#ten-commandments — Public Fediverse posts

Martin Luther, 16th-century reformer, on Psalm 1:2's meditating day and night: "Thou shalt not kill" isn't merely prohibition, it's the positive duty of kindness and gentleness toward neighbour. Today this gets rebranded as "biblical manhood," where duty runs only to one's household, and Christian counseling rehearses grievances against entire classes of people so we can watch their demise more comfortably. A bold reworking of "meditate on the law of the Lord."

#tencommandments #lutheran

Before #HollywoodoftheNorth was claimed by #Canada, #SantaBarbara went by that name as hundreds of silent and western films were produced in #SantaBarbara, including #CecilBDeMille’s #TenCommandments. #photography #americana #wa #california #architecture #californication #canon80d #colorphotography #bwphotography #travel #photos #entertainment

Phillip Medhurst presents 144/402 James Tissot Bible c 1899 Moses destroys the tables of the Ten Commandments Exodus 32:19 Jewish Museum New York https://phillipmedhurst.com/2017/08/05/phillip-medhurst-presents-144788-james-tissot-bible-c-1899-moses-destroys-the-tables-of-the-ten-commandments-exodus-3219-jewish-museum-new-york/ #Aaron, #Bible, #BookOfExodus, #Decalogue, #Exodus, #JamesTissot, #Moses, #OldTestament, #Sinai, #StoneTablets, #TablesOfTheLaw, #Tanakh, #TenCommandments, #Tissot, #Torah

The justices are expected to decide in coming months whether to take up the case, which is being closely watched as conservatives…work to expand #religious “rights” [ #Christian #evangelism ] in public spaces & opponents battle them in court. In April, a conservative appeals court upheld the law in a narrowly divided opinion.

#SCOTUS #law #Constitution #EstablishmentClause #SeparationOfChurchAndState #TenCommandments #education #PublicSchools #schools #Texas

#CivilLiberties groups Monday asked #SCOTUS to hear their challenge of a #Texas #law requiring that all #PublicSchools’ classrooms display the #TenCommandments, potentially setting up a landmark clash over the #SeparationOfChurchAndState.

#Constitution #EstablishmentClause #education #schools

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

#SCOTUS asked to hear case on #Texas #law requiring #TenCommandments in #schools


The case could set up a landmark clash over the #SeparationOfChurchAndState.

With this #SupremeCourt, I truly fear the outcome.

#law #Constitution #EstablishmentClause #education #PublicSchools

#GiftArticle
https://wapo.st/4xaYNcK

The three women of different (or no) faiths all want the same thing. A recently filed attempt to remove #Christian teachings from #PublicSchools used #StateLaw - not federal - and is awaiting #appeal.
(Christians know they're breaking the law. But they're convinced that we're possessed by #demons, so they don't care. Hard to argue with these people.)
#fascist #USA #GOP #KKK #DEI #ChristoFascism #parental #rights #TenCommandments #ReligiousFreedom #freedom #from #religion
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/31/texas-ten-commandments-lawsuit-houston-parental-rights/

Calling Out the Church Is an Act of Witness

“Why are you calling the church out and making them look so bad?” someone asked me after I preached about the church’s lack of justice. “The people you’re preaching to probably don’t even need to hear that message. You were likely just preaching to the choir and calling out rare extremists.”

I always feel a bit gaslighted when people tell me this. I wish I had screenshotted all of the insane posts I saw from Christians I knew during the pandemic. The “rare” extremists are apparently many of my friends. I grew up with them. I played at their houses. They taught me who Jesus was. And now that they had been socially and politically provoked, I was observing in them an unimaginable behavior I didn’t know they were capable of.

To some extent, I need to speak out on these issues for evangelistic reasons, as the world needs to see a pastor address such behavior. Unbelievers think that the “rare” extremist is what Christianity looks like because they have seen the same posts I have. I also need to speak out to save myself. If I allow this kind of stuff to go on without saying anything, then I become complacent—and I can’t handle that. People need to know that Christians aren’t all like that. They need to know that Jesus looks different than what’s being presented to them.

To represent God wrongly is what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain, and it was such a big deal to God that he made it one of the Ten Commandments. In the Old Testament, the Israelites bore the name of Yahweh just by being Israelites. Wherever they went and whatever they did, they were to be a specific representation of the name Yahweh. They were to have the character of Yahweh, do justice like Yahweh, farm like Yahweh, party like Yahweh, and take care of the oppressed like Yahweh. They failed over and over and over again until Yahweh eventually divorced his abusive wife, Israel. They had not done a good job of portraying Yahweh to the world, and they had taken his name in vain through their misrepresentation. Christians do the same thing.

So why do I speak about justice to a world that doesn’t always want to hear about it?

I speak because someone has to bear witness to it.

"#BruceDavid’s magnum opus is a #psychedelic #lithograph depicting practically the entire #Torah. Over eight months, #David filled it with a plethora of hidden symbols: If you look closely, you can see #Joshua blowing a #shofar, which hugs the #Israeliflag. Squint even more and you’ll notice Joshua’s face is the flared end of an even bigger shofar that encompasses the #TenCommandments, a shofar made up of dozens of small people, seven of whom hold flames as if making a human #menorah.

To understand every hidden image in just this one #painting would take more words than I have space for. David gave me the “short version” of the piece’s story on Zoom — it still took six minutes.

Although David has now spent decades making #Jewish #art — #prints, #mosaics, #stainedglass and #metalworks — and exhibiting it across the country, it wasn’t what he had anticipated doing with his life."

https://forward.com/culture/art/835634/bruce-david-art-louisville-synagogue-stained-glass/

A quotation from Vonnegut

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!

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
A Man Without A Country, ch. 9 (2005)

More about this quote: wist.info/vonnegut-kurt-jr/385…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #vonnegut #kurtvonnegut #Beatitudes #Christianity #churchandstate #Decalogue #hypocrisy #Jesus #mercy #Moses #peace #religion #TenCommandments

#Philosophy #Religion #FirstCommandment #ReligionIsPoison #Theology #TenCommandments #Christianity

Whately—Puritan, advocate for the poor—identifies a self-deception: resolving to avoid every evil while neglecting equal determination to perform every duty. Sins of omission; affirmative precepts. These count.

Some today make memes about the danger of complacency with sin. Omissions involving the poor rarely make that list.

#puritan #tencommandments #biblestudy

A quotation from Thomas More

God has said, “Thou shalt not kill”; shall we kill so readily for the theft of a bit of small change? Perhaps it will be argued that God’s law against killing does not apply where human laws allow it. But then what prevents men from making other laws in the same way — perhaps even laws legalizing rape, adultery, and perjury? God has taken from each person the right not only to kill another, but even to kill himself. If mutual consent to human laws on manslaughter entitles men freely to exempt their agents from divine law and allows them to kill where he has given no example, what is this but preferring the law of man to the law of God?
 
[Deus uetuit occidi quenquam, & nos tam facile occidimus ob ademptam pecuniolam! Quod si quis interpretetur, illo dei iussu interdictam necis potestatem, nisi quatenus humana lex declaret occidendum, quid obstat quo minus homines eodem modo constituant inter se, quatenus stuprum admittendum sit, adulterandum, peierandum! Siquidem quum deus non alienae modo, uerum etiam suae cuique mortis ius ademerit, si hominum inter se consensus de mutua cede, certis placitis consentientium, adeo debet ualere, ut illius praecepti uinculis eximat suos satellites, qui sine ullo exemplo dei, eos interemerint, quos humana sanctio iussit occidi; an non hoc pacto praeceptum illud dei tantum iuris est habiturum, quantum humana iura permiserint!]

Thomas More (1478-1535) English lawyer, social philosopher, statesman, humanist, Christian martyr
Utopia, Book 1, ch. 1 “Discourses of Raphael Hythloday” (1518 ed.) [tr. Adams (1992 ed.)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/more-thomas/84007/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #thomasmore #utopia #capitalpunishment #deathpenalty #Decalogue #divinejustice #divinewill #execution #God #killing #law #TenCommandments

#MAGA religious leaders erect a golden statue of #Trump at his #Doral golf club.

The cautionary tale of the golden calf from Exodus 32 is instructive here. The golden idol ends up ground to powder and the worshippers forced to eat it.

#Falseidols #goldenstatue #tencommandments

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-gold-statue-disgust/

Attorney general announces investigation into #school districts for compliance with #TenCommandments law

https://www.tpr.org/government-politics/2026-05-07/attorney-general-announces-investigation-into-school-districts-for-compliance-with-ten-commandments-law

After an appeals court reversed an injunction prohibiting several districts from hanging the Ten Commandments posters in classrooms, Paxton announced he will investigate the districts previously protected by the injunction. The investigation includes six #Houston-area school districts

#Texas can require #TenCommandments in classrooms, court says

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/01/20/texas-ten-commandments-5th-circuit-court/

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state can enforce its 2025 law requiring public schools to display donated posters of the Ten Commandments.

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me” sure sounds like a pretty clear case of Texas attempting to force a religion into schools #TenCommandments

Can we just not?

#Texas can require the #TenCommandments to be displayed in #PublicSchool #classrooms, a #US appeals court ruled Tuesday in a victory for #conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more #religion into schools.
It sets up a potential clash at #SCOTUS over the issue in the future.
The ultra conservative #5thCircuit Court of Appeals claimed in the decision that the #law did not violate either the #EstablishmentClause or the #FreeExerciseClause of the #FirstAmendment.

https://apnews.com/article/texas-ten-commandments-law-public-schools-scotus-43e679cf473e6b98b091d575578824eb

Spurgeon—particular Baptist, London—points out that certain businesses cannot function if employees tell the truth. Firing offence. He adds that professing Christians are keeping the whole operation running, lacking courage to say we want nothing to do with this. Pastoral warnings about workplace complicity are somewhat rarer than warnings about other sins. The stamp, apparently, must run.
#christian #baptist #tencommandments

@newsguyusa

#Trump violating the first commandment.

“I am the Lord thy God. Thou shall not have strange gods before me.”

#TenCommandments #idolatry

Martin Luther taught that covetousness—the restless desire for more—must be put to death. The Christian test is plain: the Golden Rule, dealing with others as we would be dealt with, the foundation of equity and justice.

Yet today complaints of unfairness are often dismissed as envy, and the charge of coveting is turned upon the complainant rather than the sin.

#lutheran #lcms #tencommandments #christian #equity #justice

A sacred symbol that still inspires courage, justice, and faith across centuries. The Ark’s story reminds us that true power rests in moral strength. #ArkOfTheCovenant #BiblicalHistory #SacredArtifact #TenCommandments #TempleOfSolomon #AncientIsrael #FaithAndLaw #ReligiousSymbolism #SacredHistory
https://sm.stayingalive.in/did-you-know/ark-of-the-covenant-the.html

Samuel Willard, Puritan in Boston, looked at “Thou shalt not kill” and sighed: it reaches the workplace too. Cruel masters who grind the belly and lash the back ruin both body and soul. Oh, and Judgment Day will remember.

So tell me—how do you treat the ones whose labor keeps your life afloat?

#puritans #tencommandments #workers #reformedscholastics #reformedtheology #southmeetinghouse

Andreas Hyperius, a 16th-century Flemish Lutheran/Reformed theologian, reads “You shall not steal” with unnerving specificity: withholding wages, shaving pay, defaulting on what is owed. His moral clarity assumes obedience reaches into ordinary economic life—even where raising such concerns makes people bristle. Scripture leaves little room for comfortable evasions.

#christian #lutheran #reformedscholastics #faith #tencommandments

@The74
#Conservatives claim the justification for putting the #TenCommandments in classrooms is that it's "the basis of our laws" (it's not) and therefore a matter of "civics not religion".

But ONLY THREE (arguably 4) Commandments are reflected in law: Thou shalt not lie (perjury), kill (murder) or steal (robbery).

There is no legal argument for teaching "Thou shalt not have other God's before me." or "Keep the Sabbath holy."

T****'s a good model for "Thou shalt not commit Adultery" though.

Richard Greenham, an English Puritan, taught that the Eighth Commandment reaches far beyond burglary: theft includes harsh bargaining and deceitful dealing. We praise “voluntary” transactions and mock moral limits, yet still sense when dealings are plainly unmerciful. Oddly, we resent both the theft and the commandment that names it.

How do you refuse to steal in ordinary life?
#christian #freedom #tencommandments #puritan #reformedscholastics

#Indiana #Republicans are reviving a decades-old fight over a #TenCommandments monument

https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/indiana-republicans-are-reviving

The Democratic candidate in the Texas Senate race is going to be an LGBTQ+ ally

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/politics/jasmine-crockett-james-talarico-lgbtq

#Texas Families File New #ClassActionLawsuit to Stop #PublicSchool Districts Throughout Texas From Displaying the #TenCommandments

https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-releases/texas-families-file-new-class-action-lawsuit-stop-public-school-districts-throughout