US History
 Image of Moses carrying Ten Commandments engraved into U.S. Supreme Court (photo: Carrie Devorah) |
Every argument before the U.S. Supreme Court and every opinion the justices deliver comes in the presence of the Ten Commandments, God's law given to Moses on a fire-scorched mountain, and now represented for the United States in the very artwork carved into the high court structure. In today's world of revisionist history, the proof comes through the work of a California pastor who visited the Supreme Court building recently when he was in Washington and was surprised that what the tour guides were telling him wasn't the same thing as what he was seeing. Todd DuBord, pastor of the Lake Almanor Community Church in California, said he was traveling with his wife, Tracy, and was more than startled during recent visits to the courthouse and two other historic locations to discover the stories of the nation's heritage had been sterilized of Christian references. His entire research compilation is available online. DuBord's message from July 23, 2006, on this issue can be heard immediately, and for free, on the church website at www.lacconline.org. "Having done some research (before the trip), I absolutely was not expecting to hear those remarks," which, he told WND, simply "denied history." (Story continues below) So he's written to the Supreme Court, and several other groups, asking them to restore the historic Christian influences to their information, and he's documented his research to explain to those interested what the history is and how it's been subverted. "I would like to see the record rectified and the proper Christian and Judeo-Christian depictions taught in these places," he told WND. He was most disturbed by what appears to be revisionism in the presentations given to visitors at the Supreme Court. There, he said, his tour guide was describing the marble frieze directly above the justices' bench. "Between the images of the people depicting the Majesty of the Law and Power of Government, there is a tablet with ten Roman numerals, the first five down the left side and the last five down the right. This tablet represents the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights," she said. The ten what? was DuBord's thought. Unwilling to be confrontational, he went home and started some research.
 The tableaux – is it the Ten Commandments, or Ten Amendments? |
One official Supreme Court document, he found, cited a letter from sculptor Adolph A. Weinman that said the "pylon" carved with Roman numerals I to X "symbolizes the first ten amendments to the Constitution." But the letter was anomalous; it didn't have a number of certifying marks that were typical of others. So he continued looking and after calling in some assistance in his hunt for evidence, he found a 1975 official U.S. Supreme Court Handbook, prepared under the direction of Mark Cannon, administrative assistant to the chief justice. It said, "Directly above the Bench are two central figures, depicting Majesty of the Law and Power of Government. Between them is a tableau of the Ten Commandments…"
 Old Supreme Court document identifies this as Ten Commandments, a term no longer used by the court |
Further research produced information that in 1987 the building was designated a National Historic Landmark, and came under control of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and under the new management the handbook was rewritten in 1988. The Ten Commandments reference was left out of that edition, and nothing replaced it. The next reference found said only the frieze "symbolizes early written laws" and then in 1999, the reference first appeared to that depiction being the "Ten Amendments to the Bill of Rights." "The more I got into it (his research), the more I saw Christianity had been abandoned from history," he told WND. When he asked, his recent tour guide denied there were any Ten Commandments representations in the Supreme Court building, he said.
 'Authority of the Law' at Supreme Court |
Such denial, he said, left him stunned. One who was not surprised by the circumstances, however, was Judge Roy Moore, a WND columnist and the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He was removed from office on a federal judge's order because he refused to remove a depiction of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama courthouse. "They've distorted history to come up with their own version of things," Moore told WND. What such changes do, he said, "is divorce ourselves from an understanding of where our rights come from." Without rights coming from God, he noted, government "assumes control over everything, including what you think." "Why would they say the Ten Commandments weren't there? They had to come up with something. I could see the progressive disappearance of the word 'commandment' from their literature," said DuBord. He had just returned from a trip to Turkey, where ancient Ephesus is. "The tour guide was Muslim, and went on to say, with all respect to all of you, I need to say something to you about the Apostle Paul. ... And he went into an apologetic of Paul's teachings." "He told us, 'These things happened here,'" DuBord said. But then to return to the U.S. and find Christianity edited from history left him almost speechless. "I thought, we started as a Christian nation, and we can't even get this here." DeBord also noted that during his research of the "Weinman letter," he found another memorial in Washington, "The Oscar Solomon Memorial," noting the accomplishments of the first Jew to serve in a president's cabinet. It's on 14th Street between Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues. It also was designed by Weinman, and like the Supreme Court image, depicts a human figure leaning on the same table with Roman numerals just as the East Wall Frieze. But this time, an artist's letter confirms the tablets represent the Ten Commandments. "Would Weinman have sculpted two identical tablets, in the same city, each with the Roman numerals I through V on one side and VI through X on the other, but with totally different identities?" DuBord wondered. "It seems very unlikely." The current information office at the Supreme Court declined to talk on the record with WND when asked about Ten Commandments representations on the building, referring questioners to the website. There, a document does indicate "Moses" is one of various lawgivers portrayed in the friezes, but the site doesn't mention "Ten Commandments." It does mention the "Ten Amendments." DuBord said he knew of other representations, such as the lower part of the inside of each of the oak doors where people enter the inner Court Chamber, where two tablets carry Roman numerals I-V and VI-X.
 Supreme Court door panels |
But DuBord's tour guide said those – too – were the Ten Amendments. He then asked, "If there are no other depictions of Moses or the Ten Commandments on the building except on the South Wall Frieze in the U.S. Supreme Court, then what about on the east side of the building where Moses is the central figure among others, holding both tablets of the Ten Commandments, one in each arm?" "Her response shocked me as much as the guide inside the Court chamber. 'There is no depiction of Moses and the Ten Commandments like that on the U.S. Supreme Court,'" DuBord said he was told. He asked if there were any pictures of the representation, and she pulled one out. "Her eyes widened in surprise. There was Moses in photo and description as the central figure, holding the Ten Commandments (tablets), one in each hand," DuBord wrote. Although there are six depictions of Moses and-or the Ten Commandments at the Supreme Court, the tour guides had been trained to admit to only the one on Moses, he said. One doesn't have to be Christian, or endorse Christianity, to recognize its influence in history, he said. "I am … respectfully requesting that the complete educational history regarding the depictions of Moses and The Ten Commandments be rediscovered and retaught to U.S. Supreme Court guides and to the public in the U.S. Supreme Court Building," he suggested in a letter to the court. DuBord grew up without religion, but during seven years of academic study at Bethany University and Fuller Theological Seminary accepted that the claims of Christianity are true. He's served in various prison, drug and alcohol rehab ministries and worked as a youth pastor and associate pastor before assuming his duties in Lake Almanor. His messages can be downloaded at http://www.wnd.com/redir/r.asp?http://www.iTunes.com by typing in "almanor" or "dubord."
Coming tomorrow: Where else is the influence of Christianity being erased from historical stories?
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disposed of at the will of another. It was morally absurd in the 18OO'S
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