What's Wrong with the Ten Commandments in Public Schools?

Part 1: It Dishonors the Legacy of our Founders

I am the product of public schools where technically speaking, no one religion was promoted above others, but almost everyone was Christian, at least culturally. No one talked about church or God in the cafeteria, but everyone talked about celebrating Christmas and Easter, and several of my classmates I knew for sure were Christian because I saw them again at Tuesday or Thursday evening Catholic Formation class at Saint Dominics. Once I became aware that a few of my classmates did not celebrate these holidays, I felt sorry for them. I wondered what the few Jewish or Muslim or Hindu students were thinking as everyone talked excitedly about Christmas plans. Did they come home in tears, pleading with their parents to become Christian just so they wouldn’t feel left out? In high school, other aspects of being the privileged cultural majority started to occur to me. For example, given that we are a culturally Christian nation, it is easy to take for granted that schools are always closed for Christmas, but one year in high school, an important dress rehearsal in preparation for a choir concert conflicted with a Muslim holiday that two boys in the choir observed. They received approval from the choir director to miss the rehearsal, but this had to be an awkward conversation for these teenage boys, and as is the case any time you are absent, it is the student’s responsibility to figure out what they missed and catch up.

And speaking of choir, Christianity inspired such an extensive and rich tradition of choral music that when I attended concerts at other high schools in our area, which we were required to do each semester, the difference in the beauty and sophistication of the music chosen by schools that excluded religious texts was noticeable, and honestly sad. Some schools sang romantic, and sometimes challenging madrigals, but more often than not, the concert was full of choral renditions of silly pop songs. But one year in high school, someone—not the parents of the Muslim boys—complained that the songs our choral director had selected amounted to the unconstitutional promotion of religion in public school. As a high school student, I wasn’t privy to every detail of this situation the choral director had to deal with, but with the hindsight of adulthood, I speculate that my choir director, whose passion for quality choral music was deep, had likely been to such concerts too, and she wasn’t going to let this happen at our school. That is why, I suspect, she abruptly switched from preparing us for a Christmas concert full of sacred English texts, culminating with the Hallelujah Chorus, to a classic Latin requiem. That way, she could argue that songs were chosen strictly for their artistic and educational value, and not for their religious message since no one speaks Latin these days. The position of choir director would be tailor-made for someone who did wish to illegally proselytize in a public school, by giving sermons on the theological significance of the texts we were singing, or having students read the Bible passages that inspired the songs. But my choir director never did anything like that. Thus I am confident that the original English pieces she selected were chosen strictly for their artistic and educational value, but singing Latin music gave additional credibility to this argument. Of course, I acknowledge that my perception could be colored by the fact that I belong to the privileged majority religion, and if I put myself in the shoes of someone from a minority religion or no religion at all, I can appreciate how they might feel as though indirect proselytism was taking place even if this wasn’t the choir director’s intention at all. To be fair, one could argue there is room for ambiguity regarding whether Louisiana’s law requiring a poster with the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom also qualifies as proselytism. It is just a poster after all, and David French, who grew up in Kentucky when the Ten Commandments were posted in every classroom until the Supreme Court deemed Kentucky’s law unconstitutional remarked that “There is a real belief that the Ten Commandments have a form of spiritual power over the hearts and minds of students, and that posting the displays can change their lives.” But he does not believe that documents, in and of themselves radiate powers of personal virtue. As such, these “faded posters” on the wall had no impact on the lives of him or his classmates. It is true that sometimes, adults make a bigger deal of things than they should. But I would still argue that requiring posters of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms is a threat to religious liberty and a dangerous misrepresentation of Christianity that should be regarded warily by true Christians.

Proponents of Louisiana’s law argue that The Ten Commandments had a profound influence on the founders of this country, and so they view these posters as a historical document to inspire children when they look up at them. It is true that the Bible had a significant influence on our founders. As I was brushing up on my U.S. history for this post, I was struck anew by the number of references to the Bible and God’s laws in the oratory of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry. Louisiana state representative Dodie Horton also argued, “The measure allows for our children to look up and see what God says is right, and what he says is wrong. It doesn’t preach a certain religion, but it definitely shows what a moral code we all should live by is.” Our country’s founders should not be idolized or mythologized. We should not let the inspiring biblical references in their oratory cloud the reality that they, like all of us lived lives that fell far short of God’s righteous standards, evidenced by their hypocrisy in speaking inspiring rhetoric about creating a nation free of tyranny when they owned slaves. But they were right about the importance of complete religious liberty, to allow both the nation, and genuine religious expression to flourish. This is not to say that even in the aftermath of the American Revolution, there wasn’t a temptation to declare America a Christian nation. According to the website of the Colonial Williamsburg museum, historians debate whether Patrick Henry, the first governor of Virginia following the Declaration of Independence, actually said “Give me liberty or give me death!” He never wrote out his speeches in advance, so they have been reconstructed based on accounts of other people. But if he did say these words, I find it ironic that he did not make the connection that complete religious liberty is a crucial component of overall liberty. In The Religious History of America, Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt lay out how, before the Revolution, the only officially recognized religion was the Anglican church of England. All other forms of religious expression, including other Christian denominations, faced persecution. After the Revolution, everyone recognized that some degree of disassociation with the tyranny imposed by the church of England was necessary, but some feared that abandoning all governmental alliance with religion would turn “all history and society upside down” (The Religious History of America Page 124). To that end, Patrick Henry and the legislature of Virginia were tempted to compromise by not establishing any particular church or sect, but Christianity itself as the official religion. Patrick Henry argued that this compromise would not discriminate against (Christian) dissenters yet it would “help safeguard the social and moral order that a new state needed even more than before” (Page 124). Of course in practice, we have always fallen short of our founders ideal of complete religious liberty. The cruel attempt to erase Native American culture by requiring Native American Children to attend abusive boarding schools, a practice that persisted through the 1970s, is a sad testament to this, as is the Islamophobia and antisemitism that persist to this day. But in theory, the arguments for full religious liberty ultimately won out. In a Memorial and Remonstrance written in opposition to Patrick Henry’s bill, James Madison argued that “legislators simply do not have the right, much less the wisdom, to set themselves up as judges of religious truth” (Page 125). Only “the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe” is truly qualified to make laws pertaining to religion, and He chose to give humankind freedom of conscience. In 1789, the first paragraph of the Virginia Statute for Religious freedom, composed by Thomas Jefferson declared that, “Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was his Almighty power to do.”

Furthermore, James Madison argued that if Virginia could establish Christianity to the exclusion of all other religions today, what would stop them from establishing a particular denomination of Christianity tomorrow, putting Virginia right back where they started before fighting a Revolution to end tyranny. After all, as Boston Minister Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) pointed out, “People are not generally deprived of their liberties all at once, but gradually, by one encroachment after another, as it is found they are disposed to bear them” (Page 123). Thus, I would argue that if we truly wanted to honor the legacy of our founders, we would keep all blatant references to religion—“you shall have no other Gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)—out of public schools. I speculate that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, if they were alive today, would oppose Louisiana’s law, arguing that religious persuasion should be the sole responsibility of parents until children are old enough to think for themselves. I also speculate that Jonathan Mayhew would join ranks with people like Catherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers, who has shown that small victories like Louisiana’s law should not be dismissed as isolated incidents, but as part of a larger war to chip away at public education so that the prosperity and privilege that comes with a high quality education is accessible only to (predominantly white) children of the right religious persuasion. Thus, the Ten Commandments law is in reality closely related to the seemingly unrelated and separate battles over book bans, Bible study clubs inside public schools, and vouchers to give parents “choice.” I would also say the volatility of school board meetings surrounding these battles in recent years are the definition of hypocrisy and meanness, as is Governor Landry’s comment “I can’t wait to be sued.” This is definitely at odds with the teachings of Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). And how does he know he will be sued? Because the decision to pass this law demonstrates a willful disregard for Supreme Court precedent, and the teaching of the apostle Paul: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established” (Romans 13:1).