c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) President Bush’s nomination of John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court appears to have been a master stroke for the president. It may also contribute to the healing of our religious and cultural divisions if the confirmation process is handled appropriately by all concerned.

President Bush faced a demanding political challenge in making this decision. His own conservative base demanded a recognizably conservative nominee. He needed to find someone with whom religious conservatives, in particular, could feel comfortable, and yet do so without alienating other kinds of Republicans, such as business and economic interests. The response from all sectors of the Republican constituency has been quite positive, and it appears that Roberts will sail into the confirmation process with full Republican support.

The president needed to find a nominee who could not easily be rejected by Democrats as some kind of flame-throwing radical. He had among his options several candidates who would have been perceived by Democrats as an intentional provocation. They then could have mobilized for culture war and we would have faced one of those dispiriting and damaging battles that have so marred our politics in recent years. While left-wing interest groups are reflexively beating the war drums and crying out with howls of pain, mainstream Democratic leaders are generally acknowledging that Roberts is not an ideologue that they can easily dismiss.

For the good of the nation, the president needed to locate a candidate whose approach to the law could tamp down the growing sense that the judicial branch is losing its distinctiveness and political independence. As our cultural/political stalemate has deepened, more and more political pressure has been placed on the courts. One of the marks of a well-functioning democracy is a truly independent judiciary, populated by legal experts who are above all committed to faithful interpretation of the laws of the land. So far, legal scholars appear fairly confident that Roberts is that kind of judge, and their support will help Roberts greatly during the confirmation process.

The fact that religious conservative groups like the Family Research Council would heartily applaud someone who attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School _ a candidate who is clearly a creature of the legal mainstream _ is really quite encouraging. Religious conservatives are always ready to mistrust the elite educational, cultural and political institutions of our nation, and often draw on that mistrust in seeking to galvanize their own constituency.

John Roberts appears to be a person who has managed to come through such institutions, gaining the greatest value possible from them, while retaining recognizably conservative religious, moral and political values. This kind of person could help bridge the red-state/blue-state cultural divide and symbolize that it need not be an eternal or immutable division.

Several commentators noted that unlike some of the most visible conservative legal scholars and jurists, Roberts has shown no evidence that he is animated by anger. This is one reason why he is liked and respected across the political spectrum, and reminds us of the healing power of goodwill and an irenic temperament.

In a time in which white-hot anger so often dominates our nation’s public life, perhaps in John Roberts we will find an example and a catalyst of a better way of handling ourselves and our differences.

Let us hope that the confirmation process will be as dignified and responsible as its object, John Roberts.

MO/PH END RNS

(David P. Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.)