By Matt Friedeman
July 1, 2005

(AgapePress) - The Supreme Court, far from being enlightening on the display of the Ten Commandments, botched it badly by making even constitutional scholars scratch their heads and utter a collective, "Huh?" over two cases handed down this week.

Way to go, Supremes.

But why the incoherence? Columnist Bill Murchison made a point that puts the blame for the legal murkiness right where it belongs ... almost.

Says Murchison:

Whose fault? Our fault, intimates the columnist.

But should we be even a bit more particularized with the laser beam of blame since, after all, the issue at hand is the Judeo-Christian tradition handed down from Mount Sinai?

What if they muddying of the waters is the fault of (gasp) the Church? What if the Supreme Court and the constitutional scholars and the various levels of government and the business community and law enforcement and the educational establishment and the arts community and ... well, every institution, culture and people group that make up a collective "culture" ... lack moral clarity because of an anemic, inward-bound, self-aggrandizing Church that is confused about the verity of its Scripture, the tenets of its faith, the purpose of its existence, the priestly service it is called to exercise and the impact it is to have on contemporary life?

If Murchison is right and the culture is to blame, then who is at fault for the culture?

A Church that wants the Ten Commandments freely displayed on public grounds should perhaps also be a Church that has those imperatives written across her heart and memory and, more to the point, her practice.

My hunch? Not ten percent of those who think the Ten Commandments belong in the public square could name all ten. Could we be contending for something we do not know and which we hardly apply?

Missionary/evangelist E. Stanley Jones once asked Gandhi how Christians could "make Christianity naturalized in India, not a foreign thing ... but a part of the national life of India and contributing its power to India's uplift? What would you, as one of the Hindu leaders of India, tell me, a Christian, to do in order to make this possible?"

Gandhi replied: "First, I would suggest that all of you Christians ... must begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Second, practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. Third, emphasize love and make it your working force ...."

Jones shared that later with a British High Court judge and he remarked "That's genius."

It is genius. And culture-changing. And Supreme Court-altering.