(Leaders of the Prayer Book Society et al have been saying what my distinguished friend Philip Turner is reported as saying below, since the 1970s. At the Order for H C in my parish we still read the whole of the Ten Commandments at the beginning of the service and of course the 1662 BCP makes no provision for leaving them out.)
TEN COMMANDMENTS IN THE CHURCH IN A POST-MODERN WORLD
By David W. Virtue
CHARLESTON, SC--Mainline Protestantism has displaced the Ten Commandments by more personal and subjective standards for measuring the health of society and the state of the soul, says a noted ethicist, scholar, author and retired Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University.
Dr. Philip Turner said the notion of commandments of any sort, in the minds of many, suggest unpleasant, even destructive limitations on the lives of individuals that diminish the diversity of societies, constrain the freedom of persons and inhibit the development of selves. "The notion of commandments cuts across the very way in which we now describe ourselves as moral agents - as individuals, persons and selves who are free agents with rights rather than as embodied beings with intellect, conscience and will, placed by God in a morally ordered universe in which we are to live in obedience to a moral law."
Addressing an audience at SEAD - the Society for Ecumenical Anglican Doctrine, Turner scored the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that moved with the "cultural shift" desiring to emphasize a theology of glory rather than one of penitence that led the framers of the BCP to relegate the reading of the Decalogue to a more marginal place in its public worship and private devotion.
"If we were to get rid of a prayer that 'our sinful bodies might be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood,' we also have to down play the words that might remind us rather frequently of the fact that we might need to be washed and made clean," he said.
Turner noted the irony that it is Christians with Baptist roots, who stand for disestablishment, that are seeking to re-establish the Ten Commandments as a public standard not establishment. "One would have thoughts it would be the old established churches that would cry out, but it has not proved to be the case. They have tended to follow the culture away from the notion of a public and common moral law, and toward a more individually centered ethic ties to social diversity and the flourishing of individuals. In this movement, they join more enlightened folk in seeking to "de-publicize" anything like a common morality."
Turner said that society had reached the point where matters of morals, as long as no unjustifiable harm is done to others, are said to be matters for individual conscience or matter for determination within interpretive communities, each of which may have their own take on things.
"The Ten Commandments do not fare well under the post-modern banners of personal flourishing and pluralism."
Turner said that modernity sought to root a common morality in some aspect of human nature rather than in either divine intellect or will, but they nonetheless held out for a universal moral law. "It is precisely this universality that post-modernity rejects. We no longer look to an objective moral order that can be discerned by educated reasons. Rather we look to communities of discourse, each with their own take on the world. It is a world where moral judgement is replaced by emphatic understanding."
Turner said that Christians need to hold to the view that the Decalogue inscribes a universal law laid down by God in creation; and that, at the same time, it has special significance for Christian people.
"We cannot think about the Ten Commandments apart from a tradition of interpretation."
HISTORICAL EXCURSUS
The reformers took the Decalogue to be a written expression from the hand of God of the law of nature written also by the hand of God upon the human heart. "The Decalogue served as divinely mandated means to order social life."
The reformers believed that human reason had access to the basic laws laid down by God in creation; and that these laws make social life possible. They believed also that these laws are inscribed in the Decalogue and "republishes" the natural law written originally in the human heart.
"In its first use, the political use. The natural law, and so the Decalogue served as divinely mandated means to order social life.
"In its second use, the pedagogical use, the natural law and the Decalogue serves to remind people of their defection from the law inscribed upon their hearts. The law serves to prepare the way for the Gospel.
"In its third use the law's meaning and new ability to keep it are given to those in Christ."
Turner said that Luther noted that even Heathen, Turks and Jews must follow the natural law for the sake of peace. They must all practice some form of reciprocity in human relations. "Christians do it out of love which allows obedience even in the midst of suffering."
"Even in the fallen state, both the natural law and its written version (the Decalogue) serve to order the unruly wills of people and convict them of sin in a manner that prepares the way for the gospel. The first two uses of the law are operative among unbelievers and believers alike."
Turner said that Christians come to see that the law has at its apex the law of love, and at its base the purpose of God to gather the elect and order their lives within his kingdom."
For the reformers, the Decalogue, on the one hand, inscribes a universal law written originally in the hearts of all people by God in creation. On the other hand, the Decalogue has particular significance for Christians because they have been given knowledge of its deepest meaning and purpose. The commandments are thus universal in that they inscribe what God wills for the life of all people."
Turner said there was a universal and particular significance of the Decalogue to the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew's Gospel. "It is here that Christ is said to give the law (and the Decalogue in particular) an authoritative interpretation. In this sermon Jesus speaks not as a new Moses; but as the Son of the Father to whom the Father delivers all things and who alone knows the Father (Matt. 11: 25-27).
"Jesus is speaking before a double audience - Jews and the cords that include Gentiles, and the gospel is intended for the Gentiles. The Sermon on the Mount (and so also Jesus' interpretation of the law) is meant for everyone. Jesus' last words instruct his disciples not only to go into all the world "and make disciples of all nations," but also to teach these disciples "to observe all that I have commanded you." (Mt. 28: 19-20). The law, even the law taught by Jesus, is the law of life and so the law of all people."
In a slap at ECUSA, Turner said the liturgical demotion of the Decalogue has been accompanied by a presentation of the Gospel that is, in word and deed, Antinomian.
"Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom" (Mt. 5:19). The tradition of the church is not wrong to have seen these matters in the Decalogue."
END
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
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