by Martin Davie
The meaning of the ninth commandment
The ninth of the Ten Commandments states ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour’ (Exodus 20: 16). There are two key ways in which this commandment can be broken. The first is when we ourselves tell lies about someone else, what the Prayer Book Catechism describes as ‘evil-speaking, lying and slandering.’ The second is when we know that someone else is being lied about by a third party and we fail to stand up for the truth. Thus, it is a breach of the commandment to accuse someone of theft when we know that they did not steal. Equally it is a breach of the commandment if we know someone is innocent of theft and fail to speak up when someone else accuses them of stealing. To put it at its simplest, the moral obligation that we have under the ninth commandment is not only not to tell lies, but to speak up for the truth when lies are being told.
I was prompted to think about this two-fold moral obligation by the pictures I saw on the news on Sunday of protestors in Parliament square holding up placards saying ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.’ What struck me as interesting was that they did not specify what they meant by opposing genocide. The reason they did no need to do so is because in recent months the accusation that the actions of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza constitute genocide have become ubiquitous. This accusation has been made again and again, not only by pro-Palestinian activists, but by the United Nations, by national governments, and numerous NGOs, and has been echoed time and again in the media.
What I want to suggest that there has been a collective breach of the ninth commandment by the Church of England because the accusation of genocide against Israel is unjustified and the Church of England has failed to say to.