MANY PEOPLE in the church do not want a God who makes too many demands on them, according to a member of the Church of England’s General Synod, “therefore they want to dismiss the commandments as irrelevant to our modern age.” This book argues precisely the opposite. The authors say the Ten Commandments need to be reread, not rewritten or discarded.[pullquote]As a talk show host, newspaper columnist and best selling author, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is known for combining solid common sense, impatience with trendy psychobabble, and support of traditional values. Here, in collaboration with the Talmudic insights of an Orthodox rabbi and supported by citations from both the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the New Testament, Dr. Schlessinger peels away the 16th century English in which the commandments are most often recited, and develops their concepts in readable and insightful contemporary prose. In her view “a higher idealism and a more profound, just, and consistent morality are only found through the commandments.” She draws on real life anecdotes gleaned through open-line telephone calls and fan letters to illustrate her points as she analyzes each commandment in depth. The eighth, about theft, raises issues that range from cheating on exams to producing false or misleading advertising. About the seventh (adultery) the authors say, “Holy sex is that which takes place between a husband and a wife in fulfilment of their marital relationship. Unholy sex is everything else.” There is little direct reference to homosexuality. The authors seem to suggest that some sexual behaviours “while displeasing to God, are tolerated, or at least, unpunished.” This review is being written in the aftermath of shootings in Colorado and Taber, Alta. Amid all the analysis and speculation, the following paragraph from the book, written months earlier, might have been written today: “Some people find it unfathomable that people would choose to do something wrong or illegal. Since they wish to maintain their fantasy that ‘people are inherently good unless something outside them makes them do it,’ they search for economic and psychological motives rather than accept the fact that people choose to do evil.” Though the authors are both Jews, strongly committed to their religion, this is a book for all God-loving people.
