Monday, July 7, 2025

It is the 7th of July 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A very happy Monday to you- as you may know, we had a mailbag edition of the weekend edition- great questions, too many questions- but keep sending them in to me at danv@1517.org. We did the mailbag on some difficult “-isms”, one of them being “nationalisms”, and I praised that we would get to a related question (or a few questions) from relatively new listener Jamey in Salem, Oregon. Most people don’t know that Salem is the capital of Oregon until you remember the state Capital is rarely the city you’ve heard of.

It’s the Tree City, it’s called “Salem,” like the witch town, but it comes from an anglicized version of “Shalom,” meaning peace, and from whence we get the last five letters of “Jerusalem”. Ok- Jamey asked about a reference to “legalism” on a recent show in an American context and then asked a question about the history of the 10 Commandments being posted in public places.

So- the “legalism” that I referenced lately is not the theological kind that certainly has its own problems- but I was referencing Alexander Solzhenitsyn- the Russin dissident in the Soviet Union who gave a very famous speech at Harvard in which he claimed that a kind of legalism was threatening America wherein many of her citizens have come to believe that if the law says something, that makes it right and moral. It might, it might not- but the excessive appeal to certain rules and to live by “technically not breaking them” is not the same as a moral life.

Jamey brought up a recent news story about a bill passing in Texas requiring the Ten Commandments to be framed and placed conspicuously in all public classrooms. Ok- so, its a funny thing because the “10 Commandments” being displayed as a sign of some kind of piety goes back to… in American public history it was part of the film promotion for Cecil B. DeMille’s movie the Ten Commandments- the Fraternal Order of Eagles worked with DeMille to get 10 Commandment monuments in public spaces.

There are a couple of key Supreme Court cases to know: the first, Stone v. Graham in 1980, struck down a Kentucky statute to place the 10 commandments in schools, saying it lacked a secular purpose. Ok. Fair enough. They used something called “the Lemon Test,” which sought to find if something was infringing on religious freedoms.

In 2005, we had dueling cases- Van Orden v. Perry in Texas and McCreary County (Kentucky) v. the ACLU. In the Van Orden case, we have the 10 Commandments at the state capitol building, and in the McCreary case, we have the 10 Commandments in courthouses and schools. The Texas case was ruled in favor of the state, placing the 10 Commandments- saying that it was part of a monument to the foundations of Western law. But, in the Kentucky case, because the context wasn’t explicitly historical, it could be seen as trying to advance religion and was shot down. 

As courts change, a precedent that was once accepted can be overturned, and so new cases press for new interpretations of the law. This isn’t about “a theocracy” but it is about redefining the so-called “separation of church and state”.

Here are my questions from a historical and theological perspective to throw into the pot: How advantageous are the 10 Commandments as a public “religious” issue? If it wasn’t for the film and the Fraternal Order of Eagles, would we be having this fight? What about Jesus whittling it down to 2? What about the “you’ve heard it said” parts? I mean, if you want to get a real conversation going… and of course, which 10 Commandments? The DeMille and current Texas display version is a mashup that doesn’t follow any of the conventions- either Augustine or Origen (remember, there are 12-14 actual commandments smushed into the “10 Words” so we have to do some dividing).

I don’t claim to have “the right” answer- but I do cringe when most of the arguments I’ve been reading don’t walk us back to precedent, don’t ask about the origins of the idea in the first place, or what exactly the commandments have to do with the origin of American law- there is certainly an argument about law in general and its origins but too often the real interesting questions are glossed over in favor of partisan politics and that’s a bummer. BUT- Jamey, thanks for asking, and for others with questions, we can hopefully look at historically and theologically and rise above the partisan stuff.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Acts 19, and a story of the Christian world turning another upside down.

23 About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24 A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. 25 He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 7th of July 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows the real OGs want Psalm 137 hung on school walls- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who knows that hands made by human gods are no hands at all, either… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.