The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Bitter debates between “social justice warriors” and critics of “cancel culture” often center upon the meaning of statues and monuments to Confederate leaders and slave owners. Memorials to Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, their defenders insist, merely acknowledge Southern heritage and sacrifices in the Civil War. Most historians, in contrast, recognize that these statues, erected years after the Civil War, often signified the reassertion of white supremacy. Others appeared much later, as a response to those challenging segregation.
The presence of religious monuments in the public sphere also spark debate. These mostly Christian symbols sometimes take the form of crosses or holiday displays. Over the past two decades, for example, Fox News pundits routinely alert their audience to an alleged “war on Christmas” waged by secular extremists. Among the most contentious monuments are granite slabs engraved with the Ten Commandments that, at their peak, were displayed outside hundreds of local courthouses and municipal buildings. Aside from a few recent additions, nearly all these monuments had little to do with history or assertions of faith. They were, in fact, created as part of an ambitious campaign to promote a 1950s Hollywood film.
The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are mentioned three times in slightly different versions in books of the Old Testament. Biblical scholars still debate the correct wording and significance of the Decalogue. Generally speaking, Jews, Christians and Muslims, with varying emphasis, accept them as God’s command to Moses. While often referenced among Americans of faith, the commandments were not routinely celebrated as part of the nation’s heritage or its political culture. Few if any civic displays paid homage to them.
The situation changed dramatically during the 1950s, largely due to the exertions of Hollywood filmmaker Cecile B. DeMille. DeMille’s mother, a German-Jewish immigrant and convert to Christianity, raised her son as an Episcopalian. Many of his films were religiously themed, including a 1920s silent version of “The Ten Commandments,” “The King of Kings” (1927) and “Samson and Delilah” (1949). Part of his success lay in discovering that he could get around Hollywood’s strict censorship code by having scantily clad female stars in his co-called “sandal and toga” films undergo a religious conversion before the final scene. Between the 1920s and his death in 1958, DeMille became one of the industry’s most successful producer-directors.
In the 1950s, he resolved to remake the Ten Commandments on a far grander scale. By then DeMille played an active leadership role in several anti-communist organizations that promoted “Judeo-Christian values” against godless Soviet communism. Starting around 1951, he and his allies launched a campaign to distribute tens of thousands of Ten Commandment pamphlets to schools and civic groups. Over the next several years he developed a script for the new film that portrayed Moses and the Hebrews (the term “Jew” was avoided) as ecumenical freedom fighters against an alien tyranny represented by Pharaoh Ramses II. To distinguish his film from other quasi-religious epics, DeMille had an epiphany: why limit promotions to faux parchment scrolls? He persuaded the Paramount Studio to approve manufacture and nationwide distribution of around 2,000 6-foot high, multi-ton granite slabs upon which the text of the commandments would be engraved.
To bolster local publicity and community engagement, DeMille enlisted the support of the Fraternal Order of Eagles (with a membership then about 900,000) to organize ceremonies at which the donated monuments would be unveiled. It seems doubtful that all 2,000 slabs were manufactured, but at least 150 were delivered and placed outside courthouses and city halls in 34 states to coincide with the film’s 1956 release. Leaving little to chance — and to promote ticket sales — DeMille arranged for Moses and his archrival Pharaoh Rameses (actors Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner) to mug in front of adoring crowds when the monuments were first displayed. In a nod to international solidarity, one monument, specially adorned with U.S. and Canadian flags, was placed in the International Peace Garden along the Canadian border in North Dakota.
Although the 1956 film “The Ten Commandments” is frequently revived on TV, the relationship between the granite monuments and the film has been mostly forgotten. During the past 20 years, several legal challenges have reached the Supreme Court questioning whether the monuments violate the wall of separation between church and state. Interestingly, in their court pleadings, faith-based conservative advocacy groups cite the 1950s advertising blitz as evidence of the monuments’ secular purpose. Liberal critics counter that whatever their origin, these monuments are religious to their core and have no place on government property. The Supreme Court has rendered inconsistent rulings on this and related monuments, ordering removal of some, such as the new monument to the Ten Commandments in Alabama, while tolerating a large cross on public land in Maryland as a historical rather than religious symbol.
No discussion would be complete without reference to comedian Mel Brooks’ depiction of the Ten Commandments in his 1981 film “History of the World, Part 1.” (There was, of course, no Part 2). Brooks portrays a heavily burdened Moses descending from Mount Sinai carrying three stone tablets, each of which contains five divine commands. To the assembled Hebrews he intones, “I give you the Fif “ — but then drops one of the tablets which shatters. He quickly amends his words to say “Ten Commandments.” It would be interesting to know what DeMille, theologians and judges might make of the lost five!
