I’m sure publishers in China are getting sick and tired of receiving orders or printing millions of copies of the 10 Commandments only to have the orders cancelled again and again.
The Big Ten with no Zen
The witless who think it’s a win for Christianity (a word that now refers exclusively to the MAGAt religious right) to have what one of my seminary teaching colleagues at Palmer Seminary called the Big Ten hung in a classroom or printed on toilet paper, one commandment per ply; reveal they are misinformed on a good day and worm-brained on a better day.
Dr Deb Winters (pictured above) had studied with another colleague of ours during her MDiv days before heading over to Temple University to earn her PhD in Hebrew scripture. That remarkable scholar who had much to do with the field she eventually chose was the late Dr Tom McDaniel (pictured immediately below).
It was pretty damn great getting to teach preaching to students who’d been coached in Hebrew scripture interpretation by the likes of those two and on the Christian scripture side by Dr Diane Chen and Dr Debbie Watson.
Dr Chen
Dr Watson
(Btw, none of these people would want me to be using curse words. I love and admire them, and their piety is purer than or at least not as gritty as mine.)
Anyway, I asked Tom to write about the Big Ten for a publication I was editing at the time. The publication was called Pastor’s Bible Study. It was a hardback volume published once a year for five years by United Methodist Publishing House to support busy pastors who in addition to weekly sermon preparation had a weekly Bible study to prepare for and teach.
Tom said, “I will do it. But I doubt United Methodist Publishing House and a lot of your readers really want to know what I think about the Ten Commandments.” I couldn’t and I still can’t resist editorial intrigue. I said, Spill the tea, Tom.
He said that each of the Ten Commandments in the form we now have it in scripture (and I assumed on walls and bumper stickers and carved into stones in Alabama judges’s courtrooms and chambers and tattooed on the little tuches of unsuspecting Louisiana public school children) is an adaptation of an older version advocating the death penalty for failure to obey it. Death penalty! No wonder MAGAts love the Big 10; they promote religiously-sanctioned killing Woo hoo!
I do not think a porn addict like Speaker Mike Johnson (according to a news story circulating a couple of weeks ago) or Taco Trump or anyone in the Taco/Taquito family or most cabinet members want to sweat the possibility of being put to death for committing adultery.
Each one of the Ten Commandments as we now have it is an adaptation of an older version, advocating the death penalty for failure to obey it
Btw, United Methodist Publishing House said it wanted Tom’s Big Ten contribution! So in 2005, it was released. The volume sold very well too.
Here we are, facing the need to explain the Ten Commandments to public school children. I’m not sure what I’d say, but I unfortunately have a pretty good idea of how the MAGAts would do it. Here are three of ten examples.
Now, children, if you ever believe in the wrong deity, you should die. Praise the Lord! Not to worry; that ass-tounding US sinator and hog castration champ, Phoni Ernst, reminds us it doesn’t matter when or how, we’re all going to kick the bucket. Why delay? Yes, Lord!
Also, if your Mommy or Daddy ever become upset with each other and break their marriage vows, the one who cheats has to be executed. God don’t make no mistakes! Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Bless God’s holy name! Again, don’t worry. Your United States Government will take care of you and make sure you have food and clothing and a place to live with a very very very friendly church-going Republican man.
Finally for now, children, if you do not obey your parents they can have you stoned to death. Sounds awful. doesn’t it???!! But, again, don’t worry. Precious Lord, take my hand! After the first three or four rocks crash into your skull you won’t feel a thing. Ever again.
