Clashing Worldviews

Despite the oft-repeated phrase “justice is blind,” the black-robed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court very much interpret the law through their personal worldviews (a point that has taken center stage each time the Senate has considered a Supreme Court nominee for the past 30 years). Contrasting two Protestant justices, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who hold distinctively different worldviews, this book explores how each man came to hold his, how each applied his worldview in Supreme Court rulings, and how each worldview led them to differing outcomes for justice, liberty, and equality. This clash of worldviews between Rehnquist, whose religious and philosophical influences were anchored in the Reformation, and Blackmun, whose Reformation theology was modified by Enlightenment philosophy, provide the context to examine the true nature of justice, liberty, and equality and to consider how such ideals can be maintained in a society with increasingly divergent worldviews.