They Weren’t 10 Commandments

by Jem Bendell

I went to a Catholic school. For boys. Run by monks. When I tell people that today, it draws some sniggers or even questions of concern. Despite some scandals which I learned of later, I have nothing salacious to report from my own time at St John’s College. The couple of friends I’m still in touch with from those school days have found their own faith, but not due to what we learned at school. Looking back, I realise we were being shown religious belief in a way that felt out-dated and restrictive. The importance of love, and of serving others, would sometimes get mentioned, but the culture didn’t feel that way. At times it was violently the opposite. Looking back, I sense we missed out on something important. As the true message in wisdom traditions is both kind and liberatory, including the message from a deeper Christianity. A recent example of my misunderstandings of Christianity from childhood, highlights the challenge and opportunity for a kinder and more emancipatory embrace of faith in today, as times become tough and worrying. 

At school in the 1980s, the Ten Commandments seemed like the conceptual equivalents of our old desks with their unused holes for ink pots. We scrawled in biro across exercise books on top of those desk relics from an era that was alien to us. When we were taught about the commandments not to steal, lie, and murder, they seemed sensible — but the language around them was strange and pompous. “Thou shalt not bear false witness…” It was like being handed a tasty pasty in a rusty wooden chest. Welcome, but not with the dusty heaviness.

Only last year did I learn of a different way of hearing them. It was a beautiful summer’s day in England’s Lake District. My friend Stephen was taking me to somewhere he described as one his pilgrimage sites. When we parked just off the sternly busy A66 highway, I didn’t have high hopes. But after walking for half an hour, the rushing cars had faded into the distance and the birdsong, blue sky, fluffy clouds, green fields and friendly chatter were reassuring me this was a “nice thing to do” during my short visit to Cumbria. Walking around a hedge, we looked down into a meadow, dotted with sheep, heads down, munching away. In the distance was a building, lying low beneath a towering oak that curled over it like a protective arm. The red stone walls had been bleached into soft shades of rose by centuries of Cumbrian rain, and maybe the occasional sunny spell. The dark arched windows told me “Church,” while the grass growing around its weathered wooden gate told me “maybe abandoned.” Approaching closer, I saw its graveyard hosted waves of green grass with headstones leaning left and right, as if bobbing in between. 

The Lake District is an epicentre for tourism, but visitors were not getting their lakeland kicks off this part of the A66. Although Stephen Wright is a Reverend, this Church-without-congregation was not our destination. We walked on, towards a river that curved at the back of the meadow. Its meander had created a pebbly beach from where you could walk into a transparent blackish-brown water to paddle or swim. Stephen stripped off and jumped into the river with a glee that made me wonder whether I could learn, one day, to enjoy cold water. Afterwards, we sat sunbathing and discussed the things that crop up with contemplatives like Stephen. 

“Those ten sayings weren’t actually commandments – they were ten commentaries. They were describing how we mere mortals function, naturally, when we haven’t been wounded by our life or poisoned by society.” Stephen was explaining that this way of understanding the ten commandments is surprisingly old — and perhaps unsurprisingly ignored. Our conversation on the banks of the river prompted me to look deeper into this perspective on what I learned, as probably you did too, as the ‘10 commandments’. I found that there is even a clue in the New Testament. The apostle Paul wrote about gentiles who “do by nature what the law requires” because God’s law is “written on their hearts” (Romans 2:14-15). That’s partly why the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas argued that the commandments were not an arbitrary list but a restatement of ‘natural law’ i.e. a basic moral grammar we’re all born with. Perhaps they both knew something about the original texts, which is worth exploring for a moment.   

The text we now call the “Ten Commandments” was originally written in Ancient Hebrew, which described them as “the Ten Words” (or ten phrases: Aseret HaDevarim). The verbs that Bibles translated as imperatives, such as “lo tignov”, on stealing, did not use an explicitly imperative tense. That would be “al”, which means “do not” (e.g., al tignov for “do not steal”). By using “lo” followed by the imperfect tense of a verb, it can be understood as describing a present or a past and continuing reality. As there is no “thou” or “you” stated in the phrases, they simply mean “non stealing,” “non lying,” and so on. As those phrases begin with, “and not” (v’lo), it connects them to the preceding sentence which describes the nature of the Sabbath rather than ordering it. Therefore, an Irish biblical scholar, A.D.H. Mayes observed these phrases are less commands than descriptions of a natural, unbroken way of being. More recently, philosopher J. Budziszewski wrote that the commandments are “what we can’t not know.” So, rather than being rules imposed from the outside, they are truths recalled from within.

Looking up at the sun drying his long salt and pepper hair, I remember it seemed like this was how the Reverend preferred to share; from a pebble beach, not a pulpit. “You know, it’s not just the commandments that were mistranslated,” he said, warming into mystic mode. “Any translation of ‘sin’ that makes us think it is something other than falling away from who we are, and ‘missing the mark’ of what we are aiming at, is not the message.” He was watching the current, as if gathering thoughts from its surface. “We are invited to remember and welcome into ourselves the sense that love is at the core of all-that-is, and that we are already immersed in it.” 

“Like being in the river,” I thought, “if it was warmer.” Stephen’s voice dropped, as if sharing what the water already knew. “When we remember that reality, it shifts our relationships and behaviours towards everyone and everything. Afterall, real love isn’t lazy.” Moving up on his elbows, with a smile on his face and liveliness in his voice: “So what was translated as commandments can even be seen as promises, because they tell us how we will naturally behave once feeling the love of the Beloved.” Fortunately, I had my phone on me and recorded some voice notes about our riverside chat. His views on the commandments stayed with me for months, until I found time to read into the matter.

Looking back to that lovely lazy summer’s day, I also remembered that while Stephen was re-baptising himself in the water, I had noticed a crooked tree. From its base it had grown at a 45 degree angle, pushed sideways by a large rock, before twisting upwards to the sky. It must have been so close to the rock, when a sapling, that it had been obstructed. At the time I enjoyed looking at its unusual shape and gnarly strength. Looking back now, I also see that the tree was not in its uninjured form. It was coping with damage from the rock. I wonder if that’s like me, perhaps like you. Might we all be living in a cultural forest stunted and twisted by proverbial rocks of hurt, harm, and numbing? In that sense, the Ten Commentaries or Promises, can be heard like a tree surgeon calling into the forest, “hey guys, this is what normal and healthy looks like.” 

I told Stephen it had taken a Christian youth camp when I was 15 years old for me to focus on, and be transformed by, the nature and centrality of Universal Love that was taught by Jesus. It wasn’t just my schooling that was lacking – I couldn’t find a group that focused on the true message of Jesus, and so I didn’t remain in Christian community. Instead, over the years, I explored the insights and methods of Buddhist, Taoist, Animist, Hindu and Sufi traditions. That meant what Stephen told me resonated with what I’d learned elsewhere. For instance, in Buddhism, the Brahma Viharas — loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — are not presented as pious aspirations you try to force yourself to feel. Instead, they are regarded as the natural radiance of an uncorrupted heart and mind. When you remove the fetters of fear, tribal conditioning, and emotional injury, these four qualities, or virtues, arise within us on their own. Other religions, such as Taoism and Jainism, teach similar qualities are both aspirational and natural — a fact that is unattractively ignored by those scholars who wish to claim that Christianity civilised the world. 

It is only decades after my childhood experiences, that I am rediscovering a mystical, gentle, just and joyous message within Christianity. My learnings and experiences from other spiritual traditions have helped me to see Christian texts with new eyes. It is why I am now able to hear what Reverend Wright shares as a contemplative Christian. Interestingly, then, that the other spiritual traditions are not temptations or ‘stony ground’ for the faithful to avoid. Rather, they can be a way to learn those deeper truths that have been suppressed by institutional religion, yet still smoulder underneath it, ready for our return. Considering some messages from the non-canonical Gospels can be a part of that journey, and why I believe existing Christian denominations should become more curious about them (such as that of Thomas and Mary Magdalene). 

I’ve been keeping the deeper insights of wisdom traditions in mind as I design the peer mentoring within the Metacrisis Initiative. So that we know what we are encouraging in each other, it seems useful to identify some qualities or approaches to help us thrive in situations of disruption, confusion, and collapse. The challenge is that any personal quality, value, virtue, or trait, is somewhat intangible and contingent, so labelling them can give a false sense of certainty, and an unwise attachment to them as positive, whatever the context. Ultimately, there is no getting away from how our state of consciousness, with open hearts and minds, is key to how we show up positively for each other. It is why we will be centering the cultivation of what Stephen calls ‘heartfulness’ in the mentoring. 

Although I am pleased to be developing that Initiative, I am aware that religions will remain far more impactful than any self-help networks in this tough age of the consequences from extractive and destructive systems of human organisation. It is important, therefore, to see the power in questioning our religious education. Reading the ‘ten commandments’ as commentaries or promises can turn the rather boring and distant Christianity that many of us learned at school completely ‘inside out’. The religion stops being a straight jacket you can choose to wear or, worse, demand others to wear. Instead, it becomes an invitation to return home to who you naturally are. Ideally, it also provides some tools and community to help. It’s why Stephen has built communities of learning and peer support, in the form of the Sacred Space Foundation, and St. Kentigern School. 

With authentic religious invitations to return to our kind heartedness, we can look first at our own impediments. Where am I tight with fear? Where has culture taught me to acquire, defend and harden my heart? How can I help myself return to my true nature? Silence? Forgiveness? Dance? Collective song? A walk together with friends, or alone in nature? Helping someone in need? Perhaps making time to remember the love at and from the centre of everything? 

And then we can look wider. What in our society keeps pressing rocks against so many saplings? Its speed, its status games, its lonely competitiveness, and its erosion of common wealth, all impair our ability to grow well with presence and care. A culture that wounds hearts will always produce people who seem to need commandments to behave. That means we can identify our own ways to resist, exclude, or transform those economic and political systems which steal us all away from our true natures. 

Like you, I have also heard the argument that some people need rules and threats of punishment in order to avoid anti-social behaviour. That argument does not only appear in cultures with concepts of ‘original sin’ but also within those that explain how some of us are dominated by experiences of consciousness related to ‘lower chakras’. Certainly many of us are deeply wounded by our experiences and culture, and not feeling the open-hearted open-minded way of living that is our natural way. But even with this in mind, do rules and threats, derived directly from religion or through integration into law, provide a good basis for pro-social behaviour? I am not so sure. And I think there is a huge cost. Because one thing we see is a profusion of dogma-reciters with the power to finance, coerce and kill. Some of them take a line of scripture to justify or celebrate the murder of people they disagree with. Although they proclaim unquestioning allegiance to scripture, their belief that it included the commandment not to kill didn’t stop authorising the recent missile massacre of school girls or torpedoing unarmed sailors returning from an international ceremony. Instead, if we recognise “non-killing” as a commentary on how normal and whole human beings behave, then we immediately see how only a deeply damaged person would be delighting in their war crimes and citing scripture to help.

I have just cited an extreme example. But many institutional religions continue to include brazen declarations, with loud certainties, and an enthusiasm for naming who is out and who is in. Conversely, real courage requires us to become still enough to feel our own emotional and psychological injuries. Real bravery involves us living more in the uncertain space of inviting a direct relationship with the divine, so that loving action, right action, can emerge naturally within us. Universal love transcends our interpretations of scripture, our articulation of concepts, or our following of rules. So although we have grown up hearing about ‘ten commandments’, I now hear ten commentaries about you and I before we were hurt. We don’t need to wear a straight jacket of religious edicts. We only need to remember what standing rooted, tall, and expansive, already feels like. And part of that is to recognise that we are part of the wider flow of consciousness within and beyond nature, rather than merely a separate struggling entity. 

With that idea settling in me as we rose to leave the river bank, my heart began to pound. It’s the feeling I get all too often, about the juggernaut of damage that continues around us. I turned to Stephen. “It’s crazy that nothing has really changed.” I said. “Right now, in the name of religion, so much nonsense is being taught, to both kids and adults. Why aren’t we demanding that officials within institutional religion admit the potential damage of misguided interpretations of ancient texts?” My old story of needing an impact began to bubble up. “Stephen, I noticed you stayed away from the strong current. Is it time to swim out of the eddy?” He smiled, raised his eyebrows, and scoffed “You didn’t even get into the eddy. Too much time in the tropics has made you a bit soft, lad.” 

Returning past the Church-without-congregation, this time I gave more attention to its graveyard. In some cases it was not just grass but bushes that obscured the text on the grave stones. I pulled some branches back, to see names and years of passing. Mostly, they were people from the 1800s. I imagined someone standing where I was, in the past, cutting the grass, laying flowers, feeling sad, yet probably also grateful. Those mourners have also passed away. But now this headstone was being naturally adorned by cream-white blossoms, a kind of foam atop the grassy swells. Protruding above the meadowsweet flowers were some purple foxgloves. Could I see this as nature’s bouquet? When there is no one left to remember us, nature will lay flowers on our grave. It was then that a deeper calm settled my angst at the distortions of religion, and by religion. Despite our recurring folly, on some level, all will be well. 

If there is a next time, maybe I’ll jump in that river.

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Reverend Stephen Wright will be joining us in the August metacrisis salon, to discuss the various issues arising from the spiritual and religious dimensions of collapse awareness. Registration info follows below the picture, for members who are logged in. 

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AI declaration: I used Deepseek to help me with research into where in the Bible it said about the commandments being in our hearts, as well as what the original Hebrew text said, and whether scholars had previously made the arguments I was developing for this essay. The writing is mine, so my apologies for it not being as polished as AI. Deepseek uses multiples less energy than other AIs.