The other morning, I received a message in my inbox from one of my favorite church consultants, whom we had worked with many times during my ministry. The title of his missive was something like, “The Church of the Future Will be Nothing Like the Church of the Past.” American evangelicals have a seemingly endless appetite for discovering the ancient faith by doing something new, and this particular communication was designed to tap into this desire we have for something new that will improve (or “return to the early church”) the modern church.

In the past, I wouldn’t have paused to question whether this was true. This time, I did. At the urging of one of our children, we have occasionally attended an Orthodox congregation. In this case, their form of worship is several centuries old, dating back to around 1400. At the same time, we live very close to an Anglican congregation, whose form of worship is highly liturgical and only slightly updated from the Anglican worship of the Reformation. Both churches are growing and prosperous. One is in one of the least Christian communities in Texas, and our neighborhood is one of the most progressive in San Antonio. What is going on here?

When I first attended my daughter’s church, I was struck by how young and diverse it was. There were people from all over the world in attendance, many of whom worked in the high-tech industry. The average age was younger than that of my former church, which was young for a Presbyterian congregation. As I read and visited with the priest in the Orthodox congregation (a former main-line evangelical), I was interested to hear him say that one of the things he came to realize was that the worship of the early church was considerably more like the worship in an average Orthodox church than that of the average American Bible Church. As I researched the history of worship, I concluded that he was more right than wrong.[1]

I am pretty typical of a Protestant in many ways, so when I first started attending an Orthodox Church, I found the liturgy confusing. Later, when my wife and I visited several Episcopal and Anglican congregations, we noticed that their liturgies were often eerily similar to the Orthodox worship. Sometimes, the wording was even the same. When I was asked to preach for a traditional Lutheran congregation in an emergency, I noticed the same thing. Over time, I realized that Protestants might have a lot to learn from those congregations that practice more liturgical worship. It could be that the church of the future will also resemble the church of the past.

Balancing Word and Sacrament

Most of the churches that I served had communion either quarterly or once a month. Even before I retired, I was aware that this was an anomaly. Until the Reformation, there is no known period in church history during which communion was not a weekly practice. Several years ago, my wife and I became involved in a renewal ministry where communion played a central role. Over the next several years, I began to appreciate the Catholic view of the Eucharist, as well as the importance of receiving communion weekly. In retirement, I almost always attend an evening service at a local Episcopal Church if I have not been in a communion service on that day. It may seem like a small thing, but communion is a physical action involving a physical body. We take communion. It’s a constant reminder that Christian faith is not merely a mental thing. Faith involves the whole person.

At the same time, I began to appreciate the practice of weekly communion, I also began to notice how truncated many Protestant services have become. Often, sermons can be 30 minutes or longer. If the service is timed in an hour or an hour and 15 minutes, this is a substantial amount of the entire service. To make this work, numerous traditional elements of worship must be eliminated. One enormous difference between the ancient liturgies and much contemporary worship is a minute of prayer involved and (most surprisingly for evangelicals, the many readings from scripture and prayers based on scripture.

I’ve also noticed that “Bible preachers”, of which I was one, often speak too long. My wife is known to comment about one particular preacher that “He usually says everything he has to say in 15 minutes and then repeats it for another 15 minutes.” Unfortunately, the same thing might’ve been said of me upon occasion. The preaching of the word is important, but practically speaking, the average layperson gets the most out of a good sermon. That’s about 15 minutes long. This leaves plenty of time for liturgical elements.

Prayer

One characteristic of the Orthodox liturgy is that the entire service is punctuated by prayer. In some cases, one may pray for the very same things on more than one occasion during a given service. Once again, to the reductionistic Protestant mindset, this may seem excessive until one understands that the central element of their worship is prayer. In almost every case, the congregation repeats a refrain and joins in the prayer being spoken by a priest or the deacon in charge.

This leads me to another observation about liturgical worship. Often, Protestants pride ourselves on the fact that our worship is “participatory.” Actually, our worship is less participatory because much of the praying is done from the front by a church leader, and there is little to no participation from the people in those prayers. Liturgical churches avoid this by using refrains in their worship. Since a number of these refrains are sung, the rhythm of the prayer is powerfully reinforced.

Music

There is probably no aspect of Orthodox worship that differs more from Protestant worship than the role of music. Usually, a small choir leads the congregation in certain parts of the service, especially during the refrains in prayers. Although I miss traditional Protestant hymns and praise music, I have come to understand that a somewhat different perspective guides them. The goal of the music, like the prayers, is to draw the worshiper into the harmony with God’s being—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The aim of worship is not to evoke an emotional response, but to draw the congregation into God’s presence and very being.

In one of my favorite Orthodox congregations, I’ve noticed that after the worship service, when they eat together (another characteristic of the early church), some of the younger members take out their guitars and begin singing praise songs that I recognize immediately. It’s not that the church rejects contemporary music; it’s that the role of contemporary music is not in worship. The same might be said of highly orchestrated organ music or similar arrangements. It’s not a central part of the worship because it’s not aligned with what the worship is trying to do. The worship attempts to bring the worshiper into relationship (not contact) with the being of God.

What This Has to Do with Evangelism

One of my daughter’s favorite stories involves a church member who was unconnected to God or the church in any way. One morning, he got up and thought to himself, “I’m going to church this morning”. Right at the beginning, it is worth noting that Grace is proceeding with any activity of this young man. He got up, having not been to church in forever, and began thinking, “I’m going to church this morning.”

He then had to decide which church he would attend. He remembered having been in a Greek Orthodox church, admiring the artwork. He decided to visit an Orthodox church. He happened to end up at my daughter’s church. Just like me, he walked into the room. The liturgy began, and he was a bit lost. It’s also unfamiliar. It certainly isn’t anything like what you might see flipping through channels on television. By the time the worship service ended, he was in tears.

He began to attend the church. Eventually, he decided to become a Christian. He spoke to the priest. Now, he’s a member of the church. As someone who’s been involved in the leadership of churches for nearly half a century, I can tell you that there’s almost nothing about an orthodox service that one might call evangelical. There wasn’t an altar call. There wasn’t a free cup for visitors. (There was an invitation to stay for lunch.) I’m not sure, but I would bet money that there was never a call from the evangelism committee. (At least, they’ve never called me.) But God, in his sovereignty, reached down into the heart of the young man.

The Limits of Technique

I recall taking a course in seminary where we studied the evangelism techniques of the great 19th-century evangelist, Charles Finney, a Presbyterian, of all things! Finney believed that revivals and conversions could result from the use of specific techniques in worship. He advertised. He gave long emotional sermons in the vernacular of the day. He encouraged the active role of women and laypeople. Many 20th-century American evangelists have used updated versions of his techniques.

The key word here is “techniques.” Benjamin Warfield once famously observed that “God might be eliminated from it [Finney’s theology] entirely without essentially changing its character.” I am not sure that the criticism is entirely justified. Still, Warfield is making a point that all Christians should ponder: Are we so committed to the techniques of evangelism that our congregations might explode in size that we are forgetting the role that God plays in our efforts?

Crisis of Discipleship

A few years ago, I published a book titled “Crisis of Discipleship.” I wrote the book out of a concern for the direction. The American Christian Church was heading in all denominations. It’s very obvious that the techniques and assumptions that we have been living under for the past several hundred years no longer work. For some, this is an invitation for continuous change. I would suggest the possibility that another tactic needs to be adopted as well: We need to make a return to the tradition of the church before the Reformation, before the split between the east and the west, back to the earliest Christian churches. Our Journey back to “the early church may need to include a journey to the church of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Rome as well as into our current image of the early church. I think it is a journey worth taking.

The next blog will talk about community.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Stephen De Young, The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodoxy in the First Century (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2021).

For the past few weeks, the news has been filled with stories about Texas, California, and other states, focusing on the various redistricting strategies that majorities use to strengthen their control over states. The technical term for this is “Gerrymandering.” The word, written initially as “Gerry-mander,” was first used on March 26, 1812, in the Boston Gazette — as a reaction to the redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under Gov. Elbridge Gerry. The Democratic-Republican Party handled the redistricting, and Gerry was the one who signed the bill in 1812. As a result, he earned the dubious honor of being associated with it, along with its negative connotations. In some ways, it is unfortunate that Gerry has received opprobrium for this tactic, as he was a prominent signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the Continental Congress, and participated in the Constitutional Convention with distinction. He had a distinguished career, particularly in his championing of the Bill of Rights during the first Session of Congress after the ratification of the Constitution.

Political Gerrymandering

In recent weeks, this topic has been circulating on social media. At first, Texas proposed a redistricting map that would likely increase Republican congressional seats. Then, California Governor Gavin Newsom entered the discussion, threatening further redistricting in California. Other governors and political figures also chimed in. When someone posted on X particularly damning examples of gerrymandering, I suggested they were unconstitutional. But I was wrong (at least partly). Since I suggested last week that the 14^th Amendment applies, I decided to research why the answer to this is “Not generally.”

Advances in detailed and comprehensive voter databases, along with the increasing sophistication of mapping software, have resulted in more skewed redistricting maps. This practice is known as political gerrymandering—that is, gerrymandering done solely for political gain. Since it appears that both the threat from the California governor and possibly the entire Texas redistricting process involved this very issue, I decided to learn more about it, especially in light of my recent blogs discussing a “Balanced Personalist” view of Constitutional interpretation.

History of Gerrymandering and the Constitution

Partisan political gerrymandering—the drawing of legislative district lines to weaken the supporters of one party and entrench a rival party in power—is an issue that has long troubled the federal courts. Before the 1960s, the Supreme Court held that challenges to redistricting plans involved political questions that were not suitable for judicial resolution and should be addressed by the political branches of government.

Then, in 1962, the Court held in the landmark case of Baker v. Carr that a constitutional challenge to a redistricting plan could be justiciable. [1] Baker v. Carr involved a situation in which demographic changes had been ignored in redistricting decisions, penalizing urban areas. In subsequent years, although the Court invalidated redistricting maps on grounds of equal protection—cases involving population disparities among districts or racial gerrymandering—it did not strike down maps based on partisan gerrymandering.

In Davis v. Bandemer, the Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering in state legislative redistricting could be justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. [2] Although the vote was 6-3 in favor of justiciability, a majority could not agree on a proper standard for determining when partisan gerrymandering becomes unconstitutional. Following Bandemer, the Court acknowledged that claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering could be reviewable but did not establish a clear standard for adjudicating such claims. Similarly, after Bandemer, the Court was unable to reach a consensus on the proper test for several years.

“Justiciability” refers to the types of matters that courts are equipped to handle. If a case is “non-justiciable,” the court should not hear the case because it lies beyond the power of the judiciary to handle. Justiciability rulings typically arise when a court either (i) lacks the power to hear the case under the Constitution or (ii) when it is imprudent to exercise judicial power. In particular, Federal courts should not hear cases dealing with issues that the Constitution assigns to another branch of government. This is important for redistricting because Section 4 of Article One grants states the power to regulate the congressional election process and Congress the right to alter those regulations or make its own, as follows:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. [3]

In other words, on the face of it, it is within the power of the states and Congress to deal with issues such as redistricting. This Constitutional provision sits at the core of the courts’ general unwillingness to address redistricting issues. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which the courts will address redistricting, as in cases where the 14th Amendment has prohibited racial bias.

In Vieth v. Jubelirer, a plurality would have overturned Bandemer, returning to the view that political gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable. [4] Justice Kennedy, concurring and casting the deciding vote, agreed that challengers had not yet articulated neutral or comprehensive principles for drawing electoral boundaries but expressed hope that future cases might establish a limited and precise rationale for such claims. Such a neutral rationale for judicial intervention was never found.

Finally, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Court ruled that it was unable to identify any judicially manageable standards to decide claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering, effectively overruling Bandemer. [5] The Court stated that federal courts are not equipped to allocate political power fairly and that fairness in this area is a concern. As a result, claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering are considered “nonjusticiable political questions” and cannot be reviewed by federal courts. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged that excessive partisan gerrymandering is unjust, emphasizing that the ruling did not endorse it but reminding that the Framers gave Congress the authority to address partisan gerrymandering under the Elections Clause.

Rucho v. Common Cause

As mentioned above, in Rucho et al. v. Common Cause et al. (Rucho), the Court held that Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts because they lack the kind of justiciability required for the courts to handle them. In particular, Chief Justice Roberts relies upon Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution, noting that the framers of the Constitution were consciously aware of the issues raised by gerrymandering but decided to leave such matters to Congress and the state legislatures. [6] Thus, Roberts ruled that:

The conclusion that partisan gerrymandering claims are not justiciable neither condones excessive partisan gerrymandering nor condemns complaints about districting to echo into a void. Numerous States are actively addressing the issue through state constitutional amendments and legislation placing power to draw electoral districts in the hands of independent commissions, mandating particular districting criteria for their mapmakers, or prohibiting drawing district lines for partisan advantage. The Framers also gave Congress the power to address partisan gerrymandering in the Elections Clause. That avenue for reform established by the Framers, and used by Congress in the past, remains open.[7]

Thus, for the majority in Rucho, it was enough that the framers initially assigned responsibility for this area to the states and later to Congress. There is a strong rationality behind this view that is hard to argue against. The question, of course, is, “Did the 14^th Amendment change things?” It certainly did change things when race is used as a criterion for decision-making. In Shaw v. Reno, the court held that racial gerrymandering violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment. [8]

Conclusion

This is one of those cases when an instinct for fairness does not answer the Constitutional issue. The Courts have understood the issue of fairness and disapprove of partisan gerrymandering. In dissent in Rucho, Justice Kagan asks the simple question, “Is partisan gerrymandering how American democracy was supposed to work?” The answer is, of course, “No.” [9] Kagan also notes that modern “big data” and associated technology have allowed legislatures to turn gerrymandering into an art. [10] As Kagan puts it:

Mapmakers now have access to more granular data about party preference and voting behavior than ever before. County-level voting data has given way to precinct-level or city-block-level data, and increasingly, mapmakers avail themselves of data sets providing wide-ranging information about even individual voters.[11]

There is no simple answer to her critique. The only viable response is that, although what she says is true, the Constitution assigns the issue to Congress and state legislatures, not to the federal courts. This allows me to share something I have long wanted to express in these blogs: We often view natural law and justice as concepts limited to the duties of courts and judges. Nothing could be further from the truth. The legislative and administrative branches of government share the moral duty to pursue justice as well as what’s in the best interests of themselves, their supporters, and their constituents. The assignment of this matter to Congress and legislatures was not an invitation to injustice in our voting system to gain a partisan advantage.

One place to start might be with a comment made by Justice Kennedy in Veith and quoted by Kagan in her dissent in Rucho:

If districters declared that they were drawing a map “so as most to burden [the votes of] Party X’s” supporters, it would violate the Equal Protection Clause.” [12]

It so happens that, in recent public debates, certain state governors and politicians have made similar statements.

It is clear that if the primary purpose and intent of the legislature were solely to disenfranchise a minority party, such actions should be condemned. This indicates that the politicians were not aiming to serve the public but instead to disenfranchise supporters of another, minority party. Such conduct breaches their duty to act in the public interest rather than for personal gain or partisan advantage. To ensure compliance with Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution, the court’s remedy should be to send the case back to the state legislature for further work on the matter.

In a way, political gerrymandering highlights the issue of a “person-centered” approach to constitutional interpretation. People are not the only factor to consider. As Roberts points out in his opinion in Rucho, the matter was assigned to the state legislatures and Congress by the Constitution, so the courts have a limited role. As Kagan states in her dissent in Rucho, the courts should step in only in the worst and most blatant cases of abuse to protect the rights of minorities to a meaningful vote—but that does not mean they should not step in where partisan gerrymandering has occurred in an especially damaging way.

A person-centered theory of Constitutional Interpretation cannot ignore this issue. Neither can a theory that emphasizes the “Will of the People.” As Kagan points out, excessive gerrymandering not only harms individuals who belong to a minority party but also undermines the social fabric that holds our society together.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Baker v. Carr  369 US 186 (1962)

[2] Davis v. Bandemer 478 U.S. 109 (1986)

[3] US Constitution Article 1: Section 4.

[4] Vieth v. Jubelirer 541 U.S. 267 (2004). In 2006, in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, the Court again failed to adopt a standard but did not overrule Bandemer, instead deciding such claims were nonjusticiable.

[5] Rucho v. Common Cause 588 U.S. ___ (2019).

[6] Rucho, 2.

[7] Id, 5.

[8] Shaw v. Reno (509 U.S. 630 (1993).

[9] Rucho, 7

[10] Id, 9.

[11] Id.

[12] Veith at 312, Rucho at 12.

Hopefully, before Christmas, I will publish the final book in a series I have been writing. Leviathan & the Lambs will be the third book in a series of three novels that recount the story of Arthur and Gwynn Stone. Each of these novels has a financial crime, a murder or series of murders, and a spiritual struggle. For those who have not read the first two novels, Marshland and Peace at Battle Mountain, it may be helpful to briefly describe Arthur Stone’s life and career.

In Marshland, Arthur Stone appears as a young attorney in Houston, Texas, employed by a large law firm. He is involved in a transaction in the mid-1980s during the Texas savings and loan crisis. Arthur is at a crucial point in his personal life and legal career. He is in a romantic relationship with one of his colleagues, Gwynn Murray, another brilliant up-and-coming young attorney. Arthur may or may not be made a partner in his law firm, Winchester & Wells. The transaction involved is for an important but difficult client, Jackson Winchester. This novel describes the coming of age of Arthur Stone. The spiritual theme of this book is the reality of the spiritual world and our human response. We sometimes call this “faith.”

The second novel, Peace at Battle Mountain, finds Arthur Stone as a highly successful Texas trial lawyer involved in a large, complex litigation. This particular novel takes place during the time of the collapse of Enron. Arthur is now a middle-aged lawyer. His relationship with Gwynn is troubled and tragic. His children are difficult, especially his eldest son, who is now a challenging adolescent. In this novel, Arthur struggles with the breakdown of his marriage and the difficulties of his professional life. The spiritual theme of this book is the relationship between love and forgiveness and the problems humans face in forming and maintaining deep, caring relationships. Love is the theme of the book.

Leviathan & the Lambs finds Arthur in a new position with new challenges. It is nearly a decade into the 21st century. Arthur Stone is now the Attorney General of Texas. The nation is experiencing the Great Recession, which began in 2007. Despite his success, Arthur’s accomplishments have not brought him the happiness he hoped for. He feels hopeless, abandoned, and burned out. In this novel he is called upon to face new challenges— the most perplexing of his life and career.  The spiritual theme of this book is hope and the limits on the earthly accomplishment of our hopes and dreams. All humans strive for happiness and fulfillment, but even if we are successful, we all face limitations and unfulfilled dreams.

In this final novel in Leviathan & the Lambs, the characters face a global financial crisis with implications greater than those involved in the first two novels. Interestingly, this economic crisis originated in the mortgage industry, the same industry that led to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Thirty years have passed since the series began. Nevertheless, the human problems are the same. Human greed is the same. The danger that greed may lead to criminal behavior is the same. The results of foolish and criminal behavior are the same.

For conciseness, the author refers to these novels as “the Arthur Stone series.” However, the series could easily be referred to as the “Gwynn Stone series,” as she plays a vital role in each novel. Though their relationship is sometimes troubled, Gwynn is Arthur’s true counselor and life-companion. The series might also be called the “John Mirador series” because Mirador appears in all three books, though under different names. Mirador is a strong, straightforward, and prudent person who represents the best in all of us. Additionally, this series could be named the “EJ Mueller series,” since EJ Mueller features in the first and last novels and is significant to the overall message. There is just a little bit of EJ Mueller in all of us, or at least there is in the author!

Perhaps most appropriately, the series could be called the “Ahn Winchester series.” Ahn appears in all three books and plays an essential role in each of them. The author often tells friends she is his favorite character, which is true. Ahn plays a special role in all the books, and a vital role in the final book.

Arthur Stone is the hero of these novels, but any hero depends upon many characters essential to the hero’s life and success. This is true in both life and literature. Arthur’s success depends upon the sacrifice, wisdom, and concern of those surrounding him. He is an important actor on the stage, but not the only one. Without Gwynn and Ahn, Arthur would often stumble or fail. He is a decent, but not flawless, person. He is smart and capable, but he makees mistakes and is often unsure of himself. In this respect, the Arthur Stone may be truer to life than the hero of many novels.

The given author of the three novels is Alystair West, a pen name. You can learn more about Alystair West and the meaning of the name on my website. Since I have written both philosophical and religious works under my own name, I felt it was a good idea to write these books under a pseudonym. It helps to separate the two vocations.

Finally, these three novels have common purposes: First, these novels hope to open up secular people to the potential for spiritual and moral realities. Our culture suffers the onsequences of the loss of belief in spiritual and moral realities.

Second, the novels examine some of the common moral features that accompany financial crises and fraud. I have lived long enough to experience several financial crises caused in no small part by human greed and misguided national financial policies.

Third, the novels tell a perennial story that applies to the human condition in every age. As readers of the first two novels already know, the story of Arthur Stone is one of those mythic stories told in many cultures with many different charactures and social backgrounds. When people ask me who were the real people behind the story, I respond that the characters, if they lived at all, lived a thousand years ago. I have only brought them back to life to tell a story about our own day and time.

For the author’s part, he thanks all of the actors on the stage of his life and hopes all readers enjoy the stories.

Copyright G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

Randy Barnett is not just an academic publishing so he won’t perish. He is making a case for what he calls “a Republican Constitution” and a judiciary committed to protecting the rights of every American, including those whose views are out of favor with the majority at any given moment. In his analysis, the fight for what I will call “a person-focused theory of constitutional interpretation” has three phases: from the Founding until the Civil War, from Reconstruction to the New Deal and Great Society, and finally from the Rehnquist Court (1986) until today. In this view, the years since 1986 have marked an “on again/off again” journey towards recovery of a more person-centered or what he would call a Republican Constitution.[1]

From Enumerated Powers to a New Federalism

These constitutional eras are conveniently understood as:

• “Enumerated Powers Federalism,” where the states remained the final sovereign power and the Federal government was limited to those expressly found in the Constitution (1789 to 1865);
• “Fundamental Rights Federalism (1865 to about 1976,” where the states were limited in their sovereignty by the fundamental rights guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments and the gradual expansion of federal power over the nation’s economy; and
• “State Sovereignty Federalism” (1976 to the present), what I call “Balanced Federalism,” in which the Court tries to preserve the role of state governments without rolling back the substantial expansion of Federal power since the Civil War Balanced Federalism has tended to slightly roll back some of the most controversial progressive constitutional innovations of the 20th century. [2]

Balanced Federalism provides greater autonomy to the states from congressional oversight by using a textually faithful safeguard, aiming to combine Enumerated Powers Federalism with Fundamental Rights Federalism to create a more balanced federal system. The goal is to maximize state sovereignty and restrict the federal government to its enumerated powers, except when states violate the 14^th Amendment or other constitutional provisions.[3]

Separation of Powers

A critical aspect of Balanced Federalism is the doctrine of Separation of Powers. Those not familiar with constitutional history often decrie the fact that there are significant Constitutional restraints on what a president, Congress, and the courts can do. This was not accidental. The founders understood that it was dangerous to concentrate power in any one branch of government and that it was profitable to create checks and balances on the actions of any department. The doctrine of separation of powers is a mechanism by which the Constitution prevents one branch of government from abusing its power without constraint.

The object of both the Separation of Powers and the situations in which the Constitution requires approval of one branch for the actions of another (such as Congressional approval of presidential nominees) is precisely to limit the powers of one branch by allowing other branches to be involved in certain decisions. For example, the President appoints but Congress approves nominees to federal judgeships, which acts as a constraint on both the President and Congress, as well as the Courts.

When one party controls both the Congress and the Presidency for a substantial period, the prevailing ethos allows a particular group to wield substantial power, as happened during the long Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. More troubling, however, has been the growth of what is called the “Administrative State.” [4] During the period from the New Deal until recently, Congress often passed legislation that was pretty vague on complex matters, such as the environment, leaving various agencies free to create substantial bodies of law with minimal checks and balances. Even more worrisome is the fact that these agencies promulgate regulations, enforce those regulations, and often adjudicate claims under such regulations —a patent violation of the principle of separation of powers. There was simply no check on bureaucratic power.

In Dep’t of Transp. v. Ass’n of Am. Railroads, Justice Thomas put the problem well:

At the center of the Framers’ dedication to the separation of powers was individual liberty. The Federalist No. 47, at 302 (J. Madison) (quoting Baron de Montesquieu for the proposition that “‘[t]here can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates’ ”). This was not liberty in the sense of freedom from all constraint, but liberty as described by Locke: “to have a standing rule to live by . . . made by the legislative power,” and to be free from “the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.” Locke §22, at 13. At the heart of this liberty were the Lockean private rights: life, liberty, and property. If a person could be deprived of these private rights on the basis of a rule (or a will) not enacted by the legislature, then he was not truly free.[5]

Thomas went on to conclude:

We have too long abrogated our duty to enforce the separation of powers required by our Constitution. We have overseen and sanctioned the growth of an administrative system that concentrates the power to make laws and the power to enforce them in the hands of a vast and unaccountable administrative apparatus that finds no comfortable home in our constitutional structure. The end result may be trains that run on time (although I doubt it), but the cost is to our Constitution and the individual liberty it protects.[6]

In various ways, from the late 19^th century to the early 21^st century, the courts, in the name of judicial restraint, actually allowed the creation of a nearly unrestrained federal bureaucracy. Justice Thomas believes that it is necessary to rebalance the power structure impacting bureaucracies to avoid an unhealthy concentration of power.[7]

Avoiding Arbitrary and Irrational Laws

In addition to supporting the separation of powers, Barnett emphasizes that the court must define the limits of the powers granted to bureaucracies by the Constitution. One reason a federal judiciary was deemed necessary was the concern that the legislative or administrative branches might favor their interests and exceed their constitutional authority. Specifically, when the courts adopt a policy of upholding a piece of legislation or legislative rule if a reasonable person could believe it is the right course of action, they have essentially abandoned their constitutional duty to protect the people from the other two branches of government. Congress must enact laws and cannot pass this responsibility along to unelected bureaucracies.

Additionally, the judiciary must be cautious not to act as a kind of super-legislature. Since the adoption of the 13th and 14th Amendments, the Court has been tempted to create rights or impose limitations on rights not explicitly found in the Constitution, often through what might be called a substantive due process approach. Before the period around the New Deal and extending through the end of the Progressive Era, courts were enticed to find substantive unenumerated rights in the Constitution.

As Barnett points out, this was not the approach the courts took even after the 13th or 14th Amendments were ratified. Instead, these amendments protected the right of individuals not to be deprived of their rights without due process—such as a trial before imprisonment—and to be treated equally in similar situations. For due process to be correctly applied to individuals, there must be an impartial judiciary (not a politicized one) making an unbiased judgment on whether a specific statute or administrative act exceeds or stays within the powers of the government. This is a duty that courts cannot pass on to anyone else. When faced with such questions, courts must perform a two-step analysis.

1. Was the legislature or administrative agency acting within the enumerated powers given to it under the Constitution? This implies that the courts must be willing to look at the restrictions on federal power contained in the Constitution and determine whether the federal agency acted within its powers.
2. Was the restriction necessary and proper to the accomplishment of the responsibility given by the constitution? In other words, there must be a judgment of whether or not the action was excessive.[8]

In Barnett’s view, in several areas, the courts have been willing to let Congress legislate or administrative agencies legislate, enforce, and adjudicate matters that are not necessarily appropriate for the federal government. For example, it’s highly unlikely that either the founders or the drafters of the 13^th and 14^th amendments considered that they were giving the federal government the right to prevent private individuals from growing crops for private consumption on their own private property.[9]

Recovering a Person-Centered Constitution.

During the Progressive Era, legislation was often upheld if any hypothetical person could find a rational reason why it was appropriate. Such a stance deprives individuals of the ability to complain about how that legislation or administrative action affects them personally. At the core of restoring a Republican Constitution—what I call a Person-Centered Constitution—is a judiciary that safeguards individuals from excessive restrictions on their personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. This can only happen if the judiciary is willing to act when, in response to popular demand or the interests of various vested groups, Congress or administrative agencies impose improper limits on that freedom.[10]

To secure the future of our form of government, Barnett believes that several steps need to be taken. Among them or the following:

• A concentrated effort to educate citizens concerning our constitutional heritage;
• Selecting judges who can and will place the interest of individual citizens above the “collective will” as determined by Congress or administrative agencies.
• Enacting constitutional amendments that limit the federal income tax, establish term limits for members of Congress, and create some kind of repeal process for federal legislation vested in the states.

Besides those Barnett suggests, I believe there are two others that are of significant importance:

• A constitutional amendment to bar the federal government from issuing unfunded mandates.
• A constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to balance its budget, except during times of war or declared national emergency, without needing a two-thirds approval from Congress.
• A constitutional amendment prohibiting Congress members, Senators, and their families and associates from trading stocks based on inside information or profiting from federal contracts, directly or indirectly.

Much of the distortion of our federal system could be reduced if the federal government did not have an unlimited amount of money to waste on questionable projects and lacked the authority to use funding to influence state governments. Congress would also benefit from a balanced budget amendment because it would help focus attention on fair and appropriate taxation levels and whether funding requested by private interests or federal agencies is genuinely necessary.

Recent disclosures reveal that federal agencies are essentially recycling federal dollars to private organizations, which then flow back into the pockets of political parties. In some cases, politicians personally profited by these schemes.  This should be made a crime.

Conclusion

I recommend that my blog readers buy Our Republican Constitution and read it themselves. Although I have spent five weeks on this project, I had to skip over many very interesting and important parts of the book. I am not a constitutional scholar in my ability to render for my readers the depth of his argument is limited.

I’ve mentioned before that this is part of a longer-term project I’m working on to understand. Still, I already believe some fundamental issues are distorting our political system in ways that harm our way of life and could impoverish our children. Additionally, longtime readers of my blog know that, although this emphasizes the importance of persons, my general philosophical legal theory does not discount the power of communities to shape the lives of their members. Barnett essentially works within a post-Enlightenment, modern way of thinking about politics and constitutional law. I wonder if there needs to be a recognition that constitutional law should acknowledge both the will of the people and the rights of individuals within a new framework for addressing the problems involved. That is the question I am trying to answer.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] Unfortunately, in our current politically charged environment, readers often understand the terms “Republican Constitution” and “Democratic Constitution” with reference to the current political parties by those names and react to the argument based upon their preferences. In order to avoid this, I am using the terms “Person Centered Constitution,” “Collective Will Constitution,” and “Balanced Constitution” to refer to certain options.

[2] Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (New York, NY: Broadside Books (Harper Collins, 2016), 189-198.

[3] Id, at 199-200.

[4] In 1900, the federal workforce was relatively small, primarily focused on traditional government functions. Today, federal employment is about 3,000,000 people. In 1900, that number was minuscule.

[5] Dep’t of Transp. v. Ass’n of Am. Railroads 575 U.S. __ (2015), at 10 (slip opinion).

[6] Id, at 27

[7] As mentioned last week, there is reason to believe that the Court sees this problem and is attempting to correct it. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo v National Resources Defense Council No. 22–451, 603 U.S. __ (2024), the Court overruled their 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council 467 U.S. 837 (1984), which gave rise to the doctrine known as the “Chevron Doctrine.” Under that doctrine, if Congress has not directly addressed the question at the center of a dispute, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was found to be reasonable on some ground.

[8] Id, at 231.

[9] Wickard v. Filburn 317 U.S. 111 (1942). This case involved the expansion of the Commerce Clause to growing wheat by a farmer for his private use. In recent years, the Court has backed away from this overly expansive stance. United States v Lopez 514US 549 (1995).

[10] Id, at 245.

The United States Constitution was created during a pivotal moment in history. It reflects the ideas of the Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, which followed the Renaissance and was influenced by discoveries from Isaac Newton and the emergence of modern Natural Science. During this era, Western Europe made significant advances in science, philosophy, government, and law. Concerning legal philosophy, the founders were most influenced by John Locke and British Empiricism, as well as pre-French Revolution rationalism. Had the Constitution been written earlier, Americans might have had a king. If it had been created later, our revolution could have turned out more like the violent French Revolution and subsequent uprisings in Russia and elsewhere. Instead, the founders designed a unique form of government unlike any other before or since.

Perhaps sadly, Europeans often viewed American culture as somewhat backward, and European intellectual trends have had a significant influence on American intellectuals. This pattern can be observed during the Post-Civil War era of the Industrial Revolution and also in the fascination that American intellectuals have displayed toward the “isms” of the modern age, from Marxism to Maoism, from existentialism to postmodernism. This week, I cover the so-called Progressive Movement and the period between 1900 and the later part of the 20^th Century. During this nearly century-long period, there was a continuous expansion of the national government’s power over the economy. At the same time, Americans also saw substantial progress in racial relationships. Finally, during this period, the United States emerged as the leading global power, raising new issues that required constitutional adaptation.

Before launching into this week’s effort, I need to repeat that the words “Republican” and “Democratic” as used in Randy Barnett’s work do not mean “Republican Party” or >Democratic Party.” Moreover, I am trying to understand something in these blogs, and my views are not yet ready for publication.

The Progressive Movement

In the last blog, I mentioned the work of James Bradley Thayer and his significant law review article published in the Harvard Law Review in 1893.[1] Randy Barnett mentions a feature of Thayer’s article that is emblematic of the modern mind—the focus on power. Thayer’s analysis focuses on when the judiciary should use its power to declare acts of the other two branches of government unconstitutional. In Thayer’s view, such power must be used with restraint, giving legislatures the maximum flexibility to design social legislation. Power needs to be used and, in some cases, restricted. It is, therefore, not surprising that so much 20th-century debate has been on the extent and use of judicial power. This focus on power and judicial decision making reached its nadir with Justice Holmes’ view that justice is simply what the majority wants bad enough to enforce.[2] This inclined Holmes and his followers to defer to whatever the popular mandate of the people might enact.

From Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency to the end of the 20^th century, the Court was increasingly influenced and shaped by the Progressive Movement. Under the influence of the views of Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Holmes, Frankfurter, and Brandeis, the Court increasingly provided judicial support for the various social engineering ideals of the Progressive movement—a support that Randy Barnett sets out in detail in Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People. [3] This was particularly evident in the various cases in which progressive judges initially opposed and then supported economic enactments that clearly limited individual freedom over their own property.

Gradually, especially after Roosevelt’s “Court Packing Plan,” the Supreme Court initially bowed to progressive ideology and then advanced it, as the appointees of successive presidents influenced the court’s rulings. As expected, the outcomes are mixed. Looking back, one can see that the Court increasingly permitted restrictions on economic and various public freedoms, while expanding what might be called “purely private” freedoms, occasionally without specific justifications for its decisions.

In Barnett’s way of thinking, the courts were striking a deal with the devil: they would permit restrictions on property rights but cover their tracks by focusing public attention on areas like pornography, abortion, etc. In doing so, they significantly expanded judicial power to create rights that the Constitution reserved for the states, as Justice Black noted in a famous dissent that, while the Court can declare laws unconstitutional, it does not have that power where the Constitution provides no explicit grounds for such decisions. Where the court does so, it undermines both the rule of law and its own legitimacy

My point is that there is no provision of the Constitution that either expressly or impliedly vests power in this Court to sit as a supervisory agency over acts of duly constituted legislative bodies and set aside their laws because of the Court’s belief that the legislative policies adopted are unreasonable, unwise, arbitrary, capricious, or irrational. The adoption of such a loose flexible. uncontrolled standard for holding laws unconstitutional, if ever it is finally achieved, will amount to a great unconstitutional shift of power to the courts which I believe and am constrained to say will be bad for the courts, and worse for the country. [4]

The history of the court since Black’s comment reveals its core wisdom. The Court has significantly damaged its public reputation by increasingly being perceived as nothing more than an unelected legislature. Moreover, the court has become more of a supporter of the emerging highly intrusive regulatory state, where unelected bureaucrats create, enforce, and interpret their powers without adequate checks and balances on those powers. [5]

Brown v Board of Education

This does not mean that good decisions were not made or that the court did not rectify some important past mistakes. None of these mistakes was more essential to rectify than abandoning the “separate but equal” doctrine in favor of the kind of integration the 14^th Amendment was designed to achieve. This occurred in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. [6] Brown was actually a consolidation of cases arising in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., relating to the segregation of public schools based on race. In each case, African American students were denied admission to segregated public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race. They argued that such segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The plaintiffs were denied relief in the lower courts based on Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that racially segregated public facilities were legal as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. [7] (This was known as the “separate but equal” doctrine.) Brown was a victory for the view that the court’s role is to ensure that the intentions of the Constitution’s writers are honored; in the case of Brown, the writers of the 14th Amendment intended to eliminate the disadvantages associated with slavery, despite the majority opinion in much of the country.

Conclusion

For most of English history, and especially in the period leading up to the British “Glorious Revolution” and the American Revolution, some form of “natural law” theory captured the minds of most lawyers and was important in their formation. Modern “natural law” theory was an outgrowth of the optimism of the early Enlightenment, with its assumption that all reasonable people would agree as to the most fundamental principles of faith, morals, and law. In this way of thinking, there was a just answer to most legal questions, and judges and juries have to find that just result.

By the turn of the century, the ancient quest for a just society had shifted to a new perspective on law—a perspective centered on power, particularly judicial power in courts. Confidence among elites waned, viewing the ancient rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as merely lofty words whose real meaning depended on those in power. Sadly, Justice Holmes’ idea that justice is whatever the majority demands strongly enough to impose on others had become the unofficial basis of government. This has led to an increasingly manipulative elite and a slow erosion of freedoms once bought with the modern equivalent of “bread and circus.” It remains to be seen whether 21^st-century Americans can save their nation from these outcomes.

Next week, I will bring this series to a close, but I plan on returning to the subject at a later date. I would like to reiterate my statement that I am attempting to understand how a post-modern approach might mediate between the right and left in our current constitutional debates. I am not able to say any firm conclusions. I am learning. I do believe that Barnett’s books deserve the closest reading, closer than I am capable of giving them. One aspect of any movement is to reject the modern focus on power and return to the view that “the life of the law is neither logic nor experience, but the eternal search for justice.”[8]

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] James Bradley Thayer, “The Origin and Scope of American Constitutional  Law” 25 Harvard Law Review 7 (1893).

[2] Holmes was a complex thinker and not systematic in his approach to legal or philosophical issues. As a materialist, he lacked Peirce’s faith in the reality of such abstract universal notions as “Justice.” As a committed evolutionist, he saw the law as a constantly evolving body of rules for human behavior. As a Social Darwinist, he was inclined to support the powerful and socially successful over the weak, poor, and powerless. See, Seth Vannatta, Justice Holmes the Social Darwinist 14 The Pluralist 1 (Spring 2019). This aspect of Holmes’ philosophy is by far the most often critiqued.

[3] Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (New York, NY: Broadside Books (Harper Collins), 2016).

[4] Griswold v. Connecticut, 521-522

[5] This deference requires its own article, especially in view of the recent overturning of what is known as the “Chevron Doctrine” by which bureaucratic interpretations were upheld by the Court unless manifestly unreasonable. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo v National Resources Defense Council No. 22–451, 603 U.S. __ (2024)  , the Court overruled their 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council 467 U.S. 837 (1984), which gave rise to the doctrine known as the “Chevron Doctrine.” Under that doctrine, if Congress has not directly addressed the question at the center of a dispute, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was reasonable.

[6] 347 US 483 (1954).

[7] Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

[8] In 1881, Holmes published a series of lectures titled The Common Law, in which he announced an empirical theory of the law, saying:” The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law, Mark D. Howe, ed (Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co., 1881, reprinted 1963). I think he represents the modern belief that all that exists are “matter and force.” A constructive postmodern approach will return to the reality of belief in ideals like justice.

 

During the period before the Civil War, the United States was a federal republic, with primary sovereignty residing in the states. The Constitution enshrined a form of joint sovereignty in which the federal government was sovereign as to certain specific matters delegated to it, and the states retained primary sovereignty. Theoretically, this remains true today; however, in reality, the national government is supreme, with broad powers to control the activities of the states and local authorities. Whether this situation should continue unchanged is a matter that requires the most profound thought and consideration.

The Civil War ultimately settled the issue on the battlefield in favor of a strong central government. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution effectively enshrined federal dominance in the Constitution’s fabric. This dominance became increasingly apparent over time, particularly as a result of the Great Depression and the significant expansion of federal authority it entailed. Some of the most challenging situations that the Supreme Court would face occurred during the Great Depression.

Culturally, the United States entered the Civil War as a primarily agrarian nation, with an emerging industrial base primarily in the northern portion of the country. As a result of the Civil War, the process of industrialization in the United States was accelerated. By the end of the War, the United States had become an industrial power with a unique military experience that would enable it to project its power overseas. The Spanish-American War proved that the United States was a competitor to the imperialistic European powers. By the time the First World War ended, the United States had become the world’s dominant industrial nation.

This week, we examine the constitutional developments that coincided with the emergence of the United States as a global industrial power. This particular study, though perhaps not immediately relevant to most is relevant, for American society is currently undergoing a change as rapid and as important as the change after the American Civil War, and its implications are just as significant.

Reconstruction and Its End

After the Civil War, the South had to be reconstructed in a manner that would prevent the recurrence of the conflict. It was occupied by union forces, an occupation that lasted for about a decade. Over time, it became apparent that the Civil War had only changed the legal status of the former slaves, and the social system that had evolved during slavery would change more slowly. The Supreme Court was compelled to address highly complex and socially challenging cases arising from the Reconstruction era. Eventually, the court narrowed the application of the 13^th and 14^th Amendments to slavery and those social incidents that were addressed by the 14^th Amendment. In so doing, it impacted America for many generations, not always positively.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 affirmed equality of all citizens in the enjoyment of transportation facilities, in hotels and inns, and in theaters and places of public amusement. Although privately owned, these businesses were akin to public utilities, performing public functions for the benefit of the public and, thus, felt to be subject to public regulation. In five separate cases, a Black person was denied the same accommodations as a White person in violation of the 1875 Act.

These cases reached the United States Supreme Court in what are known as the “Civil Rights Cases.” [1] In the Civil Rights Cases, the court held that the 13th and 14th Amendments did not provide a basis for Congress to pass laws protecting African Americans from discrimination by private individuals. Regarding the 13th Amendment, the court held that it relates only to slavery and involuntary servitude (which it abolishes). Although Congress could pass laws directly enforcing its provisions, such legislative power extends only to the subject of slavery and its incidents. The private denial of equal accommodations in inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement (which is forbidden by the sections in question) did not impose a badge of slavery or involuntary servitude. The prohibitions of the 14th Amendment, applied only to state laws and acts done under State authority, but do not extend to private activity. [2]

However, the Court did not completely eviscerate the 14^th Amendment, for it did recognize that:

In this connection, it is proper to state that civil rights, such as are guaranteed by the Constitution against State aggression, cannot be impaired by the wrongful acts of individuals, unsupported by State authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive proceedings. The wrongful act of an individual, unsupported by any such authority, is simply a private wrong, or a crime of that individual; an invasion of the rights of the injured party, it is true, whether they affect his person, his property, or his reputation; but if not sanctioned in some way by the State, or not done under State authority, his rights remain in full force, and may presumably be vindicated by resort to the laws of the State for redress. [3]

 In dissent, Justice Harlan made a distinction between the legal institution of slavery and those badges and burdens of disability, which are implicit in the social status of former slaves. He formed the intellectual basis for what would later be an expansion of the 14^th Amendment by suggesting that the court had the right to declare unconstitutional laws that might involve the “incidents and badges” of slavery.

Economic Regulation and the 14^th Amendment

As a result of rapid industrialization, after the Civil War, states began passing legislation to protect workers. However, sometimes this “protection” also aimed to benefit entrenched interests by helping them maintain their economic status. The Supreme Court took two very different approaches to this issue, sometimes “deferring to state legislatures” and at other times overturning laws seen as unreasonable or that violated a specific Constitutional mandate. Generally, the Court applied the Due Process Clause of the 14^th Amendment, deciding cases based on the “reasonableness” of restrictions on individual rights to life, liberty, and property. [4]

Transitioning from evaluating the reasonableness of a restriction to adopting a deferential approach to decision-making, the court ultimately determined that a legislative limitation would be deemed reasonable if there was any rational basis for a person to believe it was reasonable. The concept of “judicial deference” was articulated in a significant law review article published in the Harvard Law Review in 1893 by the prominent legal scholar James Bradley Thayer, a close friend of Oliver Wendell Holmes.[5]

This led to one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson, where the court ruled that a restriction preventing blacks from sitting in areas of a train reserved for whites was constitutional. Plessy upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under what is now known as the “separate but equal” doctrine. The Court ruled that state laws requiring separate facilities for black and white citizens did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as long as the facilities were of equal quality and equal in every respect.[6] In making this decision, the Court was “deferring” to the legislative judgment of the citizens of Louisiana (and the entire South, as well as much of the rest of the country) in a way that followed majority will but denied the rights of individual black citizens. Today, nearly all scholars view Plessy as wrongly decided. Moreover, the tact taken in Plessy created additional problems, as will be seen below.

Economic Regulation and the 14^th Amendment

Over time, the theory of “judicial deference” enunciated by Thayer was enshrined in several cases in which what had begun restricting the 14^th Amendment in Southern Civil Rights cases bore fruit in the area of economic regulation. In thinking about this issue, it is essential to remember the wording of the 14^th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [7]

Without question, the 14^th Amendment was intended to enshrine the notion that all citizens, regardless of race, color, or socio-economic class, had the right to “life, liberty, and property,” which rights were inalienable. The phrase “without due process of law” almost certainly refers to the fact that people can be executed, imprisoned, and their property taken under certain circumstances if due process of law is followed. This happens all the time, for example when a public body forces a sale of property. This clearly implies that economic freedoms, as well as other freedoms do not involve a total lack of restriction and regulation.

As industrialization sped up after the Civil War, states increasingly passed economic laws, some of which were aimed or at least claimed to improve conditions for the now urban working classes. The decision in Lochner v. New York highlights the Court’s involvement in this area. [8]

As background, New York state’s baking industry came under scrutiny when the New York Press published a muckraking report titled “Bread and Filth Cooked Together” in September 1894. The article, which detailed “vermin and dirt abound” and “a grind that makes ambition for personal cleanliness impossible,” drew the attention of reformers, organized labor, and politicians. Unsafe working conditions were not unique to the baking industry; they were also prevalent in other industries. Still, the momentum generated by this exposé led the New York State Legislature to pass the Bakeshop Act in the spring of 1895. The act implemented standards for sanitation and working conditions in bakeries. It also limited working hours for bakers to a maximum of 10 hours per day or 60 hours per week. [9]

As with many such pieces of legislation, the virtue of the New York legislation is somewhat questioned by the fact that it. In the case of Lochner v. New York, the petitioner, Joseph Lochner, was the owner of a small bakery in New York. In April 1901, Lochner was arrested and charged with violating the Bakeshop Act. One of his employees, Aman Schmitter, worked more than 60 hours in one week. The state trial court fined him $50 and sentenced him to 50 days in jail. Lochner appealed. Both state appeals courts upheld the law, citing a need to protect worker safety and public health. Lochner appealed his case to the Supreme Court.[10]

The majority opinion of the Court held that the health risks associated with the baking industry do not justify the state legislature’s interference with the right to work or Lochner’s liberty of contract. In this light, the Bakeshop Act was an improper exercise of the state’s power to legislate for the health, safety, and welfare of the public and deprived workers of their contractual rights. A minority dissent argued that the state legislature’s determination that the conditions in bakeries posed legitimate public health concerns was reasonable. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes filed a separate dissenting opinion, criticizing the majority for using the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to protect a right not explicitly stated in the Constitution.[11]

Lochner was a landmark case in what is known as “Substantive Due Process.” The opinion in Lochner did not address a failure to follow proper procedures in restricting the contractual rights of individuals, but rather a substantive right that the Court found in the Constitution. Although the court has long walked away from the implications of Lochner in the area of economic regulation, it has continued to apply the doctrine in other areas. This has resulted in the development of a highly complex body of law, which will be addressed in a later blog. It is enough for now to note that, during the Great Depression and thereafter, the Court retreated from its decision in Lochner.

Conclusion

If you are like me, it is hard to distinguish between Due Process and Equal Protection. Simply put, Due Process safeguards individuals from government actions that unfairly interfere with their rights or stop them from exercising those rights without proper procedures. In addition, some fundamental rights cannot be limited no matter the level of due process—this is known as “Substantive Due Process.” Equal Protection ensures that people in similar situations are treated equally. It requires the government to apply laws fairly and not discriminate without a good reason. Essentially, individuals in similar circumstances should receive comparable treatment under the law. Initially, the goal was to ensure that former slaves received the same legal protections as those born free.

If the government deprives a fundamental right by treating similarly situated people differently, then both an equal protection claim and a due process claim may be raised. Essentially, a Substantive Due Process Claim can also serve as an Equal Protection Claim if a fundamental right is involved.

Even today, the nation continues to grapple with the legacy of Lochner and the Court’s development substantive due process under the 14^th Amendment. During mid to late the 20th century, the Court established a doctrine of non-economic due process, striking down government actions that unjustly infringe on what was viewed by the Court as fundamental rights. Recently, however, the Court has avoided invalidating government actions based on substantive due process. That story is still evolving.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Civil Rights Cases 109 US 3 (1883.

[2] Id.

[3] Id, at 108.

[4] Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (New York, NY: Broadside Books (Harper Collins) (2016), 125

[5] James Bradley Thayer, “The Origin and Scope of American Constitutional” Law 25 Harvard Law Review 7 (1893).

[6] Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). Plessy was not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

[7] Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment XIV (1868).

[8] Lochner vs. New York 198 US 45 (1005).

[9] “Lochner vs, New York” in Supreme Court Historical Society discussion at https://civics.supremecourthistory.org/article/lochner-v-new-york(downloaded July 28, 2025)

[10] Id.

[11] Id. Despite his sympathy with the legislation, Holmes’s dissent contained mischievous language that would impact the Court’s later history. I think that the word liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law. It does not need research to show that no such sweeping condemnation can be passed upon the statute before us. A reasonable man might think it a proper measure on the score of health. Men whom I certainly could not pronounce unreasonable would uphold it as a first instalment of a general regulation of the hours of work. Whether in the latter aspect it would be open to the charge of inequality, I think it unnecessary to discuss.” Id =. Holmes was repeating Thayer’s precise language and theory articulated in his earlier article. Worse, the question of justice and truth are vitiated by the language “any reasonable man.” Reasonable men are mistaken and even evil all the time.

The notion that the Constitution should be malleable to the will of a majority finds its philosophical basis in the work of the philosopher Rousseau, who was not influential among the founders of our Constitution, but whose work became more and more important during the 19^th Century. Marx, with his notion that governments would eventually be under the sway of the “Will of the Proletariat, derives support for his theories directly from the thought of Rousseau.

The Ghost of Rousseau

Rousseau is the originator of the notion of a “General Will” expressed by the voters in a democratic society. Many people think of it as his foundational achievement as a social and political philosopher. If the idea of a Social Contract provides a vehicle to construct a society of atomized individuals, the General Will as a political idea is an answer to the question the mechanism that can form a society based on the Social Contract.

While ancient writers focused on ideas like “The General Good” or “Public Peace” (transcendent public goods inherent in human society), Rousseau develops the concept of a “General Will” of the people. From the beginning, one can observe the individualistic and power-driven nature of modernity. The General Will is not something outside the human individual; society seeks it, and it is part of the human condition to be imposed. As a “General Will” of the people, it has no inherent limitations. This idea underpins the modern tendency toward large-scale tyranny. A more modest perspective might be to view the general will and general good as goals we strive for as a society, but which our human finiteness and self-centeredness make it impossible to fully realize.

For the modern progressive movement, it was essential to establish that the Constitution was a human document to be interpreted in accordance with the will of the people at a given point in time. This notion of the will of the people transfers the discussion from one of the duty of the state to proto individuals to a discussion of the extent of the power of the government to institute the given “will of the people. In the process, the role of government is inevitably changed to accomplishing the presumed will of the people, not the protection of the rights of individuals.

The Democratic Party, initially formed by Andrew Jackson, embraced the notion of the will of the people as part of its belief that the will of the majority was embodied in the Democratic Party and its principles. President Martin Van Buren, who followed Andrew Jackson as President, adopted the view that the will of the people, as embodied in the policies of his party, was and should be the ultimate guide to determining the meaning of the Constitution. [1]

This view shifted the notion of the sovereignty of the people from being inherent in each individual citizen to an abstract concept of a discernible will of the people that existed in the collective. This notion is not different from the Nazi notion that there was a will of the German People or the Communist view of a Will of the Russian Proletariat. And interestingly enough, this will could be used in each case to enshrine in law the prejudices of its proponents, in the case of the early Democratic Party, the notion that slavery should and could be constitutionally protected.

In the years prior to the Civil War, successive Democratic Party leaders sought to find a way around the problem of slavery. Many of the founding generation, including some such as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, disliked slavery and thought it incompatible with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Nevertheless, to address the problems of the Articles of Confederation, they were required to delay resolving the issue of slavery. Congress tried successive strategies, such as the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Kansas and Nebraska Act (1854), but these only made matters worse as the nation became divided between those committed to the abolition of slavery and those who would protect the institution.

Salmon Chase, an early abolitionist lawyer, Senator from Ohio, and Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, argued early that no legislature, state or federal, could abrogate the fundamental laws of nature, of which personal freedom was the first and most basic.[2] As a Senator, he put the matter plainly: “What kind of popular sovereignty is it that allows one portion of the people to enslave another portion?”[3] Thus, the pre-civil War Republican Party was characterized by its belief that the people had rights reserved by the Constitution, which a majority cannot abrogate, however large.

The Kind of Natural Rights Protected

During the Civil War, Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress took the position that the president was entitled to free any slaves, whether in a slave or free state, as a matter of military necessity. This is the genesis of the Emancipation Proclamation. After the war, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 designed to protect the rights of former slaves to make and enforced contracts to sue and be sued, to give evidence in court, to inherit property, and to purchase, lease, cell holding convey real and personal property and have the full and equal benefit of all the laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, as enjoyed by any other citizen of the United States.[4] When President Andrew Jackson vetoed the major, Congress drafted the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution, which overruled his veto and put the matter beyond alteration by the Supreme Court.

14^th Amendment

On April 9, 1868, three years after the war’s end, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states. Section 1 of this Amendment provides as follows:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [5]

The 14^th Amendment makes it abundantly clear that citizens of the United States have certain rights that cannot be taken away from them without due process, including life, liberty, and property. In other words, those rights “reserved to the people” by the Constitution, and which rights presumably preceded the Constitution, cannot be abrogated by either state or federal government.[6]

Selective Incorporation

The plain language interpretation of the 14^th Amendment suggests that the Bill of Rights applied to both the states and the federal government. However, in the Slaughterhouse cases of 1873, the Court seemed to close the door on applying the Bill of Rights to state governments. [7]Nevertheless, starting in 1897 and continuing throughout the 20^th century, the Court issued several decisions indicating that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14^th Amendment also apply to state governments and other governmental entities, such as schools. They did so using a case-by-case approach known as “Selective Incorporation.”  Today, the vast majority of the Bill of Rights has been held to apply to both state and federal authorities. Nevertheless, it is my view that Selective Incorporation ignores the plain language of the 14^th Amendment that “no state” may impair the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States.

Conclusion

The Civil War and the amendments that resulted from it went a long way toward securing the fundamental rights of all citizens of the United States. It was left to a specific constitutional amendment to ensure women’s rights to vote. [8]However, on the whole, the Civil War’s amendments can be seen as supportive of the notion that each individual American has certain civil rights that no government, however majoritarian, can infringe upon. Unfortunately, the Progressive Movement of the late 19^th and 20^th Centuries placed stresses on this view which may only now be being overcome.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (New York, NY: Broadside Books (Harper Collins), (2016), 88.

[2] Id, at 94

[3] Id, at 97.

[4] Id, at 102. Civil Rights Act of 1866 14 Stat. 27 (1866).

[5] Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment XIV (1868).

[6] Id, 107,

[7] The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 US (16 Wall.) 36 (1873)

[8] Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment XIX (1920).

This week, I am launching a new series of blogs on the Constitution based on Randy Barnett’s book, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People. [1] Due to the excessive politicization of our culture, it is important right at the outset to note that the word “Republican” is used as in political science and philosophy and not in its partisan meaning.

A republic consists of a form of government in which the leadership is not vested in a king, tyrant, or dictator, but in constitutionally designated leadership. A republic is organized in such a way that governing power belongs to that body of citizens entitled to vote, and the legislative and executive powers of government are exercised by the leaders and representatives elected by those citizens to govern according to law. [2] The United States of America is a republic in this sense of the word, and the founders were very deliberately forming a constitutional republic.

Before the adoption of the Constitution, the United States was not a republic. It was a confederation of sovereign states, which were themselves republics. This form of government did not work well, leaving the United States militarily, economically, and politically weak and unable to function. Thus, the Constitutional Convention was called in 1987. The convention opened on May 25, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The story of the convention is beyond the scope of this blog, but it merits study by every American. There are many fine studies of the event, the most popular of which is “Miracle in Philadelphia” by Catherine Drinker Bowen. [3] The convention is unique in history for the quality of its leadership and the experience and judgment of its members, in particular James Madison, whose leadership and scholarship profoundly impacted the convention and its outcome.

The Preamble of the Constitution reads:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [4]

Barnett’s book is a detailed discussion on the meaning of the term “We the People of the United States” and defends his view that the term should be understood as referring to individuals rather than as a collective, “the People.” As this blog continues, you will see that a lot is at stake in how one interprets the Constitution—as either a collective or as referring to individuals.

“Republican” vs. “Democratic” Constitution

Barnett begins by defining just what he means by a “republican” as opposed to a “democratic” constitution:

Under a democratic constitution, the only individual rights that are legally enforceable, or a product of majoritarian will whether the wheel of the majorities in the legislature who create ordinary, legal rights or the Will of majorities who ratify the constitution and it’s amendments and created constitutional rights. [5]

…

Under a republican constitution, then, the first duty of government is to equally protect these personal and individual rights from being violated by both domestic and foreign transgressors. The agents of the people must not themselves use their delegated powers to violate the very rights they were empowered to protect.[6]

The first tradition maintains that today’s majority should not be limited by the influence of past majorities in interpreting the Constitution. The Republican view argues that the Constitution’s meaning should not change over time and that it primarily exists to protect individual freedoms from the tyranny of hostile majorities. A Republican Constitution considers the individual rights of the people to be more important than the collective rights of a majority or their representatives.

Protection of Individuals

In Barrett’s view, the idea that the “will of the people” should necessarily dominate political discussion and allow courts to disregard the explicit language of the Constitution is mistaken. The “will of the people” was not what the Constitution aimed to protect. Instead, the Constitution was designed to safeguard the rights of individuals against the government and its leaders at any given time. Individual rights come first, and after individual rights, the government. Those in government are to serve and be subordinate to, not an abstract concept, but the actual people who make up the citizenry at any moment.[7]

In the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress put it this way:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [8]

For the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, people have rights (what have been historically called “Natural Rights”) that precede the institution of government because they are inherent in the human condition. One reason the defense of personal rights against majorities is so challenging today is the decline of a natural law orientation in government and among those governing.  If government is merely the rules made by those in power, then there are no such things as “unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

This idea conflicts with the views often expressed by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose opinions remain influential even today, years after his last decision as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Holmes’s theory of law starts with the idea that the majority of people (what the “dominant forces of the community want through their elected representatives” and “want hard enough to disregard whatever inhibitions stand in their way”) can do whatever they wish. Therefore, Justice Holmes saw law as a tool for achieving an end set by the lawmaker, with almost no fixed constitutional limits on what the majority might want to do. As one commentator said:

Holmes believed that the Supreme Court presides over an empty Constitution — empty of purpose, of moral content, of enduring meaning — bereft of any embedded principles defining the relationship between man and the state. This distinctively Holmesian view, novel in 1905, is today’s orthodoxy. It dominates constitutional interpretation, defines public debate, and furnishes a litmus test for evaluating nominees to the Supreme Court.  [9]

In short, Holmes’s perspective is that the dominant powers of an era and society create or deny rights through acts of legislative, administrative, or judicial will, enforced by the state’s police power. Holmes believed that objective values would prevail in the “marketplace of ideas:”

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. [10]

In my view, this is precisely where America is today. With the ascendancy of postmodernism, which denies the kind of objective reality that Holmes and his followers assumed, made more toxic by a revolutionary Rousseauian notion of democracy in which there should be no limitations on the power of dominant groups and their leaders, we find ourselves in a much different  (and dangerous) position.

It seems to me that one avenue out of the dangerous situation in which we find ourselves is a recovery of the notion that the Constitution protects the rights of every individual American, whether they are part of the majority or not. No one doubts that leaders, elected by the majority of the people, should have the freedom to enact the policies for which the public voted. However, in our system of government, that freedom is limited by our commitment to protecting the rights of minorities. This is an essential aspect of the Constitution that is currently at risk.

There is a biblical proverb that reads, “A deep respect for the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and humility goes before honor” (Proverbs 15:33). Respect for the Lord, which biblical translators literally translate “fear of the Lord” is that respect that we give to a being more powerful than we are who we cannot necessarily control. The humility and respect for the Eternal brings is that respect we have because we understand that we are limited, finite, and do not always see things correctly or with a view toward the consequences that emerge. Therefore, we must be careful in what we say and do.

A commitment to a personalistic view of the protections that the constitution provides to people will only work if we understand that the reason this is so important is because the majority are very often wrong. Sometimes, as in the French and Russian revolutions, they are tragically wrong with long-term consequences for millions of people. Therefore, when implementing any public policy, we must be careful, and we must protect the rights of everyone, especially the minority and most vulnerable. This is the essential element for maintaining a free society where people have the freedom to pursue “life, liberty, and happiness.”

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (New York, NY: Broadside Books (Harper Collins), (2016).

[2] See “Republic” in Merriam-Webster Dictionary (Online) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republican (downloaded July 7, 2025).

[3] Catherine Drinker Bowen: Miracle in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention May to September 1787 (New York, NY: Little Brown and Company, 1966). This is a very well-done popular history. For those with a more scholarly bent, there are various others with a more academic tone. I believe her work to be unmatched for interested laypersons.

[4] US Constitution, Preamble.

[5] Our Republican Constitution, 21.

[6] Id, at 23

[7] Id, at 34.

[8] Declaration of Independence (US 1776).

^[9] Tom Bowden, “Justice Holmes and the Empty Constitution” The Objective Standard (Summer 2009),https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/individual-rights/justice-holmes-and-the-empty-constitution/ (downloaded July 8, 2025).

[10] Abrams v United States 1250 US 616  (1919), Holmes dissenting at 630.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

This week, I revisit a subject that is crucial for the moral and spiritual renewal of our civilization: overcoming its widespread moral decline. One of the most unfortunate legacies of Rousseau’s Romanticism, combined with Marx’s dialectical materialism, is the widespread immorality present in modern societies, along with the common belief among many, including numerous elites, that immoral actions are justified in the pursuit of political victory which they identify with their vision of the common good. Frequently, this masquerades as support for “democracy” and the need to accomplish the “will of the people.” [1]

As I write this week, a report has been issued indicating that a former Attorney General, who presents himself as a Christian well-versed in the works of certain Christian writers on moral and political philosophy, engaged in deliberate deception to harm the election chances of a candidate he disapproved of. To achieve this, he was joined by several high-ranking law enforcement and intelligence officials. Behind this activity was their moral conviction that they were entitled to lie because it was in the public interest.

To understand what is wrong in the actions of certain (often political) actors in our society, it is crucial to clarify in one’s mind what is meant by moral inversion and moral posturing.

1. Moral Inversion: Moral inversion means exactly what it says. It is a distorted morality where committing an immoral act is justified by a morally impoverished actor influenced by the pervasive ideologies of our society.
2. Moral Posturing. Moral Posturing involves claiming support for widely accepted ethical positions that cost the speaker nothing, which suggests they are not genuinely moral agents. It often includes expressing opinions or stances aligned with popular views to appear ethical. Moral posturing is typically aimed at gaining power or social approval without taking meaningful action.

Taken together, these two moral perversions characterize much of the moral discourse of our time.

Moral Inversion

In his writings, the philosopher of science Michael Polanyi describes a process he calls “moral inversion,” which he believes is a common trait of totalitarian regimes on both the right and the left. Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Communist China were all driven by an extreme moral energy disconnected from any form of traditional morality. Moral inversion, Polanyi argues, is the demonic force behind dehumanizing and violent social movements and the oppressive governments they establish. Despite the destruction they cause, the leaders and their followers in these movements see themselves as working toward utopian visions of the common good, shaped by their narrow worldviews. Moral inversion, unfortunately, is not limited to totalitarian regimes.

In his book, Logic of Liberty, Polanyi describes the phenomenon (speaking of Russian Marxists and German Nazi’s) as follows:

“In such men, the traditional forms for holding moral ideals had been shattered and their moral passions diverted into the only channels which a strictly mechanistic conception of man and society left open to them. We may refer to this as the process of moral inversion. The morally inverted person has not merely performed a philosophic substitution of moral aims by material purposes, but is acting with the whole force of his homeless moral passions within a purely materialistic framework of purposes.” [2]

Human beings are, by nature, motivated by moral passions. When by education or training they are denied an intellectual ground for their moral passions, these passions, like a river that has run out of its banks, flow in an uncontrolled flood into whatever channel lies conveniently at hand. In modern, materialistic societies, that channel has been revolutionary action designed to create a new society along strictly materialistic notions. Communism or some form of national socialism has been the preferred channel. The disasters of the 20^th and 21st centuries have been fueled by a moral energy resulting from the misdirected channeling of human moral passions.

The materialistic impulse of moral inversion does not necessarily have to be connected to radical movements like Nazism or communism. For example, I might simply be a capitalist who believes that any action I take to make money is justified. I might feel it was perfectly right to stretch accounting principles or engage in dubious tax avoidance schemes. In each case, I have decided to make something that is fundamentally immoral, moral on materialistic grounds. This is why I sometimes call “moral inversion” “moral reductionism.” Not only does moral inversion result in immoral acts being held good (“Violence is justified to bring in a more perfect state”) but it also can involve taking one value (working hard) and turning it into a supreme value the pursuit of which allows one to ignore other values as or more important.

Moral Posturing

With the Enlightenment and its celebration of critical reason, Christian faith and morals—as well as the beliefs of other world religions and philosophical systems—were subjected to the dissolving power of reductionist, critical thinking. The materialism of the modern world reduces all reality to material particles and forces acting upon them. Ultimately, this way of thinking led to Nietzsche’s critique that God (spirit) is an illusion, Christianity is a slave religion, and the Will to Power is the ultimate trait of sound moral reasoning. The widespread acceptance of this view among elites has led to the terrible, irrational immorality evident in contemporary politics, where winning is everything, and any action—no matter how immoral—is justified if it advances a particular group’s moral ideal.

Many people in modern society who identify as Christians or followers of other major moral systems sometimes use their moral statements to gain a sense of power and boost their social standing within their group. They aren’t genuinely trying to uphold morals but are more focused on gaining others’ approval. This is the essence of moral posturing. We’re not truly acting morally. We’re not making difficult moral sacrifices. We’re simply putting on a show to seek approval.

Politics and Moral Inversion and Moral Posturing

Nowhere is moral inversion and moral posturing more prevalent than in politics and on social media. Politicians constantly make moral statements not because they genuinely believe in them or even think they are true, but because they aim to gain power from voters who may agree with these statements. Even more troubling, they often encourage others to commit immoral acts, such as destroying the lives, reputation, or property of others. This occurs on both the right and the left. In any given political debate, there is usually an intentional effort by one or both parties to label the other as immoral due to their political beliefs, with the aim of creating hostility that they believe will give them a political advantage.

In response, people often make moral statements on social media that cost them nothing. They are frequently the reverse of ethical statements. A good example exists whenever we say that the government ought to do something that we wouldn’t do if we had to pay for it. (To give current examples, I would have to enter into current debates, which I try not to do in these blogs.) Suppose, for instance, that I was a slaveholder before the American Civil War, publicly declaring that I agree with the abolition of slavery from my home in New York City, but continuing to own slaves on my plantation in South Carolina. That would be a perfect example of moral posturing. I don’t intend to take any moral action. I just intend to gain the approval of others and avoid their moral judgment of my behavior.

Politicians often act in ways designed to influence us into voting for them, even when they have no real intention of keeping their promises. For instance, a politician might say they will cut defense spending but then fail to follow through because they receive large donations from defense contractors. This pattern can apply to any government program, regardless of political affiliation, where powerful financial interests support politicians with the expectation that they will push their special projects. Whenever anyone makes moral statements that contradict or don’t involve moral actual behavior, they are engaged in a form of moral posturing.

Absolutizing Relative Values

The Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, insightfully discusses the danger of relative values that are removed from their context in a larger moral framework. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Taoism are all complex and comprehensive systems of morality. In any such system, my moral actions in specific situations involve applying various moral principles within a complex context. Too often, modern moral systems involve the ideological adoption of certain principles while ignoring others. The result can be a kind of moral confusion or even madness.

In his short book, The Abolition of Man, Lewis discusses the harmful consequences of Ignoring or downplaying the importance of the great moral systems throughout history. After introducing the central moral ideas of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, Lewis suggests that the results are the creation of people without the kind of heart understanding of morality and wise action upon which civilization depends. We have, he says, created “men without chests,” that is, humans lacking the character needed for a civilization to thrive. [3]

Throughout most of human history, people have recognized that although not everyone agrees on all the values of a particular group, there is a moral basis for human action. When we remove the complex foundations of moral reasoning within a tradition of moral thinking and acting, we inevitably leave people relying on their own prejudices, upbringing, and the social and immediate pressures they face. This inevitably leads to moral failure.

A civilization in which the moral leaders of society, from individual family leaders, to neighborhood and community leaders, to church leaders, to state and federal leaders, have forsaken the “Tao,” as Lewis puts it, has taken a road that cannot help but lead to moral and social decay and human suffering.

Dialogue and Moral Discourse

One of the most serious effects of moral inversion and moral posturing is that it prevents true dialogue about important issues. For dialogue to occur, both parties must respect each other, understand their own position and its potential weaknesses, and be open to considering the political or moral issue from another perspective. Even more importantly, as the theologian Martin Buber emphasized, we must be willing to see others as a “Thou” and not as an object or an “It.” In other words, we can’t reduce human beings to objects; we must see them as persons with inherent value.[4]

To overcome the dysfunction and fragmentation of modern society, a different approach needs to be adopted. To overcome the fragmentation of our society, its fundamental paradigm for understanding reality (atomistic materialism and individualism) and its fundamental view of how to change that reality (material power) need to be changed. The process of change involves communication in the form of dialogue. Creative transformation in which fragmentation is overcome can be achieved through dialogue.

In the philosopher and physicist David Bohm’s view, the Greek roots of this term shed light on its meaning. “Dia,” meaning “through,” and “logos,” meaning “reason.” Dialogue occurs when two or more people share meaning by exchanging views. Of course, there can be honest and dishonest attempts at dialogue. In honest dialogue, new understanding arises as meaning is conveyed and differing perspectives illuminate reality. For two individuals to engage in real dialogue, they must commit to a mutual exchange of ideas and information to better understand reality. Authentic dialogue involves a continuous flow of meaning. Those participating in the dialogue are immersed in a moving flow of information and thought that constitutes the dialogue itself. A dialogue implicitly seeks a truth that the parties are humble enough to recognize and requires sharing ideas, thoughts, and perspectives.

Dialogue is more than just discussion. “Discussion” shares the same root as percussion or concussion. In a debate, conflicting views are expressed to undermine or challenge the other’s argument. People try to win, score points, and prevail in a discussion. Discussion and debate can create more fragmentation. In genuine dialogue, however, participants aim to discover new meanings and reach mutual understanding. Through this process, fragmentation and its negative effects can be overcome.

Participatory Thinking and Transcendental Ideals

Bohm views the search for knowledge as a scientist does. In practice, science involves a continuous dialogue or exchange of reasoning as investigations are conducted, results and theories are published, criticisms are made, and adjustments are implemented. This scientific way of reasoning should continue to be used in practical activities, but in delicate areas like religion and politics, it is often difficult due to blockages—emotional, ideological, and other types. These blockages hinder communication and the flow of understanding, blocking new discoveries and change. As a result, modern society is marked by widespread fragmentation and conflict. This fragmentation can be addressed through a kind of participatory dialogue where people share meanings and attempt to understand one another.

The significance of transcendental ideals (or potentials) for political thought is that such potentials reveal themselves to a community under concrete circumstances in a provisional but appropriate way.  Each determination is provisionally valid in a specific context. There can be no permanent and unchanging specification of justice as an abstract concept but there can be contextually valid approximations. [5] Because of the inner relationships among people and institutional structures, every determination of justice in a specific context, is relative to, and may be modified by a new emerging context and future understandings. Thus, no determination of justice can be final or fixed but is part of the movement of society, toward a more comprehensive understanding of justice and social peace. [6]

These insights have profound implications not only for our understanding of physical reality but also for our understanding of the social reality in which we live. As Bohm states in , the fragmentation and conflict in society arise from an outdated worldview. promotes, is leading to a loss of social coherence and meaning, as well as the decay of Western democratic institutions. To reverse these trends, a new perspective and approach to social reality are necessary.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

¹ This blog is partially based on prior blogs and a book I have written on the subject of a postmodern political theory. G. Christopher Scruggs, Illumined by Wisdom and Love (College Station, TX: Virtual Bookworm, 2024). Our current situation is the continuation of a long line of moral reductionism. In recent years, the aging of what has been called the “Enlightenment Project” has given rise to a form of cultural and political nihilism. The power orientation of our culture is a part of its plausibility structure. Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991).

[2] Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty (Indianapolis Indiana, Liberty Fund, 1998), 131.

[3] Id, 35.

[4] Martin Buber, I and Thou 2^nd ed. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958)

[5] David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London ENG: Routledge, 1980), at 151.

[6] Id, at 157

Several times in recent days, I have participated in prayer vigils for those who lost their lives and families impacted by the recent floods in central Texas. I have been especially impacted by the services led by Christ Episcopal Church in San Antonio, where we live. I have tried to reproduce some of the content of these moving and sad services for those who might need prayer and comfort.

Opening Prayer:

God of All Mercy: We come before you this day with heavy hearts amidst the pain and loss of a great natural disaster that has impacted our lives and loved ones. We lift our hearts in unison, seeking your wisdom, comfort, and consolation in our loss. Hear our common prayers.

Leader: God of all grace, whose love is deeper than mighty waters and stronger than any storm, we beseech you to hear our prayers for those impacted by the floods in the Hill Country and elsewhere in Texas.

People: Lord, hear our prayers that your love may be shown to all who mourn or who are impacted by the floods.

Leader: For the families who have lost loved ones or who wait anxiously for news of their beloved,

People: Lord, hear our Prayers for comfort.

Leader: For those who have lost their lives or have been injured in the storm,

People: Lord, hear our prayer for your amazing grace.

Leader: For families who have been disrupted, separated, or whose homes have been destroyed or lost,

People: Lord, hear our prayer for mercy and peace amid the storms of life.

Leader: For those who are sheltering, grieving, or searching in despair,

People: Lord, give them a sense of your presence amid pain, grief, and loss.

Leader: For those who have lost their lives in this disaster,

People: Receive them by your grace, and give comfort to those they left behind to mourn their loss.

Leader: For first responders, volunteers, and state, federal, and local officials who must work under tremendous pressure and exhaustion.

People: Lord, give them your strength.

Leader: For the many churches in the communities impacted and beyond who seek to provide refuge and help for the suffering,

People: Lord, give them success in their mission.

Leader: For the gift of life eternal and the hope of the resurrection,

People: Lord, give the families impacted hope amid their pain.

Leader: O Lord of the wind and storm, who brings order out of chaos and peace out of despair,

People: Be with those impacted and help restore the homes, families, and communities affected by this great tragedy.

Leader: For all, let the love of Christ who shares in our humanity, our failures, and our suffering,

People: Allow us to sense your presence in our pain and loss.

Closing Prayers:

Oh God, whose property it is always to have mercy upon your servants, we humbly and earnestly pray for the souls of those whom this disaster has taken from us. We give you thanks for our memories of the departed, trusting that you have delivered them from all suffering and pain, and brought them into your presence and the eternal life that only you can bestow. We look forward in hope to seeing them and being rejoined with them through the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and souls in the love of God, and the blessing of God, Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always.

Amen

An old friend of mine, who was also a debate partner and fellow camper at the YMCA Camp in Springfield, Missouri, recently published an article in the Springfield Daily Citizen, a newspaper in my hometown.[1] Dan happens to be an environmentalist and has encouraged my occasional environmental comments in these blogs, as well as my hope to write a somewhat longer piece. His farm outside of Springfield has encouraged many people, including one of my children, who works in the environmental area and is an organic farmer herself. In his article, he wrote in part:

I step over glowing green plants crisscrossing the hobbit trail.  Sparkling water gushes from every opening along the bluff: a gift from hundreds of sinkholes higher on the Springfield plateau and now headed for Stockton Lake by way of the twisty Sac River.

The Oracle has put away her delicate ephemeral spring flowers and she watches over a riot of chlorophyll fueled fauna leaping out of the ground and staking out their claim before the heat and drought of August. I can’t find proper footing for my lawn chair and all my clattering and mumbling tells the Oracle something is wrong. She sends a butterfly and waits for me to hold forth.

…

She explained the forest around us is a complex, balanced ecosystem composed of a web of dependent relationships between plants, animals, fungi, geology and climate. Millions of independent actors live and work in this system that survives tornadoes, fires, droughts and biblical plagues. Ecosystems can thrive for eons until the arrival of the invaders.

Invading plants and animals spread with aggression and malice for those in the web: not because the system is weak, but because these intruders ignore cooperative interrelationships and the value of diversity. They leverage their single-minded strategy to capture shared resources and spread their genes at the expense of everyone else. Kudzu eats the South. Burmese pythons invade the everglades. Fire ants fill Texas pastures. Hog weed carpets corn fields. Multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle and poison hemlock crawl over the Ozarks.

These invasive newcomers shrink cooperation and resilience to a minimum,” she said. Invaders may release allelochemicals to poison native plants. Keystone species die; colors fade. Productivity and genetic diversity disappear. [2]

An Organic World

The kind of postmodernism I frequently argue for in these blogs is often called “organic.” [3] A part of the reason for using the word organic is that it implies a kind of logic and view of the world that is not mechanical, but rather organic in the sense that nature is organic. The modern world has been dominated by the idea that the world is like a gigantic machine built up of parts. The best way to understand how this machine works is to take everything apart (called reductionism in the parlance) to see how it works. Reductionism is, of course, diametrically opposite of what is called “wholism,” or the idea that we cannot understand a thing reductively but must also understand it wholistically.

When people indicate that we are entering a “postmodern world,” they say that the idea that we can understand the world by taking it apart doesn’t work. In fact, from quantum physics to environmental studies, it’s become a kind of buzzword notion that wholism characterizes reality. That is the say, matter how useful it may be to take things apart to see how they work, the fact is that the whole is very often greater than the parts. Just to give an example that might be relevant, if we were to have a nuclear disaster and thousands of years from now, people from another planet were to discover a brand, new automobile, they could take it apart all they wanted to, but in the end, it couldn’t really be understood unless they viewed it as a whole, as a machine designed to take people from one place to the other.

A second characteristic of any organic philosophy is that it is inherently historical. From quantum phenomena to the rise and fall of great nations, our world is fundamentally shaped by a history of events. Each moment is built upon previous moments. Each thing in the world is a part of an emergent process in which “decisions” are made. Once again, from the famous double slit experiment of quantum physics to the decisions of governments, the past must be taken into account, and that past limits current decisions.

While sometimes these previous moments may appear to be mechanically connected and flow in a predictable manner, this is not always the case. For example, at an atomic level, one can only statistically predict where an electron might be. There is an element of freedom or chance in how the subatomic world operates. The same principle applies to human society. There is always an element of freedom in how history unfolds. In this sense, in an organic ecological logic, the past both restricts our choices and opens up avenues for future growth.

Dan’s Helpful Narrative

Now, back to my friend. When I responded to his insightful article, I told him that I believed he exemplified a kind of organic logic. Logic is simply a way of understanding things—it’s a form of rationality. Whether we’re talking about mathematical logic, Aristotelian logic, symbolic logic, or the various forms of computer logic, logic is an orderly way of understanding reality. That doesn’t mean that it’s a way of predicting reality. It is at this very point that the modern world view begins to deteriorate. The world is simply not mechanical.

Dan’s article helps us see some of the factors that characterize the “logic” of organic systems. Among them, it seems to me that Dan mentions five:

1. Independent Actors (Free Actors)
2. Web of Dependent Relationships (Ecosystem)
3. Thriving for Eons (Constant Adaptation)
4. Value of Diversity (Multiple Actors)
5. Invading Plants or Animals (External Forces)

It can be helpful to look at each one separately.

Independent Actors

It may be useful to note where modernity and postmodernity (often a form of hypermodern thinking) begin to differ—with the importance of the particular. Things have an independent reality, a reality that they can create and maintain. Modern science tends to examine and define these independent realities into smaller and smaller units (reductionism). But reductionism can only tell us a part of the story.

The “ephemeral spring flowers” of which Dan speaks will do. Here in Texas, we have a version of spring flowers called “bluebonnets,” which my wife particularly likes. They are specific things that need to be seen and respected for what they are. No matter how many of a particular there may be, each particular is in some way unique. Bluebonnets are a case in point. They are most beautiful and most commonly seen in great numbers along the roadside and in fields. From a distance, they look very much alike. Up close they are particular.

From subatomic particles to galaxies, things are what they are. This is particularly true of living things and especially of human beings. Each human being is unique and different carrying a different DNA (the carrier of uniqueness and historical determinism). For those of us of a religious bent, not only are human beings unique, but they are also infinitely valuable in their unique humanity.

Web of Dependent Relationships

The “ephemeral spring flowers” do not, however, exist without relationships with other things. The soil, surrounding plants, the sun, weather, and many factors determine what can and cannot be grow. My father grew roses in Springfield, Missouri, but in San Antonio, Texas, the roses my father grew cannot survive. The summer heat, the July and August drought, and the nature of the soil in the Texas Hill Country all make growing roses difficult in our part of the world. (There are a few breeds that do grow here, though I have had a hard time getting them to grow in my own yard.)

 All of reality is like this: Everything is related to some degree or another to other things, and ultimately to everything. When we ignore that relationality, we create problems for ourselves and other parts of the common reality we all inhabit. This web of dependent relationships should also make us humble. It is very rare that any decisionmaker can foresee or understand all the relationships that can and may impact the results of a decision. This is especially true in human relationships, personal and social.

Value of Diversity

When I go see the person who manages my retirement, we often talk about the need for “diversification” in my portfolio. Smart investors are diversified in the companies and industries that make up their portfolios. Nature, and all of reality, is no different. There is strength in diversity. I no longer grow vegetables in my garden (too small and too hot) but it is always good to grow a diverse crop of plants. If in a summer there is a particular blight or infestation, and something does not grow well, other plants take up the slack.

A couple of summers ago, I planted three roses in the flower bed outside Kathy’s office window. It happened to be one of the driest summers San Antonio has ever experienced. We came home after a vacation to find that two of the three had died. Luckily, the cactus and other plants we had planted survived the summer.

Modernity, and especially what I may call “arrogant modernity,” is inclined to think it can predict what will work the best and demand uniformity. This is a big mistake. There is power as well as beauty in diversity.

Invading Plants and Animals

We have a small home out in the country. It is near a river, and we are very proud of the pecan trees on the property. Last summer, we took a long trip to Greece and Turkey following the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. When we returned, we were shocked to see that webworms had invaded our pecans, covering the entire property with their destructive ugliness. Fortunately, the arborist said the trees would recover, and they have. When I was young, Springfield had many beautiful elm trees. Then the Dutch Elm Disease invaded the town, and they all died. These are both examples of invasive destruction.

Nature is like that. Things do not last forever. There are invasive plants and animals, and there are also natural disasters. Millions of years ago, a meteor hit North America, and the mastodons went extinct as a result. Science tells us that the universe itself will not last forever. Either it will experience what they call the “Big Crunch” and collapse upon itself, or it will experience the “Big Inflation,” continuous expanding and descending into chaos.

Currently, one of the most invasive animals on the planet is the human race. We have finally, after millennia of trying, achieved a kind of mastery over nature. Today, our mastery of nature threatens our own existence. If we do not want to be the invasive cause of our own destruction, we need to find what ecologists call a more sustainable relationship between the human race and nature. Mother Earth, our home, depends on it.

Wise and Loving Stewardship

We cannot deny that humans influence nature. Our impact is unavoidable. What we can prevent is wasteful, excessively violent, or overuse of nature and its resources. This is not a matter of the political left or right getting its way. Years ago, I traveled in Russia. One would be hard-pressed to find a greater case of environmental abuse than that caused by the “master planners” of the Soviet state. On the other hand, Kathy and I have lived very close to a center of the refining industry, and we saw what it was like before modern environmental protection. It was not a pretty sight.

Ultimately, responsible stewardship of nature relies on the commitment and effort of all of us. We all make choices that impact our environment. This might seem like a minor example, but plastic water bottles and bottled water are a particular concern for me. Having traveled extensively, I can attest that you can’t go deep into the jungles of Africa without seeing how nature has been polluted by people dropping plastic water containers along roads or trails. In the central Pacific Ocean, a vast area is entirely covered with discarded plastic containers.

It’s hot in Texas, and I enjoy playing golf. I’ve learned to carry my own thermos and avoid buying water from the pro shop. Of course, sometimes I forget my water and end up buying a plastic bottle or two. It happens about once or twice each summer, but not every week. I’ve driven a small, fuel-efficient, and relatively safe car for many years. Its size helps conserve metal and plastic, and its good mileage saves gasoline. And guess what? I can go wherever I need to.

We all need to develop a different and better way of looking at the world, and Dan has given us a small glimpse of what that means.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] Dan Chiles, “The Oracle says, ‘Be True to Your School Even in the Face of Federal Pressure’” Springfield Daily Citizen (June 9, 2025).

[2] Id.

[3] See, A. N. Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York, NY: Free Press, 1929, 1957), at 90, Adventure of Ideas (New York, NY: Free Press, 1933), Modes of Thought (New York, NY: Free Press, 1938, 1968).

 

Some years ago, I spent a long time helping an organization in transition. After a couple of years, the problems were resolved (or at least the beginnings of solutions had started), and a new group of leaders was ready and chosen to move forward. In the process, I think I learned more than anyone else involved. After a few months, someone asked me for a summary of what I had learned, and I wrote the following, which I am publishing in this blog.

I have learned over the years from my involvement in leading six or more churches and several nonprofit organizations that there are no perfect leaders. Some people love to criticize and judge leaders, especially in the media. This is fair, and those in leadership should listen to their critiques. However, I sometimes suspect that those criticizing have the luxury of never truly being responsible or facing failure in leadership. Most leaders would agree that they have learned the most from their failures.

Failures rarely mark the end of leadership. The real disaster is not recognizing failures and mistakes. Those who listen, learn, and grow can recover and attain new heights of leadership potential.

My 29 Summary Thoughts

1. Contribute Positive Energy. A leader’s primary responsibility is to infuse positive energy (wisdom and love) into the organization’s social system. (“Leaders do not have the luxury of going negative.”) I consider this the first principle of leadership. Leaders introduce positive energy into the system through wise love.
2. Demonstrate Sacrificial Love. In a Christian organization, one key form of positive energy is expressing other-centered love (Christlike love, Cruciform love, etc.), being willing to suffer for the good of the organization and its members. This means being willing to sacrifice your own ego needs for the group.
3. Discern with wisdom. Credibility is primarily built on wise decision-making. Even when facing opposition, if you prove to be right in the end, you will become a stronger leader. Opponents often criticize the best decisions. Don’t let that fact deter you from seeking the counsel of others and seeking the wisest course of action.
4. Exude confidence in your Leadership. Results require patience, and good plans often face difficulties during implementation. A strong leader maintains patience and demonstrates confidence, even when privately concerned about the outcome. You may have private fears about the odds of success. Most often, it is best to keep them to yourself. Courage is grace under pressure. The more challenging the situation, the calmer the leader must remain.
5. Calculate Carefully. A good leader considers the likely outcomes of several options before deciding. Examining the problem, seeking advice, and understanding the possible results of different courses of action lead to sound decisions. This means seeking advice and counsel from many people, including those who may not appreciate the course of action you may choose.
6. Get the Facts. Often, bad decisions result from wrong or inadequate facts. Look beneath the surface and ask, “What is happening here?” The worst decisions are made when the leader does not seek the facts or believes false facts to be true.
7. Think about what others will do. In a conflict, leaders often don’t know what opponents will do. Focus on what they are capable of and likely to do.
8. Count the Cost of Conflict. Conflict in an organization can be positive and lead to growth, but it often damages a leader’s credibility. Therefore, it is essential to count the cost of conflict.
9. Discern the Spirits. Often, conflict in an organization signals spiritual conflict at a deep level. A good leader recognizes that spiritual dimension and asks, “Am I part of the spiritual issue?” Surface problems, which are symptoms of deeper conflicts, are never solved superficially.
10. Seek Good Advice. Proverbs reminds leaders that victory comes from good advice and defeat from bad advice. No leader can get too much good advice, especially during a crisis.
11. Plan Thoroughly. There’s no replacing careful planning—events almost never go exactly as planned, which is why adaptability is a crucial leadership trait. Still, a plan details your initial expectations and helps guide adjustments for unexpected developments.
12. Disengage from Your Ego. A good leader is self-aware and seeks to discern the wisest and most loving result. This means disengaging from one’s own ego and opening oneself to the needs of others. We all have ego needs. Good leaders are conscious of their needs and resist being driven by unconscious motives.
13. Aim for a Win/Win outcome, especially during serious conflicts, particularly if you think you will “win.” Remember to try to achieve a win for everyone as much as possible. You can’t always give people what they want, but you can strive to ensure they get something valuable.
14. There May Be No “Pain Free Result.” Leaders must make decisions in the best interests of the entire group. Unfortunately, everyone rarely wants or needs the same things. Therefore, there is no pain-free result. The goal is to anticipate and reduce the pain of a good decision.
15. Decide at the Right Moment. Too many Christian leaders are constantly studying without ever making a decision. Some leaders are impulsive. To move an organization forward, a leader must be patient and decisive. The key is to decide at the right moment and take action.
16. Never Make Decisions Out of Fear. Leaders often feel anxious about a course of action, and anticipating problems is valuable, but it should never be the main reason for making a decision. Decisions made from fear are rarely good decisions.
17. Don’t React. Act. Never make decisions reactively. Threats, failures, difficulties, mixups, and similar issues often cause a leader to react. Don’t. Act from wise love.
18. Stay relational. During conflicts, avoid withdrawing from personal friendships with opponents. Maintaining relationships is a key leadership trait.
19. Maintain the Moral High Ground. If a leader appears petty, self-absorbed, dishonest, or devious, they lose the moral high ground. Especially during conflicts, it’s crucial to stay on the high ground.
20. Say Yes. Whenever possible, say “Yes.” The only time to say “No” is when the action would go against the organization’s Mission, Vision, and Values or Biblical truth. Yes has the potential to move an organization forward; no leaves it where it is.
21. Act Promptly with Love. Good leaders act quickly with love, humility, humanity, vigilance, and courage. Once a decision is made, act promptly. Remember, problems rarely improve with time. They tend to get worse.
22. Be direct. It is crucial to communicate with calm, rational frankness. Deceit, circuitousness, and indirection weaken the leader’s ultimate authority.
23. Adapt to Change. Good leaders don’t cling to fixed ideas; they let events guide them. This doesn’t mean good leaders lack morals and values. Having a fixed goal is okay, but there are usually many ways to reach it.
24. Communicate Constantly. Leaders often know where they and the organization are headed, but forget that most people don’t. Keep regularly sharing the organization’s plans, goals, purposes, and strategy. Remember: Good communication also means listening. Keep in mind that those who disagree might be right.
25. Keep Your Own Counsel. Every word a leader says eventually spreads throughout the organization. Be discreet and speak as little as possible when facing difficult decisions or dangerous situations.
26. Align Yourself with God. Prayer, meditation, contemplation, alone time, retreat, and other spiritual disciplines help leaders align their will with God’s. Make time for alignment. Seek to understand where Christ fits in the decision.
27. Guide and Coach Subordinates. Good leaders like to lead. The best subordinates are those who can take initiative. Therefore, a good leader guides and coaches whenever possible. The need to give orders or ultimatums is often a sign of failure.
28. Support Subordinates. Senior leadership’s primary role is to set overall direction and provide general guidance for staff. Once a decision is made, support your subordinate unless there is a moral issue. The leader who makes a subordinate look good also looks good.
29. Never hurt anyone more than is Necessary. Leaders must make tough decisions, and sometimes people get hurt in the process. This is especially true in personnel matters when employees need to be let go. Never cause more pain than is truly unavoidable.
30. Work hard as a Leader. Expending energy is part of injecting positive energy. Leadership sets a standard and example through its work ethic. This does not mean ignoring self-care, family, and close friends. It means setting the standard for co-workers. Especially in crises, people must work hard. They need to see an example to follow from the leader.

Conclusion

Of course, there are many other principles that leaders might follow. This is not an exhaustive list. Leadership is more of an art than a technique. It is highly personal. A leader may be very successful in one situation with one group of people and fail in another situation with a different group. We might say that these are not strict rules but rather tips that each leader must adapt to their own personality.

General Eisenhower once said that anyone could be a leader. I don’t believe he meant that anyone could be President of the United States or the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Instead, he emphasized that all of us can exercise appropriate leadership within our social situations and among friends and colleagues. It’s important to remember that there is never just one leader in any organization. Organizations are communities, and communities are made up of many people and diverse interests. This is especially true in large organizations with many people, programs, and operations.

Eisenhower’s comment about leadership was made to students at Sandhurst, some of whom would eventually lead small units on D-Day. It’s worth repeating exactly what he said:

You must know every single one of your men. It is not enough that you are the best soldier in that unit, that you are the strongest, the toughest, the most durable, and the best equipped technically. You must be their leader, their father, their mentor even if you are half their age. You must understand their problems. You must keep them out of trouble. If they get in trouble, you must be the one to go to their rescue. That cultivation of human understanding between you and your men is the one art that you must yet master, and you must master it quickly. Then you will be doing your duty….(Dwight David Eisenhower, March 11, 1944)

It is worth noting that Eisenhower was not speaking to senior commanders but to new graduates who would lead small units in virtual anonymity. His rise to leadership came unexpectedly, and after many years of remaining relatively anonymous, working behind the scenes for others who received credit for his efforts. His leadership exemplifies the virtues of humility, wisdom, and compassion.

This is my last post for the time being from The Ethics of Beauty. [1] In this particular Blog, I will focus on the relevance of a focus on Beauty for the Great Commission and the Christian endeavors of Evangelism and Discipleship. It turns out that beauty is essential in drawing people into God’s church.

When I was a new Christian, the first books I read were C. S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity,” Francis Schaeffer’s “The God Who Is There,” and Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands a Verdict.” It sounds as if (as was somewhat the case) that my conversion was a “truth first” conversion. However, there is more to the story.

In a broken part of my life, a woman who worked in a law firm with me invited me to a Bible Study in Houston, Texas, one spring Friday night. Although there were a few singles (one of whom I eventually married), most participants were young married people about my age. Over the next few months, I got to know many of them, had meals in their homes, and saw the difference between their lives and mine. The common denominator for these happy couples was their faith in Christ and participation in a Christian community. There was something present in their lives that I desired for my life. Eventually, I came to Christ.

Let us dwell on the phrase, “something present in their lives that I desired.” When I teach on the “Four Loves” (there are more than four, but Lewis made famous “the Four Loves”), I am always careful to note that, while Eros is used for sexual love, its Greek meaning is broader and deeper than merely sex. “Eros” is an evoked love. Something in the beloved draws us out of ourselves with a desire to be in community with it. Eros is a response to beauty.

I can eros a person, a house, a painting, a social entity, a community, etc. The beauty of the thing loved draws the lover into the relationship with the beloved. Do you remember my mentioning Francis Schaeffer’s “The God Who Is There”? Shortly after reading Schaeffer’s book, I read Edith Schaeffer’s “L’Abri,” the story of their life and ministry in Switzerland. Believe me, I was motivated to read the rest of Schaeffer’s works more by his wife’s book, and the loveliness of the life and ministry they created in Huémoz, than by Schaeffer’s books, which can be hard to read. Schaeffer is known for his apologetics, but people forget the attractiveness of the place he created in Switzerland.

The point is simple: If Christians wish to attract other Christians to their faith, then the first thing we must do is show them by our lives and relationships that Christianity is a beautiful thing that will bring them happiness, wholeness, and pleasure. We must create little communities of beauty where people can find forgiveness, healing, and wholeness for their lives. That is precisely what I saw at what we knew as “The Friday Night Bible Study.”

Balancing “Show” with “Go”

Evangelical Christians know all about the Great Commission:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20).

Just as foundational for the church and discipleship is the description of the first church in Acts, where it is recorded:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who needed them.  Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the people’s favor. And the Lord added to their number daily those being saved (Acts 2:41-48).

While the apostles’ teaching formed the intellectual basis for the little community, it was also characterized by community, table fellowship, and prayer, and the church’s generosity attracted everyone. The table fellowship and hospitality of the early church were just as crucial as its proclamation for the growth of the early church. When people saw the beauty of the first Christians’ fellowship, community, faith, and morals, they desired to join to experience the same joy. “Show” was as important as “Go” in the early church.[2]

A Vision of the End

People are motivated by love to seek the ends they choose; therefore, people need a vision for the end of life they desire. This week in my daily devotional, I was reminded that nothing is more important than falling in love. Furthermore, the most important love we can have is a love for God. As one author put it,

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you will read, whom you will know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” [3]

Many times I’ve told a story from my early Christian life. The men of our Bible study were playing touch football with the senior high from our church. The game was over, and I watched one of my friends holding hands with his wife, walking off the field. I was suddenly captured by the notion that that was exactly what I wanted my marriage to look like. Notice I hadn’t attended a seminar where a pastor or psychologist articulated the “seven secrets of a successful marriage.” I just looked and saw—and what I saw was beautiful.

In the Revelation, the apostle John gives us a vision of beauty when he describes the church as a beautiful bride or a city made of jewels and gold descending from heaven (Revelation 21:1-21). The idea is that faith in Christ and his Church is so attractive that it’s like the most beautiful bride you’ve ever seen or the most beautiful city you’ve ever imagined. This vision of a bride and a city was intended to motivate the early church to keep on in the face of persecution because of the attractiveness of the end for which they were striving. They were to show the people of the decaying Roman Empire a better, healthier, and more beautiful way of life.

The Final Judgement

In Matthew, near the end of his life, Jesus speaks of the end of times. He reveals himself as the judge of the Earth who will separate the sheep from the goats. The separation will be strictly based on how Christ was treated in the face of the victims of history:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the world’s creation. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me’ (Matthew 25:34-36).

How an “Ethics of Beauty” deals with this passage is important, and it is a position that illuminates the entirety of The Ethics of Beauty and its underlying meaning and purpose: The sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was not only a juridical action of God/Man dying for the sins of the world; it was also the most beautiful act of human history and an act that reveals the true nature of beauty, for sacrificial love is the most beautiful action of all. [4]

As Christians embody the beauty of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, there are many ways in which we act to reveal that beauty to the world. In addition to mission work, philanthropy, doing a good job in our ordinary lives in the world, serving other people, and taking care of our families, we also reveal the beauty of Christ when we pray, meditate, and live out the wisdom and love of God.[5]

Beauty in the Season of Pentecost

Christians best demonstrate the beauty of Christ when we take care of all of our responsibilities, from the smallest to the greatest, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which is, after all, the wisdom and love of God with us. There is a certain unpredictability about how the Spirit will lead us from time to time and in situation after situation. Love must be wise, but it really doesn’t have many rules. Instead, love adapts itself to the needs of those being loved. [6] Pattisis puts it this way:

When the Holy Spirit is moving, life becomes unpredictable…. It becomes fractal, and more than fractal; that is, fractals are a part of nature, but in the Spirit, we enter the realm of the supernatural. Each of the excellent ways of ministering to Christ in the least these of is present within all other ways.[7]

Here, we have an excellent statement of the freedom of the Spirit to move, which will create harmony and healing in human relationships. We are not mere automatons but people created in God’s image and being conformed to God’s image in Christ.

The Church as a Reflection and Symbol of Divine Love

Without in any way denigrating the activities of para-church and other organizations, the primary vehicle in which God intends to evangelize the world is the church. In the church, the world is to see the beauty of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reflected in the world. When the church fails to be that community of love, a beautiful thing set among the nations, it fails to disciple the nations. More than once in my pastoral career, I’ve had the opportunity to watch a very effective church destroy its effectiveness amid church conflict. I often tell my wife, “People are not attracted to a church that’s unhappy or arguing.” Everything the church does, from its worship to its fellowship to its teaching and other ministries, should be carefully constructed to reflect not just the truth of the gospel but its beauty. When we go astray—and all people and all churches do go astray—we confess what we have done, return to fellowship with God, and go forward. Not only is God’s original intention beautiful, but what God does with our brokenness and flawed beauty is lovely as well.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Timothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020).

[2] Id, 522.

[3] Pedro Aruppe, quoted in Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day By Day (Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2017), 42.

[4] The Ethics of Beauty, 536-539.

[5] Id, 545ff.

[6] Id, 554ff.

[7] Id, 551.

At one point in The Ethics of Beauty, Timothy Pattisi emphasizes that the American Constitution and the system of government it established are products of the Enlightenment.[1] Indwelling the notion that the universe operates like a machine, the founders aimed to design their new nation as a mechanism that guarantees reliable governance. The entire notion of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” is the constitutional equivalent of “regulators” on a machine.

This paradigm for visualizing the world and human society arose when Sir Isaac Newton depicted the universe as mechanistic, composed of matter and forces. From this viewpoint, human reason is merely a force (mental power) that is useful for altering the physical world and human society. In the realm of industry, this involved technology; in the political realm, it meant harnessing the mind’s power in pursuit of political and economic dominance. This inevitably led to a perception of society as consisting of isolated individuals interconnected by various forces.

I’ve been writing this series of blogs because of this perspective’s social, cultural, and political consequences on the world. If those who believe we are at the end of the modern world and at the beginning of what is called the postmodern world are correct, and if it is necessary to adopt a more organic and human-centered view of the world—one that encompasses mind, body, and spirit—then it is not surprising that our political institutions are under great stress. We see the results of a mechanical view of reality taken too far all around us.

As I have said before, if all that is involved is a will to power, and if politics is simply war by another name, then the destructive political behavior we read about daily is warranted. However, if the materialistic view of the world is incorrect, then there is hope to avoid the decay of our social institutions. Achieving this will require changes in our perspective on the world and the way we structure our political institutions.

Basing Politics on an Outdated Model of the World.

The modern worldview that produced the United States Constitution views reality as ultimately materialistic. The “real” consists of material things (ultimately particles) connected by various forces. In this perspective, the universe, including the human race, is visualized as a complex machine made of matter and energy. In recent years, this materialistic model of the world has been replaced by one that assumes deep interconnectedness, relationality, freedom, and inner sensitivity. It is an “organic model” that perceives the universe not as a machine but as an organism or a process. In my view, and that of others, the older mindset has led modern politicians, policy-makers, and intellectuals into numerous errors. Henry Sapp puts it as follows:

 [We] are faced today with the spectacle of our society being built increasingly upon a conception of reality erected upon a mechanical conception of nature now known to be fundamentally false. … As a consequence of this widely disseminated misinformation, “well-informed” officials, administrators, legislators, judges, educators, and medical professionals who guide the development of our society are encouraged to shape our lives in ways predicated on known-to-be-false premises about “nature and nature’s laws.”[2]

The world, as modern relativity and quantum theories describe it, is deeply relational, historical, and sensitive to minor information inputs. If the world itself is organic, relational, traditional, and sensitive to minor information inputs, then so are human beings and the societies they create. This insight leads to a much different and more relational view of human society—a view consistent with an older classical view of human society.

As Pattisis puts it, “our ignorance of this basic being of society is one reason why, since the Enlightenment, domestic political disagreements have frequently evolved into violent civil wars.”[3] It does not take a lot of imagination to see this truth in the kinds of domestic violence that the United States and other Western nations have experienced in recent years. The breakdown of the enlightenment idea, ideals of government, can be seen this week in the rioting in Los Angeles and the responses of politicians to that violence. Some are egging on the violence, and others are using violence to stop the violence. In each case, there’s a belief that the violence is justified.

The Insight and Structure of the Founding Generation

It is widely recognized and universally accepted that the United States of America was the first great democracy of the modern world, born from the Enlightenment and its focus on human freedom. Consistent with their worldview—that the world was fundamentally a machine—the founding generation sought to create a system of government that would reflect that reality. The legislative, executive, and judicial functions were separated as “powers” competing with and checking one another’s behavior. It was the naïve belief of the Enlightenment that this would happen automatically. In a way, our system of government was meant to introduce Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” into the realm of governance.[4]

In Pattisis’s view, this division of government into executive, legislative, and judicial functions replicates the insights of Plato in The Republic and Jane Jacobs in her work on political philosophy. Both Jacobs and Plato saw society as made up of certain kinds of special interest groups. Plato sees that an ideal state requires ideal rulers to administer its political and governmental affairs. If these rulers are to be able to rule effectively, then the various social classes that make up any society must be harmonized. Otherwise, there can be no justice. Any society is made up of different classes of people. Plato was familiar with Greek societies and those of the surrounding area. In these societies, there were six fundamental groups:  Rulers (charches), Soldiers (polymystes), Farmers (perioikoi), Craftsmen (tekton), Laborers (helots), and Slaves (douloi).

The first two groups are related, for the rulers generally came from an aristocracy (aristoi) with military training and ability. In the Republic, Plato sometimes reduces the various groups to three: rulers, philosophers, and everyone else. [5] In her musings about politics, Jane Jacobs simplifies the Platonic vision of society into two categories, Guardians and Traders. Guardians administer and guard the social system. In our society, the guardians are those active in politics, in the executive, legislative, and judicial parts of governments, as they are found in various national, state, and local bodies. Guardians populate modern bureaucracies.

The problem, as Jacob sees it, is that the interests and perspectives of Guardians and Traders are inevitably at odds with each other. She goes into great detail, illustrating how Guardians and Traders view the world in completely different ways and hold entirely different opinions on politics and morality. For instance, generally speaking, Guardians don’t like the trading aspect of business; it’s too chaotic. Conversely, traders disapprove of regulation and order, preferring the freedom to conduct business as they wish; it’s too restrictive. Guardians change the rules of society to create their vision of stability. Traders highly value predictability in law and the enforcement of contracts, whereas Guardians prioritize administrative, military, legal, and political power.[6]

Complicating matters is that Traders and Guardians hold different views on the nature of justice. Traders generally believe that justice means everyone receiving what they have earned and deserve. Guardians, conversely, see justice as about equality in outcomes. Both perspectives are partially correct but ultimately limited. For instance, social status and luck often play significant roles in success. There’s nothing just about being born to wealthy parents or experiencing moral luck. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that equality of outcomes can stifle productive striving and the pursuit of excellence. According to economic theory, if pushed too far, equality of outcomes leads to moral hazard. For social peace to prevail, some “third force” must operate within any society to balance these competing ideals.[7]

This point precisely connects the work of Jacobs and Plato to The Ethics of Beauty. Due to the intractable conflict among various social groups, a third force is necessary to unify and harmonize society in order to achieve social peace. Jacobs recommends, and Pattisis follows her approach, that a “third force,” which can take the form of love, serves as that social bond. As Pattisis puts it:

“What is required in order to have a civilization is a concert of the two social justices under the influence of love. Love is what makes it possible for us to balance the two opposing main kinds of social justice into one social harmony. This is why the Byzantines called their social and political theory “symphonia”—they were after a concert, a musical and artistic balance and proportion of the merchant approach and the warrior approach to social order.” [8]

I have previously described the necessary change as a return to a fundamentally organic, communal, wisdom-oriented view of social life, which I call sophio-agapism. As I put it in another context:

Sophio-agapism embraces a communitarian viewpoint that sees all participants in society as part of a common community bound together not just by power but fundamentally by a willingness to sacrifice for the community, whose interests must be considered in addition to the selfish interests of individuals that make up that community (the agapic move). In particular, nurturing families, neighborhoods, mediating institutions, and voluntary societies create social bonds that give stability and restraint to the state’s power and can accomplish goals that state power alone cannot achieve.

Political love is fundamentally a recognition that society is a joint endeavor requiring the cooperative efforts of all participants to achieve human flourishing. It is a social bond that transcends individual grasping and searching for personal peace, pleasure, and affluence. It requires confidence that the existing social order, as flawed as it may be, provides positive benefits to all members of society and should be protected while at the same time advancing in the realization of justice and human flourishing.

Sophio-agapism embraces the ideal of social harmony as the goal of political life. The modern, revolutionary focus on equality dooms political life to unending conflict among persons and classes. Political life aims to achieve progressively more significant degrees of harmony among the various participants in any society. A return to viewing social harmony as the aim of wise and just decision-making is implied by the interconnectedness of the world and the various societies humans inhabit. Equality

is undoubtedly an essential component of justice, as are opportunities to achieve, the acquisition of property that one can call one’s own, respect for all citizens, and a host of other components of a functional society. [9]

Overcoming the Delusions of the Enlightenment

One Enlightenment delusion was the belief that creating a universally accepted moral and political system would be possible solely through human reason. The organic approach advocated in The Ethics of Beauty and my work, Illuminated by Wisdom and Love, holds this idea to be fundamentally flawed. Human history and social institutions are inherently historical and reflect the traditions that preceded them. There is not, nor has there ever been, a “universally accepted moral and political system” nor is one possible. There cannot be a single fixed system of social harmony.[10] We live in a constantly changing historical flow of culture and society. Whatever the current state, someone will be dissatisfied and suggest changes.

Any serious reader of the Federalist Papers and the history of the Constitutional Convention recognizes that Madison, Hamilton, and others were well-versed in the earlier, classical view of society. They were influenced as much by Cicero and Edmund Burke as by Thomas Hobbes. The problem we face is that contemporary political thinkers and actors are overly-influenced by Hobbes and the intellectual optimism of the Enlightenment. Fundamentally, this must be overcome for the postmodern world to flourish.

Instead of believing that we can construct the perfect political system solely through human reason, we need to focus on fostering social harmony and refining our current political system. This reflects the principles of sophio-agapismand The Ethics of Beauty. Most importantly, we must move past our fascination with the idea that politics is merely war by another name. Politics is a collaborative effort among the members of society to achieve the optimal balance of interests at any given moment. If it seeks to be anything more, it leads to the tragedies seen in Germany, Russia, China, and other evident calamities of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

[1] Tomothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020), 584, note 30.

[2] Henry F. Sapp, “Whitehead, James, and the Ontology of Quantum Theory” 5(1) Mind and Matter (2007) downloaded at https://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/WJQO.pdf (June 16, 2020), 85. In this quote, Sapp is not speaking of the exact phenomena that I am concerned with here—the tendency to view all reality as a machine—but his quote is equally applicable to what I am saying in this essay. Sapp is concerned with the assumption of materialistic theory that our experience of human freedom and the efficacy of human thought is an illusion. This quote from Sapp is one of my favorites and appears over and over in my writing.

[3] Ethics of Beauty, 583.

[4] Ethics of Beauty, 584, note 31..

[5] Plato, Republic tr. G. M.A. Grube rev. C.D.C Reeve (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992)

[6] Ethics of Beauty, 561. Pattisis creates a page-long chart showing the differences, which is well worth reading.

[7] Id.

[8] Id, at 566.

[9] G. Christopher Scruggs, Illumined by Wisdom and Love: Essays on a Sopio-Agapic Constructive Political Philosophy (College Station, TX: Virtual Bookworm, 2024), 258-9.

[10] This was the mistake of Plato criticized by Karl Popper in his magisterial work The Open Society and its Enemies (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

 

The Ethics of Beauty is a multidisciplinary work. Interestingly, the book does not begin with an analysis of beauty per se. [1] Instead, it starts by examining how the ethics of beauty can clarify certain occurrences in post-traumatic stress situations, with particular emphasis on the psychological damage caused by war. The author, now a professor of ethics, also assisted soldiers in recovering from war trauma.

In a way, this blog serves as a bridge to the next week, which will discuss the application of the ethics of beauty to our constitutional system and its moral underpinnings. This week, however, I want to focus on the specifics of why beauty and the ethics of beauty are relevant for those recovering from PTSD. It begins with a difference in how Orthodoxy and Western theology traditionally view war. In the West, we’ve developed a doctrine of “just war.” This doctrine outlines when a government may resort to war (Jus ad Bellum) and how war must be conducted (Jus in Bello).

The Least Unjust War

Under just war theory, for a war to be just, there must be a just cause for war and just intentions in commencing hostilities. A legitimate authority must be involved. The extent of the war must be proportional to its reasons, and resorting to war should be the final option in a series of steps to prevent conflict. Conducting a war justly requires discrimination on the part of combatants, avoiding injury to non-combatants, and proportionality, using force proportional to the strategic benefits sought.

In the East, they’ve adopted a slightly different approach. In Eastern Orthodoxy, there has been a tendency to start with the belief that war is inherently evil. In other words, the destructiveness of war, no matter how necessary it may be, is itself evil. Consequently, those who participate in war are engaging in something fundamentally evil. Since it is inherently evil, the more violent the conflict and the more deeply involved the actor becomes, the more likely it is that significant spiritual and psychological damage will occur to the warrior. War is inevitably damaging to the human soul. [2] One might say that, as opposed to a just war, there’s a notion of the least unjust war in the East. Both recognize that war is a feature of human history.

The Ugliness of War

If war is somehow inherently ugly, and if the fact that war is being fought means that the harmony intended for creation is being broken, then recovering from psychological injury due to war involves more than just learning to cope with prior trauma. As opposed to developing coping mechanisms, the soldier needs to be healed of the spiritual injury done to them by the mere fact that they were required to engage in an inherently destructive activity. This means, among other things, that the person involved must accept their responsibility for the damage done to them by the battle. Trauma is connected to the human feeling that a moral order has been violated. [3]

In connection with my years as a pastor, I’ve had to counsel soldiers suffering from PTSD more than once. In many cases, they felt guilty about things they had done due to combat. On more than one occasion, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with soldiers who were responsible for firing munitions at an enemy facility in which civilians happened to be present.

Let’s take a bridge, for example. When the weapon was fired, no one was on the bridge. But a group of children arrived on the bridge before the munition hit. They were all killed. A soldier may feel that they should not have fired under such circumstances. A special forces officer may be ordered to enter a village and remove a perceived enemy, only to learn later that the person killed was not an enemy combatant. We might call this combat guilt. Whether they were morally culpable or not, the fact is, they killed someone, and they feel some degree of guilt.

There were also circumstances in which soldiers may feel guilty for things beyond their control. For example, a soldier ordered to report to headquarters, whose entire combat unit is killed while he is absent, is not responsible for the deaths of his friends. He received a legitimate order that had to be obeyed. On the other hand, it’s been my experience that soldiers feel guilt for not having been with their unit in such a situation, even though it is almost certain that they would have died had they been present; we might call this false survivor’s guilt.

Shame and Guilt

Psychologists sometimes distinguish between shame and guilt. Shame is a sense of unworthiness; it makes a person feel they lack integrity, are unattractive, and so on. They feel that as a person, they are flawed and inadequate. Conversely, guilt is the sense of responsibility for a specific action or inaction that a person perceives as sinful or wrong. Shame attaches to the person who feels shame. Guilt attaches to the action the person is guilty of taking or not taking.

In all cases, there can be appropriate and inappropriate feelings of shame and guilt. I may feel ashamed of a particular aspect of my personality, but that’s really nothing to be ashamed of. I might feel guilty for something I’ve done, even when I bear no real responsibility. Modern psychology, however, doesn’t necessarily clarify things by suggesting that people shouldn’t feel shame or guilt. The reality is that they do.

The feeling of shame or guilt itself indicates that a person feels somehow responsible for their circumstances. Telling them they are not accountable or helping them see that they are part of a larger machine does not alleviate the guilt. This is where Grace comes into play. God can remove guilt through the operation of Grace, and that removal can restore a portion of the lost harmony. The mediated forgiveness of Christ is the best way to heal the trauma war inflicts. [4]

To expand on a prior example, soldiers who survive combat in which their closest comrades are killed often feel what is called “survivor’s guilt or shame.” In some cases, a person may have nothing to feel guilty about. On the other hand, if one deserted a unit and was the cause of the deaths, then perhaps that person does have something to feel guilty about. If one was ordered to a different location and thus escaped the incident, one has nothing to be ashamed of. A character flaw did not cause the deaths of comrades. Conversely, if I knew of the danger and took action to ensure that I was exempt from that danger, then perhaps I should feel shame.

Here is a point that is sometimes overlooked in contemporary psychology: In any of the four cases, the harmony and beauty God desires for the human personality have been defaced. The person involved feels shame and/or guilt. Telling them they should not feel this shame or guilt does not solve the problem. In some cases, they are troubled by the sense that they might have done something to save their comrades. The goal of an “ethics of beauty” or a “psychology of beauty” is to restore the integrity of the individual. However, what needs to be done to restore that integrity may differ from case to case.

The Beauty of Christ and Our Beauty

At this point, it’s helpful to introduce a common motif in The Ethics of Beauty: the sheer beauty of Christ, the Cross, and the Resurrection. For Christians, Christ embodies the divinely intended beauty of the human person. The Cross and Resurrection symbolize God’s decisive action to undo the effects of evil and distortion, restoring humanity to its originally intended state. When considering the disciples recognizing the resurrected Christ, one must realize their initial thought was probably not, “It’s true!” but something like, “Oh my gosh.” Witnessing the resurrected Christ, a complete restoration of his disfigured body, must have filled them with awe—the awe one feels when experiencing a powerful, transcendent beauty.

This notion that we are restoring the beauty intended by God in the human person has profound consequences. Each person with PTSD, and indeed every victim of any sin or distortion, is meant to be a subject of Christ’s redeeming power. The primary goal of the doctor, psychologist, or pastor is to restore the image of God within the person before them. This restoration is not primarily an act of “getting them to see the truth,” but rather of resurrection, by the power of the Holy Spirit, an inherently beautiful person.

True and False Liturgy

When attending an Orthodox liturgy, I’m always struck by the sanctuary’s beauty, the chanting, the physical participation of the congregation, and the sacraments. It is as if the liturgy is an attempt once a week to restore the initial harmony of the human soul, not so much by what it says, but what it says primarily comes from scripture, but through the entire experience of being drawn into the mystery of Christ.

As Pattisas sees war as the opposite of the orthodox liturgy. If the orthodox liturgy is all about restoring the harmony of the human soul, war is all about destroying any form of harmony, physical, mental, moral, or spiritual. In a sense, it’s “an anti-liturgy.” To use the thoughts of C.S. Lewis and Walter Wink, if the Christian story is the “true myth” of God’s love for the world and the human race and desire for its restoration, then the “myth of redemptive violence” that war creates is a “false myth,” “anti-myth” in which human beings can find wholeness in the destruction of the wholeness of others. [5]

Lewis puts it this way in his letter:

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things’. Therefore, it is true, not in the sense of being a ‘description’ of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being how God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The ‘doctrines’ we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are the translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. [6]

I think it’s interesting to note that for Lewis, the literary images contained in the biblical narrative (the thing of beauty) come before church doctrine and are, in some sense, more important than church doctrine. In other words, for Lewis, Beauty comes before Truth. [7]

Conclusion

The discussion of trauma and PTSD in the ethics of beauty has an application far beyond victims of war. To some degree or another, all trauma of whatever type causes a wounding and defacing of the human soul. Therefore, all counseling, Christian or otherwise, must be concerned with the restoration of the beauty of that soul.[8] That which is true of soldiers is also true of neglected children, of those who have committed crimes, for those who have been victims of crimes, and every other victim of trauma.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020).

[2] Id, 3.

[3] Id, 16.

[4] Id, at v.

[5] C. S. Lewis, Letter to Arthur Greeves (1931) and Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992).

[6] Id.

[7] This very weekend, I talked to an Orthodox priest about the fact that Lewis is constantly found in Orthodox bookstores and that Orthodox children are encouraged to read him. His approach is profoundly Orthodox and “Merely Christian.”.

[8] Id, 19-20.