The suggestion has been made a number of times in recent years that a reliable way to get a Ten Commandments display approved in a public place is to nest it with historical documents. Royal Alexander suggested this method for Louisiana’s public schools in a recent essay at The Hayride. In his words:

‘It should be unnecessary but perhaps the best way to avoid having the law struck down is by including along with the Commandments, other historical displays such as the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, and the Northwest Ordinance. By surrounding the Ten Commandments display with other historical displays, it would be imbued with academic, educational, and historical value outside of any religious context’ (‘Religious Liberty and the Louisiana Ten Commandments Case,’ thehayride.com).

There are problems with this strategy, and they are not insignificant.

Let’s begin with the Mayflower Compact. This is the document drawn up by the Pilgrims who landed in New England for the purpose of setting up a government for their colony. There is a line in it that is peculiar and deserves some scrutiny: ‘We . . . Do by these Presents . . . covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick . . .’ (‘The Mayflower Compact,’ themayflowersociety.org).

That line is the beginning of a great deal of mischief. It is an act of political alchemy, creating a ‘Body Politick’ with the flick of a pen. It is an act of hubris that a thing can be brought into existence merely by the will of man, making it tantamount to the conception of magic practiced by non-Christians in past ages.

That dark spirit of prideful rebellion of the Pilgrims shows up in various guises from that point onward. In England, their co-religionists started a war under Cromwell to overthrow the whole inherited order of the English kingdom and reconstitute it as a Puritan theocracy. In the United States, the descendants of the New England Pilgrims would launch a war under Lincoln against the Southern States because the latter were not walking enough to their liking on the Pure Yankee Way; the Southern people were likewise to be ‘reconstructed’ into prim and proper egalitarian Yankees.

More recently, we have seen the good, old Pilgrim alchemical magic at work in the nation-building exercises in Afghanistan and Iraq, wherein Muslim and Ba’ath Party dictatorships were to be swiftly transformed into secular, pluralistic, European-style parliamentary democracies simply by the writing and ratification of new constitutions (‘covenanting and combining themselves together into new civil Body Politicks’); and also in the transgender madness, wherein a man or woman could become the opposite sex by a simple declaration of words and a quick change of clothes.

We understand the urge to laud the Pilgrims of New England. They are often made the heroes in books about the history of the United States, but that is because, as Confederate General Patrick Cleburne and others have noted, the victors often write the histories. Had the War between the States ended differently, the historical depiction of Northerners and Southerners would likely also be presented differently.

Most of the peoples who settled the colonies that would become the first States of the new union were not restless, deluded dreamers like the Pilgrims. They simply wanted to continue the cultural life they knew in their former colonies here in North America with a bit more freedom and opportunity, whether the Dutch in the Middle Colonies, the Celts in Appalachia, or the non-Pilgrim Englishmen who settled in the South. There were some exceptions, like the Shakers in New York, but by and large the non-Yankee parts of the US were much more traditional than the Yankee parts.

It is quite a contradiction, then, to pair the Ten Commandments with the Mayflower Compact: The spirit of the latter strives mightily against the spirit of the former.

But regarding the larger strategy of bundling the Ten Commandments with historical documents, there are two other sizeable problems:

It is disingenuous. The main purpose of the Ten Commandments displays is to renew respect and awe for these God-given laws in the hearts and souls of young students. By jumbling them up with things like the Northwest Ordinance, that purpose is downplayed in order to sneak them past the anti-Christian censors sitting on the judicial benches. It is an act of dishonest subterfuge that is against the very words of one of the Commandments – Thou shalt not lie. And that leads directly into the other problem:

This jumbling of the Commandments with historical displays removes the divine aura of the Ten Commandments. Mr Alexander admitted as much when he said, ‘By surrounding the Ten Commandments display with other historical displays, it would be imbued with academic, educational, and historical value outside of any religious context.’ Such an action blunts much of the supernatural power of the Commandments (making us like the apostates predicted by the Holy Apostle Paul, ‘having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof’, II Timothy 3:5), and thus negates the very purpose of displaying them. If students are to look at them only as historical documents like the Declaration of Independence that they may study and analyze, accept or reject, as they please, then we will have gained very little indeed.

The Ten Commandments, if they are to be displayed, should be displayed apart, by themselves, to show the respect that is due to them as God’s laws, to draw the undivided attention of students, to draw them into contemplation of the divine precepts – to worship the one True God, the Holy Trinity, and to reject false gods and idols, to keep the Sabbath holy, not to use God’s name in vain, to honor their mother and father, and so on with the rest – and ultimately to kindle in their hearts a desire to love the God Who in His love for us gave us these good laws by which to order our individual lives, our families, and society more broadly.

That is the purpose of man in this world as noted by a recent saint of North America, St Nikolai Velimirovich (+1956):

‘Why are we here on earth? To show our love for God. To learn to love God more than sin. That by our inconsequential love, we may respond to the greater love of God. . . . God shows His love for us every day and every hour. Every day and every moment we stand positioned between God and sin. We have either to give our love to God and elevate ourselves among the angels or to choose sin and fall into the gloom of hades’ (The Prologue of Ochrid, ‘March 17th,’ ochrid.org).

Louisiana can learn from another country that has been dealing with a similar controversy. The Greek government was challenged by some atheists that the presence of Christian icons in public courtrooms violated their rights. The Greek government, unflustered, replied matter-of-factly:

‘On March 17, 2026, Greece’s Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports issued a clarification in response to demands that sacred icons be removed from courtrooms, stating that such initiatives cannot be considered because they do not violate citizens’ rights and run counter to the country’s historical and cultural tradition, Orthodoxia News Agency reports. . . . the presence of icons in courtrooms does not violate the right to a fair trial, but is part of a historical tradition linked to the formation of Greek identity and the role of the Orthodox Church’ (‘Greek Education Ministry explains refusal to remove icons from courtrooms,’ spzh.eu).

Note well that the Greek government didn’t try to placate nor fool the opposition by hiding the icons amongst a reem of historical documents, paintings, etc.

That is how Louisiana, Arkansas, and other States attempting to post the Ten Commandments should respond to these kinds of challenges: ‘The Ten Commandments are a significant part of our religious/cultural life. Their presence does not violate anyone’s rights. Therefore, we will not remove them. Next issue, please.’

Let us return to the larger theme, though. If we want to teach our students that men and women are merely producers and consumers of worldly goods and pleasures, by all means hide the significance of the Ten Commandments by shuffling them together with less important documents. If we want them to know that they are made in the image of God and that there is a higher calling for them, i.e., the acquisition of the likeness of Christ Himself, then display the Commandments prominently, by themselves, in recognition that they are the words of God Himself for the betterment of mankind.

The future well-being of Louisiana and other States considering the display of the Ten Commandments rests on decisions like that one. What we have seen and heard so far in Louisiana isn’t encouraging. But there is still time to change course. Will we?