Why Evangelicals Love the Ten Commandments

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill last Wednesday ordering the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school throughout the state. Flanked by a brood of Christian Nationalist vipers, Landry defended his attack on the separation of church and state saying, “The U.S. is founded on Judeo-Christian values.” Funny, the Sermon on the Mount is also the foundation of Judeo-Christian values, but you don’t see politicians rushing to hang Jesus’ most seminal sermon anywhere, do you?

The move is part of a larger strategy by evangelical Christians to, “authorize the hiring of chaplains in schools, restrict teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity, and prevent schools from using a transgender student’s preferred name or pronouns unless granted permission by parents.” This is textbook Christian Nationalism. This act “diverts your attention from anything that would ask you to change, to seemingly righteous causes that invariably ask others to change,” warns Richard Rohr. Beware of any religious movement requiring compliance from others while demanding nothing of themselves. Case in point: Evangelicals want to impose the Ten Commandments on innocent school children but not on their presidential candidate, who breaks for or five of them per day. In Kurt Vonnegut’s book A Man Without a Country:

“For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. ‘Blessed are the merciful’ in a courtroom? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”

Posturing, virtue signaling, and forcing religious beliefs on others while not lifting a finger to help the other in daily life is Republicanism, and sadly, defines large swaths of American Christianity. Politically motivated Christians in Louisiana actually have a litany of issues they need to solve, including child food insecurity and a horrific education system. Louisiana ranks third worst in the nation in both categories. Or, take healthcare for example. Louisiana ranks 46th out of 50 states in healthcare and, not surprisingly, they are dead last in crime and corrections. These moral charlatans “preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others.” They make their Ten Commandments signs broad and the letters long and they love the place of honor and the best seats in Trump’s Oval Office. But woe to you, evangelical Christians. You have exchanged the Kingdom of God for Christian Nationalism. You want to rule, not serve. You travel around the world to colonize Black and Brown bodies, yet when they convert, you make them twice as much of a child of hell as yourselves.

It reminds me of the verse in James:

"If a brother or sister is naked and lacking daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ and yet you give them nothing that the body needs, what good is it?"

Conservative Christians love the disembodied gospel and an over spiritualized Jesus. They pray for your soul while enslaving your body. It is a Christianity that gives Sunday morning lip service to a homeless Palestinian man while voting on Monday to bomb his progeny to oblivion. In the words of Desmond Tutu, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” This is colonizer Christianity, ubiquitous among privileged people. It moves the religious goalposts from the here and now to the eternal.

But there is more to this story. There is another reason why evangelicals post the Ten Commandments all over schools and courthouses while conveniently ignoring the Beatitudes.

The Ten Commandments are punitive, direct, top down, authoritarian, and threatening. There’s not an iota of nuance, paradox, or mystery among them. One needn’t be spiritually mature to understand their message. Like rules given to preschool children, they represent a lower stage of human consciousness. They are God’s big list of DON’TS. Given to the masses, they are simple instructions that even the least spiritually inclined individual can understand. The Sermon on the Mount is quite different.

Much like Moses, Jesus also taught the multitudes according to their capacity to understand. However, he reserved his deeper teachings like the Beatitudes for his closest and most trusted followers. In Swami Prabhavananda’s book, The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta:

“Every spiritual teacher, whether he is a divine incarnation or an illumined soul, has two sets of teachings—one for the multitude, the other for his disciples. The elephant has two sets of teeth: the tusks with which he defends himself from external difficulties and the teeth with which he eats. The spiritual teacher prepares the way for his message with broad lessons (The Ten Commandments)—with his tusks, as it were. The inner truth of spirituality he reveals only to his intimate disciples…Christ taught in the same way. He did not give the Sermon on the Mount to the multitudes, but to his disciples, whose hearts were prepared to receive it. The multitudes are not yet able to understand the truth of God. They do not really want it.”

Right Wing Christians are the modern multitudes. They are the loudest and least contemplative bloc of Christianity. Under the Trump family dynasty, evangelicalism will become state-sanctioned religion.

Given this, we should not be surprised to see conservative Christians imposing their kindergarten level of religion on the wider world while simultaneously failing to comprehend the deeper spirituality of the Beatitudes. If we must compare the two:

• The Ten Commandments focus on external actions. The Beatitudes center on internal motivations.

• The Ten Commandments tell us what not to do. The Beatitudes tell us how to be.

• The Ten Commandments are about judgment. The Beatitudes are about blessing.

• The Ten Commandments are black and white. The Beatitudes are a mystery.

• The Ten Commandments are transactional. The Beatitudes are reciprocal.

• The Ten Commandments are given by the Divine rule giver and judge on high. The Beatitudes are offered by the God made flesh who came to suffer and die among us.

The Beatitudes were given to individuals who knew suffering, discrimination, and injustice. American evangelicals know privilege, power, and domination.

November is coming, and with it, two visions of American Christianity. One is a populist movement of iron fisted conservatives seeking to implement white Christian Nationalism through the levers of power. The later is a minority voice calling in the wilderness, bringing about God’s kingdom through blessing, not curses. This prophetic voice exists outside the halls of power. It is the voice of authentic Jesus followers who understand the cross, not the sword, to be the single most defining political expression in Christianity. “The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come,” writes John Howard Yoder in his book The Politics of Jesus.

The biggest division in the American church isn’t the argument about inerrancy or women pastors, it is the means through which God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. MAGA Christianity has chosen the sword. We must cling to the cross no matter the cost.

Unless our righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Christian Nationalists, we shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Beware of false prophets, who come to you draped in American flags. Inwardly, they are ravening fascists. You will know them by their fruits. Every good tree bears good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. By their fruits you will know them. Many will say to God on election day, “Lord, Lord, did we not post the Ten Commandments and overturn Roe v Wade in your name?” Then God will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.”

Anyone who hears these words and puts them into practice will inherit the kingdom. I set before you this day life or death, blessings or curses. Wide is the road that leads to destruction, and many white conservatives will find it. But narrow is the way that leads to life, and only a few contemplatives will find it.

Amen.

Gary Alan Taylor