Victor Chininin Buele

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the other end of this big mess. And you have sat in the seat–you have judged the judge, now an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Since I suspect it will take you no time whatsoever to revert back to saying it’s not cool or acceptable to judge, a few words are important to consider.

Why Do You Care So Much?

When allegations like the ones we have heard take place, and when issues that are at the foundation of the religious soul of America (whether the religion of secularism or any other) are brought up, the soul cries out for the truth.  Not just for “her truth” or “his truth” or “my truth” or “your truth.”  When it truly matters, such as in times like today, we can smell the fake from a mile away, and I’m not talking about President Trump’s fake fake.  Deep inside, we know that there is an objective truth, an absolute truth, and our soul won’t rest until the truth is found.

You and I, common folks, will probably never know what actually happened.  But something did happen.

And it bothers us.

Why Is It That You Want So Badly to Protest?

Augustine is famous for having said that our souls are restless until they find rest in God.  We live in a free nation where it’s entirely acceptable for you to exercise your freedom to proclaim that there is no God, that the God of the Bible is a figment of my imagination, or that you can’t quite figure out whether there is a God or not.  We always got along just fine.  But now, people are no longer just disagreeing with one another.  Now, there is an assumption placed on the other person.  And it’s a most terrifying one: I disagree with you, and you are, quite frankly, the scum of the earth, the worst human to ever have lived.  If you believe the opposite I believe about abortion, well, you just want to kill millions of women… If you don’t agree with the same set of moral imperatives we want you to affirm, well, then you are just hateful and should lose everything you’ve got unless you reform, of course.  We no longer listen to understand.  We just want our turn to shout louder.

We want to protest because as the apostle Paul says, we groan inwardly for redemption.  This whole circus went terribly bad.  It was horrible for Dr. Ford.  It was horrible for Justice Kavanaugh.  It is probably fair to say that many were auditioning for their next seat of power in the future, whether dog catcher, senator, aspiring White House occupant, or whatever.

You are mad. I understand.  And you should stay mad.

Why Do I Want You To Stay Mad?

I want you to stay mad because pretty soon, you’ll return to your old ways.  You’ll go back to your echo chamber.  You’ll get distracted with the noise and the sound of the things you use to silence your conscience.

You are desperately broken.  You are mad quite possibly because you’ve been where Dr. Ford reports to have been.  You are mad quite possibly because the thought of you or one of your daughters being in the place where Dr. Ford reports to have been is quite frankly a major source of fear and despair.  You are mad quite possibly because you’ve been the one who has afflicted this kind of pain upon somebody.  You are mad quite possibly because deep down you know that to a lesser degree you are guilty of at least one of the things that have been thrown out there.

But you may also say you are a righteous person, a good human being, trying your best.  And this just shows you the futility of it all, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” said the old writer of Ecclesiastes giving words to your more modern “WTF?”

We Groan.  The Judge Groaned to Death.

So, we are groaning, regardless of your camp. Whether you are willing to camp outside of the Supreme Court crying out for abortion rights to remain or whether you are quietly contemplating how badly this whole thing went.  Whether you are ashamed that this happened or whether you are secretly sighing in relief.  Whether you think this is the biggest victory for the “conservative pro-life” or the destruction of that.

We are groaning.  How does this get any better?

Our legal system is based on the fundamental principle of the assumption of innocence unless somebody is found guilty.  That is a system of grace, of unmerited grace.  The criminal, the terrorist, the rapist, the man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the serial killer, the scapegoat, the innocent man, they all share this–we cannot call you a criminal, a terrorist, a rapist, etc., unless we have proven that beyond reasonable doubt.  That means that sometimes people get away with something…

And here is where I bring you to the gospel.

You are mad because Kavanaugh got away with something.

You are mad because the Democrats got away with something.

I honestly do not know which way it is.  And I’m not going to tell you which side is more persuasive to me because that’s beside the point I’m trying to make.

You get away with sin every day of your life and still live!

We are singing a song at church tomorrow that goes like this: