Cast in stone

Man-made monument less than heaven-sent

What’s all this hubbub about making the Bible the state book of Tennessee?

A bill in that state’s Legislature would have designated the Bible as the “officials state book.” Last week, state House lawmakers approved the measure 55-38, but the state Senate on Thursday voted 22-9 to refer the bill to a committee whose work for the legislative session had already been complete.

It’s yet another piece of legislation from mostly Republican lawmakers that attempts to ensure the Christian faith is enshrined in government.

Every effort to put an official stamp of government on some aspect of religion in recent years has centered on somehow celebrating or marking the role of the Bible or some portion of it in a historical context, largely because that’s a guideline arising from court cases. Whenever courts rule on a controversial matter, it just serves to set the boundaries for the next fight on it.

Arkansas has set the stage for a coming legal battle over mixing religion and government. Gov. Asa Hutchinson last week signed a bill introduced by Sen. Jason Rapert of Bigelow that requires the Arkansas secretary of state to arrange for a privately funded monument including the Ten Commandments. Not the Charleton Heston movie, but the ones that start “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love the Ten Commandments. Whoever first had the idea to carve them in stone was inspired. But the state Capitol grounds is a long way from Mount Sinai. And Jason Rapert is no Moses.

Rapert followed the standard logic of the religious-faith-as-history crowd. The legislation explicitly states the monument shall not be construed to mean the state of Arkansas favors any particular religion or denomination over others, the legal equivalent of Obi-Wan Kenobi waving off Imperial Stormtroopers with a Jedi mind trick. I suspect the judges won’t be so easily redirected.

The law authorizing the monument goes on to say it will “help the people of the United States and of the state of Arkansas to know the Ten Commandments as the moral foundation of the law.”

The courts have split on the Ten Commandments cases its heard. In Texas, a monument on the Capitol grounds since 1961 was challenged in 2003 and ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a close 5-4 ruling. Key to that decision was the fact the monument existed for 40 years without challenge, leading to a conclusion no Texans really felt the monument had any coercive impact in attempting to establish a state religion.

At the same time, the Supreme Court overturned the legality of similar displays in Kentucky. Neither case was decided solely on the content of the monuments themselves, but on the detailed history of how they came to exist on government property. In Kentucky, the courts said, the history clearly demonstrated the reasons for displaying the Ten Commandments were religious, not secular.

And that points out a rather sad outcome of these efforts. As they try to get an important piece of the Bible on display at the state’s preeminent public structure, supporters wind up having to deny the “holiness” of the words. In effect they take something viewed in the church house as holy and try to pass it off as just another piece of history. And every time they do it, I keep expecting to hear a rooster crow (look it up, John 13:38 and beyond).

In Tennessee, some who opposed the Bible as the state book said they could not back a move to include the Holy Book alongside the state fruit (tomato), the state tree (tulip poplar) and the state folk dance (square dance).

As a Christian and Methodist, I believe everything in the Bible is vital to understanding how God was and is at work in our world and in our lives. Its message is full of hope, and I respect anyone whose faith in that message compels them to help open others’ eyes to it.

Rapert, the Legislature and now Hutchinson aren’t driven by a desire to enshrine history. They’re playing to Bible-believing constituents who could not care less about constitutionality, the ones who might say they read only the King James Version because if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for them.

The thought that keeps running through my mind, however, was captured in a red-letter comment spoken a couple of thousand years ago: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Caeser is the one who needed monuments, not God.

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