OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Hopscotching awkwardly along the line separating church and state, the Bellflower City council on Saturday presented a well-connected private group with free use of a prime plot of public land—for an art installation created in honor of 16th-century Christian leader John Calvin to promote the Ten Commandments.

“This amazing piece of art is perfect for our strong, faith-based community of over 40 churches,” Mayor Ray Dunton told several hundred people who gathered on a lush public lawn on Bellflower Blvd, next to the recently restored historic train station.

Council members Ray T. Smith, Randy Bomgaars, Dan Koops and Scott Larsen—who on March 22 joined Dunton in unanimously approving the two-month donation of public land to a not-for-profit group called Kingdom Causes—sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the front row at Saturday’s unveiling of “Invitation/Decalogue.”

Created by Romanian sculptor Liviu Mocan, “Invitation/Decaligue” consists of 10 finger-like golden pillars arranged in a 25-foot circle. According to the artist, these 16-feet-tall pillars represent the Ten Commandments and are intended to convey the sense of being held in the hands of God. Mocan created the work in 2009 to commemorate the 500th birthday of Calvin, a prominent theologian during the Protestant Reformation.

The sculpture is pretty dramatic.

But is it appropriate for the City of Bellflower to provide free public land to a private organization with an obviously religious agenda?

Bomgaars, who served his first term on the Bellflower City Council in 1988, says the question never came up.

“There was no debating that—whether it is appropriate or not appropriate,” Bomgaars said. “One of our mottos here in Bellflower is that we grow together. I think it’s very fitting and very impressive that [“Invitation/Decalogue”] has come here to a city with such diversity and so many churches.”

But couldn’t one of Bellflower’s more than 40 churches—each of which has tax-exempt status, thanks to the separation of church and state—provide its land to exhibit “Invitation/Decalogue”?

“The people who are presenting it,” Dunton said, “don’t have a church.”

Kingdom Causes is a loose consortium of local faith-based groups—the umbrella organization for a variety of subsidiaries with names like Bless Bellflower, Good Soil Industries and Our Place Housing Solutions. Under the leadership of Ryan VerWys, a strapping and energetic young family man, Kingdom Causes has become integrally active—and increasingly influential—in Bellflower during the past four years. Examples:

 • Our Place Neighborhood Resource Center—located in the densely populated, low-income neighborhoods on Eucalyptus St. and Cornuta Ave—offers programs such as after-school tutoring, counseling and community-based social development.

• Good Soil Industries provides landscape and gardening services.

• Our Place Housing Solutions seeks federal funds to rehabilitate homes.

The contributions of Kingdom Causes/Bless Bellflower—the group even took over the city’s Easter Egg Hunt—have become especially valuable during an economic downturn that has curtailed some services.

“We are here that Bellflower might be blessed during a time of economic hardship,” VerWys told the crowd Saturday, “and the mayor cooperated with Kingdom Causes to give us this wonderful location here [for the ‘Invitation/Decalogue’ exhibit].”

When asked after the ceremony whether this partnership—and particularly, the donation of public land for religious expression—might be dangerously close violating the separation between church and state, VerWys denied that Invitation/Decalogue expressed any specific religious viewpoint.

“It doesn’t look like a religious piece of art,” VerWys contended. “It looks like space ships or dragon claws. I could understand some objection if it were crosses—but it looks like an abstract piece of art.”

However, the installation ceremony left little doubt about how “Invitation/Decalogue” is intended to be interpreted—or the significance that it is being displayed on public land.

As a thin white shroud was pulled from each of the long golden fingers, a small brass fanfare blew and each of the Ten Commandments was recited. During a 10-minute talk, Rev. Tom Hocking of the Bellflower Brethren Church exulted over the arrival of Invitation/Decalogue “at a time when the Ten Commandments are being removed from schools and courthouses.” He called the Ten Commandments “the basis of our legal system.”

But VerWys was insistent that Invitation/Decalogue does not constitute a specific religious point of view.

“It’s intended to be a blessing for the whole community,” VerWys said. “It’s intended to promote deep discussion.”

Such as, about the separation of church and state?

Dan Koops, the newest member of the Bellflower City Council, conceded that would be a worthy topic.

“We want to be fair with everybody—we want to be sure that whoever wants to use this property has equal access to it,” Koops said. “We didn’t exactly go on camera with it, but we know what we are getting into. The question is, who is going to be the next group to ask? And who are we going to tell that they can’t use it?”