"The Lord gave the Word" proclaims the chorus in majestic unison during
Handel Messiah. (For constitutional purposes, we might say that the
Founding Fathers gave the Word.) Following this simple declaration, the
sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses trip over one another as the four voices
warble up, down, and around the scales, singing, "Great Was the Company
of the Preachers." Handel's playful poke at the clergy reverberates equally
well in the constitutional arena, where judges, lawyers, and scholars have
all raised their voices in the great church-state debate.

In constitutional interpretation, as in matters of interpretation generally,
the choice of a particular interpretive framework necessarily affects the
outcome. In the extreme, the interpreter can first select the desired result
and then identify an interpretive framework to justify that result. This is
the approach lawyers tend to take since their job is to obtain the best
results for their clients. Scholars frequently try to take a more principled
theory-over-practice approach in working towards comprehensive consti-
tutional interpretive frameworks, although they too, I suspect, occasionally
peek at results before solidifying their theories. ¹ Judges have adopted a
variety of approaches, and the first chapter's survey of establishment clause
cases shows that the Supreme Court has sometimes tried to articulate a
general theory of establishment clause interpretation (hence the three-part
test) and at other times has clearly abandoned that theory in favor of a
particular result, as in Marsh v. Chambers, the legislative chaplain case. ²

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