Why a Louisiana law raises preferential treatment concerns
Christians and Jews believe in the Ten Commandments – just not necessarily the version that will hang in every public school and state-funded university classroom in Louisiana.
The required text prescribed in the new law, and used on many monuments across the United States, is an abbreviated version of the Exodus passage containing the commandments. It has ties to the 1956 film “The Ten Commandments” and is a variation on a version more commonly associated with Protestants.
That is one of the issues related to religious freedom and separation of church and state raised by this mandate, which was quickly followed by a lawsuit.
“HB 71 is not neutral with respect to religion,” reads the legal complaint filed June 24 by Louisiana clergy, public school parents and civil rights groups. “It requires the posting of a specific, state-approved version of that text, taking sides on theological issues regarding the proper content and meaning of the Decalogue.”
It’s also part of a bigger picture. The new law, signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on June 19, is not only part of a wave of efforts by GOP-led states to target public schoolsit is also one of the latest conservative Christian victories in the long-running battle over the role of religion in public to live.
Another example came in this week Oklahomawhere the Republican state school superintendent ordered public schools to include the Bible in the curriculum for grades 5 through 12. In both states, legislators argued that the historical significance of the religious text was sufficient justification for its use in public schools.
“This case has persisted because conservative partisans believe it is a way to mobilize their base,” said Kevin M. Kruse, author of “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America” and a professor of history at Princeton University. He disputes the historical reasoning used in Louisiana.
“This is not about uniting the people of (Landry’s) state; it’s about trying to divide them with a culture war issue that he thinks will win votes for him.”
The Ten Commandments come from Jewish and Christian Scripture, which says there are 10 but does not specifically number them. Catholics, Jews, and Protestants typically order them differently, and the wording can change depending on which Bible translation is used or which part of Scripture they are taken from.
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you have to start from the original lawgiver, which is Moses,” who received the commandments from God, Landry said during the signing ceremony at a Catholic school. The governor is also Catholic.
No Bible translation is cited, but the Ten Commandments in the Louisiana law appear to be a variation on the King James Bible version and are listed in the order typically used by Protestants.
Translated in 17th-century England from biblical languages, the King James Version was the standard Bible used by evangelicals and other Protestants for centuries, although many today use more modern translations. It is still the default translation for some worshipers.
The version in Louisiana law matches the wording on the Ten Commandments monolith outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin. It was given to the state in 1961 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a more than 125-year-old Ohio-based service organization with thousands of members. In 2005, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it did not violate the Constitution and could stand.
The Eagles did not respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment, but the organization does comment on the matter website that it distributed about 10,000 Ten Commandments plaques in 1954. The organization also worked with the makers of “The Ten Commandments” to market the film, staging public screenings of the list across the country, according to Kruse, who wrote about the relationship in his book “One Nation Under God.”
“It is significant that the Louisiana law uses the same text created for the promotions of the film ‘The Ten Commandments’ by the Fraternal Order of Eagles and Paramount Pictures, because it reminds us that this text does not appear in any Bible and is not used by any religious faith,” Kruse said via email. “Instead, it is a text created in the 1950s by secular political actors for their own purposes.”
Although white evangelical Protestants and many white Catholics unite behind conservative politics today, the King James Bible has historically been used in strategic anti-Catholic ways, including amid anti-Catholic sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, said Robert Jones. He is president of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy.”
The Louisiana law contains ample evidence, including the specific Bible translation used, that the real intent is to privilege a particular expression of Christianity, Jones said.
“What it really symbolizes is an evangelical Christian stamp on the space,” he said. “It’s less about the ideas and more about using it as a symbol, a totem, that marks the area for a particular religious tradition.”
Kruse finds this an odd choice, but he thinks it says more about the way political leaders view religion.
“Decades ago we would have seen this as a triumph of Protestantism in a deeply Catholic state, but I think its introduction today only shows how little the state’s political leaders actually care about the content of religion,” Kruse said.
For Benjamin Marsh, a North Carolina pastor who follows the law in Louisiana, the spiritual formation of people is his greatest concern. Changing the Ten Commandments worries him.
“The problem with changing the text of the Ten Commandments is that you rob the spiritual implications of the actual Bible text. So you’re giving a vague resemblance to the Ten Commandments that isn’t real,” Marsh said. He leads First Alliance Church Winston-Salem, which is part of a conservative evangelical denomination.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, drew applause when he cited the new law during a speech to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on June 22.
“Has anybody read ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said at the rally To trust & Freedom Coalition meeting. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.”
The Ten Commandments I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself any graven images. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. You shall do no murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.
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