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The Ten Commandants

Writer's picture: Rev. Dr. Ben HuelskampRev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp

Happy Monday, my friends! Recently, the State of Louisiana passed and their governor signed into law a bill that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in all classrooms, libraries, and cafeterias in public schools, including state-funded colleges and universities. They must be on posters or framed prints at least 11”x14” and in large, easily read font. Shortly thereafter, the state superintendent for public education in Oklahoma ordered that the Ten Commandments also be displayed in public school classrooms. In both cases, the Ten Commandments are alone in the required postings. Nothing from the Qur’an, the Talmud, or other religious texts are mandated. Just the Ten Commandments. In the case of Oklahoma, the state superintendent went a step further in ordering that the Bible itself be taught in schools as well. In an interview with PBS, he stated that “We are going to show the countless citations. The Bible was cited more than any other document in the 1600s, 1700s' political writings. It is clearly a momentous historical source. We will bring it back to our schools.”


There’s a great scene in the pilot episode of The West Wing where, after a senior aide had said something particularly rude to members of the Christian right, he and several other senior staffers have to meet with representatives of several conservative Christian groups. During their volatile discussion, one of the pastors misquotes the Ten Commandments, yelling that “Honor thy father and they mother” is the first commandment. The president enters and states that the first commandment is “I am the Lord your God…you shall have no other gods before me.” Like this pastor confusing the commandments, so too should politicians in Louisiana and Oklahoma go back and read the commandments. Exodus 20:4-5 (KJV) clearly states, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them…” I’m not sure what constitutes a graven image more than the Ten Commandments themselves being hung in classrooms without complements from other religions and taught to students as so important as to warrant a place in every classroom, library, and cafeteria.


It's hard to argue with the statement that the Bible is cited extensively in 17th century and 18th century documents. In those centuries and the centuries before them the separation of the church and the state was often minimal if it existed at all. Exactly for that reason, the framers of the Constitution sought to ensure that religion and the state kept to their own affairs. Though the Oklahoma state superintendent accuses the left of rewriting history in the same interview above, he is the one reading his own identity into the past. Where the framers used appeals to and imagery from the Bible and therefore can be called “christian” to a certain extent, they were not “Christian” in the same way a 21st century evangelical Christian nationalist is Christian. Later in the interview, the Oklahoma state superintendent attempts to argue that the Bible should be taught in schools because Martin Luther King, Jr., also cited the Bible. King is used not only as a more modern example, but he becomes the model minority for claims by a white Christian nationalist. Whenever the Bible is taught in public schools or the Ten Commandments are installed in public spaces, we need to see the issue not as one just of religion, but of race and racism as well. The ultimate goal is not to extol the virtues of Christianity, but to create a vehicle by which racism, white supremacy, and the distorted and alternate gospel of Christian nationalism can gain an even tighter grasp on students and what remains of public education.


Christian nationalism is not just an academic construction or theory to be debated by politicians and theologians. It is not even a movement contained in brick-and-mortar congregations and denominational gatherings. Christian nationalism is impacting policy, law, and governance across the United States every day. It is emboldening right-wing politicians to push bills which deliver religion into the public sphere while taking money away from school lunch programs and subsidized housing. It’s creating pastors, leaders, and regular Christians who believe that the Jesus who preached the Beatitudes and told his followers to turn the other cheek was weak or a “wimp” while the “real” Jesus—their Jesus—was a warrior. People who believe in the radical love, hospitality, and inclusivity of Jesus need to stand together and prophetically declare that Christian nationalism is both wrong and has no home in our communities and our country.


How have or are you seeing Christian nationalism in your communities? What is one step you can take to push back?


Let us pray: God of all-encompassing love, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen. (Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer)


Faithfully,


Ben   

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