Our Revolution … presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts.
Thomas Jefferson (June 5, 1824)
Georgia State Rep Tommy Benton has plucked former State Rep (now US Representative) Lynn Westmoreland‘s old “Ten Commandments” bill from the 2004 circular file, given it a once over and pre-filed it for consideration after the New Year as HR 941.
Benton is not the first State Rep to attempt a ressurection of Westmoreland’s “religious heritage” legislation. State Rep Tommy Smith presented the very same bill for “show & tell” last June as HR 914.
Westmoreland’s bill is a lengthy read, made all the more bulky by the verbatim copying and pasting of the three documents under consideration. In addition to the Ten Commandments (specifically, as found in Exodus 20 (King James Version)), the bill lists the Declaration Of Independence (including the names and home states of every single signer) and The Mayflower Compact of 1620.
The Declaration Of Independence is included here to show somehow that our country was founded upon Christian values. God appears twice in the Declaration and only once by name. It could be said that the “divine Providence” found in the document’s close is a third mention of God, but the concept of Providence as a universal presence actually pre-dates Christianity and can be found in almost every manifestation of religion throughout history. In the opening line, God is credited with giving man the powers of earth. Soon after, the Constitution reminds us that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” From then on, the document is concerned primarily with the grievances of a people tired of remote tyranny and the revolutionary actions they intend.
The Mayflower Compact appears to be far more deliberate. “Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick …” Of course, the Mayflower Compact served more as a healthy chunk of social insurance than any acknowledgement of religious predominance. In other words, they had all been in the same boat, so it was in their best interest to get along on dry land. After the initial invocation of glory, the document speaks of laws and ordinances that will be established for the “Good of the Colony.” Even with the obvious invocation and testimony, the Compact simply allowed people of like-mind to govern themselves.
In contrast, the Ten Commandments are the divine rules of God Almighty as dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai. In addition to the ten we know from Exodus 20, the remaining 613 additional rules and commandments of Mosaic Law — 365 negative commands and 248 positive — cover every aspect of life in Isreal. If Isreal kept all of Mosaic Law, then they would keep the blessings inherent in God’s covenant with Abraham. The Covenant of Abraham said that Israel would keep the favor of God just by virtue of being Israel, but life under Mosaic Law would require more audience participation. Furthermore, Mosaic Law was only meant to be temporary, a specific code to guide the people of Isreal until the coming of a Messiah. With the coming of Christ, Mosaic Law was made unnecessary — at least to those who accepted Jesus as the awaited Messiah. Essentially, the Law of Moses was replaced by the Law of Christ.
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
- Galatians 6:2
This didn’t invalidate the Ten Commandments. Instead, it converted the Ten Commandments from a divinely inspired rule of established government to an important work of religious doctrine. In other words, the Ten Commandments (without the remaining 613 rules of Mosaic Law) have been elevated to the divine.
So the bill calls for the placement of two documents of conceivable importance to American History and one document that is undeniably a work of established religious importance. While it could be argued that our Founding Fathers took a good look at the Ten Commandments when composing our governmental system, it would be wiser to say that they took into account more than the Decalogue alone. For that matter, they probably cracked open the rulebooks of other cultures as well, such as the Code of Hammurabi, The Justinian Code of the Romans and certainly English Common Law. If we’re going to have one bibliographic source of law posted in the public square, why don’t we have all of them?
In fact, a bill suggesting almost that very idea was posited in 2004 by Georgia State Rep Jimmy Skipper. HB 1609 called for “Every state agency and authority, every political subdivision of the state, and every local board of education may include the Ten Commandments of Jewish tradition taken from any version of Jewish or Christian scriptures as a part of a display of documents of established historical importance to the culture and laws of our state, including, without limitation, the Declaration of Independence, the Code of Hammurabi, the federal and state constitutions, the Magna Carta, and the Mayflower Compact.”
Admittedly, he’s missing Justinian Code, but Roman Law can take up a lot of wall space.
In the long run, this almost yearly attempt at placing the Ten Commandments in courtrooms and public areas serves only to bring a moment’s camera-focus to the various politicians that line up behind and push. As I’ve said before, so much attention to the physical manifestation of commands from on high just strikes me as terribly hypocritical.
After all, doesn’t commandment number two have something to say about graven images and the worship thereof?
