Wrong Decisions?

The Bible addresses not only the acts of sin, but sinful attitudes and desires that cause us to sin against Almighty God. Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount on the heart concerns that will drive us to do harm to others in Matthew 5:
21 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.'
22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire.
23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

He also talks later in the chapter about the lust of the heart that leads to adultery. James 1 traces the path of temptation:
14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Sinful acts begin in our hearts.  That is why we need to have reformed hearts and renewed minds. We need the presence of our Savior in order to convict us in our sinful thoughts and to conform us to the image of Christ.  We are capable of loving as Christ loves, but we have to surrender our selfish desires so that His love might flow through us. 

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In James 4, the author highlights what causes people to do harm to each other, disregarding God's view of life itself and violating God's standards. We can read these words:
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

What would have been the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court occurred a few weeks ago, and it has been described by legal experts as a poor decision. 

At the WORLD Magazine website, Mark David Hall of George Fox University, who has been a guest on The Meeting House in the past, and Matthew Franck of the Witherspoon Institute, co-wrote an article on a poll they had taken of "100 leading self-identified conservative and libertarian legal scholars," about the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. They say there are over 25,000 decisions that have been rendered.

The article says:

By far and away, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) was considered to be the worst decision ever handed down by Supreme Court justices. The majority opinion, by Chief Justice Roger Taney, held that African-Americans “are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.”

The writers went on to say:

Fortunately, Dred Scott was overturned by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution (one of four Supreme Court decisions to be overturned in this way). These amendments did much to recognize the majestic principles, articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that all persons are “created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Alas, the justices ignored this principle again when they decided what our scholars considered to be the second worst majority opinion ever handed down by the Supreme Court: Roe v. Wade (1973). As in Dred Scott, the majority again determined that some citizens are not quite human and therefore unworthy of being protected as a matter of law.

Hall and Franck note that, "To be sure, many jurisprudential liberals disagree with conservatives about whether there is a constitutional right to abortion, although many progressives recognize that Roe had no sound basis in the Constitution."

Other cases cited by those surveyed included:
* the 1896 decision, Plessy v. Ferguson (permitting states to discriminate against African Americans);
* Planned Parenthood v. Casey from 1992, "affirming Roe’s central holding while recognizing its faulty reasoning;'
* the 1927 ruling, Buck v. Bell ("upholding involuntary sterilization..."); and
* Korematsu v. United States, a 1944 decision "upholding the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War."

These, as well as Dred Scott and Roe, according the writers of the WORLD article, "stand for the proposition that some citizens do not need to be protected as a matter of law."

Obergefell v. Hodges, essentially creating a so-called "right" to same-sex marriage not found in the Constitution, was also found to be among the worst U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Hall and Franck conclude their piece with this paragraph:

Reasonable people, including legal scholars, disagree about which Supreme Court decisions are to be praised and which are to be condemned. And yet it seems clear that history will not judge well those jurists (and legislatures) who have denied that all persons are created equal and deserve the full protection of the law.

And, therein lies a guiding light for effective law - to recognize that all persons.  All persons.  Are created equal.  That language is in the Declaration of Independence for a reason, and it is consistent with the Biblical teaching that all are made in the image of God.  The Supreme Court, as these writers point out, has left that precedent in the past, especially concerning areas of the unborn in Roe and racial issues in Dred Scott and Plessy.  But, the American people, as Hall and Franck point out, remedied Dred Scott through passing the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  And, Dobbs returned the question of abortion to the states, some of whom are attempting to reverse the harm that the decision has done. 

Courts and Congress may get it wrong.  But, it is never wrong to view one another as creations of God - human beings who possess the right to life.  That applies to people inside and outside the womb.  Disregard and disrespect result in those who don't regard the lives of other people, who will steal from them, lie to them, and even take their lives.  God's standard on these matters is found in the 10 Commandments, which reveal the sinful ambitions of fallen humanity.  But, through Christ, in the new creation, these desires can be remedied and the love of God can prevail.