Habakkuk, Justice Ginsburg, and Justic Scalia
By: Dan Seale
The title sounds like it is going to be a bad joke, “Habakkuk, Justices Ginsburg and Scalia walk into a bar…”, but that is not where I am headed. This morning as I read the headlines, and spent time reflecting on my recent Scripture reading, I was encouraged and chastened.
God’s Plan
On Sunday, I mentioned the four principles Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones derived from the book of Habakkuk that helped his congregation process the horrors of WWII.
God is the God of history (no matter how things may look).
History follows a divine plan.
History follows a divine timetable.
History is bound up with the kingdom of God.
Like Habakkuk, God’s people today are called to live by faith — a watching, waiting, and hoping faith. We live on the promise that God is building His Kingdom and will one day, at the time of the consummation, establish His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Habakkuk reminds us to keep a Kingdom of God perspective on our life on this earth. These principles help us keep a biblical perspective in dark times.
Two Kingdoms
As Christians living on this earth, God has made us citizens of two kingdoms: the Kingdom of God where Christ is King, and the kingdom of earth where we live, work, play, and raise families. In the kingdom of earth, we are also citizens of the United States (or some country). However, our ever-present and eternal citizenship is, foremost, the Kingdom of God (Philippians 3:20-21). A proper understanding of the two kingdoms, where the Kingdom of God prevails over the kingdom of earth, transcends the minor (though important), skirmishes of national politics.
This kingdom perspective is a balm for anxious souls as the election nears and as our nation endures the pandemic and its repercussions. Yet, it may also be a rebuke if our eyes are fixed primarily on our nation, the kingdom of man, and our personal perspective.
Remarkable Friendships
This issue was brought sharply into focus for me by the news cycle headlines filled with opinions on who should fill the open seat on the Supreme Court after Justice Ginsburg’s recent death. The partisan battles began almost immediately, allowing little time to honor her or mourn her passing. Though, one article was very different. It explored the deep and abiding friendship between Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg over the years. Their ideological differences did not prevent them from being dear friends, laughing together, and sharing meals and family holidays together.
Here is an excerpt from a Newsweek article sharing Thomas Scalia’s reflections on his father’s friendship with Justice Ginsburg:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's son Christopher Scalia spoke about his late father's relationship with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg following her death on Friday. He said that the two's friendship demonstrated that even people with differing points of view could still be great friends.
"They held very strong, very different views. They wrote opinions that disagreed with each other’s opinions, and they didn't pull any punches in those opinions, but they never let those strong, deeply held beliefs get in the way of their friendship. They didn't compromise those beliefs for each other, but they didn't let it disrupt their relationship."
With the upcoming election, Christopher Scalia said that his father's friendship with Ginsburg could set an example for others who may disagree with their friends. "It was a remarkable friendship in a lot of ways, because they were such high-profile figures, but I think most of us have friendships like that," he said. "We find ways to love people who don't believe the same things, and I think that ability is really going to be tested over the next few months."
As I hear of more and more people losing friendships over social media posts and political disagreements, I am encouraged and challenged by Scalia and Ginsburg’s friendship. They could vehemently disagree about an application of the law without accusing or suspecting the other of being evil or a bad American. They were able to disagree about the pathway to the “public good” while believing in the person’s good intent. It is too easy today to forget that we are whole beings that are comprised of more than just our political views, our careers, our successes, and failures, or our hobbies. And it is all too easy for us to reduce people to that one area that we disagree with them, ignoring the rest of their humanity and interests that we might share. And thus, we define them, dismiss them, cancel them, or discard them. This type of behavior is not good for our wellbeing, it is not good for our country, and above all, it is not Christlike.
If Scalia and Ginsburg, two politically opposite icons, can have a strong friendship, how much more should we as followers of Jesus, united to Christ and to one another as brothers and sisters, be able to have remarkable friendships that transcend differences? John 13:35 states that the world will know that we are Christians by our love, and what a bright opportunity we have right now to show the world our love demonstrated in our friendships and how we treat each other face to face as well as online.