Late Monday, Texas’ Attorney General filed a Motion with the United States Supreme Court asking it to take jurisdiction over a lawsuit the state wants to file against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Last week I said Chief Justice John Roberts needs to do his job or get off the Bench. Now, his lawlessness and lack of fidelity to the U.S. Constitution has come home to roost on the biggest stage ever—a divisive presidential election. There is no easy answer for him.

Chief Justice John Roberts has gotten on my last nerve. After violating his oath of office this summer to avoid controversy in a high-profile abortion case, he ducked out on another high-profile social issue type case last week. This one involved the Executive Order of New York Governor Cuomo that limited the number of persons who could attend religious services. It was nice to see two of his colleagues call him out, but now I will add my voice to theirs.

As I think about the Thanksgiving holiday just celebrated, I can think of no greater thoughts about it in relation to our civic life than those that were penned during the American Revolutionary War by the Continental Congress in 1777. They marked the first national Proclamation of Thanksgiving. They are words that would never be penned by Congress today, but they are words we and they would do well to remember. They sure do away with the idea that a secular mindset guided the thinking of our leaders.

The presidential election is over. The results, however, are not final as a matter of law. I don’t know whether the voter fraud that accompanies all elections will prove sufficient to change the media-predicted results in this election, but something more than ballot integrity is on the line -- the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court. And it may do itself in for generations to come.

This past Sunday, The Tennessean, ran a story entitled “Can religious leaders help US repair post-election divisions after Joe Biden victory?” The article states that “Biden wants to unite a divided nation. . . . It is a tall task. The wounds of division post-election are deep and unity work is hard, but clergy in Tennessee still think it is worth doing.” Worth doing? Sure. But how?

As I thought about the presidential election results, I could not help but think of these words in the so-called “southern national anthem,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, “Now Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you?” In a certain sort of way the election results do not bother me nor does my conscience regarding how I voted. 

Last week, I tried to encourage readers to consider the true nature of godliness and compare it to how they approached voting for either President Donald Trump or Joe Biden. This week, I want to explore two recent commentaries by well-known Christian ministers within the evangelical community, each coming to a different conclusion about how to vote in the presidential election. I hope I can contribute something I think both missed.

With early voting starting, it is again time for evangelicals to start explaining why they will or will not vote for Donald Trump. Some will say that voting for Trump is a bad Christian witness while others will say his personal conduct can be excused because his policies are more consistent with biblical positions on abortion and religious liberty. What I’ve read brought to mind what Martin Luther wrote to Pope Leo X in 1520 as part of his tract, The Freedom of the Christian, and made me wonder if both camps are missing something vitally important.

Joe Biden, Diane Feinstein, and Amy Coney Barrett—you might call them the unholy trinity of American political views on religion and the Establishment Clause. Actually, Barrett isn’t “unholy” in the same sense as the other two. As I explained a couple of weeks ago, Judge Barrett’s Catholic views and view of the U.S. Constitution do not create an “Establishment Clause problem.” Biden and Feinstein actually do. Today, though, I want to share my thoughts on what I think is the real reason behind Biden, a Catholic, saying Barrett’s Catholicism is not an Establishment Clause problem for him.

This week, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a “statement”—in layman’s terms, a certain kind of opinion—about the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal of a judgment against Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk, Kim Davis. You will recall that she famously refused to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple as a matter of the “free exercise” of her “religion” after the Supreme Court’s marriage decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.