British pastor rewrites 10 Commandments

Many churches in Britain say they are adopting a version of the Ten Commandments modified to use up-to-date language and principles. The new principles estimated to be in use at 600 British churches, were inspired by last year's rioting, violence and arson brought on by the shooting death of a Tottenham man at the hands of police. God's words as biblically reported to have been brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses have been changed by evangelical preacher J. John to sound bite-size phrases: "manage your anger," "catch your breath" and "know God," England's The Daily Telegraph reported Monday. John has changed "Thou shalt not steal" into "prosper with a clear conscience" and "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" into "take God seriously." "Thou shalt not commit adultery" has been colloquialized to "affair-proof your relationships" and "honor thy father and thy mother" has morphed to "keep the peace with your parents." The 10th commandment has altered the biblical "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's" to the more Buddhist-like "find contentment." J. John says his commandments, available in a DVD set called, "just10 for churches," allow "everyone to understand God's timeless principles on how we should live" and said he was inspired to write them by last summer's riots. "Along with a lot of people I think about the way that we live nowadays and what leads people to do the sort of things that happened in the riots -- whether or not we have forgotten something about a good way of living," John said.