At the Liberty Law site, I have a post on the absence of any Protestant Christians on the current Supreme Court. In historical terms, this is a striking anomaly: Most of the 112 men and women who have sat on the Court have been Protestant Christians. What explains this, and does it make a difference for American law?
I argue that the reasons differ for Mainline Protestants and Evangelicals. The absence of Mainline Protestants is explained by the general decline of this group, in terms of numbers and influence, in American life. Membership in the Mainline churches is dwindling; and, at the cultural level, as Rusty Reno argues, Mainline Protestant Christianity has transformed itself into a “post-Protestant WASP” ethic of religious indifference, multiculturalism, and meritocratic success. The lack of Evangelicals, by contrast, is explained by their underrepresentation in the legal elite—which, in turn, may be explained in part by bias against Evangelicals (and other social conservatives) at top law schools.
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