IT’S 2022 and something seems to have gone wrong in the world. There are many things that don’t ‘sit right’ – contradictions, even an atmosphere of menace. The State has never been so prescriptive about our decision-making and personal lives. Do we just accept the guidance and rules without question, merely because it is official? What, as citizens, should we be doing?
In a novel and confusing situation, we need to look to our eternal values. It should go without saying that we should never accept what the Government says just because it is the Government. Since when did we outsource all moral and ethical assessments to the State? Today most churches are teaching their congregations to do just that. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses who were so brave in Nazi Germany claim the Bible tells us to obey the Government. This is implicit in the churches’ slavish adherence to rules and guidance as well as explicit exhortations. (‘That’s just the way that it is,’ explained one vicar when justifying the wearing of masks in church.) Yet the life of Jesus himself, who challenged tyranny with goodness, called out hypocrisy and instructed ‘Do not be conformed to the ways of the world, but test and prove what pleases the Lord’, directly counters this bizarre interpretation of Christianity.
Even a cursory glance at history tells us that governments sometimes go badly wrong. The duty of each citizen is not complacently to assume that everything is fine so long as we vote every five years, but continuously to hold the government to account, to check facts, check reasoning, and assess the moral values. The Bible also teaches us to grow up, be mature and not naive, to be wary, use discernment and be on the lookout for deceit. Adults should take responsibility. None of this should be controversial, yet in an inversion of all we have ever known to be right, questioning and probing are starting to be seen as moral wrongs.
The Ten Commandments date back several thousand years, and have underpinned the evolution of our civilisation, creating the framework for a decent, functional economy and society that is fit to live in.
The first five Commandments deal with our priorities, and the respect we should hold for moral values, in particular the distinction between right and wrong. In a bottom-up, grassroots democracy, God should come before the (or any) Government. Our children and our parents should come before the NHS. If we do the right thing for our own loved ones, friends and family, automatically we will also be doing the right thing by society as well. There will be fewer suicides, fewer deaths by neglect and loneliness, more happiness and less misery.
The remaining Commandments deal with the specifics of daily life: they are all immediately relevant to our situation today.
Six: ‘You shall not murder’
Does the denial of ordinary vitamins and medication protocols in the treatment of Covid, or the use of sedatives and experimental injections, constitute ‘murder’?
Seven: ‘You shall not commit adultery’ (taking a wider view of the concept of adultery as betrayal)
The Government, agencies and civil servants should be acting for the benefit of and accountable to the British people. Have they remained loyal or have they, out of sight, transferred allegiance to big business, global organisations and other parties and powers?
Eight: ‘You shall not steal’
There’s a strong case to be made that the Covid measures have stolen our children’s health, happiness and future. Covid, while impoverishing many, has enriched the upper economic bands and greatly enriched a few individuals – including some who are setting the policies. The energy scandal, masquerading as environmentalism and climate change, further transfers huge sums from the grassroots to those already wealthy. The concept that Britain, of all places, has become corrupt, seems to be an especially difficult one for people to accept, but needs to be faced up to.
Nine: ‘You shall not bear false witness’
The information given out by Government and the mass media on the significance of Covid-19 and the effectiveness of the measures against it seems to be a tissue of fabrication with a little truth woven in. The more one probes, the worse it looks. Probing, and speaking the truth to one another, becomes a clear moral duty.
Ten: ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.’
The Government seems to covet all we have, and want to take everything from us, including home ownership, cash, freedom of choice, truth, understanding, our culture, and our very humanity. The whole globalist agenda, even transhumanism (a term few of us had even heard of until a few months ago), features on government websites as formal policy proposals.
‘Government’ is not separate from the people, but is composed of humans who should all be acting under the same laws, both formal and moral. The Ten Commandments, that well-tested understanding of where right and wrong lie, should apply to all parts of our society, to all people regardless of worldly status and to all our institutions.
According to the Psalmist, the law of the Lord is perfect, making wise the simple. We don’t need to be statisticians to understand that leaving people to die alone is wrong. Or that covering the faces of children is wrong. Or that injecting children with life-changing ingredients against a disease that does not affect them is wrong. Top-down control via vaccine passports is clearly wrong too, and opens the way to many further outrages against decency.
Today campaigners enjoin others to ‘wake up’. Perhaps what is needed still more is to recover our ancient standards and values, and to restore the Ten Commandments to their proper place in society.
