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by Alexander Obercian

On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold approach Columbine High School, in Jefferson County, Colorado. Armed with one 10-shot Hi-Point model 995 carbine rifle, one Intratec AB-10 (TEC-9) pistol, two Savage 12-gauge shotguns, and as many as ninety-five explosive devices, Harris and Klebold enter the school near the cafeteria. Upon doing so, they are met with the words that God commanded unto Moses on Mount Sinai: Thou Shall Not Kill. Harris and Klebold tremble in fear and shame for what they have come to accomplish. Dropping their weapons, the boys fall to their knees, bow their heads in penance, and pray to God for forgiveness.

Instead of that scenario the boys fired off an estimated 900 rounds into the bodies of their fellow classmates, teachers, and, eventually, themselves; it is doubtful that the killers knew their bullets would also become ammunition for the Christian Right's own agenda. But the seemingly unchecked anathema of school violence is now a selling point in the Christian Right's campaign to legislate morality, and the killing at Columbine is exhibit A. As ridiculous as it sounds to some that Harris and Klebold would suddenly abandon such murderous thoughts, many members of the Christian Right believe that the power of the Word is so inescapable and forceful that even the most vile intentions can be instantly quelled by one glance at the Ten Commandments.

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay would be the first to install a copy of the Ten Commandments in our local schools. He himself believes that the Word would have felled Harris and Klebold: "'I got an e-mail this morning that said it all. A student writes, 'Dear God: Why didn't you stop the shootings at Columbine?' And God answers, 'Dear student: I would have, but I wasn't allowed in school'" (christianity.about.com). The logical assumption to make is that having God in school (in the form of the Ten Commandments) would have prevented Columbine. That is quite a substantial claim, but it only shows the magnitude of faith that some Christians place in the Word.

In 1999, an attempt to pass a law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools (not coincidentally attached to a gun-control bill) failed for reasons stated by People for the American Way on their website:

First, posting the Ten Commandments is a solution in search of a non-existent problem. Religious Right rhetoric notwithstanding, religion and prayer have not been banned from public schools; in fact the First Amendment protects students' rights to pray, discuss religious views and read religious texts in school. Second, posting the Ten Commandments would violate the First Amendment by requiring schools to favor one religion over another; the Supreme Court ruled so in 1980.

What is at stake here is not a student's right to practice religion in school-that right is already guaranteed; rather, the Christian Right wants to be seen as doing something about school violence. The Ten Commandments as touted by Tom DeLay become a symbol of spirituality, a means to gauge both the morality of a school population and the pro-activeness of the Christian Right in combating school violence.

Not all in the Christian Right are so naïve as to think that the displaying of the Ten Commandments is a panacea for all of society's ills; nor are all Christian paraphernalia so obvious in their intent to save lives as the Ten Commandments are. Yet, no matter to what degree one believes that the Word of God is effective in influencing a casual observer, the shared assumption remains that the Word can somehow change lives. Consider Shoes of the Fisherman beach sandals, one of a myriad of Christian products that touts its devine blessing. An appealing ocean-teal color and, by all accounts on the manufacturer's website, of sturdy construction, these sandals would appear normal enough. However, the soles are alternately etched with the words "Jesus" and "Loves You," the idea being that a stroll on the beach will leave imprints in the sand that will likewise imprint any wayward souls who happen to gaze upon these divine footprints.

The wearing of these sandals or the displaying of the Ten Commandments in school rests on the belief that spirituality can be imparted instantly, that the power of the Word is so overwhelming that the mere mention of it can lead to salvation, if not just inspiration. The personal story of Dr. Kathleen Farrell, the President of Shoes of the Fisherman, Inc., continues the ramifications of this belief, displayed on the company's website:

In college, she was abducted by a stranger. During her captivity, without thinking about what she was saying, she repeated the 23rd Psalm out loud. Praise The Lord, she was released. How important were the words of the Psalm? Kathleen believes they saved her life and perhaps saved the soul of her abductor.

Dr. Farrell too wants to lend a hand in preventing school violence: "After the Columbine school tragedy, legislation was proposed to post the Ten Commandments in public places because Biblical reminders can make the difference between life and death" ("Fisherman"). Farrell, like Tom DeLay and others in the Christian Right, want to use Columbine to sell an agenda. The very word 'Columbine' creates an anxiety in people that the Christian Right then quells through some form of legislation (Ten Commandments) or some product (Shoes of the Fisherman). Before the Christian Right can use the power of the Word to prevent school violence, it must first use the power of Columbine to sell the Word.

Columbine has become a commodity in itself. It is free advertising-one can use it to advance all sorts of agendas, from gun control to censorship to Christian morals. Like the words of the Ten Commandments, the word 'Columbine' is meant to impart instant meaning. Immediately one can associate it with everything from the Goth sub-culture to the downfall of society. Due to the almost incessant use by the media, of the school shooting as a byword for societal ills, 'Columbine' has been transformed to include a range of meanings greater than the actual physical and historical reality of the shooting itself. The Columbine Research Task Force, a group that is diligently fighting the "commodification" of the shooting, makes this claim:

We're seeing more of a peripheral grasp of the event­the shooting is used as a catapult to propel other stories deployed by the media; for instance, stories involving gun regulation, or video game violence. The actual shooting becomes a secondary element, and not the main focus. (website)

Where Columbine is presented as a symptom of the problem, the Ten Commandments are presented as the solution. Are not then the Ten Commandments likewise a commodity?

Charles Henderson, a Presbyterian minister, though he agrees that Christianity has a place in public schools, disagrees with the way the Christian Right has handled the Ten Commandments issue. Henderson argues that Christian Right is only using the Ten Commandments as a symbol of Christianity. In referring to Tom DeLay's earlier statement about Columbine, Henderson, in an article posted on his website, has this to say:

Albeit, the Congressman is speaking informally here, but still, his literalism is appalling. Does he seriously believe that by some act of the Congress God might actually be kicked out of our schools? Congressman, you don't have THAT much power!
(chritsianity.about.com)

DeLay and others would seem to presume that by some divine magic the display of the Ten Commandments would actually symbolize a very real increase in the spirituality of the student body. Because the Christian Right presents the Word of God as an antidote for all of society's ills, in commodifying those ills (i.e. Columbine) to sell the Word, the Christian Right is forced tocommodify the Word itself.

The commodification of the religious and the secular presents a clever means of advancing one's own agenda. What makes the commodification and associations attached to Columbine or the Ten Commandments so effective in imparting meaning and thus influencing others lies written in the sand-not metaphorically, but literally.

Shoes of the Fisherman understands the power that words have beyond their immediate literal translation. Though we in the secular world may find it ridiculous that a pair of sandals could save somebody's life, secular marketing works in a similar way to Christian marketing. Consider Teva, makers of secular sandals that, if anything, only leave their brand name imprinted on the sand. Teva is explicit as to what each of its sandals "says." Take, for instance, the Sidewalk sandal as described on the company's website:

These sandals are ready to travel, socialize, talk the talk and walk the walk. They're for people who like to take the less beaten path, but doesn't [sic] need to go where no man has gone before. Casual elegance meets contemporary design.

Teva conveniently eliminates the need for guesswork-no more worrying about buying the wrong pair of sandals. Teva assumes that its customers are minutely aware of their image, and so Teva sells a mind-boggling variety of products, the supposition being that there is a right sandal for everyone, for every "individual."

Teva sandals are effective in transmitting an image because those who buy the sandals and those in the general public who see the sandals being worn have constructed a similar if not identical idea about the role of clothing in determining personal identity. Clothes "speak" about the person wearing them; there is meaning bound up in the clothing. In just the same way, as a result of thorough conditioning by the media and politicians, the general public has begun to find new significance to Columbine. DeLay and the Christian Right are pushing the associations.

Many have confused the image with the reality. A pair of sandals, nothing more than bits of leather and plastic with no inherent meaning, becomes much more. In his essay On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense Nietzsche describes how such a process occurs:

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms, in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation, and decoration, and which, after they have been in use for a long time, strike a people as firmly established, canonical, and binding. . . (146)

We tend to forget that sandals do not possess an inherent essence that speaks to us and to others: "Don't I emanate a cool sophistication?" But as Nietzsche says, this misconception becomes fact through linguistic transformations, and constant use. Advertisers so consistently tout the idea that image is everything that it becomes everything. The catch phrase becomes so ingrained in the capitalist psyche that it becomes dogma. It then seems perfectly reasonable that my individual character could be encapsulated in a pair of mass- produced sandals. "That's right," I say to myself, "I don't take the beaten path. And my sandals prove it!"

Likewise, a member of the Christian Right would find it perfectly reasonable that a pair of sandals, due to the words printed on the soles, could contain some inherent Godlike or divine power capable of saving lives. The same is true of the Ten Commandments-which contain so much meaning and so much power that one look at them could dissuade a murderer.

But what would appear to be inherent in an object is actually created by man. A pair of Teva sandals can only say what the advertising team hired to market them arbitrarily assigns them to say. Similarly, the words Jesus Loves You only save lives because humans have endowed them with divine power. Man creates a system of contexts and truths in order to relate to the world, but he often remains oblivious to what he has created. So a person wearing a pair of Tevas forgets that the truth that would say his sandals emanate some inherent coolness, is actually a truth created and accepted by himself. As Nietzsche says:

If someone hides something behind a bush, looks for it in the same place and finds it there, his seeking and finding is nothing much to boast about; but this is exactly how things are as far as the seeking and finding of 'truth' within the territory of reason is concerned. If I create the definition of mammal and then, having inspected a camel, declare, 'Behold, a mammal', then a truth has certainly been brought to light, but it is of limited value. (147)

The truth often remains of limited value because it is constructed. Furthermore, the truth is only truth for those who believe in the system (i.e. Christianity) that generates it.

Even if the Jesus Loves You sandals do not save lives, as the website claims, they at least make apparent the folly of such secular modes of commodity fetishism. The same person who believes that Teva sandals are an adequate representation of himself may scoff in the face of Jesus sandals. They would do so only because they have not been sold on the idea that God speaks through products. That God is inherent in commodities is not a part of the system of Nietzsche's constructed "metaphors, metonymies" that constitute the general version of secular truth. That a person's individual characteristics can be inherent in a pair of sandals on the other hand, is a part of this truth, and so no right minded capitalist consumer would ever laugh at a Teva advertisement.

Return to Columbine and we see that the analogous meanings that the word Columbine has picked up are also a part of secular truth. Some, like the Columbine Research Task Force, have executed the difficult task of breaking from this truth. The Christian Right, though it has always operated on a different standard of what that truth is, nonetheless has constructed a system for establishing what is true to them. When these two truths, the secular and the religious, collide, we can see more clearly the arbitrary nature of both systems. It is by laughing at the absurdity of Jesus sandals that the absurdity of the secular truth is revealed.

Though some of the similarities between Christian and secular commodities may be surprising, it is certainly no revelation that truth is constructed. However, some truths are better than others. As we have seen in the case of Columbine, when an object becomes a commodity, its original meaning is often obscured. Commodification becomes dangerous when that original but obscured meaning continues to carry a power of its own that has the potential to harm or create lasting confusion. Returning to the question of the Ten Commandments and the minister Charles Henderson, we can see such a case.

As Henderson and other critics of the Ten Commandments issue have noted, when the Commandments are viewed for what they really are, and what they really say (as opposed to what they imply about the pervasiveness of the Christian Right) very real practical concerns arise:

When a school administrator schedules a sporting event on the Sabbath, doesn't that make a mockery of Sabbath observance. Do we intend, by placing such words on a wall, to go ahead and do what the commandments command? And cancel that soccer game? And if so, which Sabbath do our school administrators honor, Saturday or Sunday? (christianity.about.com)

The Christian Right has only dealt with the issue in general terms; specifics such as those raised by Henderson have not been considered. After all, if they examined the text itself, they would discover many problems related to practical application of the inherent commands. But there is a more serious problem with certain kinds of commodification. The Ten Commandments are not a pair of sandals. They have already a serious historical reality; they carry both weight and meaning. When that meaning is distorted through commodification for political and social purposes, serious consequences can follow. The Christian Right seems to be adept at turning that historical weight and meaning to new ends-ends that threaten the separation between church and state. Commodification permits the Christian Right the over-reaching power to subvert the law.

In so doing the Christian Right sacrifices the religious for the political. In the same manner, the students who suffered their end at Columbine are again sacrificed when their deaths become secondary to the political and social significance of theword 'Columbine'. Sacrifice is inherent in commodities-when a commodity assumes the very identity that makes it a commodity, it necessarily sacrifices inherent or original content. In the case of sandals, this might not matter-a sandal contains no original meaning. There is nothing to lose. However, the Ten Commandments and the Columbine shootings are done a great disservice when they become secondary to a political agenda. By so denigrating the Ten Commandments, the Christian Right not only defiles what is most holy about them but also effectively throws sand in the face of the public, obscuring the very real consequences of displaying them in public schools.

Works Cited

Nietzche, Friedrich. "On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense." The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Ed. Raymond Geuss & Ronald Speirs. Cambridge UP, 1999.

People For the American Way. 4 April 2001. <http://www.pfaw.org>

Teva. 4 April 2001. Teva. 17 April 2001 <http://www.teva.com.>

Shoes of the Fisherman. 4 April 2001 Shoes of the Fisherman. <http://www. shoesofthefisherman.com>

Henderson, Charles. About Christianity. 4 April 2001. <http://www.christianity. about.com/religion/christianity/ library/weekly/aa062299. htm> 

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