Battle of Montgomery: Where Should Christians Stand?

Roy Moore's Ten Commandments monument forces a difficult choice on Christians: should they support the rule of law and let the monument be taken away, or should they oppose an outlaw ruling by an outlaw judge and engage in massive civil disobedience in order to prevent removal of the Ten Commandments? Even conservative and evangelical leaders are split on the issue.

Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is one of those who (reluctantly) favors the support of the rule of law. At the same time, he lets loose with some real outrageous comments in this column in Crosswalk:

[T]he groups behind the federal lawsuit are a rogue's gallery of secularists, including the American Civil Liberties Union (Alabama chapter) and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  The ACLU is notorious for its determination to purge the public square of any Christian reference.  The Americans United organization is, if anything, perhaps more extreme in its secularist agenda.  Both groups are zealously committed to a secular vision for America and oppose everything from voluntary student-led prayer at school sporting events to the presence of any religious symbol on public property.  A quick look at these opponents tilts the argument significantly in Judge Moore's favor.

James Dobson's warning that we stand at a crucially important moment is well taken.  The secular tide threatens to deny history, distort the laws, rob believers of their freedoms, and push the nation into a brave new world of secularism--with all vestiges of authentic Christianity removed from public view and safely restricted to private settings.  Let's call this what it is.  The secularists hate the Ten Commandments because the authority of the law eventually depends upon a divine authority, or all morality is absolutely relative and endlessly negotiable.  The Ten Commandments remind us that morality is not relative.  This explains the secularists' hatred of the monument.

I've seen Mohler write quite a few outrageous things, but these are especially egregious I believe. Neither the ACLU nor the AU are "extremists" - both include quite a few activists and members who are religious and who are Christians, including active ministers and pastors. This means, of course, that Mohler's idea that they hate the Ten Commandments, whether because of divine authority or because of something else, is nothing short of defamation. Only those who are truly weak in their arguments and their character have any need to distort the truth like that.

Neither organization seeks to rob believers of their freedom to express their beliefs; both do, however, oppose the use of the government to endorse and promote those beliefs. They do, however, promote a secular government because that is exactly what the Constitution established: a secular government to oversee the long-term development and well-being a nation that would be religiously free.

Read More:

• Secularism 101
• Separation of Church and State 101
• Ten Commandments