Public Schools and the Ten Commandments

Louisiana made the news this summer when it passed a law requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Oklahoma approved a similar plan.

In various interviews, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has said teachers will be compelled to teach the curriculum. If they refuse, they’ll lose their jobs and maybe their teacher’s licenses. He likened a teacher refusing to teach the curriculum on the Bible to a teacher refusing to teach on the civil rights movement or the Civil War.¹

Both state mandates are spawning legal challenges. The Interfaith Alliance and the ACLU say these actions violate the 1^st Amendment. Evangelical columnist David French, who has argued high-profile cases on behalf of the religious rights of students, has spoken out against the state rulings.²

The national conversation has hit the proverbial fan, bringing out all sorts of experts and wannabes. That said, something called the Ten Noncommandments did catch my eye. It’s being presented as a more culturally appropriate alternative to the Ten Commandments.

1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4. Every person has the right to control of their own body.
5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9. There is no one right way to live.
10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

Similar lists have been presented before, including one by philosopher Betrand Russell. When I look at these various lists, I often find statements with which I can agree. For example, Number 3 on Russell’s “Liberal Decalogue” is “Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.” Hard to argue with that.³

Such statements fall into the category of common wisdom, of which much can be found in the Bible, by the way. Our world is full of wise sayings. Not everything attributed to Confucius or Abraham Lincoln is so, but they and many others have said lots of wise things.

In the 10 Noncommandments listed above, Numbers 6, 8, and 10 would make good wall plaques. Certainly goes along with what I learned from the Bible growing up about there being consequences for your actions, about being considerate of others, and about leaving the world a better place.

Number 7 on that list sounds a lot like Jesus’ Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”⁴ You can find something similar in most other religious traditions as well.

I can accept much of this list, even Number 5. Almost. I’ve met some very moral and fulfilled atheists in my time. But this statement doesn’t read, “You don’t have to believe in God to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.” It says, “God is not necessary to….”

In other words, morality and meaning don’t have their bases in God. On what basis can you claim that? Certainly not the scientific method. 

My own belief is that anything in this world that is good comes from God, even if that good is found in someone who does not believe in God. I’ve never found evidence to counter that belief (see Number 1) and in my mind it fits the category of most likely to be true, given what I know of the world (see Number 2).

I do understand that if you don’t believe God exists, you won’t be able to accept that God is where good comes from. But try using the scientific method (Number 3) to demonstrate the absence of God. The scientific method points to a lot of truth, but not all truth. The scientific method makes most sense when it speaks of what can be discovered through the human senses. But this point about the scientific method fails to note that there is much more to reality than just the natural world as we perceive it.

Plus, the scientific method has difficulty refuting a negative. A problem in that there is a lot more we don’t know than what we do.

Similarly, you could go in circles trying to line up Numbers 1 and 2. They require some serious parsing, like magnets that won’t sync.

What I am most intrigued by is Number 9: “There is no one right way to live.” Anytime someone brings up such a statement, I think of the Book of Judges where it says, “Every man did what was right in his own eye.”⁵ Or as the NIV reads, “Everyone did as they saw fit.” Essentially, they were each their own god.

At a time when we are struggling with out-of-control, narcissistic world leaders, do we really want to tell them that there is no one right way to live? That there is no standard outside of themselves?

Number 4 about having control of our own bodies might be a guardrail, but the use of that statement these days often leaves out how our attempts to control our own bodies frequently interfere with others’ bodies. Our actions do have consequences (see Number 6). Liberty for one without restraint is no liberty for anyone else.

What’s really odd about using the Ten Noncommandments as a meme in opposition to these state mandates is that it seems to say these noncommandments are a better way to live than the Bible’s Ten Commandments. Actually, those Ten Commandments are hard to argue against as a good and honorable way to live. Are they saying the Ten Commandments are bad, or that they just don’t want them in the classroom?

Taken from Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, here’s a commonly used condensed form of the Ten Commandments, plus some commentary of my own.

1. Don’t worship any other gods.

Okay, this is more about belief than behavior, so, although I happen to agree with it wholeheartedly, it is hard to command students to follow this in a pluralistic society. Unless you want non-Christian and non-Jewish students breaking the rules right off the bat. Coerced conversion never works.

2. Don’t worship any idols or carved images.

This takes some explaining, because most students can’t point to any idols in their homes, and some will worry that we’re talking about their pictures of Mary or icons of the saints. I’d say this commandment includes anything that gets in between us and our worship of God. That said, I’m not sure people want teachers telling their students to put God before sports and other pleasures, or to give money to reach the lost or to help those in need instead of buying a fancy car.

3. Don’t take God’s name in vain.

You could see this as a straightforward “NO” to any form of swearing, including the many derivatives (my grandparents didn’t even like me saying “mercy”). Unless you realize the text really reads “don’t misuse God’s name” and then it might have some broader implications like religious photo-ops by politicians.

4. Keep the sabbath holy.

Put aside the debates about which day is the sabbath (or Paul’s comment about one day being the same as another), what does it really mean to observe the sabbath? It got Eric Liddell gold in the Olympics and world fame, but I don’t see many people shutting down their Sundays the way he did. Even people who applaud Chick-fil-A for Sunday closings crowd into other restaurants after church.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

This one is very straightforward. How you honor them requires instruction, best by someone who does it.

6. Don’t kill.

Arguments between pacifists and militarists, police and those who protest police brutality, opponents and advocates of capital punishment aside, we can all agree that this is a very straightforward commandment, no?

7. Don’t commit adultery.

No beans about it. Lays it right out. As the Good Book says elsewhere, God detests adultery. Adultery is a betrayal of the most sacred of human covenants. How can you be trusted if your spouse can’t trust you? So, is this also a no-go in teacher-hiring and candidate-electing?

8. Don’t steal.

Again, very straightforward. A commandment broken all the time, even though most people agree it is wrong.

9. Don’t give false testimony.

We often think it says don’t lie, but the real implication is, don’t say anything that isn’t true about other people. If it is not true about them, don’t say it. If it leaves others with a false impression of someone, don’t say it – or tweet it.

10. Don’t covet.

As the passage reads, don’t wish you had your neighbor’s house, spouse, employees, animals, pickup, or anything else that belongs to them.

What I come away with from reading this list:

1. Aside from posting them in classrooms, why would anyone have a problem with these 10 commandments?

1. Well at least Numbers 5 through 10?
2. I can see atheists and Buddhists being bothered by Number 1. And atheists, politicians, and coaches being bothered by Number 3. Number 2 at first read wouldn’t make sense. Number 2 as I’ve explained it would bother a lot of people. Most people I know would struggle with or try to wiggle out of Number 4.
3. Generally, we’d all be fine with 5 through 10, even though we’d argue all day long on how to apply them.

2. I think we’d all be better off living by the Ten Commandments.

How we interpret these Commandments for modern use and how they are shortened for classroom display is up for discussion. But such concerns do not preclude their usefulness in our society. However, we might run out of people to run our country or run our companies – or run our schools.

Teach them to our kids. Post them in our own houses and churches.

3. With the exception of Commandments 1-4, arguments against the Ten Commandments as being offensive don’t fly.

See my reasoning above. Their only offense is that the first 4 have religious connotations.

4. I agree with David French, the Ten Commandments don’t belong in public classrooms.

1. Do we really want someone who does not live out the Ten Commandments interpreting them to their students?
2. Are the politicians promoting them as classroom-appropriate really living them out or just using them for photo-ops (see Commandment 3)?
3. The same goes for public school teachers teaching the Bible. Paul says teachers of the Word must be above reproach. Are they?
4. And if churches won’t let women teach the Bible in public, where does that put female public school teachers?
5. I rest my case.

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Photo: Ten Commandments on the face of Congregation Neveh Shalom’s Synagogue in Portland, Oregon

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1. Oklahoma education head discusses why he’s mandating public schools teach the Bible | PBS News; OK schools head vows sanctions for teachers who won’t teach the Bible (nbcnews.com) ↩︎
2. See, for example, Opinion | Thou Shalt Not Post the Ten Commandments in the Classroom – The New York Times (nytimes.com) ↩︎
3. Bertrand Russell, A Liberal Decalogue (1951) (panarchy.org) ↩︎
4. NIV Luke 6:31, also Matthew 7:12 ↩︎
5. See, for example, Judges 17:6 in the KJV. ↩︎