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Are conservative Christian theology and liberal politics compatible?
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Positive implications of rejection (declaration of independence)
Topic: idiosyncratic egotism

As I said in an earlier post, the United States Supreme Court has now refused to involve itself in my case.  The result of this is that the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court denying my application to join the bar of the State of Kansas, stands.  This means that, barring the intervention of God to change the decision of the Courts, I will never be a lawyer.  (Note that, unlike many, I do not place the United States Supreme Court above God.  God can still overrule the Court--or even abolish it--if He wants to).

This decision may, at first, look like a disaster for me, something out of which no good can come.  But it does have some positive aspects.  Here is a partial list of them: 

1.  I no longer need to fear the negative opinions of the Kansas Supreme Court.  They have irreversibly decided that they are unworthy of me.  So now I can go on free of any concern for what they think.

2.  As a consequence of #1, I no longer need to make personal decisions--for instance, decisions about where I spend my time or money, or who I associate with--with any purpose to avoid the Court's bad opinion or to win the Court's favor.  They have already done the worst they can do, and I will NEVER win their favor.  In these personal and financial decisions, I am now free to follow God's leading without trying to balance God's plans against the desire for a future law license.

3.  Also as a consequence of #1, I no longer need to put any study time into maintaining my legal knowledge.  I can now study entirely on God's program.

4.  Another consequence of #1 is that I am now free to speak, write and publish without any thought of what the Court will think.  The Court will probably dislike whatever I say, just because I'm the one who said it, said it.  But their displeasure doesn't matter anymore. 

5.  I no longer need to make occupational decisions based on the need to stay close to the law.  I'm free to increasingly pursue a future in scholarship and writing, which is both my natural bent and the direction I believe God is sending me.

6.  I no longer need to make paying my student loan the number one priority in my life.  Because there will be no future attempts to join the Bar, late student loan payments will not have a negative effect on future applications.  This doesn't mean that I now intend to go into bankruptcy, or to simply ignore my student loan creditor.  It does mean that God and my family will now come before my creditors--as should always have been the case.  

7.  I no longer need to make financial and occupational decisions based on ultra-conservative speculations about the effects of my decisions on my ability to maintain my payments on my student loans from law school.  I no longer need to avoid pursuing unconventional decisions about my finances or future because I fear that they would make my student loan creditor feel insecure, if that creditor found out about them.   Just because most of the loans were from law school doesn't mean that my future has to be that of a "normal" rejected law school graduate.    

 In short, I'm now free to make radical changes without giving any thought to what the Kansas Supreme Court, or the courts in general, would think about those changes.  The Court probably thought that its decision rendered me irrelevant.  What it really did was render them irrelevant.


Posted by ian_j_site2 at 11:30 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 7 May 2008 8:01 AM EDT

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