This is Thinking in Public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Moeller, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Judge in Wilfpar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit,

where he serves since 2017. A graduate of the

University of California's school of law there at Berkeley,

Judge Thapar was previously a judge on the United States District

Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. He also served as

United States Attorney for Eastern Kentucky. Judge the Par has written numerous

scholarly articles for journals such as the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and the Catholic

University Law Review.

He's taught courses on originalism, federalism, and constitutional law at law schools such

as that at Notre Dame University, the University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.

But it is his book, The People's Justice, Clarence Thomas, and the constitutional stories that define

him that is the topic of our conversation today.

Honorable Judge Amul Thapar, welcome to thinking in public.

Your Honor is a little unusual for a sitting federal judge

to write a book about another judge in this case

Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court. So why did you do this and

why now? Yeah when Justice Scalia sadly passed too early he told us most of

judges lawyers other thoughtful people that we have a responsibility to fly the flag of originalism was what he said because they weren't going to do it necessarily in the academies or elsewhere.

And so what he always said is he took originalism to lawyers and when he started doing it, he would

walk in and announce he was an originalist and everyone would run out like he was a bear.

...