Ten Commandments

Some Christians are so worked up over the issue of a granite monument, one would think it was an earth-shattering or faith-defining issue. More than likely this issue will not open the doors of heaven to a single individual soul. In that light it is not really very important.

This fight becomes more important when we realize that in fact it may have the opposite effect and serve to drive some souls away rather than attract individuals to the Christian faith.

The issue is really about whether it is legal for a sitting Alabama Supreme Court Justice to place a religious icon of his chosen faith in the rotunda of the state courthouse. It is not a question of which religious icon you or I like but whether it is legal according to the constitution of Alabama and also the Constitution of the United States. If Justice Moore were a practicing Buddhist, most Alabamians would quickly agree placing a statue of Buddha in the rotunda would be illegal.

If it is illegal to place an icon or statue of one religion in the courthouse, then by reason of our constitution it is illegal to place an icon or statue of any religion in the courthouse. See Amendment 1 of the United States Constitution. When the state establishes priority of one religion over any other religion, we no longer have freedom of religion. Baptists should be leading the fight to make sure we keep church and state separate because this was, and is still supposed to be, one of our founding doctrines.

Early Baptist leaders suffered great hardships standing for separation of church and state. Let us not allow ourselves to be led astray because we unthinkingly followed pied pipers, advancing their own agendas, down this slippery slope.

Charles McFatter
Semmes, Ala.