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Two days ago, the world lost the man known as “The Mouth of the South” and “Captain Outrageous.”
The New York Times obituary for Ted Turner, who died at 87, exceeded 1,000 words – an earnest attempt to capture something of the entrepreneur’s over-the-top accomplishments and personal complexities.
As the founder of CNN, Turner essentially invented the 24-hour news cycle. He bet that cable TV was the future of global entertainment and launched numerous channels. Turner was a passionate sports fan and team owner, a committed environmentalist, and an advocate for world peace, contributing at one point $1 billion to help cultivate American support for the United Nations.
He also had opinions about everything. Including the 10 Commandments.
Turner began life as a Christian. He dreamed of becoming a missionary. When he was 20, however, his younger sister lost her fight with a long and debilitating illness, after which he grimly decided he could no longer believe in a God who would who permit such a tragedy.
By mid-life, Turner had turned his guns on the faith associated with Jesus. “Christianity is a religion for losers,” he told a reporter.
What filled the void of his religious zeal? Turner professed loyalty to Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess who personified the Earth, and – in more recent times – embodies the hypothesis that our planet is a single living organism.
He also expressed a generous amount of self-adulation. One of his associates told TIME magazine, “Ted is the great ‘I Am.’”
Turner decided it was time to come up with a new list of 10 Commandments. The ones we’ve had since Old Testament times, he suggested, are “too old, and nobody obeys them anyway.” He then proposed Ten Voluntary Initiatives – benevolent activities we are free to pursue as we feel led.
Turner’s list of 10 – which became known as the Ted Commandments – changed from time to time.
What’s interesting is that he hung on to four of the “original 10” as they appear in the Bible, and not exactly easy ones: “Do not lie, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet.” Most Bible scholars agree that coveting – yearning to have what other people have – is a particularly tall task.
Turner’s list usually included, “Do not waste, do not pollute, do not exploit others, do not harm animals, do not harm the Earth, and do not harm the future” – unquestionably laudable goals.
What jumps out of Scripture texts like Exodus 20, however – where we find the account of Moses receiving two etched stone tablets on Mt. Sinai – is that God is not proposing Ten Helpful Guidelines.
In the words of the late historian Thomas Cahill, the 10 Commandments “require no justification, nor can they be argued away. They are not dependent upon circumstances, nor may they be set aside because of special circumstances. They are not propositions for debate.”
What Moses received, in other words, were not Ten Personal Challenges we may want to work on in our spare time. These are the commands of the Living God.
Seven of them are so straightforward that they are presented with no explanation whatsoever. Eugene Peterson noted that the second command is unusually hard to follow and therefore comes with a warning: Don’t make idols to represent God, because God is entirely serious about not being cut down to size.
The fifth command, to honor father and mother, can be genuinely fatiguing. It therefore comes with a word of encouragement: Those who respect their parents, in season and out, will enjoy a long life.
The fourth command seems illogical, and at first glance doesn’t appear to even deserve a place in the Top Ten (especially in our busy culture): Keep the Sabbath every week. God’s explanation is that since he chose to rest after making the universe, we should choose to slow down after six days of driving the kids to soccer practice, trying to close business deals, and struggling to pay bills.
The commandments, it turns out, are amazingly simple and comprehensive.
Think of our country’s tax code – page after page of instructions, explanations, and exceptions. The commandments get right to the point. We receive 10 provisions for loving God and loving others. For the Israelites, who lived in a pre-literate culture, that was one for each finger.
Cahill noted that no one (including Ted Turner) has been able to come up with an 11th commandment that just has to be on the list, and no one has been able to make a compelling case that any of the existing 10 ought to be deleted.
But aren’t we facing moral and ethical situations today that Moses couldn’t possibly have imagined?
God’s directives turn out to be remarkably flexible. The essential principles required to discuss genetic engineering, racism, climate change, and nuclear war are all embedded within Exodus 20.
Should the commandments be displayed in public places? That question has generated considerable controversy.
A few years ago, Georgia state representative Lynn Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill requiring the posting of the commandments in both House and Senate chambers in Atlanta. He then accepted an opportunity to be interviewed by Stephen Colbert. Looking back, it might have been wiser to walk away.
Colbert, an observant Catholic, asked a simple question. “Can you name the 10 Commandments?” Westmoreland hesitated. He could come up with only three.
Should the 10 Commandments be displayed in public?
Of course they should. But they don’t have to be hung on walls or carved in stone.
Day by day, they should be on display in the words we speak and the choices we make.
We should be able to name them. We should be increasingly able to appreciate them.
And, regardless of the opinions of certain media moguls, we should be immensely grateful they are not so outdated that they need to be replaced.