In the aftermath of the horrendous, Constitution-shredding decisions of the Supreme Court this past week, I've been reflecting on how we have come to where we find ourselves. How is it possible that we could have an interpretive body reading a document to mean the exact opposite of what it actually says?

Besides all the usual complaints about postmodernism and relativism, I think there is also a more simple explanation, which has proved itself in fact over and over again: When an interpretive body is invested with the power of infallible interpretation of a document, the interpretive body always, always, ALWAYS ends up trumping the document which it was merely supposed to interpret.

For another current example of this, one might look to the Magesterium of the Roman Catholic Church. This is ironic since many Roman Catholics (including my favorite justice, Antonin Scalia) are vehemently (and rightly) opposed to the recent Court decisions.

The Church claims the power to authoritatively interpret the revelation of God as given in the Bible. According to the Church, its powers do not stand above the revelation of the Bible, but are instead merely "equal." In practice, however, when you are dealing with the "dead letter" of a text and the "living interpretation" of an authoritative body, the text doesn't stand a chance once the authoritative interpreter decides to refuse to be subordinate to the text and instead sets out to find things that are not actually there. Of course, no interpretive body ever openly usurps its vested authority. It's decisions are always couched in terms that give the pretense of proceeding from the document which endows it with its power, while actually moving further and further away from the text.

Thus, the Supreme Court can look at the Fourteenth Amendment, the express purpose of which was to outlaw discrimination on the basis of race, and find in it the right to discriminate on the basis of race. They can read the First Amendment which states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof, and find in it the opportunity to prohibit the free exercise of religion by students in government schools. And the Roman Catholic Church can read a Bible that says "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus..." and find in it warrant for many mediators between God and men along with Jesus Christ. The plain meaning of the text cannot be the real meaning, because the infallible interpretive body says it's not.

As a result, I see the Supreme Court as being directly analogous to the Roman Catholic Church magesterium. By moving further away from the "dead letter," each has essentially trashed their foundational document, substituting for it an anything-goes wind-of-the-moment magesterium. One might object to the analogy by saying that the Supreme Court is not invested with divine authority, and thus is naturally fallible. However, since no check exists for a runaway court, its actions take on all the certainty and authority of one claiming to act on divine authority. And while the Church remains theoretically subject to the text of Scripture (as the Court remains theoretically subject to the text of the Constitution), in practice there are no checks for its pronouncements either.

The solution to the runaway magesterium was the Protestant Reformation which split the Church in the 16th century. Unfortunately, the only remaining solution to the Divine Magesterium of the Supreme Court might be similar.