Stacked Decalogue

If the Ten Commandments can be described as the foundation of American law, then surely it follows that anything forbidden by the Commandments are also forbidden by the law and/or, perhaps more importantly, the general tone and thrust of the Commandments is reflected in American law. Unfortunately for defenders of the Ten Commandments, neither of those is actually true.

As Katha Pollitt explains in an article in The Nation, "the only activities banned by the Ten Commandments that are also crimes under American law are murder, theft and perjury." More interesting is her exploration of the general tone of the Decalogue:

What sets the Ten Commandments apart is not content but style: that gloomy, vengeful, obsessive, insecure authorial voice, alternately vulnerable (he confesses he's "jealous") and dissociated (he talks about himself in the third person, like an American celebrity). As elsewhere in the Bible, God looks constantly over his shoulder at the competition, threatens to visit the sins of the father on generations yet unborn, raves against those who hate him. He is equally disturbed by killing and cursing, and is incredibly possessive (I made that tree! no copying!). Granted we all know people like this, but would you want them presiding over your trial?

When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings. It's not as if God had nothing more to say. The minute he's through with the Decalogue, he gives Moses a long list of legal minutiae that are even less edifying...

People defending government displays of the Ten Commandments reveal a great deal about their character when we take a look at what they aren't defending. They are not, for example, defending the idea of displaying a message to love one's neighbor. They are not defending the idea of displaying a message about the importance of justice. They are not defending the idea of displaying a message about defending the poor or the powerless. No, they advocate a display which is all about vengeance, wrath, and the divine. Courts are human institutions where human laws and human justice are the issue - shouldn't we focus on them instead?

Read More:

• Fundamentalism
• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
• Christian Nationalism
• Ten Commandments