First up from the God machine this week is a terrific story, by way of John Cole, about an Alabama woman who had an unusual spiritual experience.
Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama.
But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.
She said ‘Amen’ and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire.
I’m more than happy to let readers draw their own conclusions about the incident.
Moving on, a semi-obscure religious right group wants to erect a Ten Commandments monument across the street from the Supreme Court. Organizers are having some legal trouble — but it has nothing to do with the separation of church and state.
Faith and Action says on its Web site that it plans to unveil the waist-high, 850-pound granite sculpture Saturday on the front lawn of the rowhouse on Second Street NE where the national group’s offices are. But the group apparently doesn’t have the approval it needs from at least two agencies, city officials and neighborhood activists said.
Faith and Action’s president, the Rev. Robert Schenck, declined to return phone calls yesterday, as did his spokesman. On its Web site, the group said it tried unsuccessfully for five years to get the proper permits and decided to go ahead with the unveiling based on “common law that governs garden displays.”
The sculpture “will be visible to the nine justices as they arrive and leave each day,” the site said in explaining why the group undertook the project.
I’ve met Schenck many times, and he’s mostly harmless. Faith and Action, and his other organization (the National Clergy Council), lack money, members, and influence, so these largely symbolic stunts help keep him going.
But things don’t seem to be going well on this one. As a First Amendment matter, no one cares if Schenck or anyone else puts the Ten Commandments on private property. That Supreme Court justices might see them before or after work is of no consequence to anyone.
Except maybe Schenck’s neighbors. Whether it’s a monument to the Decalogue or to Jebediah Springfield, in the neighborhood around the Supreme Court, people need to get zoning permits and the approval from the Historic Preservation Review Board. Schenck didn’t.
It’s almost as if these guys want to claim persecution. They wanted to honor the Ten Commandments and were denied their right to religious expression. Or so they’ll argue.
I’m also curious about the point. What, exactly, are justices supposed to think when they drive by the monument every day? I’ve never really understood what religious right activists hope to achieve with these displays. Then again, I find most of the religious right’s wish list more bizarre than coherent.