Ohio Christians Dedicate Ten Commandments Monument in Israel

West Bank (CNSNews.com) - Christian leaders from rural Adams County, Ohio, came all the way to the Israeli community of Barkan in the West Bank this week to dedicate a Ten Commandments monument they shipped to Israel several months ago.

The monument is similar to those removed by court order from four public schools in Adams County. A federal court ruled that having the monuments in Adams County high schools and middle schools violated the Constitution's Establishment Clause, which the courts have interpreted as requiring the separation of church and state.

Christians in Adams County -- facing the threat of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union -- had no idea that their case would arouse the sympathies of Israelis halfway across the world, said Rev. Ken Johnson, pastor of the Seaman United Methodist Church, who is also the president of a group called Adams County for the Ten Commandments (ACTC).

Pinchas Gerber, director of the Shomron (Samaria) Development Fund in the West Bank settlement of Barkan, said he decided to take action when he saw a small picture in The Jerusalem Post of a bulldozer ripping a Ten Commandments monument out of an Adams County school.

"I looked at it and I said, 'I was born in Ohio. This doesn't sit right with me -- with the spiritual feeling you have.' It's not the way you want to have the Ten Commandments being treated," Gerber told the Christian group from Adams County in Barkan this week.

Within minutes of seeing the item in the newspaper, Gerber got the high school's telephone number from the Internet and called the school's principal, who put him in contact with Johnson.

Gerber introduced himself, explained the Jewish people's love for the Ten Commandments and suggested to Johnson that he send one of the monuments to Israel, Gerber said.

Johnson said he was amazed at how his rural river county of some 28,000 residents, with more than 100 churches, had made national and international headlines for its stand in support of the Ten Commandments, and he said hearing from Israel was a highlight.

"That was probably one of the greatest joys that I've ever had in my whole life, is when [Gerber] called...saying [he'd] like to have one of these monuments that were removed from the schools," said Johnson. "I was elated."

Because the Adams County legal appeal is still pending -- and due to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in a few weeks -- Johnson said the county did not want to part with one of its own monuments, which the committee hopes to be allowed to re-install.

Nevertheless, the ACTC decided that the Israeli request was important enough to have a new, similar monument built and shipped to Barkan.

The 800-pound granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments was a gift from ACTC and it cost about $3,000. It now stands in front of the mayor's office of the Samaria Regional Council in Barkan, a settlement in the northern West Bank.

The only difference in the monuments, which both bear engravings of an American flag, is that the Israeli version bears an engraving of an Israeli flag in place of the eagle inscribed on the American monuments, Johnson said.

Tom Claibourne, senior pastor of Bethlehem Church of Christ in Winchester, Ohio, who accompanied Johnson to Israel, said he was happy to be involved with "bringing the Ten Commandments home, just to be a part of seeing them here in Israel again with the people God originally gave them to."

According to the Bible, God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Jewish people.

Claibourne also said he was thrilled with the fact that the monument was being displayed in a public place in Barkan.

"To me it seems that the groups I refer to as the anti-religious extremists or the high priests of political correctness...their ultimate goal is...the complete removal of any reference to God or the Bible or the church from American public life," Claibourne said.

"So its thrilling to me to see a public building, even though its not in our country... [to] have the Ten commandments prominently displayed out front," he said.

Shavuot

The ACTC representatives' visit coincides with the Biblical Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which began at sundown on Tuesday evening.

On Shavuot, the Jewish people celebrate God giving them the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai more than 3,300 years ago, which established them as a nation, Gerber said.

"The Ten Commandments are not only for the Jewish people but...it's a moral compass for our society," Gerber said. He also linked them to the rest of the Bible, which he said gives the Jewish people the "fortitude" to continue living in the Biblical land of Samaria -- known internationally as the West Bank.

There are some 60,000 Israeli residents of Samaria and more than 220,000 Israelis who live in the Biblical areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza -- which they believe God promised to them as an eternal inheritance. Palestinians want all Jews to leave this area, which they hope will become part of a future Palestinian state.

"The Ten Commandments gives us a beacon that calls us as Jews [to come] here, [to live] here - you want to answer the call," Gerber said.

Taking a stand

"The thing that we've found out in this whole situation is when you take a stand for the principles of God, God honors that," Johnson said.

Two weeks after the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Adams County/Ohio Valley school system in February 1999, the ACTC created a blue and white plastic yard sign with the Ten Commandments on it, saying, "We stand for the Ten Commandments."

Intended for display in Adams County yards alone, five years later -- without any advertising -- more than 200,000 of the yard signs have been sold in all 50 states to help raise funds for the school board's legal defense, Johnson said.

(According to the ACTC website, the group was formed when hundreds of county residents objected to the ACLU lawsuit challenging the Ten Commandments monuments in public schools. The ACTC pledged at the time not to use any public funds in its defense.)

"We were very saddened that the Ten Commandments had to come out on June the 9th , 2003 but we're seeing that the Ten Commandments are still being spread across not only the United States but now we have the opportunity to...send [a monument] back to the land where they actually came from," Johnson said.