The Bible and the American Constitution

If you are familiar with various interpretations of Scripture... it might be interesting to see the various ways of Interpreting the Constitution:

Originalism
Originalists think that the best way to interpret the Constitution is to determine how the Framers intended the Constitution to be interpreted. They look to a variety of sources to determine this intent, including what those individuals actually wrote. Originalists consider the original intent to be the most pure way of interpreting the Constitution. If there is an unclear phrase in the Constitution, who better to explain it than those who wrote it?

The problem with this view is the Framers were not the only people who ratified the document. In other words the document was also a product of hundreds of delagates of 13 states who held views on the constitution as well. In addition the Framers of the constitution were a diverse bunch of folks. They wrote parts of it and took itssue with other parts.

The next group of people are Modernist/Instrumentalist
A modernist approach to Constitutional interpretation ask the questions, "What if the Constituion were to be ratified today? What would the implecations be?" How do things in out modern world affect the words of the text. Modernist argue that the Constituion is irrelevant without reinterpretation throught the lens of modern issues that modern life brings. The world has changed a lot in the past 200+ years and there have been many new laws passed. What does a group of white men in the 1700's have to say to a very diverse America today.
A modernist might argue that the writers of the constitution were intentially vague on many issues so that new ideas could override old ideas. This might hold to the idea of a "Living Constitution" where the Constitution is flexible and dynamic, changing slowly over time as the morals an beliefs of the population shift. Interestingly enough a Modernist does not reject originalism. They believe that understanding intent of the Framers is very important, but current reality outweigh an following an outdated opinion and decision.

Originalists feel that modernism does are rejecting the pure and valid vision the Framers had for the country when they interpret the Constitution.

A Third View is the Literalism - historical.
The only thing that matters to the historic literalist is the actual words of the Constitution. Similar to the originalist, the historic literalist values the 18th century understanding of the Constitution, however they see no need to look to other documents, writings etc. of the authors to further understand the Constitution itself. With a wholesale rejection of modernism, the historical literalist answers all questions by simply investigating the words of the text. The historic literalist values the 18th century understand of the words, not the contemporary understand. Those who only read the words of the Constitution but that use contemporary definitions of the actual words are called Literalist -Contemporary. (our fourth view)