On Monday, April 7, the Arkansas General Assembly approved Senate Bill 433, which mandates posting the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom in Arkansas. This bill mimics a similar one passed in Louisiana recently. Among its sponsors was Tim Barton, son of the widely disputed historian David Barton.
As the bill was making its way through committees, a coalition of varied interfaith clergy signed a letter expressing our opposition to this bill. We also hosted a press conference in the rotunda of the Arkansas Capitol to give voice to our concerns and consternation.
Preston Clegg, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Little Rock, speaks at the Capitol rally against the Ten Commandments bill.
While it might surprise many to discover Baptist clergy — among others — opposing a Ten Commandments bill, it shouldn’t. From our inception, Baptists have championed the separation of church and state as the only proper means to provide religious liberty for all people.
In the Colonial days of this country, Baptists experienced the dangers, toils and snares of government-sponsored religion and were persecuted because of it. The source of this persecution was not atheists, satanists or Muslims, but other Christians. Because Baptists bore the wounds of this persecution, they stood as clear-eyed and full-throated advocates for convictional religious liberty and strong separation of church and state.
When the state of Arkansas mandates posting the Ten Commandments in state-funded schools, it violates both separation of church and state and convictional religious liberty.
Furthermore, I am concerned about how severing the Ten Commandments from the broader narrative of the liberation of Israel from captivity in Egypt changes the way they are interpreted.
The first commandment, as told in Exodus 20, reads, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” This command makes clear this particular God liberates and redeems the disenfranchised and the oppressed. This is the God who “knows the suffering of my people” and acts to redeem it.
“When these commands are separated from the broader story that generated them, they become tools of social control rather than means of social justice.”
The commandments were given in service to this broader goal and story of liberation and deliverance. As the old preacher trope states, “God had gotten the people of Israel out of Egypt. Now God wanted to get Egypt out of the people of Israel.”
For the state to sponsor, mandate and enforce posting the Ten Commandments by edict is to place the truth of God in service to Egypt, more than in service to this liberating God. It subverts the power of the whole story, indubitably changing the meaning of these commandments.
When these commands are separated from the broader story that generated them, they become tools of social control rather than means of social justice. For example, the fourth command to “honor the Sabbath” becomes a way of policing what people can and can’t do on the hallowed day, rather than a gift to those who are overworked, overbusied and underappreciated in the economy of business and busyness.
Brittany Stillwell, associate pastor at Second Baptist in Little Rock and organizer of the Capitol rally.
Finally, the uptick of government-sponsored religion appears to be an outgrowth of the rise of Christian nationalism in these days. The religion produced by these governmental efforts is heavy on religious symbolism and light on the essence and practice of the very reality represented by those symbols. In other words, it produces the exact kind of religion the prophets warned us about over and over again, that which is heavy on optics but light on practice, dense on piety but void of ethical import.
Surely, the fourth commandment would prompt us to consider workers’ rights and care of creation because everything is included in the sabbath command, even the land itself. Surely, the ninth and 10th commandments would prevent us from supporting those who traffic in false witness and who shape policies fueled by covetousness and greed, prioritizing the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Surely, the seventh commandment demands we not objectify women and hold accountable those who do. Surely, the sixth commandment would have us rethink our morbid commitment to the death penalty.
To treat the Ten Commandments as some fixed moral code, divorced from the broader story of liberation, is precisely what makes them similar to lifeless idols, a violation of the second commandment. And to advocate for the presence of the commandments among children while supporting political agendas that stand in opposition to the commands themselves is precisely what it means to “take God’s name in vain,” a textbook violation of the third commandment.
“The very means by which this legislation sought to spread the message of the Ten Commandments hollows them of their sacred meaning.”
The power of the Ten Commandments is in the heeding of them, rooted in the identity of our liberating God and not in the posting of them as a vestige of state-sponsored religion. God gave the commands as a way of shaping the social fabric, caring for the most vulnerable and the profound transformation of our souls. The very means by which this legislation sought to spread the message of the Ten Commandments hollows them of their sacred meaning. It’s the misguided notion that Caesar’s means can lead to God’s ends. And there is no greater indictment of religion than when its forms are espoused by those who violate its substance.
God does not need the state of Arkansas to give state sponsorship to the Ten Commandments. God wants God’s own people to heed the commands as an act of liberation and redemption for all people.
Retired judge Wendell Griffen, pastor of New Millennium Baptist Church in Little Rock, speaking at the Capitol rally.
The clergy who opposed this bill want our faith to be practiced, but we refuse to allow our faith to be used, especially for ignoble purposes. When the state begins to mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments, it’s a pretty clear sign that our faith isn’t being practiced, so much as it is being used. And it’s being used by those who are committed to a love of power more than the power of love.
This violates what, for me at least, is the greatest commandment of all, “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” and “to love your neighbor as yourself.”
These are the reasons — amongst more — that we opposed SB-433. Our opposition springs not from some baffling opposition to the Ten Commandments, but from our reverence, respect and awe of them. Our opposition stems from our love for God and neighbor and our desire for all of our neighbors to live with true religious liberty, not religious privilege.
Our opposition is born of concern that our faith is being used more than it is being practiced and our concern that in the very posting of these commandments in public school classrooms, we violate them.
Preston Clegg serves as senior pastor of Second Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark.
Related articles:
Jesus and the Ten Commandments | Opinion by Chuck Poole
The Ten Commandments meet the Golden Rule | Opinion by Greg Hunt
If you want to post the Ten Commandments in schools, you ought to learn more about them | Analysis by Rick Pidcock