Perfect Solution to Public Display of Ten Commandments Controversy
Jonathan Rowe on Jun 20th 2007 06:38 pm |
Ed Brayton’s got the goods. Just put up next to the Ten Commandment’s display words taken from a Founding Era Treaty — 1796 Treaty with Tripoli: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
Speaking of Founding Era treaties, that statement is actually in the body of the Treaty — Article 11. Contrast that with the 1783 peace treaty between US and Great Britain which preamble begins, “In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts….” That language is not in the body of the treaty, but in the preamble. As Chris Rodda put it:
This reference to the trinity was not an acknowledgement by the government of the United States that America was a Christian nation. It was an acknowledgement by the government of Great Britain that England was a Christian nation. “In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity” was the customary way that England, like most of the Christian nations of Europe, began their treaties and other documents. The agents of the United States had no control over this wording.
Further, consider that the three diplomats who signed this treaty for the US were John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin. Adams and Franklin were fervent theological unitarians, and Jay, at least in one letter, doubted the Trinity’s “orthodoxy.”
Those three, as a group, were the furthest thing from “orthodox Trinitarian Christians.”
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I agree with you on this point, Jon, although I think it’s a bit reductionist. I sense a Sword of Damocles, an entire thesis hanging by the slender thread of some clever American wording to assuage a bunch of pirates who held that Islam always has the right of way.
For one thing, only the revisionists are selling that somehow the social contract that is the Constitution was really an establishment of a Christian theocracy. But if we apply a little Leo Strauss close reading, we also note that the Treaty of Tripoli reads the “government of the United States.” We may note that it does not say (as it is often truncated on the internet) that “the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.”
I for one will not concede that the United States and its government are interchangable terms. A nation is more than the sum of its laws, and to argue otherwise to me is reductionist, if not sophistic. I’ll continue to argue that Judeo-Christian principles were a major component of the Founding, especially since the Founders, as poor theologians and middling philosophers at best, lacked the scholarship to discern the true source of their ideals.
(See Habermas’s recent work.)
The Treaty of Tripoli could have been written, “the United States is in no sense a Christian nation,” although if they’d been up on their Qur’an, which they apparently weren’t, reduces the United States from People of the Book status to that of the infidel.
(Or perhaps the clever rhetorical ploy backfired after all, since Jefferson was eventually forced into war against the Barbary States. Twice.)
But I do agree about the 10 Commandments, when placed into a legal setting. You’ll enjoy, I think, this ace analysis, from some blog commenter somewhere:
Let’s take a look at the Ten Commandments vis-a-vis the Constitution.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Directly contradicted by the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.
2. Thou shalt not make graven idols, nor worship them.
Directly contradicted by Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.
Directly contradicted by Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Directly contradicted by Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
Generally a good thing to do, and you can get into legal trouble if you, as a minor, fail to do so egregiously enough. But once you’re an adult, you’re not legally required to treat your parents any differently than any other adult.
6. Thou shalt not commit murder.
Certainly against the law, but also part of the legal code of every civilized society, regardless of core religion (or lack thereof).
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Nope, no law against that (unless you’re in the military).
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not give false testimony.
There are laws against both theft and perjury. But, just as there are against murder, these are not unique to Judeo-Christian legal codes.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s [stuff].
There are no laws against coveting. Acting on the coveting with stalking, stealing, etc. is illegal, but you can lust in your heart all you please. Also, including the neighbor’s wife among his property smacks of slavery, which is against the law.
So, to sum up: Out of ten, there are four Commandments which are outright unconstitutional, three which aren’t even addressed, and another three which are common to civilized societies everywhere. Not much of a ‘basis’ there.
Posted by: Achillea
Great idea!
Reminds me of the “teach the controversy” position of ID advocates … well except that there is no general scientific controversy regarding evolution ;-)
[...] In sum, if the higher law grants all men unalienable rights of conscience, to worship as they please — and all key Founders believed it did — it is impossible that the Ten Commandments, as a whole, are part of the “higher law” which no man made law can contradict. [...]