Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, is justice for sale? This is prompted by an article I read recently in the New York Times, which was looking at the way different judges and different legal entities decide cases based on political affiliation. Like, for example, in 2022, a study done by Yale and Columbia revealed that the Republican led Supreme Court. The current Supreme Court, sided with the wealthier party in cases over 70% of the times. Seven out of 10 times, they sided with the wealthy, with the person who had more economic resources, economic power. In a case in 1953, just by way of contrast, the Supreme Court sided with the wealthier party 45% of the time. So that's a pretty dramatic jump. But Republicans aren't the only ones whose political ideology affects the way they think about justice. Democratic appointees, the same study revealed, side with the wealthy only 35% of the time, which is another way of saying they side with the economically disadvantageous, 65% of the time. In other words, one is favoring the poor, one is favoring the rich, one is favoring the powerful, one is favoring the less powerful. the point is that we are finding it increasingly hard in a political world to think about justice neutrally. Picture the image of justice right as the lady with a blindfold on holding scale. She doesn't see whether you're poor or you're rich, whether you have power or you don't. She just sees what is right. She knows what is right. But not in America. You know, that it might feel as though, the legal system being unfair or political ideology affecting the way we think about justice as being something that really doesn't matter to you and I in a day to day basis unless we find ourselves going to court. but for most of us, we don't anticipate that outcome. And so we might not think of this as a big deal. The problem though is that the Bible has a lot to say about this. Time and time again, the Bible warns about favoritism, giving one person more than you give anyone else, giving them the benefit of the doubt. You don't give anyone else based on some external factor. And it specifically warns about favoritism as it relates to justice. Consider, for example, the words of Leviticus 19:15, which says, do not pervert justice. Hear this. Do not show partiality to the poor or Favoritism to the great. In other words, God warns about any kind of perversion of justice, whether it be the kind of perversion that, is advantageous for the poor or advantageous for the wealthy. And the reason for that is pretty simple. The erosion of justice is an erosion of any society or civilization. At the end of the day, the court system exists to make sure that fairness is an actual experience in a civilization. And when we lose that, things start to fall apart. And of course, from a biblical worldview, the real idea of fairness is this. We are all made in the image of God. Whether we're poor or whether we're wealthy, whether we're one ethnicity or the next. We deserve justice because we are made in God's image and we operate under his authority. So an unjust civilization is arguing with God about who's worthwhile and who's not and who ultimately determines truth and who does not. Now, one of the things I found convicting about this, and I don't know if this will resonate with you, is when I go to vote, there are certain elections I pay a lot of attention to. For example, when there's a presidential election or a congressional election, I'm locked in. I. I study candidates. I make informed decisions about who I'm going to vote for. But as you work your way down the ballot, there are a lot of positions I don't spend as much time on. And, I hate to say it, judges are one of those. I just don't do enough research on why a judge is qualified or isn't, why he or she will bring value to our country or not, whether they've known to show partiality or favoritism before. But God says this matters. So I think. One response to the question of Is justice for sale? Is for Christians to take more seriously our elections as it relates to judges or those who appoint judges. For us to have an expectation of fairness, of justice, that really is blind to where a person is coming from or what their economic privilege or power may be. Justice matters to God, so it has to matter to me. And the best way forward is for you and I to become informed voters. Let's be praying and voting in such a way that in 30 years, when they do this study again, what they'll find is that political ideology and bias has no place in our legal system. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. 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Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!