by As Rob Vischer reports below, Christianity Today suggests that evangelicals might not be able to relate to Elena Kagan. Evangelicals Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, for whom she worked, seem to think otherwise.
Read the full postArchive for the 'Robert Cochran' Category
A few days ago, Steve Smith posted a comment, “Wrong-headed Friends,” in which he described a couple of his friendships maintained across today’s cultural divide. I hope that this blog will help to generate the sorts of friendships that Steve Smith describes. But I fear that the intensity of moral commitments around at least two current cultural issues make such friendships very difficult. Those on the right find it difficult to have close friendships with those who support the right to kill unborn human beings. Those on the left find it difficult to have friendships with those who want to reserve marriage for opposite sex couples. This difficulty may be because concern for the goodness of the friend is a central component of friendship (certainly the classic notion of friendship).
Read the full postI think an exchange in the CLS oral argument is relevant to a topic we have discussed in recent weeks—the value of judges from different religious backgrounds. During the argument, Justice Breyer, one of two Jewish justices, pressed Hastings attorney Gregory Garre on whether the Hastings non-discrimination policy would allow an Orthodox Jewish Club that separated men and women. Garre ultimately admitted that it would not. The exchange (which went on longer than almost any other in the argument) is included below. It starts with a question about Orthodox religious services, but develops into a discussion about Orthodox clubs. Justice Breyer is not Orthodox, but maybe there are Orthodox members of his family. Maybe it took a Jewish justice to be sensitive to this issue.
Read the full postEarlier this week, the Virginia Supreme Court heard argument in Protestant Episcopal Church v. Truro Church, et. al., one of many church property disputes currently going on in the United States. Here is a report of the Virginia argument. Several northern Virginia congregations (including the historic and very large Falls Church) voted to leave the American Episcopal Church and join an African Anglican diocese (both part of the Anglican communion). The dispute (as in many of the disputes nationwide) was over the denomination’s ordination of actively gay clergy in particular and over biblical authority in general.
Read the full postMany have noted that Justice Stevens is the last Protestant on the Supreme Court. If Stevens’ law and religion jurisprudence is Protestant jurisprudence, save us from the Protestants (I say this as a Protestant).
Read the full postLast week, a North Carolina jury awarded a woman $9 million in an Alienation of Affections claim against a woman who had enticed her husband away. North Carolina is one of only 13 states that retain the Alienation of Affections claim. The vast majority of states have abrogated such claims. In my view, these courts and legislatures do not take marriage seriously. They illustrate the individualistic direction of the law.
Read the full postAs Sam Levine notes below, I recently spoke on a panel at BYU’s Religiously Affiliated Law Schools Conference on “Brandeis the Humble, Pragmatic, Prudent Prophet.” “Humble,” “pragmatic,” and “prudent” are not often adjectives associated with prophets, but in Brandeis’s case, I think they fit (as does the noun).
Read the full postI am in the midst of editing a book of some of Louis Brandeis’s unpublished lectures and I am struck by how similar the issues that confronted him are to the issues that we confront. Brandeis might have much to say this week, as the Senate Banking Committee is on the verge of approving a bill that would establish a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the House prepares to vote on a health care proposal that may be posted on the internet at any moment. My guess is that Brandeis’s answers to these problems would be unlike either what we hear today from the left or the right.
Read the full postI received a thoughtful challenge to the suggestion in my post below (“Glen Beck’s and Jim Wallis’s Dueling Boycotts”) that the church should be concerned with justice issues. It read as follows:
Read the full post“I believe Christ commands us to love [the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner] in tangible ways, giving sacrificially of our own resources to those who are in need. I also believe we should hold those in the body of Christ accountable to those who are in need, so I have no problem with pushing those in the Church to do justice in their own lives.”
CNN reports today that evangelical progressive Jim Wallis is calling on Christians to boycott Glenn Beck’s Fox News television show in response to Glenn Beck’s call for Christians to boycott churches that preach economic and social justice. I suspect that neither social justice churches nor Glenn Beck will take much of a ratings hit—there is probably not much overlap in their fan bases.
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