Clashing Worldviews in the U.S. Supreme Court

Book excerpt: Contrasting two Protestant justices who hold distinctively different worldviews, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Harry A. Blackmun, this book explores how each came to hold his worldview, how each applied it in Supreme Court rulings, and how it led them to differing outcomes for liberty, equality, and justice. 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.