Where should we draw the line between “religious” and “secular?” How can a religious symbol or ritual become secular? These might appear to be odd questions, but their importance is slowly and silently growing. We cannot afford to ignore them — our answers will have a profound impact on the course of our society and the nature of church/state separation in America.
There are at least three current issues, two of which are very new, that will test our society’s ability to distinguish between what is religious and what is secular — and the dilemma facing us is at least as trying for theists as it is for atheists.
The first involves the Ten Commandments — a set of ten laws allegedly given to Moses by Yahweh on Mount Sinai and revered not simply as exceptional moral rules, but also as one of the most important instances of direct communication from God to humanity by both Jews and Christians. Are these Ten Commandments religious or secular in nature?
Traditionally, Christians and Jews have regarded them as self-evidently religious. They were supposedly handed down by God. They are included in holy scriptures. They are treated as direct commands for human actions. As God’s commands, they are beyond question or reproach. The first four involve the duties of humans towards God, rather than towards each other. The very first declares that “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Does any of this sound secular? Well, to some people, it apparently does. There are numerous efforts around the country by active members of the religious right to have our government display those Ten Commandments officially in government buildings and on government property. One of the most immediate is taking place in Haywood County, North Carolina where those commandments are carved into the wall of one courtroom of their courthouse.
Our courts haven’t always been sympathetic to this misguided effort, but some certainly have — especially when it comes to the argument that those commandments could represent “secular” ideas. Evidently, some believe that they can be used as part of a “secular” display representing the development of legal codes in Western Civilization.
Granted that the Ten Commandments played a role in said development, should we then immediately disregard the fact that they also currently play an active role in the religiosity of a significant percentage of American citizens? Isn’t it worth considering that these efforts don’t really have anything to do with erecting genuinely secular displays about “legal history” for the edification of students or the public? Isn’t worth considering the possibility that all of this is a ruse to insert a particular religious ideology into our government, such that our government effectively endorses the religion of a particular segment of society?
So what do we do? A very good question — but I view any such efforts coming from conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist circles with a great deal of suspicion. Justified suspicion, I think. Such people have rarely displayed an interest in the secular education of American citizens, preferring instead to focus on their religious indoctrination.
Can those commandments be considered secular in any sense of the word? I really doubt it. I am thinking of the first four, and in particular the very first commandment — there is nothing secular about them. In the case of the Haywood County courthouse, Haywood County brought in an expert who has testified that, since the wording of the commandments does not exactly match what is found in the Bible, then they are not the commandment of “any known religion.”
According to this expert, Dr. Walter Harrelson (former dean of divinity at the University of Chicago and Vanderbilt), since they are a “popular rendition,” then they have already been “secularized” and “Americanized.” Even the very first commandment, which “might at first blush” seem to be religious in nature, really only means “Do not have more than a single ultimate allegiance.”
I don’t buy any of that. It’s little more than a lame, transparent rationalization for pushing Judeo-Christian rules in a government building. American citizens will not view their display on a court house wall as a “secular” representation of the history of Western legal codes or as an “Americanized,” nonreligious moral framework for a secular society.
The commandments will properly be viewed as the display of the religious code of one part of the American public — and Americans who do not follow that religious code will justifiably feel excluded. Should our government realistically tell citizens that they have second-class status because they do not obey an officially endorsed religious code?
