Paul Rosenberg: Louisiana tried to pass a 10 Commandments law years ago, but couldn't agree on the version. Now activists have settled on a makeshift version Cecil B. DeMille used to promote his 1956 film: 12/22

“I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS,” the lying, thieving, covetous adulterer Donald Trump trumpeted in all caps on his Twitter knock-off site. He loved it as branding & the Louisiana's version was a Cecil B. DeMille Hollywood production. 1/22 www.salon.com/2024/07/07/t...

Ten Commandments gone wild! The Christian right's latest toxic distractionwww.salon.com A tale of the evangelical right, the least religious president ever and Cecil B. DeMille's phony list from God

In this story you'll learn: 1) The law's text was promoted by Hollywood 2) It edits out blatantly un-American text 3) Gov Landrie's justification contained 3 lies 4) the bible's account of the 10 Commandments is self-contradictory... and MUCH more. Let's begin! 2/22

The law itself follows from the Project Blitz playbook (first described here in 2018: www.salon.com/2018/04/29/o...), one architect of which, pseudo-historian David Barton, claimed credit for helping to pass it: 3/22

Actual history tells a very different story, as @AndrewLSeidel explained in “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American”: bookshop.org/a/2464/97814... (Salon author interview: www.salon.com/2019/05/18/d...) 4/22

The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American (New in Paper) a book by Andrew L Seidel, Dan Barker, and Susan Jacobybookshop.org Was America founded on Judeo-Christian principles? Are the Ten Commandments the basis for American law? In the paperback edition of this critically acclaimed book, a constitutional attorney settles th...

An example @AndrewLSeidel cites: “America's justice system demands proof of guilt to avoid punishing innocence, the Judaeo-Christian god intentionally harms innocents to punish the guilty.” 5/22

And God punishing the innocent comes right out of the 10 Commandments--a part that's been EXCISED in the Hollywood/Louisiana version because it's so at odds with American values: 6/22

If this were an intellectual debate, that'd be the end of it. But it’s politics, full of absurdities, with Trump as both a symptom and a super-spreader of the underlying moral abyss: 7/22

But Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry's garden-variety lies--though headspinning in toto--are easier to unpack: 8/22

The bible has three versions of the 10 Commandments--two that are similar & one that's NOT. It concludes with “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” No mention of Trump's major sins: 9/22

But the bible actually insists that this version is the SAME as the more familiar one! 10/22

For guidance, I turned to biblical scholar André Gagné, the author of “American Evangelicals for Trump” (Salon story here: www.salon.com/2024/01/02/m...). The commentaries he directed me to only validated my concerns: there aren't better answers, just better coping w/o them: 11/22

Louisiana tried to pass a 10 Commandments law years ago, but couldn't agree on the version. Now activists have settled on a makeshift version Cecil B. DeMille used to promote his 1956 film: 12/22

This version offends all traditions in different ways. Members of multiple faiths & no faith sued. A Jewish parent was particularly worth noting: 13/22

Historian @kevinmkruse.bsky.social recently posted an excerpt from his book “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America” laying out the DeMille's "Ten Commandments" story: 14/22 kevinmkruse.substack.com/p/thou-shalt...

Thou Shalt Notkevinmkruse.substack.com When I saw today’s news that Louisiana has become the first state to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms, I thought it sounded a lot like the 1950s campaign to ...

3 points I'd highlight: 1) It's part of a plutocratic reshaping of public Christianity. 2) DeMille claimed his film was historically accurate, but the bible is silent about most of Moses's life. So he cherry-picked non-biblical tales. 3).... 15/22

#3) is the rightwing gloss DeMille puts on the whole story, erasing the fact that Egypt had been a land of laws for thousands of years before Moses. The problem isn't lack of law, but abuse of power: 16/22

While Christian nationalism is a powerful ideology for believers, it's a powerful STRATEGY for politicians, Sam Perry, co-author of “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” explained. First they signal to their base: 17/22

Second, it functions as distraction. Distraction from wealthy elites harming the working class base, directed at a scripted list of bogeymen: 18/22

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