Many are in a tizzy over Governor Jeff Landry’s signing of a new law mandating a poster-size copy of the Ten Commandments hang in every taxpayer-supported classroom. Opponents are melting down around the country, promising legal pushback.
From an AP News article:
“We’re worried about public school families and students in Louisiana… They come from a variety of different traditions and backgrounds, different religious beliefs, nonreligious beliefs and students in those classrooms will be made to feel like outsiders when they see the government endorsing one set of narrow religious beliefs over others.”[1]
Really? Posting the Ten Commandments on the wall will make people feel like outsiders? What does showing the Pride Flag do for students who oppose flaunting sexual ideologies?
At the end of the day, SOMEONE’S morality will lead the class, SOMEONE’S worldview will undergird the teaching, SOMEONE’S idea of right and wrong will be in front of the students.
Jeff Landry understands this. He said, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you gotta start from the original law given which was Moses. … He got his commandments from God”[2] (quoted from a CNN Article).
If our laws do not come from God, who has the ultimate authority to make laws?
All laws reflect morality. Laws which outlaw and punish murder reflect an understanding of the sanctity of human life. Laws which outlaw and punish theft reflect an understanding of personal ownership of property. We used to have laws which outlawed adultery (cheating on a spouse), but our society’s sense of morality has changed, and that has not produced a net positive result.
Also from the CNN Article quoted above, “Opponents of the bill have argued that a state requiring a religious text in all classrooms would violate the establishment clause of the US Constitution, which says that Congress can ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion.’”[3]
That’s right. CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. That does not ban STATES from making laws respecting Christianity. In fact, most states at the time of the signing of the Constitution had a declared state religion. They did not see the “establishment clause” as in conflict with the state’s Christian denominational affiliations. So the way the clause has been defined today is not the way the original founders of our country viewed it. What changed? And why do so many hold to the new way of thinking today?
Having the Ten Commandments hanging in our state classrooms does not push religion on anyone, but it does firmly declare that our country (and specifically Louisiana) is established on something much bigger than itself, on something eternal, on something transcendent. It affirms our biblical roots.
We are in a cultural fight (and have been for decades) between “secularists” and Christians. The secularists have spent much time and treasure insisting that they have the high ground because they don’t push morality on anyone, and that is funny because in order to have the high ground you have to be right, which necessarily implies morality.
Secularists have their own morality, but they make it up as they go. Whatever they dearly want to do, they say that’s good. They have a personal and ever-changing morality, and that should scare people to death. If morality can change based on what we feel, where are the guardrails? If society decides it’s good to kill off old people who no longer can drive or feed themselves, who is to say that is wrong? If the majority in society says that a husband can have twelve wives, who is to speak against it?
Our country was built on a law system derived from The Law Giver, the Creator. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and because of that no one can take those rights away from us—not a super-majority in a democratic process and not an overreaching government. They can make (and have made) laws which go against The Law Giver’s laws, but they are wrong in doing so.
Secularists hate people telling them they are wrong. That’s a moral indictment. That’s a judgment. And the Ten Commandments obviously oppose the morality of our age!
Praise God for His perfect law. Thank God for this moment. Supplicate God that He will continue to bless His people in this cultural fight.
See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
Deuteronomy 4.5–8
[1] https://apnews.com/article/ten-commandments-louisiana-schools-religion-99b86fff51932374993c45ab3f0555c9
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/19/politics/louisiana-classrooms-ten-commandments/index.html
[3] Ibid.