The Feb. 13 death of conservative, long-time U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, 79, at a resort in West Texas was received “with deep shock,” writes LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison in a statement released the following day on the Synod’s Facebook page.
“On the moral issues, on which The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has taken a public stand (life, marriage and religious freedom), we and all creedal and biblically oriented Christians had no more stalwart friend on the Supreme Court than Justice Scalia,” Harrison writes.
“He articulated the voice of consistent rationality and unchanging natural law — the very voice and sentiment of the founders of this nation — in the face of progressives on the court, which has left our nation morally depleted.
“Unfortunately the death of a great man is often a harbinger of worse things to come,” the statement continues. “Can the Supreme Court harm this nation even more than it has? Are 57 million abortions not enough? Unfortunately, we may well fall to even deeper depths of degradation.”
Harrison’s statement ends with a prayer: “Spare us, O God, from what we deserve, and give this nation leaders and justices who recognize the unchanging and rational truth of natural law, which accords with the Ten Commandments. And grant us justices and leaders who recognize, as did our founders, the great benefit of a religious citizenry for the well-being of all. Amen.”
Read complete statementPosted Feb. 15, 2016
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A moral man who stood on the moral high ground. I will miss him.
Truly sad for our country to lose this Justice, a man that was sometimes the sole impetus for decisions based on what is right in God’s eyes. May God have mercy on this country and give His people peace.
Why is a person’s death a harbinger of worse things to come? I think it is a neutral event.
It is not a neutral thing at all. If the Supreme Court is dominated by liberal jurists, one could not expect it to see decisions reflecting the values of millions of conservatives and Christians. It could be a harbinger of bad things to come.
Justice Scalia also voted to gut the Voting Rights Act and in favor of both the death penalty and having virtually no cap on campaign contributions. Do such points of view also represent the LCMS?
Thank you for your blog post. For information on the LCMS position on the death penalty, please review our Frequently Asked Question at http://www.lcms.org/faqs/lcmsviews#deathpenalty. The LCMS would not have an opinion on campaign contributions. You may want to review Render Unto Caesar … and Unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State at http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=360.
No, of course not. Even Martin Luther issued opinions that many of us in the Lutheran church could not defend.
But, on the key points of Christian doctrine, there was no better.
so, too with Antonin Scalia on matters of religious liberty and natural law.