The Ten Commandments In School Conundrum

I’m having coffee at my favorite coffee shop, Accendó, this morning. They also make a pretty good English muffin sandwich. 

While sipping my coffee, a crazy story about the Ten Commandments popped into my mind. Several states, including Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas, have passed laws requiring or supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

Before I go any further, a little background might help. I wasn’t raised in any religion. My Japanese mother was Buddhist, and my father was non-religious. Christianity didn’t really enter my life until I married a Christian at age 23. Wanting to understand what I had married into, and hopefully become a good Christian myself, I started reading the Bible.

I kept reading and studying critically for more than thirty years.

I called myself a Christian for many of those years because that was the world I lived in, but belief never quite settled into my bones. I prayed. I studied. I asked God to help me believe. I asked questions, probably too many questions. Eventually I realized that I could study Christianity without pretending I was certain about it.

So this isn’t meant to ridicule Christians or Christianity. It’s simply another one of those questions that wanders into my head while I’m drinking coffee.

DISCLAIMER: The school mandates are real. The following classroom story is completely made up.

Imagine a teacher standing beside a shiny new Ten Commandments poster that she just tacked up on the bulletin board.

Little Susie raises her hand.

“What does ‘Honor your father and your mother’ mean?”

The teacher smiles. “It means you should respect your parents, treat them kindly, and listen to them.”

Susie wrinkles her forehead.

“My father was hitting my mother last night. She started screaming and crying. I yelled at him to stop. Was I dishonoring my father?”

“Well, Susie, you were trying to protect your mother.”

Susie looks back at the poster.

“But it says I have to honor my father. What happens in the Bible if children don’t honor their parents?”

This caught the teacher off guard, and the teacher felt uncomfortable about answering the question.

The Bible contains some pretty severe laws involving children and parents. Leviticus 20:9, for example, says that someone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Deuteronomy 21:18–21 describes a persistently rebellious son being brought before the elders and stoned.

Susie stares at the teacher.

The teacher stares at Susie.

That’s what interests me about putting biblical commandments in public-school classrooms. What happens when children actually read them and start asking questions?

What does an atheist teacher say? What does a Jewish teacher say? A Muslim teacher? A Buddhist teacher? What about a Christian teacher who belongs to a denomination that interprets these passages differently from the Christian lawmakers who required the poster? Will the Catholic Church version of the Ten Commandments be included? Are the non-Christian teachers required to answer questions about the Ten Commandments? So many questions just pop into my mind.

Whew. Thou shalt have another cup of coffee.