by Maybe we’re getting the religious composition of the Supreme Court all wrong. Maybe, in terms of a Justice’s approach to religion belief and how it matters to a person’s life, all nine are Protestant.
On CNN’s new religion blog, BU prof Stephen Prothero explains:
Today many U.S. Catholics and Jews think like Protestants. They believe that religion is something we choose as individuals rather than inherit as communities, and they view it primarily in terms of faith rather than practice. None of this comes from either the Catholic brain of Aquinas or the Jewish mind of Maimonedes. The progenitor of this faith-based understanding of religion (who also happens to be the patron saint of religion rulings at the U.S. Supreme Court) is the American Protestant thinker William James, who famously defined religion as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”
When Supreme Court justices genuflect before this subjective understanding of religion – and most, perhaps all, of today’s sitting justices do – they are thinking like Protestants. And there is little to suggest that Elena Kagan, whose bat mitzvah occurred in a Reconstructionist synagogue in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, would not go and do likewise.
So if you do the math more carefully, it may go something like this: 6 Catholics + 3 Jews = 9 Protestants. Either way, we could use more religious diversity on the Supreme Court.
If everyone thinks like a Protestant, of course, I’m not sure why religious diversity matters, unless it’s all about public perception.
Interesting point to the extent that individualism is such a powerful American ideology that extends its influence to religion. But even if he’s right (and I suspect his observation is at best a less than fully informed stereotype given that he identifies Kagan’s Orthodox synagogue as Reconstructionist and that the trend within even the most liberal parts of Judaism has been toward greater connection to tradition), I find it hard to believe that all religious perspectives would have the same understanding of faith. The deeper point, which he misses, is that most Americans, religious or not, for a diverse set of reasons share a commitment to liberal democracy and that’s what makes our great country possible.
BTW, Prothero’s earlier piece on the issue is much better. He wrote:
“When it comes to judges and their biases, there are only two types: those who acknowledge their biases and therefore try not to succumb to them, and those who are ignorant of their biases and therefore succumb to them unwittingly. A judge steeped in Catholic traditions of Scripture and authority cannot help but interpret the Constitution in light of these traditions. Similarly, a judge who is Jewish cannot help but be a Jewish judge.” http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-05-17-column17_ST_N.htm?csp=usat.me
Rob, you Protestant-bashing ex-evangelical Catholic you!
Just kidding — but I like to think that “Protestant” does not equal “radical individualism” as Prothero suggests. My coursework in theology at an evangelical protestant seminary has focused on what we call “generous orthodoxy” — which requires us to read deep in the Tradition. The Magesterial Reformers certainly weren’t radical individualists with respect to the Tradition. And even in the Catholic tradition there is ample room for differences of personal opinion and interpretation within the framework of Tradition.
Of course, I agree that in practice the average Protestant probably is just as individualistic with respect to religion as any other American, but here I would call “no true Scotsman.”
So, modern reform Judaism (which is really what we’re talking about here, not all Judaism) shares with many protestant faiths the concept that we “choose as individuals rather than inherit as communities, and they view it primarily in terms of faith rather than practice.” It seems awfully reductionist to say that, therefore, Jews are Protestants. Isn’t believing in Christ an essential element of any form of Christianity?
How is Prothero’s analysis any different from the following: There are men who are Hindu. There are men who are Jews. Therefore, Hinduism and Judaism are the same thing.
Now, what Prothero really means is that the traditional tenants of each religion don’t necessarily dictate how a judge experiences that religion. He could have just said that. But, then, nobody would have read the article, because that’s such a “duh” kind of point.