Want To Post the Ten Commandments?

by

Perspectives

Special to United Methodist Insight | Sept. 2, 2025

As a new school year begins, educators across the land face fresh challenges about how to deal with religion in the classroom. In May, the Texas legislature required every public classroom in the state to display a poster listing the Ten Commandments. Senate Bill 10 was supposed to take effect on Sept. 1, but a federal district court has blocked it, at least temporarily in some districts. Another federal district court blocked a similar Arkansas law, as the Court of Appeals did with Louisiana’s law, according to “Judge rules some Texas school districts don’t have to display Ten Commandments,” by Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service.

Other states have made similar moves, with similar results, because these laws entangle government in religion, violating the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Requiring that commandments of Judaism and Christianity be displayed and prohibiting equal treatment of sacred texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other faiths, Senate Bill 10 favors some faiths over others and belief over doubt. That’s precisely where our Founders did not want government mucking around in our faiths.

The text specified by Texas Senate Bill 10 also chooses sides in the intramural rivalry among Christians. It mandates the use of a paraphrase of the King James Version, popular among many Protestants but not found in this form anywhere in the Bible. Catholics and Lutherans, for example, tend to prefer other versions and different translations, as do Jews and Muslims.

The Supreme Court has ruled that teaching about religion is permissible even if religious indoctrination is not kosher. Is there a constitutional way to present the Ten Commandments as an important part of our society? Here’s one approach: 

  • Present all three versions found in the Tanakh (a.k.a. Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament, First Testament). Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 are somewhat similar, but Exodus 34:11-26 is quite different—and the only version that the Bible itself calls “the Ten Commandments” (Ex. 34:28). Show the three versions side by side, the way we studied the Gospels in seminary, to help students compare and contrast them. This conveys something I learned in Sunday School: The Bible is a library, not a single book.
  • Use varied translations of these passages. Students may be surprised to read in favored by other denominations and faith communities. Exodus 20:18 that are favored by Jews and some Protestants,:“You shall not murder”  Pacifists, vegetarians, right-to-life activists, and opponents of capital punishment quote  translations that say kill, but murder is more literal. Islam teaches something we all could stand to learn: All translation is interpretation.
  • Include the Quran’s version. Instead of “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor” the Islamic text reads “Do not turn away from the truth, even if it causes you to testify against yourself” (An Nisa 4:135), which makes the point more forcefully.
  • Don’t lie about the Bible. Some of it is hard to understand. Or hard to take. The mandate in Exodus 3:11-13 to drive out Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perrrizites, Hivites, and Jebusites and tear down their altars is disturbing, to say the least.
  • Present the ethical teaching of other faiths, including non-theistic ones. Belief in God is optional for Jains, Buddhists, and Unitarian Universalists, but they are often highly moral people.  Learning about other religions can deepen your own. 

You might think that a legislature made up largely of lawyers could write a bill that did not blatantly violate the Constitution. Perhaps they failed to do so because they sought to parade their piety rather than enact good law or teach children anything. Jesus had something to say about people like that. 

If legislators believe posting the Commandments will do some good, they should begin by doing so in their own chambers. And try to follow them. In Texas, they passed Senate Bill 10 while working on the Sabbath, which violates Exodus 20:8-11/Deuteronomy 5:12-15. When it comes to the Bible, some politicians are all hat and no cattle. No wonder they got sued.

Still want your state to mandate your version of Holy Writ? As a Spanish curse says, “May your life be filled with lawyers.”

The Rev. Thomas W. Goodhue is a United Methodist clergyman and former executive eirector of the Long Island Council of Churches. His most recent book is Queen Ka‘ahumanu of Hawaii (McFarland).