OPINION: The Ten Commandments in the public square

I take issue with a Jewish ethical document, the Ten Commandments, being used for Christian fundamentalist political purposes. When enumerating the Commandments, I will use modern colloquial language. I may refer to them by number. I list them here because the Commandments are so much a background of our culture that we may take our knowledge of them for granted.

1. Monotheism is required.

2. Idolatry is forbidden.

3. Swearing is forbidden (but not swearing as in oath-taking).

4. Respect the Sabbath.

5. Respect one’s parents.

6. Murder is forbidden.

7. Adultery is forbidden.

8. Theft is forbidden.

9. Lying is forbidden.

10. It is forbidden to covet other people’s partners or property.

The great division in the Commandments is between the first five and the second five. The first five are concerned primarily with respect for authority, either divine or parental, and I leave the first four to the theologians, though I have one observation about No. 4, which refers to the “seventh day,” the Shabbat. Shabbat begins Friday before sunset and ends Saturday after nightfall. Are fundamentalist Christians willing to follow this commandment? They should, if it is as sacred as they say.

The second five are concerned with specific human actions.

My contention in reference to the second five is that they cannot be seen as foundational. The list is absurdly short. These actions had been proscribed in cultures for thousands of years prior to Moses and Aaron climbing the mountain. In the words of eminent classical scholar E. R. Dodds, “religion and morals were not initially interdependent, in Greece or elsewhere; they had their separate roots … religion grows out of man’s relationship to his total environment, morals out of his relation to his fellow men.” Human ethical behavior is far more subtle and complex than can be contained in any short list; and ethical behavior could not have been invented solely by the Jews. Can we claim that the thousands of cultures around the globe were without ethics? Of course not.

Ethical behavior is not gained by viewing a list. Ethical behavior is learned early on, and we can thank our mothers for establishing it. Ethical behavior is innate to humans because we are social creatures and without ethical behavior, life would be impossible. Only sociopaths are without ethics, although plenty of us suffer lapses. I contend that the typical fourth grader on the school playground exhibits a richer ethical life than can be expressed in the second half of this list. They have rules of play that they enforce, they insist on sharing, they take turns and, above all, they insist on fairness; and insisting on fairness implies a high value on equality. Surely these are important commandments, too.

Those youngsters likely honor No. 5, and are as yet probably unaware of No. 7. But it is useless to remind them of No. 6, No. 8 and No. 9. Who would make such a fundamental ethical decision by examining a checklist?

But my most serious complaint is this: that fundamentalist right-wing Christians are willing to use a Jewish ethical document to accomplish their narrow political goals of eliminating the constitutional requirement separating church and state. The First Amendment to our Constitution clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” while also guaranteeing the right to assemble. The language and intent are clear. The First Amendment is designed to protect religion from government interference, but some contemporary fundamentalist right-wingers want to use the government to do precisely the opposite: to have government dictate to the public a specific religion (while claiming that the Commandments are Christian, apparently not Jewish). Misusing the Ten Commandments to attack our Constitution is deeply offensive.

I once used the contemporary usage of the word “evangelical” in the presence of my beloved brother-in-law, a Methodist pastor. He hastened to correct me, pointing out that Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority had pirated the term decades ago, twisting its original meaning (“Of, relating to, or in accordance with the Christian gospel … ” per the American Heritage Dictionary) into a narrow fundamentalist right-wing usage for specifically political purposes. My pastor friend objected to this appropriation because it falsified the original meaning and narrowed its usage to politics.

The recent appropriation of the Ten Commandments in Louisiana, and perhaps elsewhere, to fundamentalist right-wing use, is more of the same. Claiming that the Ten Commandments is exclusively Christian, and is the foundation of all morality, is historically false, but what is more offensive is the misuse of an important Jewish historical and ethical document for narrowly political purposes. I claim that this itself is irreligious.

As for us Alaskans, the Dunleavy administration has already shown a profound lack of respect for constitutional principles, and I suspect that there are those in his administration, and in the state Senate and House, who would do what was done in Louisiana if they could get away with it. The so-far successful attempt to subsidize specifically (and mostly fundamentalist) Christian education with public money indicates this. We need to be vigilant.

Clarence Crawford is a longtime Anchorage resident who plans to live out his years here along with his wife. Their children and grandchildren were born Alaskan and live in Anchorage.

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