An insightful and fresh perspective of the Ten Commandments reveals how this ancient text is the underpinning for social justice, equality, and the foundation of society.

Each commandment is expanded beyond interpersonal morality to encompass the global economy and our hyper-connected age. Stealing, for example, is recast as the difference between the fair trade price of a commodity and what we pay. Keeping the Sabbath is recast as resistance to consumer culture, having enough.

The Ten Commandments are a resource for everyone, from the spiritual-but-not-religious to the deeply observant, who wants to resist injustice, heal our earth, and find personal dignity amid the free-for-alls of modern life.

We don't have to invent a bunch of new practices to meaningfully integrate our spirituality and politics. There is already a perfectly good set of ten of them, with as much progressive firepower as any of us can handle, that has existed for some 3000 years.

Introduction: The Ten Commandments Are Practices of Liberation

The First Commandment: You Shall Have No Other Gods Besides Me
Dethrone the Modern Deities of Political, Social, and Corporate Power

The Second Commandment: Do Not Make for Yourself a Sculpted Image; Do Not Bow to Them, Do Not Serve Them
Accept No Substitutes for God's Power of Liberation

The Third Commandment: Do Not Take the Name of God in Vain
Defend the Goodness of God; Take Responsibility for Resistance and Change

The Fourth Commandment: Observe the Sabbath Day and Keep it Holy
Squander One Day Every Week

The Fifth Commandment: Honor Your Father and Your Mother
Stay Accountable to Where You Came From

The Sixth Commandment: Do Not Kill
Renounce Human and Ecological Violence

The Seventh Commandment: Do Not Commit Adultery
Stay In for the Long Run, Reject Throw-Away Culture

The Eighth Commandment: Do Not Steal
Pay What Stuff Really Costs in Fair Wages and the Planet's Resources

The Ninth Commandment: Do Not Testify Against Your Neighbor As a Lying Witness
Speak and Demand Truth in Every Sphere - Home, Corporations, Government

The Tenth Commandment: Do Not Covet
Practice Your Liberation--You Have Enough, You Are Enough

About the Author

ANA LEVY-LYONS is senior minister of First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn, a quickly-growing urban Unitarian Universalist congregation. She earned a BA from Brown University and an M.Div. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Like most Gen Xers, her career has followed a winding path, from founding a web startup to a foray as a singer-songwriter. (She won the SIBL International Songwriting Competition and received a glowing review in Billboard magazine).

Her sermons have received numerous awards and she also blogs in Huffington Post and Tikkun online.

Ideally positioned to write this book, Levy-Lyons has a foot in the world of secular humanism (with its critique of religion) and a foot in the world of religion (with its critique of spiritually impoverished modernity). Years of study and practice in the Jewish Renewal movement, as well as graduate study and Biblical Hebrew proficiency, equip her to offer a fresh and engaging perspective on the Ten Commandments to both worlds.

Book Information
ISBN 9781478977216
Author Ana Levy-Lyons
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Center Street
Publisher Little, Brown & Company
Weight(grams) 412g
Dimensions(mm) 218mm * 152mm * 27mm