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The other lesson is to never talk about religion when you're dealing with "the display of religious messages or symbols." The Court's old rule that messages must have a secular purpose changed to a predominantly secular purpose and now seems to be only a secular purpose. Kentucky's display was set out because of its history—it had once been surrounded by other official statements on religion from the government, such as the "endowed by their Creator" passage from the Declaration of Independence, and the national motto, "In God We Trust."

The focus "on religious passages, show[ed] that the counties were posting the Commandments precisely because of their sectarian content," the Court said. No, said Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent, "All it necessarily shows is that the exhibit was meant to focus upon the historic role of religious belief in our national life—which is entirely permissible."

The lesson of McCreary, Scalia notes: "Displays erected in silence … are permissible, while those hung after discussion and debate are deemed unconstitutional."

So the lesson is to shut up during political debates and complain like mad afterwards if things don't go our way. So are Commandments displays worth it? "In religious symbols cases, the state chooses the vision and does not protect or empower independent religious organizations in their efforts," notes First Amendment scholar Thomas C. Berg. "Official religious symbols, therefore, should be at most a low priority for religious believers, and at worst they tempt them away from more important goals."

He's right. But it's worth considering that the public display of the Ten Commandments is not mainly a debate about "whether the state can acknowledge God." It's also a statement about the nature and rule of law. The Commandments remind us that limits and obligations are not determined by mere whim or by the bias of the ruler. The Supreme Court's claim that there are no "categorical absolutes" or "elegant interpretive rules" when it comes to the First Amendment's Establishment Clause illustrates that we still need the reminder the Ten Commandments provide.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Weblog commented on the two Supreme Court decisions the day they were made.

McCreary County vs. American Civil Liberties Union and Van Orden V. Perry are available from Findlaw.com.

Our full coverage of the Ten Commandments debates is available on our website.

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August 2005, Vol. 49, No. 8