{"id":5422,"date":"2026-05-08T09:08:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5422"},"modified":"2026-05-08T09:08:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:08:33","slug":"the-ted-commandments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/the-ted-commandments\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ted Commandments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

Two days ago, the world lost the man known as \u201cThe Mouth of the South\u201d and \u201cCaptain Outrageous.\u201d

The New York Times<\/em> obituary for Ted Turner, who died at 87, exceeded 1,000 words \u2013 an earnest attempt to capture something of the entrepreneur\u2019s 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. \u201cChristianity is a religion for losers,\u201d 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 \u2013 in more recent times \u2013 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<\/em> magazine, \u201cTed is the great \u2018I Am.\u2019\u201d

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\u00a0“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\u2019s list of 10 \u2013 which became known as the Ted Commandments \u2013 changed from time to time.

What\u2019s interesting is that he hung on to four of the \u201coriginal 10\u201d as they appear in the Bible, and not exactly easy ones: \u201cDo not lie, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet.\u201d Most Bible scholars agree that coveting \u2013 yearning to have what other people have \u2013 is a particularly tall task.

Turner\u2019s list usually included, \u201cDo not waste, do not pollute, do not exploit others, do not harm animals, do not harm the Earth, and do not harm the future\u201d \u2013 unquestionably laudable goals.

What jumps out of Scripture texts like Exodus 20, however \u2013 where we find the account of Moses receiving two etched\u00a0stone tablets on Mt. Sinai \u2013 is that God is not proposing Ten Helpful Guidelines.\u00a0

In the words of the late historian Thomas Cahill, the 10 Commandments “require no justification, nor can they be argued away.\u00a0They are not dependent upon circumstances, nor may they be set aside because of special circumstances.\u00a0They are not propositions for debate.”

What Moses received, in other words, were\u00a0not Ten Personal Challenges we may want to work on in our spare time.\u00a0These are the commands<\/em> 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\u00a0is 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\u00a0fatiguing.\u00a0It therefore comes with a word of encouragement: Those who respect their\u00a0parents, in season and out, will enjoy a long life.

The fourth command\u00a0seems 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\u00a0choose 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.\u00a0\u00a0

Think of our country’s tax code – page after page of instructions, explanations, and exceptions.\u00a0The commandments get right to the point.\u00a0We receive 10 provisions for loving God and loving others.\u00a0For the Israelites, who lived in a pre-literate culture, that was one for each finger.\u00a0

Cahill noted that no one (including Ted Turner) has been able to come up with an 11th commandment that just has<\/u><\/em> to be on the list, and no one has been able to make a compelling case that any\u00a0of the existing 10 ought\u00a0to be deleted.\u00a0\u00a0

But aren’t we facing moral and ethical situations today that Moses couldn’t possibly have imagined?

God\u2019s directives turn out to be remarkably flexible.\u00a0The essential\u00a0principles required\u00a0to discuss genetic engineering, racism, climate change, and nuclear war are all embedded within Exodus 20.\u00a0

Should the commandments be displayed in public places? That question has generated considerable controversy.\u00a0\u00a0

A few years ago,\u00a0Georgia state representative Lynn Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill requiring the posting of the commandments in both House and Senate chambers in Atlanta.\u00a0He then accepted an opportunity to be interviewed by Stephen Colbert.\u00a0Looking back, it might have been wiser to walk away.

Colbert, an observant Catholic, asked a simple question.\u00a0“Can you name the 10 Commandments?”\u00a0Westmoreland hesitated.\u00a0He could come up with only three.\u00a0\u00a0

Should the 10 Commandments be displayed in public?\u00a0\u00a0

Of course they should.\u00a0But 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.\u00a0\u00a0

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.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Two days ago, the world lost the man known as \u201cThe Mouth of the South\u201d and \u201cCaptain Outrageous.\u201d The New York Times obituary for Ted Turner, who died at 87, exceeded 1,000 words \u2013 an earnest attempt to capture something of the entrepreneur\u2019s over-the-top accomplishments and personal complexities. As the founder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[734],"class_list":["post-5422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ten-commadments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5424,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422\/revisions\/5424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}