Keep ‘hedge’ between garden, wilderness
Louisiana’s decision to post the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms raises several issues:
The Commandments were “generally absent” in sermons of the Founding Fathers’ generation and many judicial rulings as well.
As one scholar noted: “There is an absence in the historical record of any evidence the Founders referenced the Ten Commandments when discussing justifications for republican government or the nation’s legal system. Simply put, the Founders did not see the law as biblically based.”
The first four commandments collide with the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty, and there are some differences among the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish texts. The Protestant Bible itself even has different versions (Exodus 20 v. Exodus 34).