How Liberalism Violates All 10 Commandments

One of my readers, we’ll call him Moses, is the publisher of a mainstream newspaper in California. He wrote me the other day with an insightful observation.

Since Moses works in one of the most liberal industries in one of the most liberal states in the union, I won’t divulge his real name. We don’t want Moses tarred, feathered and banished to Oklahoma with a scarlet C, for Christian, emblazoned on his Harris Tweed sport coat. (Note: I have antipathy toward neither Oklahoma—I once lived there—nor Harris Tweed, though I do recommend against wearing Harris Tweed in Oklahoma. Especially in the summer.)

“Matt, think about this,” wrote Moses. “Every one of the Ten Commandments is explicitly violated by a principle of the left.”

So I thought about it.

And you know what? Slap me with a Red River catfish if Moses ain’t exactly right.

To be sure, as individuals, we’ve all violated many, if not most or all, of the Ten Commandments. In our fallen, sinful state we have an inherent propensity to rebel against God’s perfect and holy will for our lives. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Thank God for making available a path, narrow as it is, for eternal redemption and salvation through Christ Jesus.

Still, there is a difference between individual sins and a philosophical worldview that embraces those sins as a matter of course. Modern liberalism—progressivism, leftism, secularism, pick your poison—is built upon, by and for sin itself. Liberalism’s entire fabric is constructed by precept planks that are soaked through and stained by man’s arrogant rebellion against our Creator God.

In sum, liberalism is folly. It represents man’s futile attempt to disorder God’s natural order. It’s the unholy brainchild of God’s very first enemy, given by that enemy to God’s favored creation—us—with the sole purpose of destroying that creation.

Unfortunately, we’re all too happy to help. Liberalism just formalizes the process, making sin public policy.

Volumes could be penned on the myriad ways in which the central tenets of liberalism violate each of the Ten Commandments. The following is a much truncated analysis:

The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-17)

1. Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me.

At worst, liberalism denies the very existence of God in the forms of atheism and secularism, while, at best, it adopts that wonderfully “inclusive” blasphemy called religious pluralism. Pluralism presumes to give the false gods of false religions equal footing and denies Christ as He defined Himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Liberal Christianity falls under this category. It’s pluralism with a Christian stamp.

Secular humanism, liberalism’s prevailing false religion, denies God altogether and crowns man as king over himself and the measure of all things. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

2. Thou Shalt Not Make Graven Images.

We’re talking idolatry here. Liberalism is built on it. First, there’s literal idolatry (the worship of man-made idols, animals or inanimate objects) enjoyed by our New Age friends. And then there’s everything else: pantheistic environmentalism, the idols of “reproductive freedom,” sexual liberation and equality, etc.

Essentially, liberalism worships the created over the Creator. Liberalism also worships the sins of the flesh (see Commandments Nos. 1, 6 and 7).