c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) As the Rev. Frederic Baue prepares for his Lenten services, he’s thinking about what he will preach each week on the Ten Commandments.

He’s already covered “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” reminding his worshippers at Bethany Lutheran Church in O’Fallon, Ill., that focusing on success and material objects can be subtle forms of idolatry.

But Baue and other experts say he may be in the minority of preachers in choosing to focus on the commandments, which are also called the Decalogue.

“So many sermons that the average long-suffering parishioners hear today basically amount to motivational talks” lacking the force of the commandments, said Baue, pastor of the 250-member church affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

As a March 2 Supreme Court hearing about the public displays of the Ten Commandments approaches, the private use of the Decalogue continues in the liturgy, children’s lessons and art of many congregations. Yet experts say sermon references to the commandments may be declining, perhaps because they are seen as passe and, especially in the area of sexual morality, too controversial.

Nonetheless, the “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” of the commandments remain an ingrained part of everyday Judeo-Christian life.

John Holbert, author of “The Ten Commandments: A Preaching Commentary,” said the sometimes fiery public debates about Ten Commandments monuments harken back to a time before some American cultural mores had loosened.

For instance, when blue laws were more in vogue decades ago, people couldn’t buy liquor and other goods on Sunday because of the more generally accepted notion of observing the Sabbath and following the commandment’s directive to “keep it holy.”

This dynamic was evident, said Holbert, in the national uproar over former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s refusal to remove a massive Ten Commandments display from the state judicial building.

“When Roy Moore and people like him want to have these monuments everywhere, they genuinely feel that if people once again took these things with seriousness … things would be better,” said Holbert, a professor of homiletics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The Rev. Patrick Miller, author of “The God You Have: Politics, Religion and the First Commandment,” said the commandments may not be preached as much as they once were, but that doesn’t mean their tenets do not remain central to people’s lives.

“It happens for other reasons than pastors thinking that the Ten Commandments are not important,” said Miller, professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. “There’s much more preaching from the New Testament than from the Old Testament.”

In everyday congregational life, the Ten Commandments continue to play a role, whether they are preached or not. Still a staple of Sunday and Hebrew schools, the list of 10 do’s and don’ts is recited occasionally during the liturgical reading cycles in many Christian and Jewish congregations.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Washington-based Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said the Ten Commandments are featured in the windows, on the walls and on the ark holding the Torah scrolls of synagogues across the country.

“It’s one of the most common artistic motifs that you will find in Jewish architecture and sanctuary art,” he said.

But Saperstein has long criticized the Ten Commandments displays in the public square, calling them “visual Muzak on the walls of our public schools.”

“The important challenge is for us, through our houses of worship and our families, to inscribe the Ten Commandments on the hearts of our children,” he said.

Rabbi Basil Herring, executive director of the Rabbinical Council of America, said Orthodox rabbis try to place the Decalogue in the context of the 613 mitzvot, or commandments, that Jews are supposed to follow.

“There’s no question that the Ten Commandments are regarded as the fundamental formulation of Jewish faith and observance by the vast majority of our congregations,” said Herring, whose New York-based organization represents Orthodox rabbis around the world. “At the same time, it is also true that … Orthodoxy has a very strong adherence, not to 10 commandments, but to 613.”

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The Rev. Michael Burk, director for worship of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said some clergy may find certain commandments easier to address than others. For example, he said the biblical order to honor parents may be timely as people grapple with decisions ranging from care of an aging parent to formulating their opinions about proposals about Social Security reform.

“The commandments are fodder for all kinds of preaching,” Burk said.

But he said clergy may shy away from preaching on some of them.

“There’s a more likelihood that the adultery commandment would be avoided,” said Burk, noting that pews may be filled with those who have faced divorce. “They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t know what to say.”

Baue, a more conservative Lutheran, takes a different viewpoint, seeing that commandment as not only a potential sermon topic but as an everyday guide to life.

“It reminds me when I go by the magazine rack at the bookstore, don’t pick up that Playboy,” he said. “If you look at that, it brings forth lustful thoughts, which is being unfaithful to your wife.”

Dieter Uchtdorf, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wishes there were more attention on the subject.

“There are few now in the world who teach us chastity before marriage, who teach us the true fidelity during marriage, being true to your spouse,” said Uchtdorf, who serves on one of the highest governing bodies of his church. “These are values and principles and commandments of God … which change personal lives.”

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