Former Judge Moore battles for ‘religious freedom’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LifeWay)— If anyone is waiting for former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore to apologize for refusing to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state’s Supreme Court building, don’t count on it.

After being removed from office in the fall of 2003, Moore continues to travel and speak publicly on the state’s right to acknowledge God. He remains convinced that the United States must reclaim what it has always been meant to be—a nation under God.

“America is going through an identity crisis,” Moore said in a recent phone interview. “If you lose your identity, then you don’t know where you stand or where you are going or how to return.”

Moore shares his heart for the nation, his past frustrations, triumphs and battles in his first book, So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom, released by Broadman & Holman, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources.

So Help Me God follows Moore throughout his career—his days as a soldier in Vietnam, an aggressive deputy district attorney, his victory against the ACLU in 1997 to his removal as chief justice. Moore’s unwillingness to compromise his faith and core values has earned him a number of enemies and supporters alike.

Moore shares in the book how he believes a battle for “religious freedom” continues to rage on in this country. Moral issues, concerning abortion, gay marriage and the removal of prayer from schools are all signs of this country’s need to return to its biblical foundation, he said.

The book’s release falls close to when the Supreme Court is expected to hear two pending Ten Commandments cases, Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky.

Moore hopes his book will educate the Christian community on this issue. Society has become too concerned with being politically correct and must know the truth about the state’s right to acknowledge God, Moore added.

The freedom to worship God was a right “given by God and secured by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.” It is our duty and responsibility to uphold this foundation, Moore wrote.

“The United States was founded on principles of the revealed, divine law of God recorded in the Holy Scriptures,” Moore wrote. “Upon that firm foundation, our nation had grown to be the brightest beacon of civil and religious freedom ever known.”

By refusing to remove the Ten Commandments monument, Moore believes he held firmly to what God had called him to do.

“I don’t know what it might mean to my future,” Moore wrote, quoting himself from a past press conference. “I know that it means my children may look back someday and say their daddy didn’t give up the acknowledgment of God. That’s enough for me.”

The Christian community needs to understand the impact of this issue and how it’s about more than just the glitz and glam of the media frenzy, Moore said.

“This isn’t about me or about a monument or about religion,” he said. “The issue is about whether the state could acknowledge the sovereignty of God ... the Christian community has been deceived into thinking this is wrong.”

Moore’s public battle, he wrote, has been a positive step toward educating the public on the state’s right to acknowledge God. And because of that, he doesn’t plan to give up his fight to help turn this country back toward God anytime soon.

For that, Moore will never apologize.

“I could not—and never will—deny Him,” Moore wrote. “And certainly not just to keep a job.”

Moore's book is available at LifeWay Christian Stores or online at http://www.lifewaystores.com/lwstore/gk.asp?k=E109E221FC.