The Ten Commandments are hardly breaking news, but a quick glance through the US national media in recent months might indicate otherwise. Not only are the airwaves hot with talk about the Commandments, but the Ten Commandments have even come to the streets of the nation’s capital. A gentleman, looking vaguely Mosesque, is at the wheel of a converted truck with a giant Ten Commandments on the back, driving the streets of Washington, DC to shout out the message loud and clear; America needs the Ten Commandments.

If that isn’t enough to get your attention, maybe the October 2003 rally in front of the US Supreme Court is. The rally, which was the culmination of a road trip from Alabama to Washington, made up for the rather small size of the crowd by the colorful characters and language of the demonstrators. One gentleman in stilts and a top hat proclaimed that it is time to “end judicial tyranny,” another dressed as Moses carried a copy of the Ten Commandments, “there is no separation of church and state in the constitution” proclaimed a number of protesters. Even George Washington was in attendance, in the form of a rather hot looking man dressed in resplendent colonial garb.

So what is all the fuss about? As one caller to a radio station recently observed “I thought Christians believed the law was nailed to the cross 2000 years ago and we are living under grace. So why are Christians protesting about the Ten Commandments today?” The answer may have less to do with a new brand of evangelical theology than it has to do with the politics of America’s culture wars.

To understand the phenomenon, it is necessary to have a few background facts. The first is that the current furor over the Ten Commandments began with an obscure trial court judge from Alabama named Roy Moore. Judge Moore decided to post a wooden copy of the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. A group called Americans United for Separation of Church & State (AU), sued Moore in federal court claiming that the display violated the constitutional ban in establishing religion. As it turns out, AU had the law on its side, but Moore had the people.

Alabamans are known as a deeply religious and proudly independent people. Outsiders asking a federal court to force Alabama judges to remove religious symbols from their state courthouses had the predictable result of whipping up a state-wide furor. Not one to miss an opportunity, Judge Moore decided to run for a seat on the elected Alabama Supreme Court. His campaign materials described him as the “Ten Commandments” judge. Predictably he won the seat and became the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.

Soon after his election, Justice Moore fulfilled his central campaign promise. In the dead of night, without the consent of his fellow justices, Justice Moore installed a 5,300 pound granite Ten Commandments monument in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court. The entire event was filmed and copies distributed to delighted supporters. AU, however, was not delighted and resumed their legal battle with Justice Moore.

It was at this point that the nation started to take notice. One side stood firmly on the principle of keeping church and state separate, of protecting folks from the imposition of religious ideas by the state, on the high words of Jefferson and Madison. The other side stood tall for the right to recognize the Biblical basis of American civilization, the precedents set by Washington and Adams, and the state’s right to determine its practices. Both sides were wrong; if not in principle, then at least in practice.

AU deliberately stoked a fire that was better left alone. Judge Moore would still be an obscure judge in a small court in a corner of Alabama if AU had not decided to make him a cause célèbre. AU won on a minor issue, while providing the motivation necessary to continue the building of a movement that is destined to bury all those who oppose the union of church and state. A poll taken soon after AU’s “victory” and published by USA Today, found that 77% of Americans supported Justice Moore’s monument. On the other hand, no one watching these events closely can ignore the political opportunism at work by those supporting Roy Moore. Using the law of God, written with God’s own finger, as a political weapon is hardly laudable. That Moore’s version was edited down to remove any reference to the seventh day, only confirmed the danger inherent in government getting into the business of defining faith.

Cynicism comes easy to this generation, and maybe for good reason. The Ten Commandments controversy with its trade in insults, extreme views, symbiotic fundraising efforts, and political maneuvering is enough to make one ask if there is anything sacred left in this world. There must be, but it isn’t found in court houses, on talk shows, scrawled on placards or in fund-raising letters. It is found in a pure grace, freely given, with the law of love written large by the divine on the broken human heart. Hardly the stuff of headlines, but as earth shaking news now as it was on that awesome day when God gave man His immutable law.