{"id":11,"date":"2010-05-10T10:53:07","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T10:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/elena-kagan-the-supreme-court-and-a-lament-for-american-protestantism.html"},"modified":"2010-05-10T10:53:07","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T10:53:07","slug":"elena-kagan-the-supreme-court-and-a-lament-for-american-protestantism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/elena-kagan-the-supreme-court-and-a-lament-for-american-protestantism.html","title":{"rendered":"Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court, and a Lament for American Protestantism"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Obama has picked Elena Kagan, former dean of
\nHarvard Law School and Solicitor General, to fill the next vacancy on the
\nSupreme Court.  <\/span>Much will be said
\nof Ms. Kagan over the coming weeks–praise and criticism of all sorts.  <\/span>But little will be in a form of lament,
\nand that’s what I’d like to offer here. 
\n<\/span>A lament for the passing of American Protestantism. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ms. Kagan is Jewish. 
\n<\/span>That means there will be six Roman Catholics and three Jews on the
\nSupreme Court in a country that was once the largest Protestant nation in the
\nworld.  <\/span>These days, of course, the
\nUnited States may still have the largest number of Protestants but the
\npercentage of the population that is Protestant has slipped to a mere 50%,
\nmeaning that sometime in the near future, America will be a nation with a
\nreligious plurality and not a majority.<\/p>\n

I’m not lamenting the loss of representation; I don’t think
\nthat Supreme Court picks should be ruled by affirmative action.  <\/span>Rather, the primary qualification
\nshould be that the person knows the law, understands the law, upholds the law,
\nand possesses a certain sort of empathy for the way that the law impacts the
\nlives of Americans.  <\/span>Accordingly,
\nanyone–a Protestant, Jew, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist–can be an
\nexcellent Supreme Court justice. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, the faith in which one was raised or which one
\npractices forms the basis of one’s worldview–the way in which a person
\ninterprets contexts and circumstances. 
\n<\/span>It involves nuances regarding theology, outlook, moral choice, ethics,
\ndevotion, and community.  <\/span>All
\nreligious traditions provide these outlooks to their adherents, and they are
\npresent in both overt and subtle ways through our lives.  <\/span>I’m not lamenting the numerical absence
\nof Protestants.  <\/span>Instead, I will
\nmiss the fact that there will be no one with Protestant sensibilities on the
\ncourt, no one who understands the nuances of one of America’s oldest and most
\ntraditional religions–and the religion that deeply shaped American culture and law. <\/span><\/p>\n

Historically, American Protestantism is a vast, diverse,
\nargumentative set of traditions. 
\n<\/span>Sociologists include a wide array of denominations under the moniker, from independent
\nchurches to Episcopalians and all sorts of Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Congregationalists in between.  <\/span>Despite such theological diversity, most Protestants retain
\nthree general convictions that shape their worldview and impact the ways in
\nwhich they engage the public square:<\/p>\n

First, Protestants hold central the idea that nothing should
\nor can impede individual conscience. 
\n<\/span>From Martin Luther’s clarion call at the time of the Reformation, “Here
\nI stand, I can do no other,” Protestants of all sorts emphasize the free
\nexpression of individual rights and conscience.  Those individual rights can–and do–empower liberation and freedom against corrupt institutions and unjust states.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, Protestants believe that symbols like the cross and
\nthe flag mean something.  <\/span>Going
\nback to the days when Protestants stripped churches of religious statues and
\npainted over icons, they believed that symbols convey the meaning of the thing
\ndepicted.  <\/span>Crosses, icons, flags,
\npaintings, and other representations cannot be separated from their theological
\nor political intention.  <\/span>Thus,
\nProtestants have historically fought over the power of symbols and their
\nmeaning in public space.  <\/span>As a
\nresult, they often argue for empty public space because they understand the
\ninternal power of symbols. <\/span><\/p>\n

Third, Protestants (in partnership with free-thinking
\nEnlightenment philosophers) created the concept of the separation of church and
\nstate in the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> centuries.  <\/span>Indeed, some historians argue that the Constitution’s
\nEstablishment and Free Exercise clauses–the phrases that guide the relationship
\nbetween religion and politics–might well be the most important contributions of
\nAmerican Protestantism to Christian theology. <\/span><\/p>\n

These three things–individual conscience, the power of
\nsymbols to inspire and convince, and the separation of church and state–are not
\nmerely areas of law to Protestants.  
\n<\/span>No, these are the things that inflame the Protestant soul–the things we
\nhave fought over, left other churches and start new denominations to uphold,
\nteach our children, sing of in our hymnody, of which we write books and hold
\ntheological debates, and why we do good on behalf of our neighbors.  <\/span>Protestants do not always agree on how
\nthese principles work out in the law, nor have Protestants always followed
\ntheir own principles to their logical legal conclusions.  <\/span>But these are the things that guide
\nProtestants, the insights that animate the followers of one of Christianity’s
\ngreat traditions.<\/p>\n

Elena Kagan will be a fine and fair justice.  <\/span>President Obama has made a thoughtful,
\nconsidered choice.  <\/span>But, on this
\nday, I am a little sad.  <\/span>Missing
\nfrom the bench upcoming years will be someone who empathizes with the Protestant
\nworldview in a visceral way.  <\/span>As
\nreligious cases multiply in an increasingly pluralistic world, I can’t help but
\nthink that losing the lived memory of American Protestantism will be a loss for
\nall of us indeed. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Obama has picked Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School and Solicitor General, to fill the next vacancy on the Supreme Court.  Much will be said of Ms. Kagan over the coming weeks–praise and criticism of all sorts.  But little will be in a form of lament, and that’s what I’d like to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-courts-and-law","category-religion-and-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nElena Kagan, the Supreme Court, and a Lament for American Protestantism - Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/elena-kagan-the-supreme-court-and-a-lament-for-american-protestantism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court, and a Lament for American Protestantism - 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}