History

Project Moses

Project Moses was inspired in the summer of 2000, when a Ten Commandments monument was removed from the Wyandotte County Courthouse lawn in Kansas City after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue over what it claimed was a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Removal of the Commandments from the Kansas City courthouse lawn so alarmed John Menghini, a member of Ascension Parish in Overland Park, Kansas, that he tried to think of a constructive way to fight back. While contemplating his options, he realized that public displays of the Ten Commandments seem scarce even on Jewish and Christian properties.  After speaking with many religious leaders from Jewish, Catholic and Protestant faiths, Mr. Menghini embarked on a plan to erect beautiful, prominent monuments depicting the Ten Commandments in either the Jewish, St. Augustine or King James numbering of the Ten Commandments based on the traditions of the places of worship.  The reason for doing this is because each version  points to Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 6 which are the same for all Judeo-Christian faiths.

Mr. Menghini has often said that we rightly get upset when the Commandments are wrongfully removed from our public places but when you look at where monuments to the Commandments will have the greatest viewing and impact on peoples lives, they need to be on our own places of worship, religious schools and private properties.  The added benefit to placing the Commandments in these locations is that anti-religious symbol civil liberty groups will be unable to do anything about it.

Project Moses wants to establish 7000 Ten Commandment monuments at churches, synagogues, religious schools and private properties to fund the completion of a $10 million memorial, similar in scope to the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, to the Decalogue in Washington, D.C. 

(Ten Commandment monuments available for your place of worship, school or private property can be viewed by clicking on the "Monuments" tab above) 

A 6.5 acre site on private property, in Washington D.C., has been identified and made available to Project Moses, however, the National Park Service has been contacted in an effort to secure a site on the National Mall.  No matter which site is chosen, Project Moses and the memorial organizers hope to have the national memorial ready for visitors by 2009. The center pieces of this memorial will be an 18- to 24-foot bronze statue of Moses and an enormous stone slate of the commandments. 

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