Evangelical Christian leaders, it seems, are divided over the Ten Commandments controversy stirred up by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Unless you've been hiding under a 2 1/2-ton rock, you know Moore steadfastly refused to remove from public view the monument to God's laws he placed smack dab in the middle of the Alabama Supreme Court rotunda.
On one side of the controversy is Moore. He is backed by hundreds of supporters who have kept vigil at the high court's building in Montgomery, Ala., including one man who walked 300 miles from Texas, 20 miles a day, in a frock.
Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson has thrown his support behind Moore and said on his radio program he "strongly" disagrees with Christian leaders who criticized Moore's legal strategy of civil disobedience.
That disobedient stance, however, has cost Moore his job  temporarily at least. The elected judge was suspended by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, which will conduct hearings to decide whether he should be permanently removed from office for disobeying the federal court order to remove the monument from public view.
The Christian leaders on the other side include 700 Club televangelist Pat Robertson and Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Robertson and Land have each expressed their opinions that Moore's strategy was doomed to failure. They agree the Ten Commandments display is constitutional, but think Moore erred by not complying with Federal Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the monument. Had he done so, he could have taken his fight to the U.S. Supreme Court untarnished by obstinacy.
The issue is divisive, as Land pointed out in an article published by Baptist Press, because it is really two issues.
A Matter of Faith
Most Christians would agree that our nation's laws stem from our Christian heritage and the Ten Commandments are the basis of those laws. Most believers would argue that the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
Yet we have seen, time and again, courts rule in ways that show a blatant secular bias. We bemoan the attempt to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. We lament that prayer is no longer allowed in our classrooms. Courts rule that sodomy is a protected freedom on the one hand, yet with the other rule that students cannot use publicly funded scholarships to study religion.
So, when Judge Thompson says to move the Ten Commandments monument, it raises the ire of those of us who have simply had enough. When the chief justice of a state supreme court is willing to stand up for religious freedom, our natural instinct is to rally behind him.
A Matter of Law
But, on the other hand, we are still bound by the laws of the land and the law as it is presently interpreted dictates the monument had to go. To openly defy the court order, as Moore did, is civil disobedience. To encourage others to join in goes a step further, according to Land.
"Do evangelical Christians really want to say that this United States government is no longer a legitimate government and that we are no longer obligated to obey its courts when we disagree with their rulings?" Land wrote. "If so, let us understand it for what it is. It is insurrection. I want to reform this government, not rebel against it as an illegitimate government beyond repair."
Of course, therein lies another point of disagreement between Land and the Focus on the Family leader. Dobson said on his radio broadcast that others should join in on Moore's civil disobedience.
"We're at a turning point, a pivotal point in the history of this country," said Dobson, who discussed the issue with Moore, former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and Focus on the Family President Don Hodel. "This is just not another issue.... There are times when you have to respond to a higher law."
A Public Spectacle
If Christians can't agree on the controversy, you can rest assured non-Christians have no problem coming to an agreement: The whole matter casts Christians in an unflattering light. They don't see Moore as an educated, righteous man ready to sacrifice his comfort to argue religious freedom. They see a Southern zealot thumbing his nose at the law.
They don't see well-intentioned, concerned Christians standing up for their religious liberties. They see the 60-year-old grandmother handcuffed to her wheelchair as she is being carted off to jail and wonder why she isn't home enjoying her august years in comfort and dignity.
And they see the monument for what it is: a rock.
I think we have to realize it's not the Ten Commandments. It's a 5,300-pound block of marble that merely depicts God's laws as He handed them down to Moses. Moore knows that, as do Dobson, Land and Robertson.
But I question whether the sign-waving throngs who set up camp in Montgomery fully understand. Some admittedly were ready to lay down their lives to keep the monument from being moved. Those who fuel such zeal should take care the monument doesn't become more important than the truth it represents.
No court ruling can remove the Ten Commandments. No judge can deny the truth of God's laws if they are safely tucked away in our hearts as He intended. If we want the Ten Commandments to be visible for all to see, then we must manifest them in our daily lives.
Only then will non-believers see what we know to be true.
