Dear friend,

I wanted to make sure you saw my latest piece in Christianity Today about how Christians should think about the Supreme Court and the open seat left by Justice Ginsburg's passing:

From the op-ed:

In the years to come, what should we hope for from the Supreme Court? Some decisions of the past should be overturned, and may well be. Evangelicals and others are right to see Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as bad decisions—rooted in incoherent and contradictory legal assertions that restrict the state from even the most basic measures to curb violence against unborn children. The Smith decision—written by Justice Scalia—should also be replaced with a decision that fully respects the First Amendment principles of religious free exercise. We should hope for a Court that also rejects on constitutional grounds cruelty toward, for example, children brought into this country by their parents.

That said, even in the best of scenarios, the Supreme Court will not usher in a utopia for one “side” or a dystopia for the other. Even if Roe is gone this year—and I hope that it is—that will not mean a pro-life America in which unborn children are, in the words of George W. Bush, “welcomed in life and protected in law.” It would mean a necessary impediment to moving toward that end is gone—as well as that a tragic stain on the country’s legal status quo is removed. But the day after Roe will be, in some ways, the beginning of the pro-life movement, not the end of it.  A repealed Roe would simply return the abortion laws to the states in a culture in which most Americans are basically supportive of legal abortion to some degree. We would need to work to change minds on human dignity, and create even more parallel structures to help women and children in crisis—a task to which we, as Christians, are called anyway (Jas. 1:27). 

Likewise, a repeal of Smith would remove an obstacle to religious freedom, but there would still be murky conflicts between public policy and religious accommodation—just as there are on freedom of speech and every other constitutional guarantee.

Yesterday, I also read a news article about the faith of one potential Supreme Court nominee that characterized her faith as bizarre and disqualifying.

I took a few minutes to record a new video on why I think this sort of religious test for a nominee is inappropriate. Watch below:

For the Kingdom,