Some very interesting thoughts about the Ten Commandments case from Cal Thomas today:
What puzzles me is the extent to which those who want government to endorse their faith seem ready to compromise their true beliefs in order to receive an honorable mention from the state.
Some seem willing to settle for a moment of silent prayer in schools, a type of religious Miranda right, in which believing students have the right to remain mute. Others are willing to place their God as co-unequal with almost anything, just to have his name publicly mentioned, even if that tends to dilute him so much he wouldn’t recognize himself.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor defended the "under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance case the court dismissed last year, calling those words "ceremonial deism." She defined the term as the use of religious idiom for "essentially secular purposes."
Is this what conservative Christians wish to settle for: a governmental genuflection or acknowledgement that they exist? Do Christians wish to permit government not only to set the parameters for the pubic expression of their faith, but to define the faith itself?
While I don’t think Thomas is capturing (or intending to capture) the full scope of the issues involved in the commandments case, he does bring up good questions about the type of Christianity that is being defended here.
As I argued in the pledge of allegiance case, if the God Christians are trying to keep in the public square is a generic deity devoid of all power and meaning, is it really worth the fight?