Francis Schaeffer rightly quipped that the problem with evangelicals is that they see (and think) in parts and not totals. This is increasingly true when considering public justice and the law profession culture: hyper-specialization, legal positivism, legal realism, critical legal studies et al all contribute to this as they detach law from transcendent truths, authority, and the permanent things, and thus over time tend to undermine human flourishing.
One path for remediating this trend requires linking – not jettisoning – transcendent truths to the enterprise of ethics, including law. Law and theology correlate; in fact, they need one another to be robustly effective.1 This means intentionally invoking Christ’s Lordship, applying it to all human experience and endeavors, including law and public justice. Only in this way can humans begin to see, think, and live in “totals.”
The Center promotes scholarship, training, and engagement (dialogue, debate, symposia) which integrates theology and jurisprudence thereby grounding, orienting, and illuminating legal initiatives, advocacy, and policy in foundational theological predicates justifying “the why” of certain legal doctrines, or why certain extant doctrines fall short and should be revisited, modified, or abandoned.2
A Test Case for Public Legal Theology: Free Speech
Consider “free speech,” a crucial component to Classical Liberalism,3 which informed the Founders’ thinking. In the US context, many invoke the 1st amendment as a protector4 of free expression. Question: did this freedom exist prior to 1791, that is, prior to the amendment’s ratification? Did it exist prior to the Enlightenment? Yes, but why? Is there a theological justification for free speech? Does the Christian worldview inform, or better, require protecting free speech for humanity’s purposes and flourishing?
Free Speech Before the Fall
Before the Fall, God directed Adam and Eve with a particular task derived from their being the Imago Dei: exercise dominion over the entire created order.5 Now, this task at the outset no doubt seemed daunting; it would require development, expansion, and other persons, as well as an inchoate division of labor. It would also require acquiring and processing raw materials that existed outside the Garden.6 This task therefore presupposed coordination, collaboration, and therefore communication.
Unfettered speech ordered to virtuous human flourishing undergirded and would facilitate the mission God conferred upon Adam and Eve. And, this same cultural mandate remains mankind’s mission after the Fall7 and accordingly, protecting free speech remains a crucial component of ordered liberty – all because of a theological rationale.
Free Speech After the Fall
Moreover, after the Fall, Jesus commanded that His followers execute another mandate, known as the Great Commission: discipling the nations.8 Plainly, this mandate likewise required and continues to require robust protection for publicly proclaiming the Gospel – free speech. Both the cultural mandate and the Great Commission require rejecting a privatized religion as well as spiritual dualism. Both mandates must be pursued temporally and publicly – prior to eternity. And, those tasks require free speech, which Classical Liberalism, the political philosophy largely embraced by the Founders and the Framers, is zealous to protect.
Key principles guiding the Center’s work:
- Competence: One cannot “do good,” unless one does particular things well. Piety is never a substitute for technique. Accordingly, the Center is not so much a “think tank” as a “do tank” and therefore, its work must be integrated and correlated with the practical skills being imparted via the other parts of Trinity Law School.
- Constitutionalism: The rule of law must be honored, affirmed, and protected. A troubling trend is arising in some “conservative” Christian circles contending that Christians must use extra-constitutional means to achieve certain ends (“get power to reward friends and punish enemies”) – such reasoning contravenes the essence of the Center’s mission, that is, to integrate theology and law for human flourishing. As Hamilton noted in Federalist No. 1, governance occurs either by reflection and choice (that is, reason), or by accident and force. The former, under the rule of law, is superior.
- Civility: The manner of the Gospel is just as ethically required as is the message and method of it. Scripture’s “adverbs of grace” are not optional. Christians in the public square do not exist to “own the libs”. The Center teaches that truth exists, can be known, applies to public ordering, AND that people of good will can agreeably disagree, as there is a difference between being wrong and being rotten.