Dear Fatigued Faithful:

Now that the state of Louisiana has codified posting the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom, attention has been given to commandments 7 (Thou shalt not commit adultery) and 9 (Thou shalt not bear false witness) and whether or not the politicians who endorse the policy live up to these commands. Those who defend the posting of the Decalogue claim it is a bedrock document of American law, and as such a piece of history without religious prejudice. My musing over this issue, and the recent state school superintendent of Oklahoma mandating the teaching of the Bible in schools, has less to do with the documents themselves and more to do with the qualifications of those who will interpret their meaning for young minds.

Of course, the Ten Commandments is a religious document. Let’s start with #1, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” There is nothing secular about that! Of course, moving on, the next three commandments are equally sectarian: #2 Thou shalt not make any graven image, #3 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain and #4 Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. A full 40% of these top ten cannot be explained without reference to a particular and singular God. This is as it should be, because the commands are religious commands. Likewise, Oklahoma’s defense that the Bible is a bedrock document for Western literature is true. Scriptural references and illusions in novels, poetry, plays and the like are frequent, from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, but these references can be backfilled by competent instruction to those who are unfortunate enough to be unaware of the background text. However, placing the Bible, the scripture of my faith, in the crosshairs of any random educator’s curriculum fills me with dread, as would a mandated prayer forced on the lips of a reluctant teacher.

My parents, both born in 1923, observed that they were never led in classroom prayer by a teacher, save one substitute my mother had occasionally in the fourth grade who offered the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of the school day, but both she and her classmates believed it to be a quaint practice from an instructor who had many idiosyncrasies, including wearing opera gloves whenever assembling the students in line for recess or dismissal.

Obviously, these mandates of religious content happen most frequently in election years. They are performative excesses cynically pitched to secure the votes of the pious, generating ridiculous debates over symbolic trivia. (What ever happened to George H. W. Bush’s constitutional amendment to ban flag burning?) They’re self-promoting stunts which unfortunately work. When’s the last time the superintendent of education from any state appeared on national news? It’s ridiculous enough to commend a more careful reading of commandment three.

Still, there is a vein of American populism that wraps itself in the flag while cowering behind Judeo-Christian fig leaves of commandments and texts, as if Scripture is so weak that it requires the zealous foster care of politicians. The Supreme Court’s ruling that protected a football coach’s practice of leading his team in Christian prayer at the end of games leads me to wonder if the decision would have been the same if these pious petitions had been recited in Arabic. On the eve of another Independence Day, may God save us from all forms of coerced confession.

Hoping we keep religious education in the mouths and hands of faithful people, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor