Last night, I wrote a bit about stare decisis. The thing about this doctrine is that there a precedents and future decisions are made based on these precedents. This gives stability. I tend to want stability. I want to know that an action will lead to a predictable consequence. I'd like to think that what I'm doing now will somehow influence where I am in 5, 25, 0r 50 years.
Last night, I opened up my devotional and, of course, there is another side of the story. Stare decisis deals with the tangible evidence, the things that we can see.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, "We live by faith, not by sight" (5:7).
Tiegreen writes, "But when the eyes of faith are open to the greater reality of God's Kingdom, the label of 'unstable' or even 'crazy' comes quickly."
Abandoning the stable for the unstable, the predictable for the unpredictable - now that's some scary stuff.
Imagine how the Supreme Court justices felt when they departed from precedent in Brown v. Board of Education. In Brown, the Supreme Court concluded that separate educational facilities for whites and blacks were inherently unequal. This decision departed from precedents that had existed and were reinforced for over 50 years!
I wonder what it would look like to live a revolutionay life... a life so filled with faith that others would consider me unstable or crazy.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Who you foolin', Todd?!? You're not wondering what it would look like... you're pursuing!
(PS- I think one of my favorite scriptural descriptions of faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen")
Post a Comment