Constitutional Originalism is the idea that one should read the Constitution, not interpret it. It endeavors to implement the "original" intent of the Founders. The goal is to limit renovation and innovation in order to stick with the "fundamentals" of the United States. Sound familiar? It should. The origins of this strategy are found in biblical inerrancy--the idea that the Bible should be read, not interpreted. That it is the errorless Word of God. That it is 100% accurate in terms of history, archaeology, and everything else.
What if I told you that both of these movements have their foundation in White Supremacy and the Lost Cause?
Austin Steelman, PhD candidate at Stanford University, unpacks the story.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
I'm faculty at the University of San Francisco, and our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
I'm joined today by Austin Steelman, who is a PhD candidate in history at Stanford University, and we're going to talk about constitutional originalism and biblical inerrancy.
Fascinating connection.
So Austin, thanks for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
Excited for the conversation.
Excited to be on the show.
I want to just start by talking about your background.
So today we're talking about two separate, but as we're going to discover, related ideas.
We have mentioned this on our show before.
I know some folks will remember this, but basically the idea that one should read the U.S.
Constitution as an originalist, meaning in the sort of original intent of the authors.
And biblical inerrancy or biblical literalism, meaning you should read the Bible literally or as an inerrant text without any error whatsoever.
What is interesting is that there are sort of connections between these in American history, and there's connections even now in terms of our political landscape.
So we want to get to all of that sort of fascinating Pay off.
But before that, let me just ask you about you.
You grew up evangelical and then you sort of ended up in law school and that led you down a path that brought you where you are today.
Can you just tell us a little bit about that?
Sure.
Yeah, I grew up in a smaller evangelical denomination, the Church of the Nazarene.
I went to undergrad at a Nazarene college and had a sort of not particularly interesting deconstruction story that started with some More progressive professors there and, you know, don't want to go into the weeds on that.
Many people have more interesting stories.
Many people have the same story as me there.
But by the time I got to law school, I had already started to question some of the biblical inerrancy I'd grown up believing.
This idea that the Bible was inerrant, that it was a sort of guide to history, a guide to science.
I was sitting in constitutional law classes in law school and I'm introduced to sort of constitutional originalism, which I've been vaguely aware of before, but this idea that the Constitution also has some extra authority, that there's some inspiration when it's written.
That we can, and most importantly, that we can just read it and take the text and that rather than interpreting it and building on it and getting to core concepts and building off those, we should be hewing tightly to the text itself.
And I'm sitting there in my law school classes and I'm immediately like, I recognize this, right?
This is how, right?
This is how I read the Bible, right?
I was in, you know, I was in Bible quizzing, right?
A sort of Pharisee of Pharisees to use the, you know, Biblical term, right?
I knew, and I was like, this is so familiar that there has to be something here connecting these two.
And I was far from the first person to make that observation.
It was in op-eds and newspapers.
Many legal scholars had talked about this.
Some judges had even mentioned it, right?
That these two seem to be similar ways of approaching texts.
But that's a sort of, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire argument.
And I started to get interested in Where's this coming from?
When did this start?
Are these just similar looking parallel, you know, phenomena?
Or are they something that are things that are deeply connected in a more historical way?
Well, and I, you know, you kind of humbly skipped over your deconstruction story there.
But one of the things that I think is really, you know, fascinating and unique about your journey is you were in law school and, you know, you're sitting there listening to the outlines of constitutional originalism.
Your eyes and mind light up because you're like, whoa, that sounds like biblical inerrancy.
And so now, you know, somebody who's been to law school and is now pursuing a PhD in, you know, American history related to this topic, you really have a kind of singular training for this.
As you mentioned, there are legal scholars who've looked into it, but they don't necessarily have The historical training, or perhaps the bandwidth, right, to go into the kinds of detail that I think you are.
And so, it seems as if you start to wonder, all right, where did the idea of constitutional originalism come from, and then how is it related, right, to the idea of biblical inerrancy?
This leads you to an obscure figure in the Reagan administration named Ed Meese.
Can you just tell us quickly about Ed Meese?
Yeah, so this is where I start looking when I'm looking for evidence of originalism.
So Ed Meese was Reagan's second attorney general.
You may have remembered from not so long ago news cycles, Ed Meese got the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump.
And part of what was cited was his impact in bringing this doctrine of constitutional originalism really to power.
He's the first one to announce that constitutional originalism, or what he calls a jurisprudence of original intent as the governing philosophy for picking judges for the Reagan Department of Justice, and then it becomes the de facto way of picking judges for the Republican Party, sort of to the present.
And we can see this in our recent confirmation hearings.
But the interesting thing I find is that Ed Meese is also a biblical inerrantist.
And at the same time, he's unveiling this doctrine, this jurisprudence of original intent talking about the founders and everything.
He's also talking to Christian evangelical audiences and pointing out that this lines up with, one, how they're approaching the Bible, how they've come to be concerned about a Supreme Court allowing secular humanism, a term I know you've talked about on this show before, To get into modern law, and at the same time appointing his friend, who's a much more fundamentalist Pentecostal figure, to be the person to vet those judges.
So from its inception as a powerful political concept in the Reagan administration, originalism is particularly geared at making the evangelicals who voted for, and the members of the religious right who voted for Reagan, Happy, and they're drawn to it in a really big way.
And Meece, in initial speeches, it's just clear that the big fight is going to be over the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment saying that, you know, the Supreme Court's gone too far in being anti-religion.
It's fought back against these Christian schools.
It has taken away tax exemption from Bob Jones University.
I know you've talked to Professor Randall Ballmer about this on your show.
And this is really important.
I get there and I'm like, this is here, right?
This connection's real, there is a historical root.
These people are making the argument that this bedrock is combined, and Mies will even say to religious audiences that the Bible informs the founders writing the Constitution, and we can't improve on this legacy of the Bible and the Ten Commandments and the way they inspire the Constitution.
So I'm fully convinced that I'm going to write my dissertation on the 70s and the 80s, And that there's a story there, and that's it.
And that's where I'm going to sort of focus.
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