27 February 2005
Whether the Ten Commandments, graven in stone, sit on a lawn by a government building or in a courthouse, isn't for me exactly a life-and-death issue -- and I think I'm not alone on this, which is why the Ten Commandments cases at the Supreme Court righ t now are so dangerous. The Bush administration and its various fundamentalist allies (religious and political) have proven especially skilled at finding wedge issues that, because they only seem to go so far, successfully challenge and blur previous d istinctions, thereby opening yet more possibilities. The Supreme Court's decision in these particular cases holds great promise for further blurring the lines that once separated church and state in our country.
We're in a period, of course, when lines of every sort, involving civil rights, privacy, foreign and domestic spying, presidential power, Congressional rules, the checks-and-balances that once were such a proud part of our political system, and so many other matters are blurring radically. We also have a President who is in the process of casting off the constraints of any presidency, while placing religion with powerful emphasis at the very center of Washington's new political culture. He is now ad ored, if not essentially worshipped, by his followers as he travels the country dropping in at carefully vetted "town meetings"; and the adoration is often not just of him as a political leader but as a religious one, as a manifestation of God's design for us. It's in this context that the modest Ten Commandments cases are being heard; in the context, that is, of the destruction of what's left of an authentic American republican (rather than Republican) culture.
Below, William Dowell, a former Time magazine Middle Eastern correspondent and, at present, editor of the Global Beat ("resources for the global journalist"), a weekly on-line review of international security affairs published by New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, widens the religious lens to include the Middle East and so suggests another context in which the Ten Commandments cases might be considered. (A shorter version of this piece will appear Tuesday, March 8 on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times.) Tom
American Wahabbis and the Ten Commandments
By William Thatcher Dowell
For anyone who actually reads the Bible, there is a certain irony in the current debate over installing the Ten Commandments in public buildings. As everyone knows, the second commandment in the King James edition of the Bible states quite clearly: "Th ou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth." It is doubtful that the prohibition on "graven images" was really concerned with images like the engraving of George Washington on the dollar bill. Rather it cautions against endowing a physical object, be it a "golden calf" or a two-ton slab of granite, with spiritual power.
In short, it is the spirit of the commandments, not their physical representation in stone or even on a parchment behind a glass frame, which is important. In trying to publicize the commandments, the self-styled Christian Right has essentially forgott en what they are really about. It has also overlooked the fact that there are several different versions of them. The King James Bible lists three: Exodus 20:2-17, Exodus 34: 12-26, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Catholic Bibles and the Jewish Torah also of fer variants.
If the commandants are indeed to be green-lighted for our official landscape, however, let's at least remember that Christianity did not exist when the commandments were given. It might then seem more consistent to go with the Hebrew version rather tha n any modified Christian version adopted thousands of years after Moses lived. Since the Catholic Church predates the Protestant Reformation, it would again make more sense to go with the Catholic version than later revisions.
