The Ten Commandments provided great material for Charlton Heston and the Hollywood moviemakers.

The 1956 drama still sells well on video. Heston has played many starring roles and is a spokesman for the National Rifle Association. But he is still most well known as the one who played Moses in a movie made more than 40 years ago.

On another stage, the Ten Commandments also continue to give government officials and attorneys plenty of material for courtroom drama. The fact that God would be hold enough to command His creatures not to steal, commit adultery, or worship idols is enough to start an argument and send people to file law suits.

A recent point of controversy came in Indiana as U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ordered Lawrence County com missioners to take down the commandments. She had ruled that they are unconstitutional for the Statehouse lawn in Indianapolis. Her ruling has been appealed to the next federal court level, and the Lawrence County commissioners voted to place the commandments monument on the Lawrence County court house lawn during the appeals process.

If such legal drama seems a little confusing, the source of the confusion can be traced back to Supreme Court rulings. The lower courts are in conflict with each other, with some federal judges allowing Ten Commandments displays and others ruling against them. In Alabama, Etowah County Judge Roy Moore has had the commandments posted on his court room wall, prompting a lawsuit that probably will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile Judge Moore was just elected to the state’s top judicial position.

The problem comes from the nation’s top court and the divisions within the court over whether judges should interpret the Constitution based on the original intent of the authors, or whether the judges should he judicially active and write their own laws and amendments into the Constitution, with little or no regard as to original intent.

At times, the court seems to side with the American Civil Liberties Union contention that religious expression in public places is unconstitutional and ought to be confined to the private sphere of the church and family. Government, under this theory, must be neutral or hostile against the Bible especially and Christian faith. At other times, the court seems to recognize that the ACLII doctrine is not an interpretation hut adds up to a new constitutional amendment that ought to be debated by Congress and the state legislatures before adoption.

The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The objective was to avoid a state denomination, such as the Church of England, with the king or queen as head of the church. Another objective of the amendment was to rule out government interference in churches. History indicates that the authors of the Constitution never meant to forbid prayer by government officials or the display of Bible references in public places, since they followed such practices themselves even as they discussed the proposed Constitution.

The Founding Fathers prayed together and appealed to Scripture frequently, without any complaints about a violation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin proposed a time of prayer and appealed to Psalm 127 in the Scriptures: “We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”

Then, the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall was rung to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and victories during the War for Independence. The hell declares, from a verse in Leviticus 25:10 in the Bible: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof.”

Thomas Jefferson participated on a committee appointed by the Continental Congress to come up with a national seal. He suggested a scene right out of the Ten Commandments story, the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud during the day and fire at night. Franklin proposed a picture of Moses raising his rod and parting the waters of the Red Sea.

The First Amendment was not designed to forbid Bible verses on government grounds. But the Supreme Court has created a confusing situation for public officials, allowing some public expression of religious faith but forbid ding it in other circumstances. Several members of the court have recognized that fact and sometimes have put together a majority on the court to stop it from writing new constitutional amendments. At other times a court majority has struck down Bible verses in public set tings, creating a confusing situation for public officials, allowing some public expression of religious faith but forbid ding it in other circumstances.

One way out of this legal confusion is to go back to the original intent of the Constitution. The justices could recommend to the ACLU and other advocates of freedom from religion that they start work on a constitutional amendment to accomplish their objectives. But if the authors of the Constitution could be around to cast a ballot on that amendment, they would likely vote no.