James L. Evans makes some excellent points in this article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. There is a long registration process to view it so I’ve pasted the whole thing here:
In
his new book, "So Help Me God," former Alabama Supreme Court Chief
Justice Roy Moore makes the claim that he is bound by his oath as a
public official, by the words "so help me God," to acknowledge God as
the foundation of our government. The failure to do this, he argues in
his book, erodes the "moral foundation of law."
Moore, who lost his job in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal court
order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state court
building, writes that such erosion is already at work. Godless atheists
and secularists have been busy for 50 years trying to remove God from
the public sphere. In Moore’s view, they have succeeded.
The removal of prayer and Bible reading from schools are symptoms of
God’s absence from our public lives, according to Moore. This has
resulted in increased crime, a rising drug problem, unwed mothers and
an overall decline in the moral fabric of our society. Until we return
God to the center of our public lives, he says, this decline will
continue and get worse.
Such claims have been in the air since the Supreme Court ruled in
1962 that teacher-led prayer in public schools violated the First
Amendment. There are many faithful Christians who believe there is an
undeniable link between this ruling and every social ill that has
appeared since.
But if we blame all of our country’s current problems on the failure
of the state to acknowledge God, what does that say about the church?
After all, isn’t the church a public acknowledgement of God? When
congregations pray, aren’t they engaged in public prayer? When the
Bible is read, doesn’t that count as Bible reading?
Is the church such an inadequate institution that if God is not
acknowledged in the courthouse and schoolhouse, then he is removed from
the public sphere?
People of faith who accept these arguments need to realize how they
demean the role of the church in the world. Wasn’t it the faith
community that was ordained by God to provide settings for worship,
instruction and for breaking the bread of Communion? And can you really
acknowledge God properly without these things?
This diminished view of the church is evident in Moore’s book. In
the one and only paragraph in the book that approaches any traditional
Christian testimony, Moore says he "walked the aisle" and later met
with the preacher for two hours. That’s it; that’s all we get on the
role of the church in Moore’s spiritual pilgrimage. From there his life
is heavy on the Founding Fathers but light on the teaching of Jesus.
I am not suggesting that Moore is not a Christian or that his
Christian experience is not valid. What I am suggesting is that his
views are part of a growing trend in evangelical Christianity that
seems to say that unless the state acknowledges God, God has not been
acknowledged. Such a notion invalidates the role of the church entirely.
Where this takes us, of course, is where we are. The acknowledgement
of God that takes place week in and week out in local faith communities
is discounted. Meanwhile, there is weeping and wailing because a
monument of the Ten Commandments is not on display at the courthouse.
Jesus said on the occasion of establishing the church that the gates
of hell would not prevail against it. I guess we’ll have to hold our
breath and hope he was right.