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When Jesus was pressed to identify the most important commandments in all of Jewish law, his answer was both a summons and a rebuke. There were, quite literally, hundreds of commands to choose from. Yet behind them all, he said, was this: Love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. "All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." That's worth keeping in mind as the spectacle in Alabama over the posting of the Ten Commandments plays itself out in the courts.

Indeed, the rhetoric of many activists suggests that a deeply rooted temptation in the Christian church is alive and well: the impulse to reduce the faith to its externals.

Judge Roy Moore is surely right that the presence of the Decalogue in a state courthouse is no violation of the First Amendment. And it's a matter of history, as he says, that the Ten Commandments supplied much of the bedrock of the Western legal tradition. It's hard not to admire Moore's defiant stand for God's moral norms in public life. Yet he and his supporters, nearly all evangelical Christians, are on dangerous ground when they appear to use the posting of the Commandments as a litmus test for the faithful. In defending their willingness to disregard a federal court ruling, they argue thus: "We must obey God's law, not man's law."

Since when did the public display of the Ten Commandments become the eleventh commandment? This style of argument hints at a tension that has shaped Protestant Christianity since the Reformation.

Evangelicals hardly need to be reminded that Martin Luther assailed the Catholic Church for confusing religious observances with simple faith in Christ and his death on our behalf. For every Protestant since, the gospel of grace cannot be identified with mere obedience to the law—not even the Law of Moses. Luther recovered the conviction that the righteousness of Christ belongs to the believer, that his guilt has been swallowed up in Christ, and that this is the bright truth that sets the sinner free. "What man is there whose heart, upon hearing these things, will not rejoice to its depth," he wrote, "and when receiving such comfort will not grow tender so that he will love Christ as he never could by means of any laws or works?" There is no concept more widely shared by contemporary evangelicals.

Nevertheless, the reflex to establish what Christian philosopher Dallas Willard calls "boundary markers"—legalistic cues as to who belongs in God's family and who doesn't—seems just as strong in Protestantism. The Calvinists helped pave the way with their almost manic fixation on the "signs of the elect." Fundamentalist Christians of all kinds have elevated this impulse into an art form. Tithing, affirming the inerrancy of Scripture, speaking in religious buzzwords, leading a church ministry, belonging to a mid-week Bible study—such are considered the tell-tale marks of the faithful.

As an evangelical, I've tasted (and, regrettably, dished out) this version of Christianity many times. Several years ago I moved into Washington, D.C. and joined a Southern Baptist church. In introducing the church's venerable history, the pastor proudly explained that in the late 19th century the congregation had expelled a man from fellowship over marital problems. Their ruling was singled out as one of the "marks of a healthy church." What we never learned, however, was the ultimate fate of that disciplined member: The Bible's emphasis on the restoration of the fallen believer never entered the conversation. What mattered most, it seemed, was that orthodoxy was defended, the faithful were clearly defined—and the troublemaker was effectively dismissed.

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September (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47