challenge anyone to sing and engage with “Arise, My Soul, Arise,” and not feel the emotion. The choice isn't between emotion and no emotion. It's between emotion along with doctrinal engagement and pure emotion stripped of anything that appeals to the mind.

I also am not saying that all contemporary songs are bad, clearly they are not. If you are tempted to reject what I’m saying as “chronological snobbery,” I would respectfully suggest that you check your own commitment to chronology, because I am not merely an old guy who likes old music. I would cite "In Christ Alone" and "His Robes for Mine" as good examples of content-heavy contemporary worship songs. On the flipside, it's also the case that not all "old hymns" are content-laden. The debasing I'm talking about didn't start in the 21st century. Many early 20^th century "hymns," including some of the old favorites, are sappy, emotional, and shallow, imho. It's just more striking today because content-free worship songs tend to have fewer words and more repetition now, having given up any pretense to content. I'm not against contemporary music. I prefer more substantive contemporary music to less substantive music. (The same goes with old songs -- I like to sing old songs that mean something.) To prove that this is not just another rant by an old guy against CCM, here are three links to contemporary Christian music ministries that I’ve found tend toward theologically rich lyrics: Church Works Media, Getty Music, and Watchsong.

This also is not about musical styles. I can enjoy various styles of music, but this is not about what I enjoy. I do prefer a more dignified style in my worship music since I think a certain seriousness is necessary to the best worship, but that is not what I am talking about here. I am talking only about the substantive content of the lyrics.

   

Finally, I don't deny that relatively shallow, somewhat mindless, very sentimental worship can be "good." But I think substantive, thoughtful, meaningful, and heartfelt worship always would be "better." My beef, if I have one, isn't with shallow worship. It's with worship leaders who should, imho, be leading from the "good" to the "better." I believe that, before any new song is sung by the congregation, the lyrics ought to be reviewed by a pastor to discern whether they have a message and whether that message is biblical. If the song fails either of those two tests, it should be relegated to being sung on the radio and excluded from congregational singing. Better yet, the message of any new song should be taught by a pastor (perhaps on Sunday or Wednesday night) before the song makes its debut on Sunday morning. I think this requirement would discipline song selection. And I imagine some would be surprised that many popular songs are strings of cliches without any real meaning.

2) Musical training and competence. The second thing I’m looking for in our new worship leader is a level of musical competence. I think a college degree in music is essential. In my limited experience, I’ve found that trained musicians avoid one of the great mistakes of many “worship leaders” – trying to use popular recordings for congregational singing. As it turns out, many of the top tunes on the CCM charts are “unsingable” by a normal congregation. This should not be surprising. Those songs were written, arranged, and recorded to sound good and to sell records when sung by professionals (after a lot of studio production), not for congregational singing. It seems to me that trained musicians tend to understand this better than amateurs. I also would be more confident that a trained musician would understand, for example, when hammering the djembe fits with the style of a particular song, and when it doesn’t.

3) Talent. I put this last because I think it may be the least important. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important. Our current music director is a huge talent, and that’s a big help. I’ve suffered under worship leaders who are always singing just below the pitch being played by the piano. It’s jarring to the ear. But I put vocal talent last because I’ve found that when a congregation is led in worship by a talented singer who lacks the first two qualities I’m looking for, the song service tends to devolve into a performance. The leader stands up there singing out with his eyes closed, neither knowing nor caring whether the congregation is with him. His sweet, melodious voice fills the room, and that’s all that matters. Reducing the congregation to an audience is not what I’m looking for in a music director.

Having said all of that, I am trying to learn through this to trust. Ultimately, the church is God’s church. I trust Him to give us the gifts we need to live the corporate lives He’s called us to live.

Crucify Aragorn! Give us Jar Jar Binks!

As I was watching the local news interviewing students who participated in the “walkout” protest yesterday, I couldn’t help wondering: “Are all high school students this inarticulate?” I know – that makes me a horrible person. It’s obvious that we’re all supposed to be praising these students for “making their voices heard.” Never mind that they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re speaking up, and that’s what counts. I guess the news coverage of these protesters is the media equivalent of the participation trophy. Excellence in knowledge or speech is unnecessary to be an opinion winner. Just show up, and you also make a valuable contribution.

The same popular sentiment applies to voting. We are told that we all have a duty to vote. All voters are praised. And yet we’ve probably all seen those cringe-worthy exit interviews that demonstrate that the people who just voted had no idea what they were voting about. Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think everyone should vote. I don’t think we need more people voting. I think we need more people who know what they’re doing voting. Mike Rowe famously said, "Encouraging everyone to vote is like encouraging everyone to own a gun." I don't want gun democracy -- I'd prefer that gun owners know how to shoot straight. I feel the same way about opinion leaders and voters. Either the pen is mightier than the sword, or it isn't.

I frequently use the hashtag #democracyisoverrated. The Founders of our country understood this, which is why they gave us a republican form of government, not a democracy. We have made that government more democratic to our own hurt. Colorado's republican caucus process in the last presidential election cycle demonstrated the superiority of the republican form of government over democracy. In Colorado, each precinct was open to all republicans. The precincts elected delegates to the state convention. The delegates to the state convention then elected delegates to the national convention. This added layer of winnowing produced ultimate decision makers who had been vetted by the political process and were more informed and engaged than the person on the street whom they represented. The result was to select an informed and qualified candidate instead of the uninformed and disreputable demagogue. I know that what I am writing is contrary to the spirit of our age, but it's true: Most of us just aren't qualified or equipped to select our own leaders directly. We all would be better off if we selected qualified and trusted delegates who could then select leaders on our behalf.

This brings me to the rise of President Trump. I don’t mean to pick on President Trump, I think he’s actually been a better president than I had hoped and certainly better than he is portrayed in the popular media. But that doesn’t change my conviction that the rise of Trump is a symptom of the degradation of our culture by popular media. Popular culture has taught us that "articulate" equals "evil." Think about it. Watch a movie, and the character who appears to be the smartest and the smoothest talker in the first twenty minutes is the villain. If a character somehow seems flawed, then that character will likely have some nobility about her.  That's one reason that I read Tolkien and Lewis to my children. Those writers gave us the anti-Trump, virtuous heroes who are moral, intelligent, wise, and articulate. Consider Aragorn before the Black Gates: "I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!" Imagine President Trump delivering those lines. Can’t? Neither can I, but I do remember presidents delivering memorable lines. We won’t tolerate that now. Our popular media have conditioned us to be suspicious of those who appear to be smarter than we are. We’re so afraid that all of the articulate candidates might be Palpatine that we’re willing to put Jar Jar Binks in the Oval Office.

I’ve learned through years of life experience on a law school admissions committee, hiring committee, and as a voter: These days we all want to admit, hire, and vote for ourselves. I'm afraid this explains Trump's electoral success. I doubt whether it's always been this way. I think there probably was a time when voters wanted someone better than them to manage things they weren't equipped to handle. But now that all of our opinions are worthy of news coverage, now that we all get participation trophies, no matter the quality of our effort, we now understand that nobody's better than we are, so we might as well elect someone just as uninformed, just as inarticulate, just as flawed as we are.

#ReleaseTheMemo: CLS, the Rule of Law, and the Nunes Memo

The Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement was born in the American legal academy in the 70's and reached the pinnacle of its importance in the mid-to-late 80's when it turned the Harvard Law School (the de facto capital of the movement) into "the Beirut of legal education." (I actually benefited from the mess CLS made of Harvard because at least two of my best professors at Chicago were refugees from Harvard, at least temporarily seeking shelter from the CLS movement there.) Adherents of CLS (Crits) are hostile to the traditional western concept of the rule of law. In fact, they think there is no such thing. Law is mere politics, they say. Critical Legal Scholars seek to destroy (they say "deconstruct") law from the inside. This led the Dean of Duke Law School to question in 1984 how those who do not believe in law can teach it. Good question.

At the law school where I teach, we tell our students about CLS (even though the movement is much less prominent today than it was about thirty years ago), and I'm glad we do because it has had a profound effect on our country. One of the CLS writings we have our students read is a piece by Paul Butler on jury nullification. Butler argued that "the idea of 'the rule of law' is more mythological than real," and that his audience "should embrace the anti-democratic nature of jury nullification because it provides them with the power to determine justice in a way that majority rule does not," and that they should "serve a higher calling than law: justice." Butler learned this philosophy at Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1986, near the apex of the CLS movement. 

What does all of this have to do with America today you ask? Guess who else graduated from Harvard just five years after Paul Butler? That's right, President Barack Obama, and I'll bet dollars to donuts that there's a 70% overlap between Butler's and Obama's course selection, surely dominated by Crits. (I would even guess that the real reason President Obama always refused to release his transcripts wasn't any of the reasons imagined by online conspiracy theorists. I'll bet he refused to release his transcripts because he would be embarrassed by his course selection at Harvard.) 

The main reason I would bet that President Obama studied at the feet of Crits is that the Obama administration was CLS philosophy implemented on a grand scale. (The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say.) We saw it over and over. President Obama refused to enforce laws that he did not like, and he acted in the absence of law when he thought it was desirable to do so. And why not? He was taught in law school that there is no such thing as law. What passes for law is merely politics. Law is what you can get away with politically, and that's how President Obama ran his administration, especially in his second term, when he had more flexibility.  

But President Obama is so 2016, you might say. What does that have to do with America today? I'll tell you. Parts of our federal government are supposed to be political. The Senate and the House of Representatives are prime examples. Politics is the rule there, and that is the way it is supposed to be. But other parts of our government are supposed to be legal, not political. The Justice Department, the IRS, and the Federal Courts are supposed to be such non-political examples. Those branches and limbs of the federal government are supposed to be bound by the laws created by the political parts of government, but their work is supposed to be free of politics. This is part of the reason that President George W. Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, was pressured to resign for allegedly improperly firing US Attorneys for political reasons. The Justice Department is not supposed to be political.

But what happens when the President himself, who appoints all the high-ranking officials in these non-political limbs of the federal government, has been taught and believes that there is no distinction between law and politics? Then you get the Obama administration. The Justice Department, IRS, FBI, and even the Federal Courts become law-free zones. Politics is everything. The attorney general does not enforce the law, she protects her preferred political party. The IRS persecutes political opponents. Lifetime appointees to the federal bench issue transparently political decisions with no basis in law. This is Obama's lasting legacy, the eroding of the rule of law within the institutions of our federal government.

Many of President Obama's legislative and executive legacies likely will be quickly dismantled by President Trump, but Obama's hundreds, maybe even thousands, of appointments and hires have revolutionized the Justice Department, the judiciary, and, apparently, the FBI. While many, maybe even most, of President Obama's appointees probably are not Crits, if there are even a couple hundred high-ranking Justice Department officials and/or lifetime federal judicial appointees who are not committed to the rule of law, we could be in for decades of lawlessness. We've never seen anything like this before. Not from Bush, not even from Clinton. A liberal employee of the federal government can still be fundamentally committed to the rule of law, but those who share President Obama's philosophy threaten law itself. That lasting influence of the Obama administration must be rooted out, not covered up. #ReleaseTheMemo

Reflections a Year After the Stolen Gorsuch Supreme Court Seat

I've heard many times that the seat occupied by Justice Neil Gorsuch is a "stolen" seat on the Supreme Court. Let's break that down. The Gorsuch seat is stolen only if someone else was entitled to it. Was anyone else entitled to it?

That's not a hard question. We know what's required to be entitled to a Supreme Court seat -- nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. Was anyone else nominated and confirmed for the Scalia vacancy? No. So the seat didn't belong to anyone else and wasn't stolen by the republicans when Gorsuch took it.

Of course, I know what the democrats and their allies in the mainstream media mean when they say this is a stolen seat. They mean Garland should have been confirmed. But that's wrong, too. Is the Senate obligated to confirm every qualified nominee? Has the Senate always confirmed every qualified nominee? The answer to both questions is "no." The republican Senate was under no obligation to confirm Garland.

"But he didn't even get a hearing," you say. I tend to agree that the republicans should have given Garland a hearing. As I said at the time of his nomination, I thought the republicans should have given Garland the Bork treatment. Slow walk his confirmation and then reject it. For political reasons, they decided to skip all that and simply say "let's leave this seat up to the people in the election." Even though I think this was a less than ideal way to reject Garland, that doesn't change the fact that the republican Senators were perfectly entitled to reject him, which they did.

Here's the fundamental point that the democrats and their allies in the mainstream media seem to miss -- elections have consequences for the makeup of the Supreme Court. That principle applies to both elections for President and elections for the Senate. I say democrats "seem" to miss this point because they merely pretend to miss it. They actually understand it all too well. In fact, that was the very game they were playing with the Garland nomination.

You see, they know that the only sure way to move the Court either to the right or to the left is to control both the White House and the Senate. When control of the White House and Senate are split, then there might have to be compromise, and it's much harder to move the Court very far. The democrats learned this lesson very well during the Reagan administration. President Reagan appointed Robert Bork, who would have moved the Court to the right. The democrats controlled the Senate, so they rejected Bork, who was eminently qualified, on ideological grounds. Reagan was forced to nominate Kennedy, who turned out to be the quintessential moderate. Imagine how much different our Supreme Court precedent would look today if Reagan could have forced Bork instead of Kennedy on the democrats. That's the importance of controlling the Senate.

So when the late great Justice Scalia died unexpectedly late in President Obama's second term when the republicans controlled the Senate, all of the players had political decisions to make. President Obama had the first decision to make. He could either nominate a liberal or a true moderate (like Kennedy). If he nominated a liberal, the nomination almost surely would be rejected, one way or another, and the open seat would become an issue in the upcoming election, during which the democrats felt sure they would retain the White House and hoped to regain the Senate.

If Obama nominated another Kennedy, the republicans would have had a tough choice. They could either accept another Kennedy to replace Scalia, which would move the Court incrementally to the left, or they could reject the moderate nominee and roll the dice on the election. If Clinton were elected (as most expected) and the republicans retained the Senate, they'd be right back where they started when Scalia passed. But if the republicans lost the White House and the Senate, then a moderate would be off the table. They would get another Sotomayor. Replacing Scalia with a Sotomayor would be a drastic shift to the left.

President Obama made the key decision. He decided to appoint a liberal. I know a few of you will say "but Garland is a moderate." Please, don't even. I know the left says that, but he's a moderate like Roberts is a moderate, not like Kennedy is a moderate. Swapping out Scalia for Garland would have been a huge shift to the left. So Obama intentionally chose to nominate a jurist he knew the republicans would reject. And why shouldn't he? Clinton was sure to win, so, worst case scenario, the liberals would be, after the election, right back where they started from. Why should Obama agree to appoint a moderate as Reagan had been forced to do?

Of course, we know what happened. Scalia's open seat became, perhaps, the most important issue in the presidential election. I say that because it welded the right wing of the republican party, especially the religious right, to Trump in a way that perhaps nothing else could. Trump masterfully put out his list of potential conservative nominees and promised to nominate from that list. And he delivered.

I understand that this is the unimaginable worst case scenario for the democrats. They rolled the dice on the election and the dice came up craps. But this was the risk that Obama took when he decided to nominate a liberal. It looked like a good bet at the time, the odds were in his favor, but he lost his bet. 

So did republicans steal a Supreme Court seat? No, the democrats gambled it away.

MLK's Beautiful Christian Dream

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a beautiful dream of a colorblind society in which people are judged based on important things like what they do and in which unimportant details, like skin tone, are irrelevant to how we interact with each other. This is a distinctively Christian vision. One of the great innovations of the Christian religion is that it is a religion for all. The world had long known societies that accepted all gods. But the Christians may have been the first to see their God as accepting all people.

The Apostle Paul had to fight hard for that. The first Christians were Jews who believed that Yahweh was the God of the Jews. So to follow the Christian God, you had to become a Jew. But Paul, with the direct intervention of a divine vision, erased this error at the Council of Jerusalem. As Paul powerfully explained in Galatians 3:28, in Christ, "[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." This is true equality. This is unity. This is love. This is the vision of MLK, a world, but especially a Church, in which irrelevancies, like skin color, are irrelevant.

Unfortunately, Satan has successfully transmogrified Dr. King's beautiful dream into a dystopian nightmare. Now our elites insist that we see first the color of our skin so that we can properly categorize each other and practice "diversity," and "tolerance," and "inclusion." Racists focus on race so they can exclude. The elites focus on race so they can include. Neither of these is MLK's dream, and neither is Christian.

As a Christian, when I see another man, I shouldn't see a white man or a black man to be excluded or included. I should see a fellow bearer of the image of God, and, if he's a Christian, I should see a Christian brother. The color of his skin is no more relevant than the color of his shoes. Where Christianity demands unity, the elites substitute diversity. Where Christianity demands love, the elites substitute tolerance. If you've accepted what the elites are peddling, you've accepted a sorry substitute for Christianity and a sorry substitute for MLK's beautiful dream.

In honor of the vision of MLK, I determine to spend this entire day ignoring the color of the skin of my fellow divine image bearers. Going forward, I vow to oppose any movement that seeks to force me to see my fellow humans, and especially fellow Christians, first as a skin color.