The Decalogue, dangerous? Advice for a society that cringes at commandments

Dallas Morning News ^ | 09:09 AM CDT on Sunday, August 19, 2007 | Rod Dreher

[fgoodwin]

The Decalogue, dangerous? The commandments certainly are regarded as hazardous by the Irritable-American community, which successfully petitions the courts to banish them from public life. At least these stalwart secularists give the Decalogue its due; most of us admire the Ten Commandments just enough to avoid taking them seriously. If we grasped how radical they truly are, we'd find them an offensive stumbling block to us middle-class moderns, who live in a rebellious age characterized by sociologist Daniel Bell as "the rejection of a revealed order, or natural order, and the substitution of the ego, the self, as the lodestar of consciousness."

Another dangerous book this summer, this one for grown-ups, is David Klinghoffer's marvelously lucid Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore The Ten Commandments at Our Peril. It weaves theological insight with the author's reflections on living in a society (ours, alas) that has cast off the Decalogue's authority.

Mr. Klinghoffer cites the work of noted Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark, who found that across global cultures, the degree to which individuals believe in a personal God indicates how likely they are to behave morally. You don't have to believe in God to be good, but it demonstrably helps. Mr. Klinghoffer identifies the loss of the Ten Commandments' as responsible for America's cultural crises.

Mr. Rieff, a sociologist whose most important work dealt with psychology and religion, taught that all cultures develop from prohibitions, that is, the creative tension between the commanding "Thou shalt not" and the assertive "I will." We now dwell in an anti-culture, according to Mr. Rieff, in which we no longer feel the pull of old prohibitions against the expression of individual instinct and will to power.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

"Mr. Klinghoffer cites the work of noted Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark, who found that across global cultures, the degree to which individuals believe in a personal God indicates how likely they are to behave morally. You don't have to believe in God to be good, but it demonstrably helps. Mr. Klinghoffer identifies the loss of the Ten Commandments' as responsible for America's cultural crises."

Exactly the truth.

[Salvation]

Yes, these are the messages that the secular society does not want to hear.

They cringe as noted in the title.

Question is — should I suffer now for a shorter time??

Or shall I suffer immensely for eternity separated from God in hell?

They definitely may be surprised at the answers to those two questions at the moment of their particular judgment — the moment of death.

[Tax-chick]

My daughter wandered in, read the headline, and said, “Why is it dangerous to have ten people talking at once?”

Sigh. Your Greek roots can only take you so far in vocabulary-building ...

[Salvation]

Some additional threads on FR!

The Catholic Church Changed The Ten Commandments?

'Top 10 Catholic parenting tips found in the 10 Commandments' - Top Home and Family story of 2006

Did the Ten Commandments Exist Before Moses?

[sionnsar]

... We now dwell in an anti-culture, according to Mr. Rieff, in which we no longer feel the pull of old prohibitions against the expression of individual instinct and will to power.
In biblical terms, we have lost the fear of the Lord – and in Mr. Rieff's telling, the absence of "holy fear" makes us terrors unto ourselves and one another. ...

Worth a read!

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Humor: The Anglican Blue

Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15

[VOA]

“Mr. Klinghoffer cites the work of noted Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark”

URL for what should be REQUIRED READING for every student before they
graduate high school:

The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Paperback)
by Rodney Stark
http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism/dp/0812972333/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8284567-2176849?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187576216&sr=1-1

[beelzepug]

“Why is it dangerous to have ten people talking at once?”

Now that’s funny. But seriously, have her watch an hour of “Hanity & Colmes” and see how dangerous it can be having only four people talking at once.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Good recommendation - will buy it and then read it and then give it to a 17 year old I know.

[VOA]

“Good recommendation - will buy it and then read it and then give it
to a 17 year old I know.”

If I were to hand it to a youngster like that, I’d give them a couple
of Stark’s big conclusions and then let them find how Stark supports
those conclusions.

IMHO, at least two of the “take-home messages” from the book were:
1. REAL Science, as we know it today, arose in the Judeo-Christian West.
The Greeks and Muslims, despite substantial head-starts couldn’t pull
off the trick, even even while giving the Christian West a basis on
which to bring real science to full-term.

2. REAL Capitalism, as we know it in the “invisible hand” form, arose
not in Protestant Europe, but apparently in the northern areas of
(Catholic) Italy.
(Stark does point out that there is a lot of biased opinion that capitalism
was birthed by Protestants; as a non-Catholic, I think that was a fair
comment. Stark certainly does show that capitalism at least first
appeared in Catholic regions of Europe.)
And Stark traces the hounding of capitalism on a northward path as rulers
tried to kill “the goose that laid the golden egg” by over-taxing it.
The steady march of capitalism to Northern Europe should be studied
by anyone hoping to build a prosperous country (for the long-haul)

The book surely has more gems, but those are two of the biggies that
really impressed me.

[AnAmericanMother]

LOL!

She was thinking of logos as the speaker, rather than the word! A perfectly reasonable conclusion when the Greek endings are not present!

[Tax-chick]

Monologue, dialogue, decalogue ...

I could have told her that the danger was that their mother would go insane and club them all insensible with a frozen roast :-).

[AnAmericanMother]

Analogue, catalogue, prologue, epilogue, travelogue . . . the possibilities are endless!

[q_an_a]

There is a great Polish TV series, from 1989, called “The Decalogue” which can be bought on Amazon or rented via Netflix. It is a look at the Ten Commandments in a communist society, with a Catholic foundation. Ten moral questions that challenge the viewer. Great stuff and if you look at life in 1989 Poland you can see why the Wall came down. These people lived in the worst situations, but they had some great writers and directors.

[rhema]

And, as today's society would prefer to view them, . . .