J.C. Derrick: The Kavanaugh controversy

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, October 1st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. There’s been a lot of angst over the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process. WORLD Radio’s J.C. Derrick is here now with some thoughts on it.

J.C. DERRICK, MANAGING EDITOR: I had a lot to do last Thursday, but I made time to watch some of the marathon Senate hearing on Capitol Hill.

It’s hard to find anyone who didn’t. Millions of Americans watched as Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified about what did or didn’t happen at a high school party 36 years ago.

Both came across as sincere. Both had holes in their stories.

That’s no surprise, because we’re talking about 36-year-old history. But the uncertainty didn’t slow the stream of over-confident opinions and insults on social media. At one point the top nine trending topics on Twitter all related to the hearing.  

I’ll admit there were numerous times last week I had to pull my fingers back from the keyboard before firing off a pithy tweet of my own. But I don’t know what happened. And neither do you. Twitter rants only serve to further divide us.

The part that grieves me the most is watching how much both sides have come to idolize the Supreme Court. We’ve seen all sorts of conspiracy theories, slander, and even death threats against both Ford and Kavanaugh.

As Christians, how should we respond to all of this? I have a few suggestions.

First, we can recognize our preferred outcome has no bearing on the reality of what happened. The truth is the truth. We should resist the temptation to use situational ethics because it benefits our “team.”

Second, we should stop idolizing the Supreme Court. God does not “need” the Supreme Court to accomplish His plan for the world. He is sovereign. He’s not wringing His hands about how this will turn out, and we shouldn’t either.

Third, we should follow the command of 1st Timothy 2:2: Pray for those in authority. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lot more time reading and talking about this controversy than I have spent praying about it. Our Senators have an important decision to make. They need our prayers a lot more than they need our social media posts.

It looks like this saga will last at least another week as the FBI conducts a new investigation. Each of us has a choice: Will we join everyone else in the political gutter, or will we show them a better way?

For WORLD Radio, I’m J.C. Derrick.

(Tom Williams/Pool Photo via AP) Christine Blasey Ford testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

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