ed by one of my readers: THEOS (the Greek word for God):rnTranscendence/immanence: the sovereignty of GodrnHierarchy/representation: the structure of authorityrnEthics/boundaries: the law of GodrnOath/sanctions: the judgments of God (positive andrnnegative)rnSuccession/inheritance: God’s continuity of rulernAgain, using terminology more familiar to the average Americanrnbusiness, we can summarize this covenant structure inrnterms of five questions—the five fundamental questions tornask of any organization: Who’s in charge here? To whom do Irnreport? What are the rules? What do I get if I obey (disobey)?rnDoes this outfit have a future?rnJust before I sent to the printer my study of the economiesrnof the Ten Commandments, The Sinai Strategy (1986), Suttonrnpresented to me a preliminary version of his thesis. I saw immediatelyrnthat the Ten Commandments (as enumerated byrnmost Protestants and Orthodox Christians) arc structured inrnterms of this five-point model: one through five and sixrnthrough ten. Consider this commandment: the prohibitionrnagainst misusing God’s name. Next, consider the commandmentrnagainst stealing. If my application of Sutton’s thesis isrncorrect, the two commandments should be related, since eachrnis third on the list, and I do believe they are linked: the formerrncommandment places a judicial boundary around God’srnname, while the latter places a judicial boundary around men’srnproperty.rnIn my book, I discussed the commandment against misusingrnGod’s name in terms of oaths, a topic that more properlyrnbelongs to point four of this biblical covenant model. Thernuse of God’s name in cursing someone is a misuse of Hisrnname, except when a church pronounces a lawful excommunicationrnagainst a member or when a pastor or church officerrnpronounces a curse against a lawless persecutor of the localrnchurch or of the church in general. The common expletivern”God damn” is in fact a formal invocation of God’s eternalrnnegative sanction: a specific calling down of God’s wrath onrnsomeone. It is never a valid curse, for God’s curses arc in historyrnuttered by His representatives only conditionally: “Godrnwill damn you if you do not repent before you die.” No manrnhas the authority to call God’s eternal wrath down upon an enemy.rn(Calling down God’s temporal wrath can be valid ifrndone by ordained representatives.)rnWe must not profane God’s holy name. Profanity is alwaysrna boundary violation: the transgression of a holy (setapart)rnthing or space. We are not allowed to invoke God’srnname in order to validate our testimony, except in the uniquernsituation of a court of law, whether civil or ecclesiastical. Takingrna formal oath by invoking God’s name is valid, just asrnswearing on a Bible is valid, but only in a God-authorizedrncourt of law: an institution authorized by God to pronouncernrepresentatively His temporal judgments and to enforce Hisrntemporal sanctions.rnYet the oath-based aspect of this commandment is not itsrnprimary focus. It is to maintain the integrity both of God’srnname and of man’s language: prohibiting God’s name as an expletive.rnJudicially speaking, using God’s name as an expletivernis a profane act, a violation of something holy. Any social orderrnthat tolerates this misuse of God’s name will then move onrnto the toleration of other obscenities. The predictable result isrnthe debasement of language, the substitution of obscenity forrnrhetoric. crnGary North is the president of the American Bureau ofrnEconomic Research in Tyler, Texas.rnIII. KEEPING THE SABBATHrnby Frank W. BrownlowrnThe flower is the end or proper object of the seed, notrnthe seed of the flower. The reason for seeds is thatrnflowers may be, not the reason of flowers that seeds may be.”rnSo Ruskin thought, and the idea seems obvious enough. Yet itrncan be a liberating revelation if one has fallen into the habit ofrnassuming its opposite, that, for instance, a chicken is an egg’srnway of making another egg or that a student is the college’s wayrnof adding to the endowment.rnRuskin believed passionately that in the case of plants whatrnhe called spirit strove to realize itself in the flower. Similariy inrnthe case of people, he thought that they worked to live; theyrndid not live to work. It would follow, according to Ruskin,rnthat times of rest and celebration are a principle in nature’s cycles,rnwhich we represent figuratively with our Sabbaths, ourrnSundays, and our festivals. And that in fact is orthodox Christianrnthinking on the subject. As Bishop Lancelot Andrewesrntaught his students in Elizabethan Cambridge, “The Decaloguernis the law of nature revived, and the law of nature is thernimage of God.” Ruskin’s route to the principle of rest andrncelebration would have struck Andrewes as curious and circuitousrnbut not necessarily heterodox.rnSunday became the day of rest because it was the Lord’srnDay, the weekly feast of the Resurrection. On that day Christiansrncelebrated mankind’s salvation, the time when the Scripturesrnwere fulfilled and things were made new. It was a day ofrnnew beginnings, a kind of human springtime and blossoming,rnin short, a cheerful, happy sort of day, marked, in I looker’srnwords, by “worship, bounty, and rest.” By that standard Sundayrnwas a real holiday, beginning with processions and solemnityrnand ending with dances and play. A popular verse ofrnPsalm 118 sums up the day’s character: “This is the day whichrnthe Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it.”rnApparently at their best the old Sundays were really likernthat. Unfortunately, though, Sunday play sometimes becamernSunday riot, and the Protestant reformers, intensely respectablernpeople with a great reverence for religion and a keen distasternfor the rowdy amusements of “the meaner sort of people,”rndecided that Sunday needed tidying up. And no doubt itrndid. But the reform went too far and turned the day of gladnessrninto a day of penitential misery for everyone. Sundayrnobservance began with a welcome ban on work; yet in manyrnparts of the English-speaking world it included until only arngeneration or so ago a ban on play as well.rnEven the reformed Church of England began its Sundayrnmorning service with such harrowingly penitential sentences asrn”I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever beforernme”—and the Church of England was a fairly benign institution.rnWherever the real Puritans (“the hotter sort of Protestant,”rnas one writer described them) dominated, hard-corern16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn