The Alabama Judge and the Ten Commandments

by David Adams

Should Lutherans support Chief Justice Roy Moore in his battle
 to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building?

No.

Judge Roy Moore is right about a lot of things. He is right to be concerned about, the moral chaos of contemporary American society, to decry the growing effort to expel all religious discourse from the arena of public debate, and to remind us of the role of Christianity in the development, of the American legal system. But despite being right about all these things, his actions in this instance are legally, historically and theologically wrong.

Legally, Judge Moore is wrong because his position violates the First Amendment. In 1995, when Moore was attacked by civil libertarians for placing a small hand-carved plaque of the Ten Commandments on the wall of his courtroom, I thought. Moore was right because the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of religious expression. But the 5,300-pound, carved stone monument representing the Ten Commandments that Moore placed in the rotunda of the state's Judicial Building is a different matter.

A hand-carved plaque placed in one's place of work can reasonably be defended as a personal expression of religious faith; a two-and-a-half ton monument placed in the lobby of a public building cannot.

Nor does Moore claim that defense. He claims that the purpose of his monument is to restore the nation to God. This promotion of an admittedly religious motive by a civil official violates the First Amendment's prohibition against the government's favoring one religion over another. The Constitution does not prohibit, civil officials from having and expressing religious views; it does prohibit them from using their office to force those views upon others.

Judge Moore bases his defense primarily on the historical claim that American law has its moral roots in the Ten Commandments. That claim is partially true.

But American law recognizes "We the people" as the source of our laws. The Judeo-Christian tradition is only one of many legal traditions that have come together to shape American law. That is why the court-room of the U.S. Supreme Court contains images of the may great law givers who have contributed to the development of civil law, among them Hammurabi and Moses. Judge Moore's claim that the Ten Commandments alone are the basis of  American law is simply wrong.

Finally, Judge Moore's position reflects a fundamental theological error. The Bible teaches that God is at work in the world through civil government to preserve life and to promote order, justice and peace in society. God is also at work in the world through the Church to make disciples for Christ. God would have each of these realms respect and support, but not to interfere with or supplant, the other.

Judge Moore confuses his duty as a civil official with his duty as a Christian. When urged by the other eight members of the Alabama Supreme Court and the state's attorney general to remove his monument, Moore declared. "I will never, never deny the God upon whom our laws and country depend."

But no one has ever asked Judge Moore to deny God, or even cease to believe in the Ten Commandments.   They have only told him that he must conduct himself as a civil official in accordance with the civil law.  When Judge Moore took his oath of office, he swore to protect and defend that civil law.  He has the right of every citizen to work to change the laws that he disagrees with, but until they are changed, he must either uphold them or, if his Christian faith prevents him from upholding them, resign from public office.

As much as I sympathize with Judge Moore's concerns about the direction of American society, he has adopted the wrong cure.  Placing a monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building will not make America a safer, more just, or more decent place to live.  If anything, his confusion over public and private religious expressions threatens to give support to the very forces that Judge Moore should fear the most - those who would expel all religious discourse from American public life.

Note: 

Taken from the October 2003 edition of The Lutheran Witness magazine    It is one of two articles on the subject concerning "The Alabama Judge and the Ten Commandments".  The other article presents the "Yes" argument.  You can subscribe to The Lutheran Witness by calling 1-800-325-3381.

Dr. David L. Adams is associate professor of educational technology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and was director of the Synod's now-closed Office of Government Information.

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