"Ten Questions about the Ten Commandments"
By Dr. Mickey Anders
First Christian Church
Pikeville, Kentucky
September 26, 1999
Text: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
The Ten Commandments has become a popular topic in the secular press lately. Here are some news summaries I found in a search of the Lexington newspaper:
August 16 - Harland County School Board becomes second in Eastern Kentucky to approve posting the Ten Commandments in the classroom
September 9 - The insurance company that covers the school districts says it will not cover the legal costs of districts sued for posting the Ten Commandments in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
September 11 - Grant County fiscal court officials are considering a proposal to post a copy of the Ten Commandments in the county courthouse in Williamstown.
September 16 - A bill proposed by Rep. Bo Ausmus of Middlesboro would let voters in each school district decide whether the Ten Commandments should hang in their classrooms.
September 17 - The Ten Commandments should be posted in the Millersburg city office by the end of the month after a unanimous vote by the Millersburg City Council.
Isn't it surprising that the Ten Commandments are making the headlines and so often? Here is a document that is 3,000 years old, but it is contemporary enough to appear in the daily newspapers.
Many of you are aware that I wrote a guest editorial for the local newspaper questioning the wisdom of posting the Ten Commandments in public places. Today I want to try to explain more fully why I take such an unpopular stance.
At first glance, it seems that every good Christian ought to be in favor of the Ten Commandments at any place and any time. But when I look closer at the issues I have questions. In fact, today I want to attempt to explain my position in the limited time available with Ten Questions about the Ten Commandments.
Question #1: Which version do you suggest that we post?
Some people have argued that the Ten Commandments is a safe religious document to post in public places because they are widely held by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. But there are different versions of the Ten Commandments.
A friend sent me a copy of an Arkansas newspaper article that listed the official Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic-Lutheran versions of the Ten Commandments. After I examined them carefully, I discovered that the lists are indeed different. No common agreement can be found on Commandments 1, 2, 9 and 10.
If we are going to post the Ten Commandments in public places, which version do you suppose we should post. I suspect that what folks really intend is to post "my version."
Question #2: Which of the commandments are really commonly agreed upon?
Some people suggest that all the laws of modern society (and particularly ours) are based directly on the Ten Commandments. Well, I think we need to take a closer look at what they actually say. While some of the commandments are obviously widely held as a moral code, others are not so accepted at all.
I suspect that we could reach a pretty broad consensus on numbers five through nine - "Honor your father and your mother. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness." But we might have a harder time getting agreement on the other half of the Decalogue.
A lot of good American citizens who happen to be Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, or any number of other Eastern religions will not take kindly to number one - "Thou shalt have no other gods before me (the Judaeo-Christian God)."
I'm not sure how many of us would really like for number three to be put into law, especially when we accidentally hit our finger with a hammer - "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."
There was a time when the Blue Laws attempted to enforce number four - "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." But if we were to be true to the book of Exodus, the stores would have to be closed on Saturday.
And I suspect that you could not find very many American capitalists who would want to enforce number ten - "Thou shalt not covet."
It is obvious that some of the Ten Commandments influenced our legal code, but not all of them. And our legal codes were also influenced by such diverse sources as Hammurabi, Confucius, Augustus, Mohammed and others. Our American heritage comes from a rich and wonderful diversity of religious experience. Ideally, our government should respect our nation's religious diversity and not advocate of any of them.
Question #3: Does posting the Ten Commandments really prevent violence?
Does anybody really believe that merely posting the Ten Commandments will prevent violence in our schools or our society? Are they a magic pill which will solve the ills of society? Clearly not.
Posting the Ten Commandments is a far cry from obeying them. It's obedience that we need.
Question #4: Do the folks who are making so much noise about posting the Ten Commandments have them posted in their homes and in their churches?
First things first. It seems that we should first make sure every church has the Ten Commandments prominently posted and that every Christian home has the Ten Commandments displayed at home. But I'm afraid that hasn't really happened.
I have served as a minister in nine churches, and our church is the only one that I recall having the Ten Commandments posted at all. None of them, including ours, have them in the sanctuary. I've been in the homes of lots of Christians, and can only recall one or two where the Ten Commandments were a part of their décor.
I find it troubling that we want posted in public places that which
we do not post in our homes and in our churches.
Question #5: Why don't Christians want to post the Two Commandments,
the ones Jesus said were the greatest of all?
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is asked, "Which commandment in the law is the greatest?" It's a pretty telling commentary that Jesus didn't pick any one of the Ten as either his first choice or his second. Instead, he said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
If Christians are going to fight for right to post commandments, it looks like they would argue for the two on which Jesus said "hang all the law and the prophets."
Question #6: Is posting the Ten Commandments a misguided effort which will water down our faith to the least common denominator?
Some people have asserted that a Ten Commandments display would be constitutional if it were not posted as a religious document, but merely to "teach students about law, history or culture." In a similar vein, some have argued that Christmas nativity scenes depicting the birth of Jesus are merely generic winter holiday symbols and not religious at all. This suggestion undermines the real intentions of posting them in the first place. We need to read them again. They are a religious document.
The whole issue came up because we want to prevent violence in public schools. If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any affect at all, it will be when children read them, when they religiously meditate upon them , when they learn to obey them. Their behavior will not change because they are viewed as curious artifacts of law, history or culture.
While there is a place for the study of comparative religion and an appropriate study of the influence of religion on our history, neither one of those leads to real faith. It is a curiosity to find religious people who want to post the Ten Commandments all the while claiming that they are not an inherently religious document.
One of the greatest problems with allowing government to take over the function of religion is that it leads to a "civil religion," which has been watered down until is it unrecognizable. And then it gets blended into a confusing hodgepodge with patriotism, nationalism, greed, and competitive sports.
The only way to keep our faith pure is to keep the government out of it. I believe it was one of the Supreme Court Justices who said, "A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion." It destroys government because it leads to division along religious lines. And it degrades religion by watering it down.
Question #7: Are the Ten Commandments hurt or helped by the separation between church and state?
Many wrongly assume that the separation of church and state reflects a hostility to religion. On the contrary, the separation of church and state is the foundation of religious liberty in this country. The wall of separation was erected not to diminish religion, but so that it might flourish in all its forms. All who cherish their individual religion should join the fight to keep government out of religion.
Question #8: Isn't posting the Ten Commandments really just a poor method of evangelism?
What we, Christians, really want is the conversion of men and women to belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. But the Ten Commandments make a poor evangelistic tract. Christian conversion is best achieved where sincere disciples give a winsome witness to Christ.
The issue is really one of coercion. Some people just want to force their religious views as dogmatically as they can on other folk; and if they can enlist the power of the government to do that, they will. Posting the Ten Commandments is a clear imposition of our religion on folks who do not agree with us.
I believe a free and un-coerced faith is the only one that has any meaning. Those of us in the Free Church tradition should take a lesson from our history when we were the minority view, and stand up today for those minority students who happen to have different religious views from ours. There will always be those who do not choose to accept our beliefs. As long as we live in a country with a freedom OF belief, we will also have those who chose freedom FROM belief.
But there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to witness to those who do not believe as we do. Evangelism is the job of Christians and churches, not the government. There should be no place for pressure, intimidation and coercion in helping people make the most important decision of their lives. The government's power ought not to be used to coerce any individual into believing or disbelieving any particular religious doctrine, or to coerce any citizen to participate in religious activities.
Question #9: Can't we trust our faith to hold its own in the free and open atmosphere of ideas?
Many Christians are worried about the radical ideas loose in our country. But false ideas do not have to be squashed; they just need to be given the light of day. Give the gospel of Jesus Christ a good hearing in an open-minded atmosphere, and the gospel will hold its own.
I suspect that those who want the gospel to be propped up by the government do not really believe in the validity and power of the gospel. Our faith doesn't need the endorsement of the government; all it needs is a free field and fair play.
Question #10: Are the Ten Commandments really in peril?
The Supreme Court ruled rightly that the Ten Commandments should be
taken down from courtrooms and public schools; but, fear not, they are
not in peril. They can still be displayed in every church, synagogue,
temple, mosque, home and storefront. They may be displayed in cars,
on lawns, and in corporate boardrooms. Students may still have them
on book covers, bookmarks, notebooks, and anything else of a personal nature.
Contrary to popular opinion, the law clearly protects a student's right
to pray, say grace before meals, read religious literature during free
time and even form after-school
Bible clubs.
The faith is alive and well in our public schools. Just last Tuesday I was invited to speak to the FCA group at the high school. The meeting took place at 8:30 at night, but there were 75 students present - seventy-five students who were there because they wanted to be, seventy-five students who prayed and sang and read the Bible without coercing any other student.
The Ten Commandments is a wonderful document, and one that we, Christians,
certainly should obey. But we need to keep the Ten Commandments under
the auspices of the church. We need to trust the power of the
Holy Spirit to convict men and women of the validity of the gospel, and
keep the corrupting hands government out of our faith.