The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
at Birmingham’s First Baptist Church for fifteen years beginning in the 1910s, and he told his students that “the Bible penetrated the trackless forests with the pioneers and strengthened the sturdy character of our early settlers” (Newman 2017). Although Black had graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law, after he joined the Supreme Court, he bought numerous classics and engaged in an extensive course of reading and study that he believed to be essential for his new job. William Domnarski observed that “among his hundreds of opinions are dozens of references to figures 61such as Tacitus, Plutarch, Plato, Jefferson, Macaulay, Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Bible” (2006, 115).
Because he was such a strict separationist, Black sometimes received critical letters. In one case he apparently replied to an Alabama woman who condemned him to hell for his opinion on school prayer by observing that if she would consult the Bible, she would find that individuals were admonished to “pray in your own closet [from Matthew 6:6]” (Newman 2017). After Byron White was appointed to the court after the Supreme Court’s decision in 1963 banning devotional Bible reading, White quipped that “I had to borrow this Bible. The only one left in the Supreme Court was Potter Stewart’s” (Newman 2017), Stewart having been the only dissenter in that case.
One might argue that Black transferred much of his early faith in the Bible and in Christianity to the Constitution and the court. In 1968, Black gave a series of three lectures at the Columbia University School of Law, which were subsequently published in a book that Black titled A Constitutional Faith. After expressing gratitude for the opportunities that his public life had brought and the Constitution that had made it possible, he observed, “That Constitution is my legal bible; its plan of our government is my plan and its destiny my destiny. I cherish every word of it, from the first to the last, and I personally deplore even the slightest deviation from its least important commands” (1968, 66).
See also Abington v. Schempp (1963)
For Reference and Further Reading
Black, Hugo LaFayette. 1968. A Constitutional Faith. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Domnarski, William. 2006. The Great Justices, 1941–54: Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson in Chambers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Levinson, Sanford. 1979. “‘The Constitution’ in American Civil Religion.” Supreme Court Review 1979: 123–51.
Newman, Roger. 2017. “When It Was Done Right: Justice Hugo Black, Religion and Alabama.” New American Journal. December 5. https://www.newamericanjournal.net/tag/roger-newman/. Accessed April 22, 2019.
Blasphemy Laws
See Updegraph v. Commonwealth (1824)
Booker, Cory
Cory Booker (b. 1969) is an African American politician. He was educated at Stanford University, the Queens College at Oxford, and at Yale Law School. A former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, he is now a U.S. senator from that state who is vying for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.
Although he identifies as a Baptist, Booker is quite familiar with Jewish theology, having had a number of friends who were Jewish rabbis. In thus responding to President Trump’s comment that Jews who voted for Democrats were disloyal, he responded, “Tzedakah, chesed,” and followed with, “Those are ideas about justice and decency and kindness and mercy. We need to get back to those values” (Medina 2019). At Oxford he joined Shmuley Boteach, an American 62rabbi reaching out to nonpracticing Jews, and became a member of the L’Chaim Society that Boteach founded (Medina 2019). Similarly, at Yale, he cofounded a similar society with a Hasidic rabbi named Shmully Hecht (Rosenberg 2013).
Booker has a stack of religious books on his desk that include “the New Testament, the Tanakh, the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita”; he appears quite comfortable with religious diversity and carries both a Spanish prayer card and an index card with the text of Isaiah 40:31 likening those who wait on God to soaring eagles (Rosenberg 2013). He has been described as “a churchgoing Baptist who teaches Torah like an amateur rabbi. He abstains from alcohol like Muslims and Mormons. He is a vegetarian who meditates and quotes Eastern religious texts” (Rosenberg 2013).
Seemingly much more comfortable with both his own Christian upbringing and religious discourse in general than was Barack Obama, one journalist has described him as a potential “Candidate of the Christian Left” (Kilgore 2018). As a possible heir to the progressive politics of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he had advocated bipartisanship, indicating that “my faith tradition is love your enemies. It’s not complicated for me, if I aspire to be who I say I am. I am a Christian American. Literally written in the ideals of my faith is to love those who hate you” (Kilgore 2018).
See also Baptists; Judaism; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Obama, Barack
For Reference and Further Reading
Kilgore, Ed. 2018. “Is Cory Booker the Candidate of the Christian Left?” Intelligencer. December 17. http ://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/is-cory-booker-the-candidate-of-the-christian-left.html.
Medina, Jennifer. 2019. “The Yom Kippur Prayer on Cory Booker’s Lips.” New York Times. October 8. https://www.onenewspage.com/n/US/1zkk83f4ch/The-Yom-Kippur-Prayer-on-Cory-Booker.htm.
Rosenberg, Yair. 2013. “New Jersey Senate Candidate Cory Booker Knows His Torah, So What?” The Tablet. https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/140767/cory-bookers-jewish-story.
Borowicz, Stephanie
On March 25, 2019, Pennsylvania state Republican representative Stephanie Borowicz delivered the opening prayer at a session of the state legislature that also marked the first time that a Muslim representative, Movita Johnson-Harrell, who had brought fifty-five guests with her (most of whom were Muslim), was being sworn into office with her hand on the Koran.
Borowicz’s prayer, which lasted about 100 seconds, was noted for citing Jesus at least thirteen times (Dicker 2019). It is also notable for including a number of Christian Scriptures in what some considered to be a weaponized way.
Borowicz began by saying, “I, Jesus, am your ambassador here today, standing here representing you, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.” She likely took the term “ambassador” from 2 Corinthians 5:20, which refers to being “ambassadors for Christ” and the designation of God from 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, and Revelation 19:16, which also refer specifically to Jesus. After saying that America’s founding fathers had attempted to base the nation on “your principles 63and your words, and your truths” (quoted in Barillas 2019), she continued, “God forgive us—Jesus—we’ve lost sight of you, we’ve forgotten you, God, in our country, and we’re asking you to forgive us” (Thebault 2019).