Mission goes against the grain of American heritage and culture
To the editor
At least two possible rejoinders to Mr. Kalfus’ mission of hanging the Ten Commandments in plain view on entering the City Council meeting room come to mind here.
First, any code of honor by which you live should be burned into the core of your very being, most folks would say in your heart. If you have to list your honor code in some public place for all to see, then you are in much deeper trouble than you care to admit. You should never have to be reminded of how to live and do business. The spiritual reality, as Jesus and as the Rabbi Hillel, as well as Lao Tau, described, is that the spirit of love, compassion or the way governs how you live. Indeed, the Ten Commandments are not the basic laws of spirituality. Jesus, in his teaching, probably from expounding on the teachings of the Rabbi Hillel, said there are really only two commandments. First, love God (nature) with all your heart, your mind and your soul. Second, love your neighbor as you do yourself. Both commandments are equal to each other. It is on both commandments that all the others rely. Public displays of codes of honor only set yourself up for public hypocrisy. You don’t need to go there; discretion has always been the better part of valor and of love.
Second, much too much has been made of the factoid that the United States is a Judeo-Christian nation or has been founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Neither Jefferson, the young scholar who drafted the Declaration of Independence, nor Franklin, the 70-year-old mentor who provided editorial assistance, paid much heed to Abrahamic theology of their time. The real context of the founding of the United States centered more on the writings of British statesmen such as Locke, Mills, Riccardo and Smith. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and (property Locke’s word Jefferson wrote Franklin struck in favor of) pursuit of happiness.” Preachers of the 19th and 20th centuries repeated the factoid to the extent that it had attained the status of conventional wisdom that even history and political science teachers, though they should know better, include in their lessons without question.
Perhaps I’m lacking some 30 years of wisdom Mr. Kalfus may have, but on these rejoinders I firmly stand. Further, I write this in the belief that Mr. Kalfus’ mission goes against the grain of American heritage and culture.
Bruce Jackson
Cape Coral