My notes on AKMA’s talk, via listenng to Charlie’s MP3 and reading along and cutting and pasting quotes from this (AKMA’s transcript)

AKMA’s Random Thoughts

The Commandments are addressed to a people, a particular community. And this people hold together as a people in relation to the words we’re reading.

In relation to the words; in relation to the story; in relation to the narative.

we may not participate in any of the plausible, popular, culturally-acceptable practices that infringe on our unique commitment to God. That rules out the obvious – making and adorning statues that depict other deities (golden calves, for instance). It further rules out such representations of the Lord God as might confuse us into worshipping the created instead of the creator, or such as satiates our imaginations with definitive details on topics where God has not seen fit to supply knowledge.

(AKMA here mentions that the book series “Left Behind” comes to mind as he says this)

I particularly appreciate this one:

Finally, the third commandment forbids us to invoke God for ungodly purposes. The commandment may be directed specifically against lying in general, or for swearing by God’s name in a false cause. The sense of this commandment, though, permits a broader interpretation – and its proximity to the commandment against bearing false witness in 20:16 suggests that this verse concerns something different, something more pertinent to the preceding verses. In context, that difference seems to entail claiming God’s authority for purposes that are not God’s. We are not free to profane God’s name by ascribing to God’s will, God’s wisdom, that which we intend for our own aims.

emphasis mine

It reminds me o a little of what I learned from Clarence Jordan, about “taking the name in vain”. Jordan talked about how it’s not saying “GD” , but CLAIMING to be a person of God, and then living as if it meant nothing. He said “I can say Buddha-damn all day long and NEVER take the name of Buddha in vain because I’ve never TAKEN the name; I have not identified myself as a Buddhist. Jordan concludes that: “You don’t take the name of God in vain with your lips, you take it in vain with your life”. This is related to the sense in which AKMA here expounds it in that it associates God with “our ethos” , which , in fact, is NOT God’s ethos; not “of the Kingdom”.

A few additional points below:

On excusing ourselves by confusing our will and our interests with God’s (a convenenience with which we assign divine ordination to “our cause”):

We may not dress up our intents and purposes by wrapping them in God’s radiance. The God of the Decalogue is uniquely authoritative, cannot be fashioned after our own image

On “pledging” “allegiance”:

Now, we concede without hesitation that the policies of the Roman Empire entailed a pervasive paganism inimical to Judaism and Christianity. Nonetheless, Pontius Pilate was not asking the Jerusalemites to pledge allegiance to the standards; yet the people resisted the very existence of the iconic representation of imperial power within the holy city. In the twenty-first century, on the other hand, a unanimous vote of the U.S. Senate affirmed the premise that U.S. Christians ought to pledge their allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for which it stands.

On making the country “sacred” (“My country tis of thee”)

“The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” I want to call your attention to the one word “desecration,” for that word distinguishes the amendment from merely debatable prohibitions of unwelcome political expression. This amendment, however, presupposes that the flag of the United States is in some sense sacred; and that claim of sanctity stands diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Decalogue, as the citizens of Jerusalem knew, as Christian conscripts into the Roman army knew.

I’m only about half way through. A new post coming later. Go AKMA! I am “resonating”.