Protecting liberty in the courtroom and the culture

The recent leak of a draft opinion in the Dobbs case highlights the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the judicial branch in general, to the maintenance of justice in the country. We need courts to defend the rights of the oppressed. We need judges to uphold the rule of law and seek justice. We cannot have a healthy Supreme Court at the expense of a healthy culture. Ultimately, we need both as we strive for their attainment.

When looking at the Supreme Court, there is some cause for Christians and conservatives to be hopeful. Some of the more egregious violations of conscience rights and justice, such as in the Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cakeshop cases, have been corrected. And the Supreme Court is poised to continue delivering decisions in favor of religious liberty. Even if there are setbacks and grievous injustices in the present, the logic goes, there is real hope for correction in the future, and patience and humility are required of us.

Patience, humility, and perseverance are virtues, and indeed they are moral goods that seem to be in increasingly short supply today. There are reasons, however, to not allow court victories such as Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cakeshop, to overshadow the importance of protecting and defending rights and responsibilities in everyday life. We cannot simply rely on the courts, or even the Supreme Court, to correct all or even the grossest injustices.

A truly just society would rely on fewer laws and even fewer lawsuits to adjudicate its conflicts. We would have a robust and vibrant civil society where disagreements could be mediated through healthy institutions. We would find spaces to agree, to disagree, and to agree to disagree.

In a just ordering of society, there is a complex set of institutions through which we seek to realize flourishing. This complexity is attested to by the Biblical guidance for conflict resolution, as contained in Exodus 18, Matthew 18, and 1 Corinthians 6. In Exodus 18, we see Moses being worn out by the disagreements continually brought to him by the Israelites. His father-in-law Jethro wisely advises him to set up a system where conflicts can be resolved at a more personal and local level. Likewise, Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 18 to confront one who has done injustice personally before involving others—“between you and him alone”—demonstrates this same principle. And Paul’s guidance in 1 Corinthians 6 warns against taking disagreements and conflicts outside of the body of believers. This is not set down as an absolute rule to never invoke civil authority. Paul appeals to Caesar in his own case (Acts 25). But it does attest to the need for wisdom and prudence in seeking to do justice in a world of diverse and variegated relationships and institutions.

A litigious society—even where courts would unerringly decide cases rightly—is itself deeply unhealthy. A society in which we attempt to solve all our disagreements through political advocacy or legal arguments has eroded the thick bonds of social unity in favor of a kind of legal war of all against all.

We must protect liberty in the courtrooms and pursue justice through politics. Christian faithfulness requires no less. Often we have to argue for what we believe in, and in those cases, we should do so forcefully and effectively. But those pursuits of justice through the legal system must also be grounded in our pursuit of justice and love in the broader culture. The more we can fruitfully address conflict and disagreement through cultural and social institutions rather than in courtrooms, the better off we will all be.

Our appeals to politics for remediation and justice should be a last rather than our first resort. This is as true for conflicts within our families and our local communities as it is for our nation. Every one of us should be “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). And we should similarly be slow to call the police or to take someone to court.

We should thank God for those who work tirelessly to defend religious liberty and other freedoms so zealously and effectively in the courtrooms and the court of public opinion. We can all do our part to honor such service by doing our best to, as Paul puts it in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”