That’s Life — Steve Bornfeld: Take 2 Tablets and call in the morning

Friday, April 14, 2000 | 9:23 a.m.

Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His column appears Fridays. Reach him at steveb@lasvegassun.com or 259-4081.

Thou Shalt Honor The Ten Commandments And Keep Them Holy.

Thou Shalt Also Market Them As Dating Tips, Marital Advice, Investment Options, Business Strategies And Legal Lessons.

(Order today and get Spiritual Enlightenment, absolutely free!)

God is hotter than King (Stephen, that is): Nearly 150 books are parting the publishing sea these days, re-examining the divine laws that the voice of Cecil B. DeMille bequeathed to Chuck Heston, and reapplying them to modern life.

Among them: Lawyers can argue Alan Dershowitz's "Ten Stories of Biblical Injustices That Led to The Ten Commandments"; shrinks can analyze psychologist Leonard Felder's "Spiritual Lessons From The Ten Commandments for Creating Richness Every Day of Your Life"; and singles can snuggle up with "Dating Secrets of The Ten Commandments."

There's even a planned cable series ("The Decalogue") of 10 episodes -- one per Commandment.

Minus the Religious Right, America -- bastion of freedom, free speech and democracy -- never truly embraced the moral absolutism of God's laws. With our brewing cauldron of conflicting voices, moral relativism has been more our speed: Do your own thing but don't force anyone else to do your thing.

So, what giveth?

Easy (and inviting) target though it is, there's no whiff here of a Pat Robertson-led Crusade For Behavioral Rigidity to purge us of sin and whitewash our souls. (Thanks for the offer, Pat, but I'll supervise my own soul.) This is about moderation, not Moses, and born of modern anxiety, not biblical revivalism.

Caught in a violent cultural storm that's systematically ripping society's signposts from their moorings, we're re-discovering that The Big Ten are like the well-bolted street lamp we can still hold onto to keep from being blown away; the street lamp that always seemed to be there even as the neighborhood changed around it.

Consider: A president becomes a punch line; the Internet intensifies -- and so does electronic violation of our privacy; the media keep blurring the boundaries of pop culture coarseness; media-savvy kids seemingly shed innocence along with their umbilical cords, going from diapers to diaphragms; then a couple of kids commit a Columbine and a slack-jawed country reels and re-examines the culture it created.

Now the millennium arrives, and with it the sense that a shift in the time line might signal a shift in conduct.

Enter The Ten Commandments -- sugarcoated, of course. Excepting the sugar-coating-free Dr. Laura, we couch them in American-style self-fulfillment scenarios: Use them to make smarter business moves, get more out of relationships, outwit the nitwit who sued you -- all somehow sanctioned by The Almighty.

We're queasy about framing them in unabashed moral terms -- too rigid for the tolerant American spirit -- so we cast them in practical terms. Perhaps at this stage of American life, re-evaluating morality -- however camouflaged -- is simply a practical method of treating our spiritual heartburn.

Just drop two Tablets into the American psyche and sigh: Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh What A Relief Thou Is.