Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Ethics

  • Christian Politicians aren’t Perfect, Just Forgive Them

    Update: Please read through to the comments. Both Jeremy Pierce and Joe Carter believe I have misread them, though Joe graciously took responsibility for lack of clarity. If I am now reading him correctly, I agree with his points as made in that comment.

    One day back when I was a junior NCO in the Air Force, a junior officer (2nd Lieutenant) came by my work area to correct me on an issue. There were perhaps a dozen people gathered around, all aircrew members. He wanted to know why I had said in a meeting that I would reflect even one instance of tardiness for a flight in a supervisee’s performance report. At the time we used a nine point system, and I said I would reduce the appropriate score by at least one for that instance.

    His point was that nobody was perfect, and I was expecting young airmen to be perfect. Since he came to me in front of a number of people I simply pointed to them and said, “None of these people have been late for a flight during the last year. There are some of them who have never been late for a flight in their career–longer than mine. I have never been late for a flight. A nine indicates someone is as good as it gets in that area.”

    “Nobody’s perfect” is one of the best excuses for bad behavior known to humanity. “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” while true, is one of the best excuses for bad behavior known to Christians. It drives me crazy, because it is normally used in circumstances in which nobody is expecting anyone to be perfect, and in defense for activities that are substantially less than perfect.

    Niow the message seems to be “Christian politicians aren’t perfect, just forgive them.” Well, personally, I would suggest in many cases that they need to be forgiven back home, once they are out of the public sector.

    I had been laying off of the David Vitter story, largely because I think we get a bit too tangled in these things, but also because I think the proper people to deal with the issue are the voters of Louisiana. What he has done is now out there for people to evaluate, and they should do so. I felt the same way about Clinton, though I thought his lying about it under investigation was not only immoral an illegal, but dreadfully stupid. But I have expressed my annoyance with investigations that don’t manage to prosecute for any offense related to the one they were investigating, but get someone for obstruction or lying to investigators.

    But here we have someone who preaches a high standard in sexual morality, does so vocally and regularly, and has commented on the behavior of others. I saw one conservative Christian blogger who did a very good job on this, Laura at Pursuing Holiness. She clearly understands that one may not be perfect, but that there are standards.

    But two other Christian conservative bloggers I regularly read and generally respect, seem to be off in “Christians aren’t perfect” land. Jeremy, at Parableman is playing word games with hypocrisy, while Joe Carter at the evangelical outpost said:

    But this sets an unreasonable standard for politicians. The higher the person’s standards, the more likely they are to miss the mark. As Gary Bauer said when asked to comment on the Vitter scandal, “If a voter is looking for Jesus on the Republican ticket, they’re not going to find him. There was only one perfect man, and all others have fallen short. They should look at how a candidate dealt with his moral failures.”

    Listen folks, I’m not looking for Jesus on the Republican or Democratic ticket. Somehow I feel he’d want a third party assuming he didn’t just move to another country. What I do want is politicians with integrity. Larry Flynt making comments provides you with some nice rhetoric to hide behind, but come on! Larry Flynt isn’t a standard for us as Christians. He isn’t even a reasonable standard for ordinary whore mongers.

    Just as there were a dozen guys around me on that rating who hadn’t been late for a light, so there are, I’m certain, men in Louisiana–I won’t venture how many–who actually uphold their vows of matrimony. I bet there are even Christian guys who are not perfect and have committed adultery, who dealt with it immediately and openly.

    I’m not saying in Vitter’s case that he should resign or be prosecuted. I don’t know precisely where he stands legally. If I were a voter in Louisiana, I can’t absolutely say that this would prevent me voting for him, were I willing to vote for him on other grounds. But it would certainly drop him way down my list under the heading of integrity. I would hope that there would be a better alternative next time around. I’d have to say, “Sorry, you had your chance, but we need leaders with integrity who don’t have to get caught before they own up.”

    Instead of making excuses, and making lame remarks about not finding Jesus on the Republican ticket, we should, as Christians, decry someone not living up to their words.

    And as far as hypocrisy is concerned vs. inconsistency, I would suggest that “white washed tomb” covers it all quite well. It looks good on the outside, but on the inside–not so much.

    Now Sen. Vitter does have one thing in his favor: He confessed when he was actually caught. The problem is, however, the very same thing is his major problem. He confessed after he got caught. At least he isn’t so abysmally stupid that he would think he can continue to deny all this and get away with it.

    I’m strongly in favor of letting most of these issues be decided by voters. At the same time, I’m appalled at the number of Christians who normally uphold strong values who suddenly find cracks in the moral system when a favored politician falls.

  • Guard Your Mind

    20My child, pay attention to my words,
    Listen closely to my sayings.

    21Don’t let them escape from your sight,
    Guard them deep in your mind.

    22For those who find them find life,
    They bring healing to the whole person.

    23Above everything guard your mind*,
    Because from it flows your life.

    24Turn your mouth away from crooked speech,
    And keep lying speech far from your lips.

    25Keep your eyes looking straight down the path,
    And gaze only at what lies ahead.

    26Clear the path your feet must follow,
    and all your ways will be firm and safe.

    27Don’t turn to the right or the left,
    Keep your feet away from evil. — Proverbs 4:20-27 (my free translation)

    * Literally heart. In this case the seat of thoughts, wisdom, and rational processes.

    One of the things that I notice in American culture, and particularly in the church is that people are not discriminating in what they read, hear, and watch. I’m not pushing censorship, or heavy limitations on what you give a listen or look to, but rather with how you listen or look.

    Ads on television, for example, are designed to leave you with an impression. If you actually watch most TV ads, and analyze the words and the information content, you’ll find that there is very little there. A certain insurance company informs you that by spending 15 minutes on their web site, you could save 15% or more on your insurance. Now you really haven’t learned that much new, have you? It didn’t say you would. It couldn’t. The company doesn’t know how much you’re currently spending. But their intention is to leave you with the connection between their brand name and saving money. I don’t object to them doing that–it’s what advertising on television is about, and they’ve been very successful at it.

    Political and church ads are very similar. An ad from my denomination (United Methodist) informs viewers that our hearts, our minds, and our doors are open. What exactly does that tell you? Really very little. Again, the idea is to place in your mind a connection between the church and welcoming. In practice you will find somewhat varying levels of welcome in different United Methodist churches, which should be no surprise. Methodist churches, like all others, have people in them, and people aren’t always the same.

    Political ads are very much the same. Have you noticed how hard it is to find concrete information on a candidate? You have to go to a variety of issue related web sites, various journalistic sites, and so forth, then you have to evaluate your various sources, because they each have their own agenda, and finally, if you put in the effort, you may be able to get a substantial picture of a particular politician.

    Why is this? The politician is counting on a large enough number of voters not checking them out thoroughly. They want to create a particular impression. Why is it that negative political ads tend to work, even though substantial percentages of voters claim not to like them? Because the impression is left. Normally we take breaks during television ads. We see them out of the corners of our eyes, and we don’t concentrate on them. “Who could?” you say. True, but by looking but not thinking, we allow the impression the ad maker desires to get into our minds. The handsome candidate in front of his church with his perfectly angelic kids is giving us the impression that he’s a family man with family values. His opponent might show his image with various other scenes along with it–scenes of guys with cards in a smoke filled room, of money being exchanged in a furtive way, or of other negative images. It won’t matter if the man is really the someone who launders money and makes shady deals in smoke filled roooms, nor whether or not he actually is a church-going family man. The point is that his image is associated with that particular image in enough people’s minds. And believe me, if you don’t actually give full consideration to the candidate and factual information about him or her, you will be influenced by the image.

    I refuse to vote based on my image at the time. I look up each and every candidate and find as much hard data about him or her as I possibly can. I make lists. Then my wife and I sit down and compare notes. Sometimes one of us will have found information that the other missed, or will see a flaw in some plan that the other didn’t notice. We sit down with the complete sample ballot and look at each item. Sometimes we find we’re going to vote different ways. Sometimes we change our minds. But we guard our path carefully and keep focused on the right way, looking for the truth to the best of our ability.

    Christians face another trap–the piety trap. By this I don’t mean that you want to avoid candidates who tell you they are Christian. But as the saying goes you can walk into a garage, but it doesn’t make you a car, and you can walk into a church, but it doesn’t make you a Christian. Even further, we know that being a Christian does not make you perfect, and we have many fallen Christian leaders as examples. We also have many Christian politicians who have not behaved in an exemplary fashion. Claims and associations do not guarantee good character.

    I have seen this come up in business as well. I once was contacted by a man who was creating a Christian business directory for the area. He told me he thought that Christians should give their business to other Christians. He was quite put out when I told him I was all about being in contact with people who were not Christians. I had no problem doing business with people of other faiths or of no faith at all.

    But I’m most concerned with the reverse. There are many fads and scams out there, and they offend me, because they prey on people in need. Just join our marketing scheme, they tell you, and you will become healthy, wealthy, and wise. I do not mean to disparage all business opportunities for all people. You need to exercise judgment here as well. There might be that business opportunity that is just right for you. But check it our very thoroughly. Talk to other businessmen. Check small business support organizations in your area.

    What does this have to do with Christianity? Well, some scam artists know very well that there are vulnerable Christians who are in need, and if they just suggest that this is God’s plan, and that they are simply fine Christian people sharing God’s blessings with you, they will seem very safe. But many, many people have lost huge sums of money by investing it in supposedly “Christian” scams. The claim of being a Christian is not proof that one is honest; it is even less relevant to the claim of being wise.

    Don’t go with the impressions! Seek the facts. Apply wisdom. Let God’s wisdom into your heart and guard your paths. The book of Proverbs is in the Bible for a reason. God has given you a brain. Use it!

  • Sensible Candidate Selection

    I found this article on ethics and choosing candidates while preparing Christian Carnival #179 over on my Participatory Bible Study Blog.

    Jeremy is discussing the issue of voting for a candidate who holds a position you might regard as immoral, for example a pro-lifer voting for a pro-choice candidate such as Rudy Giuliani, because the alternative would be worse. Many Christian pro-lifers would say that they could never vote for someone like that, but Jeremy thinks there is a good ethical basis to choose otherwise.

    I found his reasoning both interesting and helpful, because I so rarely find a candidate I actually like. There is always a question of who is better, or perhaps who is “less worse.” Jeremy formalizes and makes sense of the ethical reasoning involved.

    Check it out.

  • Being Other Worldly or Being Christian

    The Evangelical Ecologist has an excellent post titled Closing Credibility Gaps. I think that I’m in a good position to underline his post, as a member of a congregation of the United Methodist Church, one of those declining mainline denominations. Just so the error seekers know that I saw it, I will quibble slightly over the use of an example statement from the Anglican Church (UK) followed by an example of decline from the Episcopal Church (USA). The Anglican church does indeed have its share of problems, but it is a beast of a different color from the Episcopal Church. They fall under a larger umbrella together in the Anglican communion, but that doesn’t make them of the same denomination. Nonetheless, I don’t think that vitiates the overall point of the essay.

    I commented tangentially on this issue, though not in direct relation to ecology, in my post Christian Essentials: Incarnation at the Center:

    Christianity can’t retreat into being simply a system of ethics. It involves ethics, but it also involves redemption and empowering, the means of creating ethical people by redemption, but even more the means of bringing people into touch with God.

    I could rephrase that as Christianity cannot retreat into being a system of politics, or of science, or of any similar thing. Whatever positions we may take as Christians on anything at all, it has to start with being Christian. Why is this so?

    Christianity takes a good deal of work. Even if you drop most of the doctrines, take away the servant leadership and the discipleship, and make it essentially a social club, you still have to maintain the club house (the church), pay the leadership and staff, and people have to go to meetings. Now if the church is merely a social club, why wouldn’t one find a cheaper way to accomplish those goals. I guarantee you that church architecture is not the most economical way out there to construct a clubhouse.

    Now if you’ve been a member of the club all your life, you may feel inclined to remain a member. But what about new people? If your selling points on your church are entirely made up of political and social goals, why should somebody join the church? What you’re telling the potential new member, or the person you are trying to keep as a member is this: “Come join our social and political movement. We cost more, we’re less effective, but we have the traditional label ‘Christian’.”

    I believe this has been the major failing of Christian liberals. We (I’m called liberal often enough to use an inclusive “we”) have kept all the social goals, but in order not to put anyone off, we have been afraid to pursue any sort of spiritual or doctrinal standard whatsoever. I commented in an earlier post that when I first decided to join a United Methodist congregation I checked out two different ones. In the first one the pastor kind of chuckled at my interest in the church’s doctrinal positions and said, “We don’t really worry that much about what you believe. If you enjoy fellowship with us, you can join.” The other pastor asked me about my experience and relationship with Jesus. I joined the second.

    Being inclusive can eliminate the barriers to people entering the congregation but at the same time it can remove all identity from that congregation and thus any positive reason to join.

    The Evangelical Ecologist is absolutely right. We can talk and talk about this as churches, but why is it that anyone should listen? Are our councils of clergy more knowledgeable about climate change than various scientific groups? Do we have some extraordinary expertise in administration so as to help implement all this legislation? If you’ve participated in church councils, I suspect you already know we have neither of those elements. What the church could have, and should have is the moral impetus to challenge and empower people to implement change. But that moral impetus can only come from conviction that is part of an active spiritual life.

    Though I believe there are particular doctrines that are better than others, I don’t think the primary problem of mainline denominations is that we believe the wrong things on specific doctrines. It is that we don’t, as denominations, believe anything at all enough to care about it. As Christians I believe the incarnation should be at the center of all we do, but that doctrine has to be a living thing in our lives so that we cannot imagine being without it. It has implications in our lives (“Christ in you, the hope of glory” – Colossians 1:27), and those implications must be important.

    If we don’t have Christ at the center, then we are simply another social service organization, with a bunch of excess religious baggage to make us less efficient. Why should people get on board?

    The place of Christianity in this kind of social activity is redemptive, empowering, life-giving, and motivating, a body filled with the breath of the Holy Spirit, ready to act. That must be the case for Christianity to have a great impact. Personally I haven’t tried to take a position on global warming as such, because I don’t know the science well enough to defend any position I take. But I do know that there are good things that I can do, things that make sense whether global warming or global cooling is correct.

    In doing those things, “the love of Christ urges me on” because I am called to live a life empowered by the incarnation, guided by the two laws, one of which is love for my neighbor.

  • Moral Absolutes

    Most of the time I read the evangelical outpost to keep me up to date on intelligent conservative thinking. I can disagree with Joe Carter, and often do, but I never call him stupid.

    Today, however, he hit on an important topic–absolute truth. Now I’m all in favor of humility about our personal knowledge about truth, and about the appropriateness of trying to force truth as we understand it on others, but the post-modern age bothers me a good deal in that so many people appear (to me, at least) not to be in the search for truth at all. They’ve given up.

    Carter put it in balance here:

    Christians, on the other hand, would be more like the second umpire, who recognizes that there is an objective reality even if our ability to perceive it is somewhat limited.

    You’ll have to go read his whole post to get his truly great baseball analogy that makes this whole idea even clearer.

    The only place I would amend his statements is where he says: “Christians, however, can know moral truths and thereby know more than their po-mo neighbors.” I have two amendments. In spite of significant problems I might have with their epistemology there are post-modern Christians. Post-modern isn’t binary. One can be more post-modern and less, in my non-absolute, relative opinion. But further, those who are not Christians can also know moral truths, though that is a longer topic.

    I also wrote on this for my wife’s devotional list today, Seeking Truth. In that one I allowed myself to have some fun! Yes, I’ve been writing quite a few devotionals for the list recently.

  • Voters are Real Arbiters of Ethics

    According to the Washington Post, Rep. William Jefferson, now indicted, is getting the attention of the house leadership. Republicans moved quickly to be part of the act, though I don’t see too much delay on the part of Democrats either. But here’s why the voters are the real arbiters of ethics:

    In short order, the House last night approved a Democratic motion that would make an ethics investigation automatic upon the indictment of any House member and then approved a Republican motion that could lead to Jefferson’s expulsion.

    Nice, fast work. Later we see the following:

    GOP leaders made no moves to expel Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) from the House after their indictments last year, going out of their way to try to preserve a path for DeLay’s return to the leadership and saying Ney would have to decide whether to resign.

    Now various partisans will argue about whose activities are worse, and when everyone should have acted, but I will suggest that the reason Republicans didn’t move quite so fast prior to the election was that they had been in power too long and had gotten a bit arrogant. Any politicians feel they can get away with it, they’re going to protect their own, whether they are Republican or Democrat.

    But this also demonstrates the potential power of voters. I commented before on the re-election of Rep. Jefferson even under an ethics cloud, though one should notice the first comment on that post in which Laura makes some good points on that election. But nonetheless, in the long term the voters have their say, because a certain laxness on the subject of ethics helped lose the Republicans their majority, and that same fact holds the current Democratic leadership somewhat accountable.

    It’s not a perfect situation, but if the voters don’t give up too quickly, they have the power to change things. Two keys: 1) Don’t lose interest. Make ethics part of your voting decisions. 2) Don’t get the idea that one party or the other has a monopoly on clean government. They will govern as cleanly as you make them.

    Hold the politicians accountable!

  • Update on the Kentucky Gubernatorial Primary

    Well, Fletcher did it. With 50% of the vote to his main opponent’s 37% (Source: CQPolitics.com) he became the Republican nominee. I find it interesting that Bush’s approval rating is lower than Fletcher’s (38%), and Fletcher was indicted while in office. Yes, I know there’s the unpopular war in Iraq, but then one also has to explain why people who once supported the war suddenly became so incredibly hostile to the leader they once gave unprecedented popularity ratings. What on earth did they think was going to happen?

    It just makes me wonder just how people decide what candidate to vote for, and what policies to support. It strikes me as involving momentary whims. It seems to me that George Bush is the same person who was elected back in 2000. He’s behaved as one might expect him to behave based on his history, his associates, and his campaign. Of course many thought the war would go much better, though it still astounds me that they would imagine such a thing.

    What was it Churchill said? Something like “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

    OK, enough whining for today!

  • How Politicians Survive Scandal

    Does this strike anyone else as odd?

    Fletcher’s political recovery has been little short of remarkable. A year ago, he was under indictment on three misdemeanor charges of rigging state hiring to favor loyalists. He declined to speak to a grand jury, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and issued a blanket pardon that nullified charges against nine state workers. (Source: Washington Post

    I just don’t get this. I understand that in court one is not supposed to take pleading the fifth amendment as evidence of guilt, but the voters of Kentucky aren’t on a jury. They’re voting for a leader. I have a really hard time understanding why such a person as Governor Ernie Fletcher would get any votes at all after using such tactics. It seems we should have higher standards. I suspect, as was noted in the article, that the GOP of Kentucky may be committing its own brand of suicide.

  • Social Darwinism and the Theory of Evolution

    Science Avenger has an excellent article on the connection, or rather lack of a logical connection, between the theory of evolution and social Darwinism (for the third time today, HT: Dispatches).

    Evolution is a scientific theory. It explains why many facts are what they are. It can never tell us what we should do about it.

    Just so.

    I’ve always wondered about the logic, only distantly related, of those who say, “If I evolved from an animal, why shouldn’t I act like one?” If you read Genesis 2:7 literally, you were made out of mud. (One assumes the dust was wet in order to be formed, but with God, who knows?) So should you act like mud because you were formed from mud?

  • This I Abhor

    I believe I have established here that I like tolerance, but I have also noted that tolerance is a value for me, not an absolute. In other words, I don’t have to tolerate everything. I just believe it’s good to be as tolerant as possible. (You can find some previous comments here.)

    Ed Brayton has written a post, American Imam Calls for Death of Hirsi Ali, in which he cites this article:

    Imam Fouad ElBayly, president of the Johnstown Islamic Center, was among those who objected to Hirsi Ali’s appearance.

    “She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death,” said ElBayly, who came to the U.S. from Egypt in 1976.

    Ed comments:

    Let me explain something to you, Imam. Religions don’t have laws, governments do. Religions have rules which are followed voluntarily by those who choose – note that word – to be members of that religion. If they choose no longer to follow those rules, you are of course entirely free to kick them out of your religion. What you cannot do – and this is a real law – is threaten them or harm them. Period. This is not negotiable, it’s not optional and if you insist on doing so you’re going to find yourself in prison where you belong.

    To which I say, Precisely.

    I go further, however. It is only illegal if the Imam actually threatens Hirsi Ali or takes some actions that lead to harming her. But I personally can abhor whatever I want to, and I abhor the very idea that a religion can threaten a defector with death. It was evil in the Middle Ages when many Christians felt this was acceptable, and it’s evil today. This is not something I tolerate out of respect for someone else’s religious beliefs; it is an evil that I do not tolerate. I condemn it.

    I urge Christians to distinguish moderate Muslims from extremists and not to smear an entire faith with the actions of some members. At the same time, any gain in power by Islam as practiced by Imam Fouad ElBayly would be a tragedy for the world. No matter what religion we espouse, or if we espouse no religion at all, we need to be clear on this.

    I believe that there is a cultural conflict arising. It’s not between Christianity and Islam, but rather between tyranny and freedom. Each of us, irrespective of our religious beliefs, need to decide which side of that one we’re on.