Sunday, May 10, 2009

Ten Commandments: Redux

A Ten Commandments display is heading for the state capitol grounds, thanks to the effort, and promise of private dollars, from Rep. Ritze.


I would love to see the capitol grounds rife with messages of faith and hope and charity. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I truly admire both the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plains. So let's have a monument that encourages us to love our enemies, to pray in our "inner rooms," to "Do unto others" as we would have them do unto us, or urges us to stop judging others. I glory in the communal spirit found in the writings of Paul, who defined Christianity at least a decade before the writers of the Gospels, and embraced the core ideals of living out the Christhood in our everyday lives, no matter what our origins. What about "Love is patient, love is kind"? Unfortunately, the Ten Commandments are mostly negative and exclusive, a sequence of prohibitions meant for an older order. Paul says that, thanks to Christ's sacrifice, "the old things have passed away; behold news things have come." The message of renewal hasn't reached Oklahoma's legislature, and the Ten Commandments bill passed with over eighty votes in favor.


At least Rep. Ritze is going to pay for the monument out of his own pocket. But isn’t this the way all things in a democracy should work? A state legislator authors a bill that will allow him to pick up the tab for a religious monument to be erected on public property? This one smells to high heaven.

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