Thou shalt not establish a religion (9-7-2002)
I have not received so much hate mail in a long time. The reason? I wrote that the chief “justice” of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, is a raging lunatic because he has defied court orders, common sense, and basic courtesy in order to place a monument to his personal religious beliefs on public property.
Many of those who have sent me messages or posted to the message board have, through threats made to me, demonstrated the most peculiar form of Christianity I’ve ever witnessed. But it is about as fair to say that these fanatics are representative of Christianity as those who blow up buildings are representative of Islam.
It is not within my ability or desire to stop the free expression of one’s religious faith. When I say that it is inappropriate to display a religious monument on public property, that does not prevent individuals from expressing their faith at home, on the street, or even on public property. So first, your faith is not under attack. What is under attack is the notion of a truly public space by a pack of intolerant zealots.
While most comments I’ve received from readers fall under the category, “doesn't deserve a response,” I feel compelled to amplify my views on the subject of religious displays (in general) and “justice” Moore’s insistence on his Ten Commandments monument (in particular) in the public sphere. For this, I have two broad arguments based on the secular and the sacred.
What purpose does it serve?
To begin with the secular, it is worth asking two fundamental questions.
First, what is the purpose of a courthouse (or for that matter, a legislative chamber or executive mansion)?
Second, what is the purpose of the Ten Commandments?
To answer the first question, the purpose of a courthouse is do the work of the people in the court’s jurisdiction (municipal, county, state, federal, etc.). As such, the court is charged with interpreting local and federal laws while abiding by state and federal constitutions.
To answer the second question, it is worth looking at the Commandments themselves. God first delivers the Ten Commandments (and the rest of the Mosaic law) to Moses at the beginning of Exodus 20 (they are repeated in Deuteronomy 5). The first three verses of Exodus 20 are worth quoting here in full:
“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
The last sentence, of course, is the first Commandment. It’s purpose? To establish the authority of the God of Abraham over all other gods. The next three Commandments further establish the God of Abraham’s absolute authority: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (second Commandment, Exodus 20:4); “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” (third Commandment, Exodus 20:7); and “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (fourth Commandment, Exodus 20:8).
The point of these first four commandments are not to give everybody on earth a set of harmonious rules to live by, they are designed to tell the people of Israel that there is only one god.
From the onset, then, the Ten Commandments stand in direct conflict with the purpose of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first four Commandments are establishing a religious authority (that of the God of Abraham), therefore, their display in a public courthouse is an endorsement of that authority which is the foundation of a religious faith.
To say that the courthouses cannot display a monument to a particular religious faith is not prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Nobody is being prevented from practicing their faith, Moore and his zealots are being prohibited from forcing everybody, whether they are of the faith or not, to acknowledge the supremacy of that faith.
Some have tried to wiggle out of the constitutional conundrum by arguing that it is “Congress” that the First Amendment prohibits from passing the law, not a state judge like Moore. This reasoning is, at best, poppycock. Using the same logic, one could say it is okay for a Catholic president to establish Catholicism as the official religion of the United States because the president is not a member of Congress. Or, the state of Utah could declare Mormonism the official religion of Utah because Utah is not Congress. Neither the president nor the state of Utah, thankfully, has this authority to do such things and neither does Moore or even a state constitution.
But Moore persists in his grandstanding and issues peculiar statements. One he first mentioned on CBS’ The Early Show is, “This case is not about a monument, it’s not about politics or religion, it’s about the acknowledgment of God.”
This is specious reasoning at best. As already demonstrated, the Ten Commandments are not just about acknowledging that a god, as such, exists, but that the God of Abraham exists and is all powerful — thus, Moore is endorsing a particular religion, that of the God of Abraham. Even if Moore’s only goal is to acknowledge that some generic god exists, that is superfluous to the purpose of a court of law; namely, the purpose of a court is try civil and criminal cases. Whether a defendant or plaintiff believes in a god, no god, or the God of Abraham is about as relevant as asking a communicant whether s/he is a Republican or Democrat before being allowed to take communion.
God's law is not democratic
Following up Moore’s baffling exercise in circular logic, he says (as have many others), that our country’s laws are based upon the laws of the God of Abraham. Much of the hate mail I have received, for example, say that the United States was founded by Christians and that our legal system is based upon the Ten Commandments.
This rationale, besides being historically inaccurate, is irrelevant. The American justice system is based not on the Mosaic law, but upon the model of British Common Law, which is itself derived from the Roman law. Need further convincing of the American connection to the Roman model? Look no further than that living monument to the Romans, the Senate. To erroneously insist that the American system of jurisprudence rests upon the foundation of the Ten Commandments is about as historically accurate as saying that it rests upon the Upanishads. Yes, the Ten Commandments preceded the Constitution by a couple thousand years, but the Commandments have about as much influence (and probably a good deal less) upon the Constitution as the Articles of Confederation, another historical antecedent to the Constitution.
Second, the Ten Commandments are a piece of statutory law that, as I have already mentioned, is specifically designed to assert the God of Abraham’s absolute authority — it is the law of an absolute, infallible monarch. By contrast, the U.S. Constitution is, historically speaking, a relatively new kind of document that specifically lays out what powers the various branches of government have and, perhaps more importantly, what powers they do not have — this is the law of a democratic republic, with power derived from the consent of the governed.
The British had the Magna Charta, but that was an agreement solely between nobles and the sovereign. The U.S. Constitution is an agreement between all the people and the government of the United States. It is also worth noting that, unlike the Magna Charta, the U.S. Constitution conspicuously ignores mentioning god. The Constitution begins with “We the people,” whereas the Magna Charta begins with various invocations calling god as a witness. There is no mention of god anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.
The power of the government as outlined in the Constitution is conferred by the people, not by god. An individual may think god grants all power or authority, but that is an individual belief, not the legally binding document we must adhere to on Earth.
The Constitution deliberately avoids any mention of any god, much less the God of Abraham. While some have argued that the president finishes the oath of office by saying, “so help me god,” this is a traditional embellishment to appease the religious community. The actual oath, as laid out in the Constitution in Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 states, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
It is of central importance here that the oath of office can equally be an affirmation rather than a swearing in. Clearly, this indicates that one’s faith has nothing to do with holding the office.
It is further inaccurate to say that the founding fathers were Christians, especially in the sense meant by today’s evangelical Christians. If some of the signatories to the Constitution were devout Christians, many more were Christian in name only and could be more accurately described as deists, or for that matter, any number of faiths, but not necessarily evangelicals—such as the word exists today.
Many of the founding fathers were farmers too, but that doesn't mean the Constitution was written only for farmers. For that matter, many of the founders were slave owners, but that does not mean it remained a sacred institution forever.
My point is that the founding fathers were not establishing a new religious sect or denomination, but a working government. Their faith, therefore, was irrelevant to the task. Their faith may have helped them as individuals, but their faith did not constitute the foundation of government. The document they created was a compact between the people and their government, not the people and their god(s).
Commandments didn't invent law
But in discussing all these broadly secular issues, what I find most insulting about those who insist on placing a Ten Commandments marker in a courthouse, is that they ignore the inherent value and virtue of our government: democracy. Whenever one howls that our country is nothing without god’s guidance, I am insulted and enraged that such a magnificent document as the Constitution is worthless without the endorsement of their god. I am insulted by the arrogance that says we cannot govern ourselves without the sponsorship of a particular sect.
It is further insulting to say that, without the Ten Commandments, there would be no morality, because:
The Ten Commandments did not invent the prohibition against murder.
The Ten Commandments did not invent the prohibition against adultery.
The Ten Commandments did not invent the prohibition against lying.
The Ten Commandments did not invent the prohibition against stealing.
The Ten Commandments did not invent the prohibition against envy.
The Ten Commandments did not invent the obligation to honor one’s parents.
These are virtues common to most cultures across time and geography. Why then, do I insist on keeping the Ten Commandments out of the courthouses? The Ten Commandments are not just a set of rules everyone can agree to. As I’ve said, the first four establish one god and condemn adherents of all other faiths or, non-faiths. Period. To insist on their posting is a form of bullying everybody into following your rules. That’s fine, perhaps, in your church or your home, but not in our democratic courts — the courts belong to everybody, regardless of faith. The God of Abraham shuns democracy and His Ten Commandments allow for no dissent. The God of Abraham is the absolute, unquestioned authority. Our Constitution embraces democracy and the Constitution enshrines dissent. The power of the government is limited and operates at the sufferance of the people.
Courthouses are a kind of shrine to democratic principles. They should therefore be above sectarian conflicts because such conflicts are irrelevant. Imagine that you belong to a church whose minister is an outspoken abortion opponent. Let’s say that one day your minister decides to build a monument to all the aborted fetuses and all those who have fought against abortion right next to the altar. At some point, wouldn’t you (or another member of the congregation) say to the minister, “It is fitting for us to be against abortion, but this is a house of worship. This is God’s place, such monuments do not belong here”?
Let he who is without sin . . .
This brings me to the sacred arguments.
Any monument is a representation, a small part that represents the whole. For example, a monument to veterans depicts a single soldier, but that is not a monument to the individual soldier, it is a monument to all soldiers.
Similarly, a monument isn’t just a monument to the Ten Commandments, it is a monument to all the Mosaic law and to the entire Bible itself. Having read the Bible, then, it is baffling to me that so many insist on the Ten Commandments. For the Mosaic law covers more than just ten laws.
During the second giving of the law in Deuteronomy, this becomes much more clear. Yes, the Ten Commandments were spoken in a loud voice to the people of Israel, but then God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites to return to their tents, but said to Moses, “stand thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which thou shalt teach them” (Deuteronomy 5:31). So there’s more law to come. Later, we learn that Moses spent quite a time learning all this law. In Deuteronomy 9: 9-10, Moses recounts that he was up on the mountain for 40 days and nights learning the law.
So what does this law contain? Everything. It includes everything from the command to circumcise boys, to the prohibition against eating pork, to the rules for keeping slaves, to the prohibition against usury, to the rules for offering burnt offerings to God.
Why then, if you are such devout adherents of God’s law do you concentrate on the first 10 laws but ignore the hundreds of others? Why do you eat bacon? Why don’t you own slaves anymore? Why do you work for banks that charge interest? Why don’t you offer up burnt offerings to God?
Furthermore, why do so few of you follow even the Ten Commandments? For example, how many of you take photographs? Then you are violating the Second Commandment. Ask any Amish person. They are not ignorant. They do not think that you are stealing their soul or some such nonsense if you take their pictures. No, they refuse to have their photos taken because the Second Commandment expressly forbids making an image of god or any living thing. The Second Commandment is, strictly speaking, a prohibition against any form or representational art.
And what about the Fifth Commandment? How does that square in a family court? What are we to do if a child complains to child services that his parents are abusing him? Is that child a criminal because he does not honor his father and mother? What if a child is beaten? In short, common sense tells us that this honoring of parents is conditional upon the parents being good parents, but the Ten Commandments say nothing of such conditions.
It is a selective kind of obedience to the law that many of these self-proclaimed keepers of the devout practice. It is not my place to judge these people, but it is worth saying that a monument to laws that even the most “holy” violate on a daily basis sends an even stronger message to everyone seeing them in the courthouse — the law doesn’t apply equally to all.
Jesus doesn't like grandstanding hypocrites
More important than the Mosaic law to any Christian, of course, are the words of Jesus. True, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that he did not come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-20). But Jesus was quite clear about the role of the law and the role of faith. Most famously, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Or, put more bluntly by Paul, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
In short, if you are a Christian, you are not so because of what you do, but because of what you believe. Naturally, one who believes will behave differently. But the test for all Christians is: “Do you believe?” not “Did you follow the law?” Again, obedience to the Mosaic law does not exclude faith — and some could reasonably argue that following the law is an expression of faith. My point is that to obey the Mosaic law is not the same thing as having faith — and vice versa.
Of course, Jesus recognized this point. Roy Moore is (at worst) an odious hypocrite or (at best) a misguided ignoramus, for he resembles the kind of person Jesus describes in Matthew 6:5-15:
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
And then Jesus recites that which most Christians recognize as the Lord’s Prayer.
“Justice” Moore, with his continuous grandstanding in front of the courthouse is just like that hypocrite Jesus describes.
Moreover, Moore fails to listen to the words of Jesus in other matters. As a justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore (before he was suspended) was duty-bound to follow the laws of his state and country. But in refusing to remove the monument as was ordered by the court, he broke the law. Even to Jesus, being a scofflaw is wrong. When asked by the Pharisees if it was right to pay taxes, Jesus asked them to show him a coin: “And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They said unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:15-21).
In short, Jesus recognized that a civil administration didn’t always square with one’s faith. In the end, Jesus commands his followers to obey the laws of men (Caesar). The coin belongs to Caesar, the governing authority. The court order belongs to the United States, the governing authority.
Of course, there are some who have said, “Aha, but our money contains the phrase, ‘In God We Trust’ on it. So our money belongs to God.” In all honesty, I think this phrase, imposed as the national motto during the height of the Cold War in 1956, also ought to be struck. The original national motto, the Latin phrase, “e pluribus unum,” or, “of the many, one,” is far better suited to a democracy such as ours. But to return to the money, the “God” mentioned in the phrase “In God We Trust” is a generic god. It doesn’t say, “In Jesus We Trust,” or “In The God of Abraham We Trust,” or “In Allah We Trust.” The phrase is able to squeak by the constitutional test because it is not an explicit endorsement of a particular sect — but the Ten Commandments are, quite literally, chapter and verse, from the holy books of a particular sect and therefore, posting the Commandments are constitutes the endorsement of that sect. Such endorsement is expressly forbidden by the Constitution.
In conclusion, to post the Ten Commandments is to endorse a particular faith. To post the Commandments violates our nation’s laws. And to insist upon their posting after a judge ordered them removed is, for Christians anyway, ignoring the words of Jesus.
In the e-mails I have received on this subject many have asked me if I am a Christian, while just as many have called me an atheist and condemned me to hell. Either way, this is an inappropriate question to ask in a court of law. If you see me in your church, or if you see me on the street and want to talk some day and you’re concerned for my spiritual health, you have every right to ask me.
In the mean time, however, don’t let faith serve as the only measure of fitness for public office. If you are a Christian, you know that even Christians don’t agree on everything (just look at the hundreds of denominations!). An endorsement of faith, any faith, is a bad move by the government. Think about it. Ireland is still embroiled in civil strife because of sectarian conflict. European history is littered with a series of wars (both foreign and civil) because of disagreements among Christians. And even our most cherished myth of America is that one of our earliest colonies fled Britain in order to be free of a government-imposed faith.
Do you really want our government run by religious fanatics? Don't we have enough examples of bloodthirsty lunatics promoting murderous theocracies? In a court, as in government, your faith is irrelevant.
As one of my defenders wrote on a message board, it is about as appropriate to have a monument to the Ten Commandments in a court of law as it is to have a giant penis. Neither one is appropriate because neither have anything to do with the business of a court.
I shall conclude where I began. As one of Moore's fundies whined in front of the courthouse as they were removing Roy's Rock, they can remove the monument, but they can't remove our faith. Exactly. You have your faith, you just can't cram it down everyone's throat.
I'll make a deal with you. You keep your Ten Commandments monument out of the courthouse and I'll leave the giant penis statue at home.
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