Original photo uploaded by Yelpet to Wikipedia Commons
Louisiana recently passed Act No. 676, and in Part 1 (linked below), I talked about the content of the legislation — what it actually says. If you’re not familiar with Act No. 676, I suggest starting with Part 1. It breaks down the different sections of the legislation, and there are links for anyone who wants to read the official document for themselves.
Previous Posts
Louisiana and the Ten Commandments (Act No. 676)
Non-Religious Legislation
I think the most important thing to notice about Louisiana’s Act No. 676 is that it’s explicitly framed as non-religious in nature. The stated purpose is educational: “a need to educate and inform the public as to the history and background of American and Louisiana law.” This is a significant difference from how many opponents of the legislation have often presented it.
Past counter-arguments for the display of the Ten Commandments and other Christian iconography often fall under the category of religious freedom or religious equality. One example in America is the statue of Baphomet, which the Satanic Temple requested be displayed alongside the Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol. The Oklahoma Supreme Court later ruled that the Ten Commandments monument was a violation of the state’s constitution, so the statue of Baphomet was never raised, but it was a good example of how a religious approach to the display of the Ten Commandments can be combatted on religious grounds.
Louisiana’s Act No. 676 builds off of Federal Supreme Court rulings that the Ten Commandments are relevant to US history and therefore not necessarily religious in every context. Because of that, non-Christian religious groups can’t directly contest the new Louisiana displays as religious inequality, nor can they easily argue for the display of their own religious texts, since the idea of America as a historically “Christian nation” is still rather pervasive.
Oklahoma is making similar moves with their mandates to teach the Bible in public schools, arguing that it’s a “necessary historical document.” It’s difficult to argue for the historical significance of non-Christian, religious documents in American lawmaking.
The problem in both cases is that the idea of the US being a “Christian nation” contradicts the “need to educate,” since it relies on only cherry-picked pieces of history. I think this will ultimately be why this legislation will fail to push its intended fundamentalist Christian agenda.
Are the Ten Commandments “Historical Documents”?
Technically, any document is a “historical document,” but my understanding is that the inclusion of the Ten Commandments is currently being contested. Let’s consider the arguments for inclusion in Act No. 676.
The Louisiana legislation provides several paragraphs of mandated context to be displayed with the Ten Commandments. Those paragraphs argue that the Ten Commandments were “a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.” They provide three specific examples:
- The New England Primer, published in 1688, which they call “the first published American textbook.”
- McGuffey Readers, written by William McGuffey in the early 1800s, which contained the Ten Commandments.
- The American Spelling Book, published by Noah Webster, which was used in schools until as recently as the 1970s.
In this sense, the Ten Commandments do seem to be historically relevant to the history of American education. Because of this, I don’t think a strong, logical argument can be made against them as a historical document. I think this is also why the three other documents were included in the legislation: the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance. However, as I tell my children: all facts may be true, but not all facts are relevant in every situation.
The Category of “Historical Document”
“Historical Document” is a superficial category that has no actual relevance. Even the argument that the Ten Commandments (or any of the other three documents, for that matter) are historically significant is superficial. Their significance or prominence in American education and legislation doesn’t communicate any meaningful information about the role they played in said history.
Slavery was both significant and prominent in American history, as well as American legislation, but that doesn’t mean we should “teach slavery.” Rather, we ought to teach the consequences of slavery, its continuing impact on the lives of Black Americans today, and the ways that slavery and white supremacy persist in America. We don’t teach slavery or even the “historically significant documents” of slavers; instead, we teach about the ramifications of slavery, and that’s precisely the sort of nuance that’s missing from Act No. 676.
That is, while the Ten Commandments may have been historically ubiquitous in American education for several centuries, it’s a leap to assume they should continue to be taught, and people who make that claim haven’t provided evidence to support it. Instead, they’re implying that historical significance automatically equals historical goodness in order to garner support from fundamentalist Christians.
Reading Between the Lines
Legislators were very careful not to explicitly state any of the following, yet the implications are present:
- Historically significant equals historically good.
- The Ten Commandments are the main focus of Act No. 676.
- The desired outcome is indoctrination, not education.
1. Historically Significant Equals Historically Good
The historical “goodness” of the Ten Commandments is implied by what’s excluded as much as it is by what’s included. Consider the context provided for each of the other three documents.
The Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact is presented as “America’s first written constitution,” even though “America” didn’t exist as an entity in 1620. It’s also presented as the first agreement to “form a civil body politic,” both of which, in my opinion, carry the same energy as pro-Confederate Flag “it’s part of our history” sentiments and signal to the “law and order” and “make America great again” sentiments of fundamentalist, Evangelical Christianity.
The implied message: the establishment of America began with the Mayflower Compact, and that’s a good thing.
The Northwest Ordinance
Note the watering down of the historical realities of the Northwest Ordinance in order to make it more palatable to the same fundamentalist groups. The context provided refers to the United States as “the Union,” but it refers to other land as “the territory,” and it says “the country expanded to the Pacific,” as though it wasn’t a hostile and brutal seizing of land that was previously inhabited by indigenous tribes. Rather, “the Ordinance ‘extended the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty’ to the territories.”
The implication is that those civil and religious liberties extended by the Northwest Ordinance were better than whatever may have existed previously. One could even argue that it implies there were no civil and religious liberties before the US colonization of the Western territories. While that might be true for colonizers who weren’t part of well-established communities within those territories, that’s precisely the sort of context that ignores the customs and cultures of the indigenous communities from whom the land was taken.
The implied message: America grew in an organized way with consideration for civil and religious liberties, and that’s good.
That might have been true, if it had actually happened that way. (More, later, about the religion and morality quote they included.)
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence doesn’t even have provided context. I mentioned in the first post that this document is perhaps self-explanatory, and I think that’s especially true if you’re familiar with Christian Nationalist rhetoric. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are both often presented as the most important national documents we have, and the inclusion of the Declaration of Independence alongside the Ten Commandments is no accident.
The implied message: both the Declaration of Independence and the Ten Commandments hold equally significant space in our nation’s history, and that’s good.
The Ten Commandments
Since the Ten Commandments gets significantly more context in the legislation than the other three, the message is easier to see. Essentially, “Look how the Ten Commandments has been part of North American communities since before the founding of the United States.” The legislators are attempting to re-normalize the presence of the Ten Commandments in the US education system.
Also, by claiming the Ten Commandments have been part of American education for “almost three centuries” and calling the Mayflower Compact “the first purely American document,” legislators are rooting the idea of “America” in the protestant pilgrims, specifically, further implying that the US is a Christian nation.
No context is provided about why the Ten Commandments have fallen out of favor in US education, because they aren’t actually interested in the history of it. The provided context leaves open the question, “If it was so normal for almost three centuries, why did we stop?” The fundamentalist Christian answer is often, “Because Christians are persecuted in America,” and legislators know that fundamentalist Christians will make that connection implicitly.
I heard this argument continuously in fundamentalist churches. “Non-Christians hate God and hate Christians and are immoral, unethical, uncivilized, undisciplined, hedonistic, selfish people.” The implication in this legislation is that a critical part of why the Mayflower Compact, the Northwest Ordinance, and the Declaration of Independence were so effective in shaping the course of American history is that the Ten Commandments (and religion—specifically, Christianity) were fundamental influences in the daily lives of “settlers” and their leaders.
The implied message: if any of these things are good, the Ten Commandments are also good, because they were critical in the formation of America’s goodness.
2. The Ten Commandments Are the Focus
The Ten Commandments are the primary focus of Act No. 676, which is why many articles have been about only the Ten Commandments. The introduction in the legislation is kept broad, stating that it’s about the display of “certain historical documents,” and listing all four of the documents mentioned above helps create the illusion that the Ten Commandments are just one of many.
However, of the 156 lines of Act No. 676, more than half are related to the Ten Commandments (approximately 96 lines). Only 34 lines mention any of the other three documents, and the remainder of the legislation is general info about location, funding, etc. of the displays. I think this is partly because legislators know the Ten Commandments are the most controversial inclusion, but consider, also, that the Mayflower Compact has only four lines of context, the Northwest Ordinance has only six lines, the Declaration of Independence has zero lines, and none of those lines are actually mandated for the displays, themselves. On top of that, the context for the Mayflower Compact and the Northwest Ordinance seem to be primarily about laying groundwork for associating American education and laws with God and religious morality.
- Concerning the Mayflower Compact: “This was the first purely American document of self-government and affirmed the link between civil society and God.”
- Concerning the Northwest Ordinance: “(r)eligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
Meanwhile, the Ten Commandments receive three full paragraphs of mandated context to be included on every display.
3. Indoctrination, Not Education
These things all suggest to me that the goal is indoctrination, not education. It’s hard to argue for education when virtually no actual history is included for three of the four documents, let alone significant, explicit ways that any of the documents relate to the progression of American education and law making.
The heavy implications that America, American lawmaking, and American education are directly and necessarily related to the Ten Commandments, specifically, suggests a Christian nationalist agenda, which, in turn, suggests what I started with: a way to circumvent the obstacle of religious equality. This is an oppressive posture; when we actively resist the equal sharing of information (in this case, religious equality), we automatically default to indoctrination. That is, we skip giving people all the info and just tell them what to believe.
The implication: the Ten Commandments are important and good, and America is a Christian nation.
Some might argue that teachers are responsible for relaying the history and connecting the dots, but the legislation doesn’t support that position; it’s contradicted by the inclusion of specific, historical context mandated for the Ten Commandments but not for the other documents. If it’s the teachers’ responsibility to provide historical significance and context for the other three documents, the same should be true for the Ten Commandments. It’s the deviation that suggests indoctrination, not education.
Consider, also, the context for the Northwest Ordinance: “(r)eligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind… ” Which religion; all religions? Religion, in general? Whose/what morality? Which knowledge; all knowledge? The lack of historical context encourages readers to frame these things in the context of the legislation, itself.
- The section before: “the link between civil society and God,” capital “G” (Mayflower Compact).
- The section after: a reference to Van Orden v Perry, one of the Supreme Court rulings noted earlier in Act No. 676 concerning the Ten Commandments.
In other words, the Northwest Ordinance quote is being used to imply that Christian religion, Christian morality, and Christian knowledge are what are “necessary to good government and happiness.”
Let History Bear It Out
I mean this both as a way of resisting Act No. 676 and as a challenge to its writers and supporters.
If, as these legislators seem to believe, the history of American lawmaking and education is rooted in fundamentalist interpretations of scripture, let the historical facts bear that out. Provide more thorough historical context rather than cherry-picking quotes and data to imply a historical narrative that simply suits Christian nationalist goals. Present arguments for a historically Christian nation next to arguments for a nation intended to be religiously plural. Present arguments for teaching Christianity in state-funded schools next to arguments for a separation of church and state. Let all of the historical documents (e.g. writings of the founding fathers, theological shifts in American Christianity, trends in American news articles over the last 200 years, etc.) be part of the discussion.
I believe the reason this isn’t being done is because the evidence would lean heavily away from the inclusion of Christian scriptures in public, American education, and they know it. The goal of fundamentalist Christianity has always been control, not education, and Act No. 676 is no different.
Of course, I don’t expect Christian nationalists to actually do this. So, it falls to the rest of us, Christian or otherwise. While contesting the legislation may be difficult on religious grounds, I think legislators have failed to consider the reality of what they’ve proposed; the “goodness” of scripture won’t stand up in the face of legitimate historical scrutiny. By making this a matter of history, they’ve opened the door for educators at every level of the Louisiana school system to inform kids about the broad history of Christianity, and that’s not pretty.
Let’s talk about how not all of the Ten Commandments are actually observed by most American Christians. The Sabbath day, for example, is hardly given a second thought by many Evangelicals. Let’s talk about the way conservative Christian communities have often been among the slowest communities to support social justice and how the Ten Commandments have historically been used to oppress American communities and demonize others. Let’s talk about what idols are and where we can find examples of idolatry in Christian nationalism.
In other words, let’s exercise some malicious compliance. If legislators continue to insist that we shine a light on Christianity, then let’s do just that. Let’s throw open the curtains and drag all of fundamentalism into the light. They want us to teach the “history” of Christianity; I say we teach it all.
If you’re enjoying the content on Breaking Bread Theology or find it helpful, please consider supporting this work. I would love to make this a full-time effort and continue to expand the available content, but that will only be possible with enough support from readers like yourself. I hope that together we can continue to create safe spaces for people to explore faith and theology.
Breaking Bread Theology 
One thought on “Louisiana and the Ten Commandments, Part 2”