Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

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Diversity Triumphs

December 1, 2014

It was once said that the most segregated hour in the United States was 10 am on Sunday morning. Very few churches have a diversity of people in their congregation. Even today.

Of course part of the reason is style of worship. But that is not the entire reason. The question is—do we reach out to only those like us? Or do we reach out at all?

One reason we still seem to have racial troubles some 50 years after Martin Luther King had a dream (mine, too) is that at a personal level too many of us just don’t like people who aren’t like us. Most white men around me hate powerful women. (Another latent problem.) They may get along with an individual black person, but black people as a whole are still regarded suspiciously. Oh, and the other way around.

Trust is a commodity on the endangered list in too many places. This lack of trust, maybe for good reason, is a cancer.

I look to Jesus for examples. He lived during his ministry in a predominately Jewish area. But there was diversity even within the tribe. He dealt easily with women—not a rabbi-like action. He socialized easily with all social strata of the Jews. He had no problems interacting with Romans and Greeks. His inner circle contained people of differing politics, geographies, backgrounds.

Paul reflects the teachings found in Deuteronomy 30 and Isaiah 40 ff where God talks about rulers ruling with justice and mercy. That is probably the way we should read Romans 13. (He just made a personal mistake about the future rulers of Rome.) If you read Paul carefully without pulling quotes out of context, he pleaded with his followers to seek unity amongst their diversity—and some of the ekklesia knew tremendous diversity.

Study after study reveals the benefits to an organization that accrue from diversity.

Why aren’t we trying?

An organization practicing diversity among its teams wins over time.

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Taking Care Over Our Priorities

November 18, 2014

I’m usually writing this about 6:30 am Eastern time, but I’m in the Los Angeles area today. 5:30 am, I’ve been up for an hour. It’ll be a long day.

Yesterday, I wrote about marketing. And whether (or how much) marketers try to influence our perceived needs–especially by ever-increasing devious means. There is advertising disguised as editorial. Product placements in media or entertainment. And on and on.

Just yesterday, Wal-Mart sent me five emails promoting Black Friday sales. FIVE. (I’m on their list because I occasionally have actual prints made of my digital photos.)

While thinking about this a few minutes ago, Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission was speaking about Christian responses to some of the most horrible things that humans are doing to other humans.

I just had to pray. Am I doing enough? Am I influencing enough to counter the now-global onslaught of advertising promoting not only consumption, but our misplaced priorities hidden behind the consumption.

There are good products. Products that enhance our lives and provide for enjoyment. But why do we buy them? Is it momentary impulse resulting in another piece of unused labor and material sitting on a shelf in the closet?

Let’s take care of our priorities first, then proceed into the market.

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Ethics and Marketing–An Oxymoron

November 17, 2014

Christmas. Ah, that time of joyful giving. Celebrating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Carols. Hot chocolate with whipped cream.

Oops, it wasn’t even Halloween yet, let alone Thanksgiving. The stores were full of Christmas stuff. It is still two weeks before “Black Friday” (the day that retail stores go from red to black, or loss to profit for the year) and my email box has Wal-Mart ads for the day.

Everyone knows that retail stores depend upon Christmas sales for the year’s profits. This has been known for 100 years.

This is obviously bad management. But, we get what we deserve, I guess.

Business managers turned to a new thing called “marketing” a long time ago. The job of marketing people was to entice people into the stores.

Then we got TV. And TV needed advertising for revenues. Marketers needed advertising to get their message to the people. Before TV, there were newspapers and magazines. Note: I’ve made a good living from the magazine business, and even today I’d like some advertising on my other Website to help pay the bills.

But marketers weren’t as successful as they would have liked. It wasn’t enough to just use superlatives to promote their stores and products (have you ever seen ads from the 1920s?). They turned to the findings of that new academic discipline called psychology to figure out how people work.

So now, we have turned to manipulation. Create a need where none existed before and then offer to fill it. Muscles not big enough? Breasts not big enough? Kids may not make it into Harvard? We’ve got a solution.

The current trend in magazine advertising is to write advertising that looks just like the editorial content of the magazine. The idea is to trick the reader into reading the ad. They may even think that the claims made in the ad are from the supposedly unbiased editors of the magazine. The more respected the editorial, the better the success with this form of advertising.

By the way, I hope you know that for many years, advertisers in women’s magazines have had a clause in their contracts that the magazine may not run an article that is in any way critical of makeup or other products including the way they test makeup. All articles in women’s magazines must be promotional of the types of products that will be advertised.

But even in business-to-business which is my market, marketers and publishers want things to be just as great and happy as possible. I have a friend who just left his magazine job and is trying to sell a subscription-based newsletter. “I don’t take advertising, so I can be honest,” he says.

Well, I hope I’m honest too. 😉

What’s the reason for this season (actually following Thanksgiving, which is also a good thing to celebrate)? Let’s keep this in mind. Don’t let marketers convince you that you need things you don’t. Keep your head. Buy presents, sure, but buy with intention not under the influence of artificially inflamed emotions.

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Be Assertive But Kind

October 14, 2014

Proverbs 11: 16b-17 draws two pairs of contrasts. But the pairs also contrast.

The first pair is timid and aggressive. To be timid is a negative attitude and stance toward life. You let things happen to you. To be aggressive (I don’t know Hebrew, but today we might well call it assertive) is to go out into the world making things happen

The other pair is kind and cruel. Kind, of course is the positive attitude and cruel is the negative.

So Proverbs, Wisdom teaching, tells us that we should be strong and go out and accomplish, but we should do it in such a way as to not trample down others doing it.

This sounds much like the teachings of Jesus, who took most of his teaching directly from Proverbs, who expected people to be strong, to be aggressive. But at the same time he taught that we should put others ahead of ourselves. We should think about the other person in the relationship or the situation. What’s in it for them–not what’s in it for us.

We have had cycles of preaching throughout the 2,000 years of Christendom that has told people, especially poor people, to be timid, meek, humble (in the sense of servitude, not the sense of strength yet putting others before us). That teaching has led to some horrible revolutions in the past. It’s a teaching ignored by the terrorists who call themselves part of Islam.

Is it an attitude we have? There are many today who believe in aggressive in its negative connotation and cruel, at least in attitude toward others. I’ve met several.

I pray we cultivate having a strong personality–one that’s so strong and confident that we can gladly put others before us.

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Extending Courtesy

October 6, 2014

Did someone just cut you off in traffic? Did someone just pause to let you in line (maybe traffic or at the grocery or something? When’s the last time that you held open a door for someone–especially someone struggling with bundles or small children?

I hit one of those opportunities this morning on my way to the airport. A truck was entering I-75 from one ramp as I was about to exit to the next street. I could have increased speed (by a lot) to cut in front of him. But I slowed down to let him enter and I exited behind him.

The thought came that the cost to me was only about 10 seconds. I was going to have about an hour before my flight boarded, no reason to rush.

Once, almost all truckers were courteous. These days, don’t expect it.

I see other examples of rudeness in my travels. There are many examples of courtesy, too. I was traveling a week ago last Friday when the contractor started a fire that evacuated the FAA tower in the Chicago area. People by and large were not irate. Many were courteous to their fellow sufferers.

A pause and a smile can make someone’s day. Look for the first opportunity to be courteous today. That sets the tone for the rest of your day. And you might even fool your neighbors into thinking you’re a nice person!

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Pervasiveness of Bigotry

September 25, 2014

“Think not the bigotry of another is any excuse for your own.” — John Wesley

I’ve been a member of a Methodist (now United Methodist) church for most of my life. But they don’t teach Wesley (one of the founders of the movement) as much as they used to. Probably part of the blending of overall teachings, I guess. But there is much to learn from Wesley’s example and his teaching.

This week I was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I’m not sure what the status of race relations is these days in the state that was once a symbol of the “Old South.” A startling revelation came upon me Monday. Where are all the black faces?

A restaurant we visited had a black girl as a hostess who seated customers. I’d swear that I heard a different tone of voice from the hostess when she said Miss so-and-so or the black girl was seating someone. I didn’t think about it at first. But the tone sort of laid half-formed in my brain.

Then we went to a show. Out of probably 1,000 people there, perhaps 5 were black. No performers were black people. Then I looked around. At the resort I saw perhaps 3 black families.

Within the past month, I’ve also heard comments about the Spanish-speaking people trying to come to the “Land of the Free” and work their way up a ladder that so many of us take for granted. The tone was, shall we say, not that of a sincere Christ-follower. The tone of those who labored with Paul to bring all the disparate cultural elements into one common fellowship.

I was made fun of for my civil rights views in the late 60s in my home town. Later I realized what a fool I was to drive to Louisiana through Mississippi in 1970 with an equal-rights decal on the car. Back then I’d have hoped for better understanding among the races and ethnic groups than I see today. It’s severely disappointing.

Where did we go wrong? Or lose our enthusiasm? However, let’s let Wesley’s words guide us.

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Your Faith and Witness Speak More Than You Know

August 18, 2014

In this era of the US NSA spying on everyone, we should be aware that people are watching us. All the time.

We had the grandkids for a week a few weeks ago. Their sharp little eyes pick up everything. They are watching.

But even 2,000 years ago, people were watching. John (the Elder) writes in the 3rd letter to Gaius that he has heard reports about how good and faithful to the truth he has been. And he talks about another faithful witness and one who is not a true follower.

John was the last of the apostles alive. He was always concerned with the Truth. As the Elder in the church, he was even more concerned that the essential truth was taught–Jesus lived as a human, Jesus died, Jesus rose from death to live again.

John was also concerned with love–a lesson taught to him by Jesus. A lesson that it took John a few years to learn and incorporate into his life.

You see both in the three letters. And you see both as John writes in love to his friend and compliments him on his work and his life.

Paul also was aware that people are always watching. He writes that he is concerned that he might do something because he is free in the grace of God, but that freedom to do that thing (say eat “unclean” food) might corrupt another who is watching him and who has not yet experienced grace.

I’m always surprised when I hear reports back to me that others are talking about me. Happens professionally all the time–“I heard that you….” I think, “Whoa, am I that important that people talk about me?” I just go on my way daily with no thought that people are watching. But they are.

I hope I’ve been good 😉

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Pay It Forward

April 9, 2014

There was a couple that I knew at a restaurant that I frequent. Got the idea that I’d pick up their check. Too late. They picked up mine.

They paid it forward.

Next time I picked up the check for some people I knew. Then again for a random group. Just told the server to tell them that someone was paying forward.

We had a pastor who would pay for the next person in line at the gas station.

I read about a guy who travels even more often than I. He always stops at the shoeshine stand whether he needs it or not and pays with a $20–no change.

I tip the housekeepers in hotels. They have a crummy job at low wages. I’ve heard about the condition many people leave behind. And I really appreciate their service. I don’t leave a lot of money (probably should leave a little more), but one day I came back to my room to pick up something and the housekeeper was down the hall. She thanked me profusely. It was just the recognition of doing a good job, I think.

Sometimes I send a gift card for a night out to someone at work who has performed extra work or has just been outstanding in some way and could really use the recognition of a job well done.

I think that I still can’t embed videos on this version of WordPress (I must remember to upgrade). But when I saw this video it brought a tear to my eye. I presume that it’s real–it was forwarded by a couple of people that I trust.

At any rate, watch this Best Shift Ever episode of Prank It Forward and enjoy.

Do you ever pay it forward?

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Being Compassionate

April 3, 2014

Do you notice that there are “memes” that run through Facebook? Someone starts a thought that gets repeated by many for a day or two.

A recent meme circulated by many of my “friends” on Facebook had to do with getting rid of “deadbeats”. They don’t say what they’d do with them; but they want them gone.

I wonder if any of these sheltered people know any poor people relationally. It’s easy. In America today, millions of people are just one illness away from bankruptcy.

What gets to me more than the politics is the attitude. When I glance through the posts–many from people I know personally–the cynicism, arrogance, and lack of empathy just totally strikes at my heart. Are these people really that heartless? Or are they just parroting the “party line?”

Willow Creek Community Church just began its annual three-weekend long Compassion series called Celebration of Hope. Last Sunday, Executive Pastor and Director of Compassion and Justice, Heather Larson, spoke on compassion. This message deserves a listen.

I’m not the kind of liberal who arose especially in the late 60s who is optimistic that government can be a tool to eradicate all poverty and injustice. Neither am I the type of conservative prevalent today that seems to reflect the attitude of self-centeredness and condescension.

I would rather challenge everyone whatever their social status to have compassion toward everyone and especially those who have suffered misfortune. That is one of the things we do to live like a disciple of Jesus.

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Expecting People to Change Before We Befriend Them

March 4, 2014

Do you expect people to change before you will associate with them? People often think that their husband/wife will change after marriage, but people in church often (usually?) say, “Change, and then you can join us.”

John (the disciple, apostle, writer of the Gospel) is an excellent writer. To call him “uneducated” is a slander. He just didn’t attend the “right school.” He packs so much into a story that we give it a disservice by reading it quickly.

The story about the man healed by the Pool of Bethesda that I discussed yesterday is such a story. The point of the story was to show that Jesus was the Son of God. The subpoint was that the Jewish religious establishment hated him and wanted to kill him.

Why such animosity? Because Jesus threatened their very way of life. He threatened their superiority. They had set themselves aside with the vocation of being good. The studied scriptures and laws all day and followed every law. They were good.

And, they said that if you’ll change and be good, then maybe you can be one of us.

Jesus said to people, follow me and then you’ll change.

Jesus told the man to get up, pick up his mat, go and sin no more.

Oops, that violated a law. It was the Sabbath. The Lord said, don’t work on the Sabbath. The lawyers had to define work. One of the many detailed what you could carry before it was considered work. This man violated that rule.

Do we react to people we meet in the way of the Pharisees? Instead of rejoicing, we look for reasons to disapprove. We tell people that if they become like us, then they can be our friends–maybe, instead of welcoming other people and leading them to a life in the Spirit.

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