This week my daughter started school and I noticed the new framed portrait of the Ten Commandments on the wall. The serious tone was a stark contrast from the alphabet posters and the whimsical decor that peppered the rest of the room. It felt uneasy and forced in a way that unsettled me as a lifelong Christian.
But why did it feel wrong? The Ten Commandments are objectively good rules to live by. So shouldn’t it have felt okay? I had to sit, pray, and attempt to define my thoughts in a way that even made sense to myself. I was left with two large oppositions to it.
The first of which is that the Ten Commandments are old. Not that they aren’t good, but Jesus replaced them with only two much easier commandments in Matthew. Here’s what I’m talking about:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”” -Matthew 22:36-40 NIV
Neither of those are required to be posted, which makes this whole thing feel performative to me. It’s as if the people making the law had not studied the Bible before legislating it.
I also think it’s extremely important to note the difference in tone in the original Ten Commandments and the two that Jesus gave. If we’re imagining a child with zero exposure to Christianity beside what was posted in their classroom, portraying Him as just a strict authoritarian figure without any examples of His love is probably not going to entice them to learn more.
My childhood classroom had a huge banner above the whiteboard that said “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and it felt like a far more organic attempt to show Christian values, while respecting the laws (that I guess we are ignoring now?) against religion in schools.
My other problem was how forced it felt. Forcing a religious document in a public place feels more like something the Romans would do, not Jesus. I believe in giving Caesar what is Caesar’s and giving God what is God’s. The church and state not mixing was to protect them both and I love my religion too much to see it used as a tool for political gain. “Here’s the Ten Commandments in schools. See how Christian we are? Just don’t ask for help with housing costs so you can afford to get married and have a family or anything.” It feels dirty in a way that no part of God’s Word should feel.
I also chose my church because I trust them to teach my daughter about the Bible in a way that I agree with. I don’t have those same guarantees with school teachers. That is not a slight on teachers, by the way. It’s just admitting that our schools are taught by teachers of all different faiths, and having the Ten Commandments on the wall opens the door for kids to ask questions about them, or religion in general, and I don’t trust that they will get the best responses there.
I understand that the main reason for wanting the Ten Commandments inside classrooms was to give children a defined standard of ethics to combat the moral decline of the recent generations, but I disagree that this is going to accomplish that.
Children do not mold themselves after what they read. They mold themselves after what they see. We need the adults in their lives to step up and be examples for them to follow. We need to encourage church and community involvement, and especially good masculine influences for our kids. A poster on the wall is barely a band-aid on the gaping wound of our broken society. We need more and our kids deserve better.
When something feels wrong, it’s okay to question that feeling, because usually there is a good reason for it.
Taryn Ogletree is a local small business owner and author with previous experience of several years in finance.