CAN YOU WIN AND STILL VIOLATE RULE 11?

Alabama's defiant chief justice, building manager confer in showdown over religious monument (Bob Johnson, 8/22/2003, Associated Press)

Lawyers seeking removal of a Ten Commandments monument from a judicial building's rotunda told a federal judge Friday they would not press to have the state's chief justice held in contempt for refusing to move it.

The lawyers also said they would not seek to have the state fined, telling U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson on a conference call that they were convinced the monument would be out of the state building by next week despite the resistance of Chief Justice Roy Moore.

"Our concern all along has been compliance with the constitution. Once the monument has been removed, our concerns will have been addressed," said attorney Ayesha Khan, who participated in the call.

After Thompson's deadline had passed, Moore's eight associate justices on the state's high court on Thursday ordered the granite marker taken out of the rotunda. But court officials were still trying to determine where it might go in the building -- it weighs 5,300 pounds -- and if the area would allow proper security.

That's it? That's all that they're doing, is moving it out of the rotunda? Does the Constitution really require moving this monument a few feet?

The US Supreme Court has an edifice depicting Moses carrying those same 10 Commandments, are we arrived at the absurd point where the location in the building of such a display determines whether the Establishment Clause has been violated? No, it can't be that because the Justices sit directly beneath a display of the Commandments. And when it's in session, the Court opens each day with a marshall pronouncing the phrase: "God save this honorable Court." What then can this case have proven except the capacity of anti-religious activists and misguided judges to harrass Justice Moore?

MORE:
The Ten Commandments, How Deep Our Debt: The words of the Decalogue run like a river through not only the church but also English and American history. (Chris Armstrong, 08/22/2003, Christianity Today)

We've all heard these ten commands many times. As familiarity may breed contempt, it's worth hearing them once more, a little differently. The following is a summary of the version that appears in Deuteronomy 5 (the other, slightly different version is found in Exodus 20):

God identifies himself by what he has done. He brought his people out of Egypt. They are to have no other gods. He is invisible. They must not try to make an image of God or express him in terms of heavenly bodies or earthly creatures. Any idol of God would be pitifully inadequate and dangerously misleading. Instead, God wishes to be known by his passion for his people: his jealousy for their love, his hatred of their wickedness and his lasting commitment to their well being.

God's name is utterly holy. It sums up his personality and purpose. It is a serious thing to abuse God's name, by taking it lightly or using it to endorse empty promises.
The Sabbath day is to be kept holy. It is a day when the whole community-including servants, animals, visitors and strangers-has time and space to rest and reflect.
Children are to honor their parents. Families are to be bonded by obedience as well as affection. Elderly parents are to be provided for by their children. Soundly built families make a strong and stable society.

Human life, marriage, possessions and reputations are all to be respected. In particular, jealousy is to be tackled at source-in the heart. A neighbor is any fellow human being-not just a person who lives nearby. Another person's partner and possessions are not negotiable. Don't even think it! (Andrew Knowles, The Bible Guide: An All-in-one Introduction to the Book of Books [Augsburg: 2001], 95-96.)

These are, above all, the commandments of a God who loves his people. He makes a covenant with them, freely, on his own initiative. To live by these commandments is to respond rightly to God's prior grace. It is to live as part of a covenant community with that loving God.

Long before it became, through the mediation of Christianity, the moral property of Gentiles, the Decalogue was the law code and constitutional center of a theocratic state-the Hebrew nation formed at Sinai. Long before Christian theologians grappled with its relationship, as the "old covenant," with the "new covenant" in Christ, the rabbis treasured, interpreted, and applied it in a kaleidoscope of ways.

Because it represents the responsibilities of a covenant, the Decalogue was probably not divided (as some imagine) into two tablets, each containing five commandments. Rather, there would have been one complete record for each partner in the covenant-symbolizing that this is a mutual relationship. Not only did the commandments come from a loving God, they enjoined love in return. Jesus made this clear when, faced by the Pharisees' question, he summarized all the commandments in two: Love to God and love to neighbor (Matt 22:34-40).

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 22, 2003 4:58 PM