An online article in Level Man magazine recently compared John Roberts, current Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, to the late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.
The report said that Taney’s “opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) is widely regarded by historians, legal scholars, and even modern Supreme Court justices as the worst Supreme Court decision in American history…[Taney] held that no Black person, free or enslaved, could ever be a U.S. citizen…Black people were not part of the political community…the Constitution was written for [W]hite men only…and slavery was a constitutionally protected institution.”[1]
The article went on to say that when “Congress moved to renew and expand the Voting Rights Act in 1982, Roberts, then a 26-year-old lawyer in the Reagan DOJ, wrote dozens of memos arguing [in part that] the VRA was too protective of minority voters.” Moreover, “John Roberts has shown less respect for the rights of Black people than Taney [and] has been the most effective Justice in his lifetime, perhaps in history, in protecting the rights of [W]hite people by removing those of Black ones. Taney would be proud.”[2]
Thinking too deeply about the role America has played and is playing in the enslavement, containment and oppression of human beings inevitably causes me to remember two consequential stories. The first is told by the late Benjamin E. Mays, former President of Morehouse College and teacher of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“A crowd of white men…rode up on horseback with rifles on their shoulders. I was with my father when they rode up, and I remember starting to cry. They cursed my father, drew their guns and made him salute, made him take off his hat and bow down to them several times. Then they rode away. I was five years old, but I’ve never forgotten them.”[3]
The second story is set in the state of Georgia.
“When a mob in Valdosta, Georgia, in 1918 failed to find Sidney Johnson, [who had been] accused of murdering his boss, Hampton Smith, they decided to lynch another black man, Haynes Turner, who was known to dislike Smith. Turner’s wife, Mary, who was eight months pregnant, protested vehemently and vowed to seek justice for her husband’s lynching. The sheriff, in turn, arrested her and then gave her up to the mob. In the presence of a crowd that included women and children, Mary Turner was stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.”[4]
What these two stories represent is where many of those currently in power in America are attempting to lead this nation. They want to return to a time when White people were able to intimidate and lynch Black people at will and no would bat an eye, or do anything to stop it, including the law. A time when a majority of the nation chose to be blind to what they were seeing. What the nation watching now will choose to do about what it is seeing is not yet known, but if the last election and current events are any indication, the future does not look particularly promising. If a majority of Americans continue supporting those who are attempting to turn history back on itself, and if their attempt is successful, the cruelty their loyalists may willingly inflict on others will not be limited to Black people.
The article comparing Chief Justice Roberts and Chief Justice Taney is deserving of attention because it reveals that the current leader of the Supreme Court is as bereft of wisdom as was Taney, and it bears repeating what Taney believed and what Roberts learned sitting at his feet: Black people should not be US Citizens and are not part of the political community, the Constitution was written specifically for White men, and slavery as an institution is constitutionally protected under the law. What we are now witnessing in the nation is the dismantling of freedoms pursued and gained, and the incremental razing of any and all institutions that have in some way, shape, form or fashion encouraged or supported Black participation and Black leadership within the political community, including the institutions responsible for educating them. A potentially effective way to bring everyone to heel.
The recent outing of the marriage between the judicial and executive branches implies they now share a bed, and the pillow-talk that goes on after the lights go out, but the closeness of their relationship also makes it possible to see more clearly the image described by John in the Book of Revelation of a horned beast having nine other horns. Comparable to the beast Daniel described, which also had ten horns, out of which emerged a little horn with eyes like a man and a mouth speaking blasphemous and boastful things.[5]
Seven officials who are part and parcel of the executive’s cabinet call to mind seven heads, as the statue of a woman lifting a visible lamp beside an invisible gold door brings to mind the great prostitute of Babylon lifting an invisible gold cup filled with filthy and immoral abominations. Crowns on top of the ten horns signify constitutional monarchs, or robed sovereign heads, nine with the authority to judge and the lying, lawless, blasphemous horned-beast of a man who openly defies and stands against GOD.[6]
Members of Congress, the third leg of the trio, who handed their authority over to the beast some time ago, will continue to do as they are told or, as Senator John Kennedy reminded them, “risk being slapped to Pluto.” I cannot get over how tragic it is that such an honored name came to be associated with someone so terribly different.[7]
From where I stand, the biblical narrative referencing a people loyal to the first beast and the false god is visibly perceptible, but what I find most interesting is how the heart and soul of faith do not change no matter toward what or to whom one’s faith is directed.
As an example, those following the beast believe it to be invincible, saying “Who is like the beast, who would dare make war against it?” Paradoxically, those of us following Jesus the Christ believe Him to be all conquering, saying “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus.” By the same token, as the beast is the created son of the dragon, who gave authority to the beast, Jesus is the Son born of GOD, who gave all authority to Jesus. The essential difference is that GOD gives purpose to any pain, and from GOD’s Son comes the courage needed for coming battles and the inner strength required for daily life. As opposed to the Dragon and its beast who take everything, including a person’s soul, and give nothing in return.[8]
By the time I finished reading and thinking about the article I was bristling.
So as not to get lost in the chaos trying to overpower my mind and emotions, I visited Wisdom—Sophia—again, hoping to hear something of benefit that would lift my spirits, and I was not disappointed. Not long after I began reading, pressing toward higher ground so I could see things from GOD’s point of view, sounds like strings of hope began to play and my dark clouds got chased away.
While contemplating Wisdom, I was initially reminded of what I already knew. That Wisdom comes from GOD, is better than any jewel and I should seek after it as though I was searching for silver, or some other hidden treasure. I read again the parable commending the pearl of great price for which any sacrifice—even all that one owns and possesses—is not too great a price to pay, if that’s what it takes to possess it. I listened again as John described the immense wealth in GOD’s Kingdom, including twelve Kingdom gates made of twelve single pearls, jewels adorning the walls of the city, and streets made of gold so thin they are as transparent as glass, an inheritance reserved for those who follow the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to those who sell them.[9]
Which is when I stumbled across a point of view about Wisdom I had not noticed or considered before. Instead of reading Genesis 1:1 as “In the beginning, GOD created…” I read “By means of Beginning, GOD created…”. Thoroughly intrigued, I dove straight down the biblical rabbit hole. When I finally came up for air I put figurative pen to paper, with the aim of sending what I hope sounds like strings of hope to someone whose own clouds need chasing away.
At some point, the obvious pointed itself out to me. There can be no Beginning until someone or something begins creating, a presumption implying the existence of a Sovereign Creator, whom I call GOD.
In Proverbs 8, Sophia—Wisdom—is identified as the Beginning, that which was before creation. With Wisdom’s help, GOD created, bringing to mind the union spoken of in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make [humankind] in our image, after our likeness.”
By the end of my study time, with the help of details I had not noticed before, Wisdom had taken on a life all Her own, save for my Jesus.
It was by way of Wisdom that GOD knit eternity into the divine tapestry of time, as the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, I was knit together in my biological mother’s womb, Job was knit with bones, muscles and flesh, and people of faith are knit together in love. Wisdom is the Way by which one can see knitted patterns on Earth in the context of eternity.[10]
Wisdom is the Way and the Word that existed before anything was created, as Jesus is the Word that was with GOD in the Beginning and became flesh in the likeness of humankind and is the Way, the Truth and the Life. My Jesus, who promised not to leave us alone but to send a Helper who would see us through to the end.[11]
Wisdom is the center of life that holds everything together, as the hub of a bicycle wheel holds the spokes together, as Jesus stood in the center of seven lampstands and is the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things hold together and are created through Him. By way of Wisdom—by Way of Jesus—GOD revealed the end from the beginning.[12]
Simply put, Wisdom’s excellence is less about knowing as the measure of understanding and more about knowing Wisdom as the One and the Way to follow into a world yet unseen, but truly there.
GOD be with you, and may the parables of understanding taught by Jesus not pass you by.
[1] https://www.levelman.com/chief-justice-john-roberts-sees-black-people-as-having-no-rights-hes-bound-to-respect/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, (New York: Orbis Books, 2013), 8.
[4] Ibid, 120.
[5] Daniel 7:7-8; Revelation 13:1, 5.
[6] Revelation 17:1-7.
[7] https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/03/12/congress/housing-affordability-bill-senate-vote-00824598.
[8] Matthew 16:13-17, 28:18-20; John 3:16-17, 10:31-38, 14:8-9, 20:30-31; Revelation 6:2, 12:10-11,13:1-4.
[9] Proverbs 2:1-6; Matthew 13:44-46; Revelation 21:15-21.
[10] Job 10:11; 1 Samuel 18:1; Psalm 139:13-14; Ecclesiastes 3:11; John 15:26-27, 16:1-1; 1 Corinthians 2:2.
[11] Genesis 1:1-2; John 1:1-4, 14:8-11, 15:26, 17:5.
[12] Genesis 1:1-2, 26-27; 1 Samuel 18:1; Job 10:11; Psalm 139:1; John 1:1-5, 14:6a; Colossians 1:15-17, 2:2; Revelation 1:12-13, 22:12-13.
Sacred Deliberations 
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