Last week, Christian nationalists won another skirmish in their ongoing assault on democracy and their misguided struggle for the “soul” of America when the governor of Louisiana signed legislation mandating posting the Ten Commandments on the walls of every classroom in the public schools of that state.
It was appalling, but predictable.
Once more, short-sighted zealots have forgotten that legislating morality wins no converts; it wins only contempt for the faith they think they’re protecting. When will people learn you can’t gain a soul for the kin-dom by force, you can only lose your own soul in the attempt. And consider the hypocrisy of those who would hold up these standards while celebrating political leaders who brazenly disregard them all.
Greg Hunt
Please understand: I have nothing against the Ten Commandments, a bedrock standard of right and wrong for Jews and Christians. I continue to honor these commandments among the essential principles of my faith. I just don’t believe it’s our right to shove that faith-based list of do’s and don’ts down everyone’s throat. As much as I believe in the wisdom of these commandments, I also believe in the Golden Rule, which says, “Do unto others as you [would] have them do unto you,” and I certainly wouldn’t want others shoving their standards down my throat.
This afront to conscience and the Constitution is just the latest hammer blow to the dignity and rights of all of us, but especially minorities and those with less power on matters of race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
I have a suggestion. Let’s check our sanity and truly cherish the biblical principles we hold dear. We, after all, are free and faithful Baptists, who believe in a confessional, not a coercive faith. We make our appeal to the conscience of others while honoring their right to worship (or not worship) according to the dictates of their inner guidance system.
Let’s use this moment:
- To renew our commitment to the ideal of a free church in a free state.
- To reassert our respect for soul competence, the sacred right and capacity of each person to decide for themselves on matters of conviction.
- To restore our confidence in the Holy Spirit, who alone has the power to awaken and transform the heart.
- To recommit ourselves to respectful engagement in the public square of our pluralistic society, where support is won not by strong-arm tactics but by appealing to others in terms that are potentially meaningful to all.
- To reclaim our prophetic mandate to protect the disregarded against any who would trample over their rights as full citizens of the universal commonwealth of humanity.
God have mercy on us all.
Greg Hunt serves as interim pastor at First Baptist Church of Columbia, Mo.