Let’s put the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. Why not? What’s the downside? Are we worried an entire generation will grow up thinking stealing is bad? That adultery ruins families? That killing people is forbidden? Oh no. What a nightmare. Imagine the chaos of self-controlled, morally anchored teenagers roaming the halls. Terrifying!
Unless I’m mistaken (which I’m not) most of the commandments are already in the student handbook. They’re just disguised in secular camouflage. “Be a good citizen.” “Respect others.” “Act with integrity.” Schools have all the behavioral expectations but none of the reasons. They’re supposed to color inside the lines, be responsible, and avoid stabbing each other with protractors for no reason other than, “it’s the rules.”
We pretend kids will behave out of sheer love for abstract goodness. Meanwhile every student alive knows what really counts is what ends up on the permanent record. If nobody is keeping score, it doesn’t matter how you play the game.
Currently, public school kids are presented with these sanitized, deity-free commandments where the authority is…what? Citizenship? Community values? A laminated poster in the hallway? Kids aren’t dumb. They know when adults are making stuff up. If a rule is going to have any real value it needs to come from someone higher up than the elementary school Principal.
We need to get our authority from the same place Moses got his. That guy didn’t pretend the rules emerged from a faculty meeting. He had tablets, thunder, lightning, and the voice of God. Nothing better than a plague of frogs to give you credibility. When you ground your ethics in something eternal, it’s harder for a thirteen-year-old to roll his eyes and say, “Well that’s just your opinion.”
“John, you jerk! You’re trying to force your religion on everybody else!”
Yes. That’s because my religion is the foundation for the ‘secular ethics’ you’re forcing on everybody else. I’m suggesting that maybe learning not to murder people is an idea worth attributing to someone more authoritative than the local Board of Education. If secular folks want to keep the rules but ditch the reason for the rules, fine. But don’t act shocked when kids figure out morality is optional as long as nobody catches them.
If we want kids to behave better, we might consider giving them a reason that doesn’t evaporate when the bell rings. If the Ten Commandments help students decide not to steal or lie or throat-punch each other, I’m okay if a few of them end up keeping the Sabbath holy, honoring their parents, or prioritizing God above everything else.
(Deuteronomy 6:6) And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
