New Book, Shattered Tablets, Offers Stinging Critique of Our Secularized Popular Culture

SEATTLE – Is morality based on some essential truth or is it defined by society? In this highly original critique of American social mores and popular culture, Shattered Tablets (Doubleday), author David Klinghoffer argues that the Ten Commandments are essential to maintaining a morally healthy society.

“My main point is that the steady evaporation of religious culture will have very damaging consequences for the way people interact with each other,” says Klinghoffer, a senior fellow in Discovery Institute’s Religion, Liberty and Public Life program.

With a scholar’s meticulousness, he excavates the meaning of the Commandments. Drawing on the millennia-old rabbinical work Mechilta, he explains that the Decalogue was written on two tablets to show that when a country neglects the Commandments written on the first tablet—those having to do with the relationship between God and people—the interpersonal relationships described on the second tablet suffer irreparable damage as well. By shrugging off the Bible as a guide and turning toward secularism, America has created a crude, cruel, and dishonest national life.

Discovery Institute is hosting a book release party for Shattered Tablets on Thursday, August 30th from 4:30pm to 6pm in its Seattle headquarters. The event is free and open to the public and will include a reception followed by a presentation and audience discussion with the author. Register by sending e-mail to Janet Markwardt at janetm@discovery.org, or calling (206) 292-0401 x111.

Shattered Tablets is published by Doubleday and will be in bookstores August 21st. A former literary editor of National Review magazine, Klinghoffer has written articles and reviews for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. He lives on Mercer Island, Washington, with his wife and three children.