Who Benefits from the 10 Commandments?

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

Do you know what the 10 Commandments are?

Do you know how important they are to society and how important they were to the forming of the American Republic?

Do you even care?

I'm sure you do care, even if just a little bit. So I’ll do my best to give the most fulfilling yet brief explanation as I can in a blog.

You don't have to believe in God to realize these are valuable moral codes.

The 10 Commandments were and are the ten rules, so to speak, that God wrote on two stone tablets, which Moses carried down from Mount Sinai to the Israelites, who were already breaking the first two commandments by worshiping a golden calf.

This is stated in Exodus 20:1-17

Cool, right? But why do we care nowadays? That was thousands of years ago and for the Jewish people. Also, that was Old Testament stuff.

Actually it is still vital to morality and truth even today. It is what most societies claim they value while simultaneously outlawing them.

For some reason over the last few decades, more specifically here in American society, the Ten Commandments have been given an incorrect new meaning.

Political correctness, like many things, probably began with good intentions, but it is control through political fear. Political correctness is when people living within a society fear being blamed as racist, intolerant, and offensive and therefore continuously feel judged and constructive criticism and truth are thus buried and relationships become surface level and eventually society turns into to paranoia, chaos, lack of liberty, and confusion.

Well, according to political correctness and certain "isms," the Ten Commandments have been insinuated, repeated, and indoctrinated to be viewed as hateful, ignorant, exclusive, intolerant, archaic, and, surprisingly, by many, as hate speech. Then again, what is hate speech but speech you don't like? For decades it has been vigorously attacked, cancelled, silenced, and fought against by our own leaders. People whom we trusted to know even the slightest bit about the country they claim to love, support, defend, and lead. In fact, many church leaders have also accepted this false idea of separation and rewriting of American history and have taught against not just the Ten Commandments but God's very Word.

Side thought: can one truly lead a church preaching God's Word and claim to be a follower of Christ (a Christian) if they are openly denying God's Word--calling God a liar and accepting, affirming and worshiping that which God calls wicked?

Anyway. So why do people hate it? What's the history? What happened to to it?

In the 1980's the Ten Commandments were removed from the public education institutions where they had been since the beginning of American education. I find it funny and odd how current culture has been telling the Founders what the Founders actually did, wrote about, and created, rather than actually studying and reading what they did, actually wrote, and created.

Did you know that the first colleges were Christian schools?

Well, when the Ten Commandments were removed, one of the top reasons given by our elected leaders was because the students might actually read the Ten Commandments and obey them.

That would be tragedy, wouldn't it? It would be an absolute horror for society and culture if children learned not to lie, cheat, or steal. Because then we might see society getting much worse, with riots, burning, looting, theft, selfishness, murder, and more; our children in the education system might become unruly, undisciplined, foul, selfish, and lie often. Then we'd see these very negative actions being defended by our leaders. I mean, if we continued with the intention of the founding of our nation, part of the foundational pillars that made this the most prosperous, free, liberty embracing, and sought after nations in our world today and in history, that would be bad, right?

Well, when they removed the Ten Commandments they gave this reasoning, and I quote,

"If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments."

Heaven forbid, students should read them, meditate on them, respect them, and obey them. Because then they might grow up truly learning discipline, to show respect, to not murder, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not lie, and to not covet.

Here’s a fun fact:

Did you know that for more than the first half of America’s history, the Bible was not only allowed in public education but the Ten Commandments were also taught and memorized by the children in schools?

The American Political Science Review did a study on the founding era and its political documents. The years studied, as far as I know, were from around 1760 to about 1805. According to this study, 94% of the documents were based on the Bible. 34% of that 94% were direct quotes from the Bible.

Isn't that interesting? 94% of the political documents in America's founding era were based on the Bible, with 34% being direct quotations.

The Ten Commandments have, in recent decades, been removed, then replaced, then removed again, and in a few places replaced again, but overall it is absent in American public education. This has been done on three stances (or held upon 3 weak pillars): First by the quoted reasoning from earlier; second by the false claim of "Separation of Church and State"; and third by the false claim that it violates the First Amendment.

I have a podcast episode titled Episode 059: The Constitution (Roe vs Wade and Abortion) which briefly discusses this false idea and, well, unconstitutional belief of "Separation of Church and State."

Did you know this is not in our founding documents? It was a lie perpetrated by a misunderstanding by the Supreme Court of a personal letter and ignorance of our founding documents. Listen to that episode for more, if you are interested.

Anyway. The First Amendment guarantees but does not limit the freedom of religious expression, even in the public square and in public life, which includes politics, education, work, etc.

But that’s for another time.

Image:

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