Are The 10 Commandments Immoral?

Part of the Christian Nationalist playbook (see BlitzWatch.org) is to post the Ten Commandments in public places like courthouses and county buildings, public parks, and even state legislatures. It is a policy of creeping Christian Nationalism: make it increasingly common in little bits so that it seems normal, no one objects, and precedents are established that it is okay to have religious expression in government. It is all about chipping away at the separation of church and state so that they can impose their extremist religious ideology on everyone.

But there’s something “off” about this move. The Ten Commandments are an odd thing for Christians to advocate, for several reasons. The first reason is theological: The whole idea of the New Testament is that the new covenant between God and humans erases the previous arrangement—including the Ten Commandments.

The second is moral: The Ten Commandments are not all morally good—four of them are about the correct way to worship and obey God, not about morality at all. Even the Commandments about morality often have recognizably morally bad assumptions built into them, or are plainly just bad moral rules. Take one example: The misogyny and patriarchy of counting women as property, etc., that is built into the “do not covet” Commandment—women are listed along with houses and farm animals.

It is worth emphasizing that the sexual purity stuff in the Bible, including, “Do not commit adultery,” is all about patriarchal ownership of women and girls as the property of men. The idea that women are to be subservient to men, a theme in the letters of Paul that some evangelicals are really leaning into right now, is supposed to be justified by Eve’s sin of disobedience. But that is clearly just a rationalization: The subjugation of women was something the male authors of the Bible wanted to maintain, so they gave it a religious justification by inventing a story. The story of the apple does not even make much sense: Why should all women be blameworthy for Eve’s error? That is just wild—and clearly immoral! Anyway, to continue to hold all women responsible for it is inconsistent with the idea of Christ’s redemption: If women are to be subservient because of Eve’s sin, but Christ’s forgiveness erases that sin, then women should be free of the consequences of Eve’s sin, too.

Another example: We all know that Do Not Kill has exceptions. It is morally acceptable to kill in self-defense, and plausibly it is morally permissible to kill in other cases like in a just war or in a case of voluntary euthanasia, too. The Commandment presents this complicated issue in an overly-simplistic way, as if it were an absolute rule that could easily resolve every question about killing. It would have been a lot more helpful to have detailed guidance about specific cases. Even translating it as “Do not commit murder” does not help much, since there could be debate over what counts as murder (versus manslaughter, negligent homicide, voluntary euthanasia, self-defense, does it apply to chimpanzees and dolphins, and so on). If anyone claims that there is a simple interpretation of this Commandment and everyone must follow it, they are trying to prevent you from thinking about it.

If I were an all-knowing, all-powerful being who wanted humans to strictly follow a specific set of moral rules or else face eternal punishment, I would have made the rules a lot more clear.

Along those lines, the Ten Commandments seem like a major lost opportunity to me. If I were trying to come up with the ten most important moral rules, I do not think “honor thy father and mother” would make the cut. It seems like any or all of these are much more important:

1.     Do not torture people for fun.

2.    Do not have sexual relations with children.

3.    Avoid reasonably avoidable harms to others.

4.    If you cannot avoid harming someone through an action, you had better be sure it is the best available action that causes the least harm, and that you proportionately compensate the ones harmed.

5.    No means no.

6. Race is not a basis for judging people.

7.    Respect freedom of conscience.

8. Everyone is equal. I mean it.

and things like that ought to have been on the list. Surely the Golden Rule should have been there, too.

It would have been handy to have more specific guidance for the modern world. Surely a divinely inspired list could have anticipated our needs today:

9.     Do not ghost people you are dating, be straightforward and honest.

10.    Do not lash out at people who do not want to date you.

11.     Do not be a troll online, you dimwit.

All those seem like pretty important rules that should have been included.

Anyway, many Christians do not follow the Ten Commandments very closely: Taking the Lord’s name in vain is a daily practice for many; stealing, bearing false witness, and adultery are all too common, too. In fact, lying, deceit, fraud, and the rest are all officially part of the Project Blitz playbook to institute Christian Nationalism! Which I suppose shows us that the Ten Commandments are not very effective at modifying believers’ behaviors.

All of which is proof that putting the Ten Commandments up in public spaces is not for general moral improvement. It is a way to make religious expression in government seem normal, as a step towards a Christian Nationalist takeover of government. Fight it.