William Stuntz makes the familiar argument that Christians shouldn’t want governmental endorsements–even modest and implied endorsements. Most of those arguments are reasonable, but he doesn’t explain why they should make him “root[] for the lawsuits.”

The conclusion strikes me as especially odd. Stuntz laments, “Twenty-first century America is a land full of legal rights, and lawyers to make the most of them. The most Christian thing to do in a place like that is to make the least of them. Somewhere, sometime I’d like to hear that my fellow believers, when given the opportunity to erect some watered-down monument or display, said: ‘Thank you, but no. I don’t want to exercise my rights.’ That would communicate more Christian faith than all the monuments and plaques and graduation prayers put together. Then the Supreme Court could quit wasting its time on these cases . . . .”

It strikes me as a bit unnatural to see, say, the ability to post the Ten Commandments as a “right” that Christians collectively exercise. If you’re annoyed by rights talk, wouldn’t it be more natural to say that people who are offended by the displays shouldn’t assert a right not to have to see them? And wouldn’t the easiest way for the courts to quit wasting their time on such cases be not to recognize that right? I also question whether it’s true that making the least of one’s rights is necessarily the “Christian” thing to do. (Is Stuntz really suggesting that people who disagree with him about the display of the Ten Commandments are being un-Christian? That’s an odd comment to make in a piece that is partly about tolerance.)