Hang Ten ... Commandments, That Is!

Hang Ten ... Commandments, That Is! Currently, in the USA there is a movement afoot to hang the Ten Commandments in public places, such as public schools, county courthouses, state capitols, city parks. At least nine states are in the process of passing legislation to make it officially permissible to do so. Needless to say, the “Hang Ten” movement is controversial. On one side, civil libertarians are protesting, saying that the public display of religious documents violates the so-called constitutional concept of separation of church and state. On the other, conservatives, including Christians, argue that the Ten Commandments are a universal code of conduct and the very backbone of Western civilization. The Hang Ten movement actually started about five years ago when the American Civil Liberties Union lost its case against an Alabama circuit court judge who refused to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom wall. But Hang Ten really escalated in 1999 after 15 people were killed in the Columbine Colorado High School shooting. Since then, other states such as Kentucky and Indiana have proposed legislation to allow schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms. And the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a law empowering states to permit their display in other public places. So what prompted us to devote the features of this issue to the Ten Commandments? One proponent of the Hang Ten movement said: “We need to get what God has been trying to teach us back into our hearts. And it’s not just a Christian or Jewish thing. Everybody needs to know what God considers important, what He commands for right living.” We couldn’t agree more. That’s why we are taking a closer look at the “Big Ten” as one young man called them. When Paul told Timothy that “all Scripture ... is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16), I’m sure his “all” included the Ten Commandments. By Larry Ondrejack