Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Banner Left
Banner Right

Ethics crisis in America?

Ethics crisis in America?

KANSAS CITY – From billion-dollar ponzi schemes to bad mortgages and pay-to-play dealings by public officials, some are asking: Is there a crisis of ethics in America?

The swirl of corruption, fraud and greed stretching from Wall Street to Main Street has many US church leaders saying the answer is a resounding yes – America is facing not only an economic meltdown, but also a moral one. And they are rushing to bring flocks back into the fold.
‘Honesty is honesty. It doesn’t matter if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever. A lot of these debacles we’re seeing can be traced and sourced back to a lack of good old ethics,’ said the Rev. Jerry Johnston, who this month launched a 12-part series of sermons on ethics at First Family Church in Overland Park, Kansas, which has about 5 000 members.
Johnston is one of a number of religious leaders and scholars who say the current spate of troubled times are an opportunity to lead more Americans into church pews and to prayer.
‘We’re beginning to see this across the nation,’ said Ken Eldred, a California technology company entrepreneur who writes books about the role of religion in business. ‘There has been a crisis of ethics … and I think sadly it is quite significant. People think business has nothing to do with faith, that honesty is not always the best policy. But when you take that away, people end up worse overall.’
The list of examples of dishonest dealings ranges from disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, who has been accused of fleecing investors out of US$50 billion in what may be the largest Ponzi scheme ever, to Illinois Gov Rod Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell the US Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama, to the more than 400 people charged last summer in a US$1 billion US mortgage fraud investigation.
‘Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age,’ Obama said at his inauguration as president last Tuesday.
Greed and lack of accountability are blamed for the suffocating personal debt borne by millions of Americans and the toxic financial products that led to the decline of several US banks and brokerages.
David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta, said the United States needs not just an economic recovery plan but also a gmoral recovery plan h.
‘I think that this transition point is a good one in the life of our nation, h said Gushee. gWe need … a renewal of the moral compass to do the right thing just because it’s right, obeying not just legal laws but moral laws related to how people need to be treated.’
Not everyone saw an ethical decline behind the nation’s economic troubles. Gideon Rosen, professor of philosophy and chair of the Council of the Humanities at Princeton, said calling the economic crisis a moral failure was to be expected, but he did not think it was valid.
‘It is much simpler and extremely natural for human beings to try to find a moral story that makes sense of a bad outcome,’ Rosen said. ‘But this is an economic problem. Greed of a particularly egregious sort has played a causal role but that is not really the deepest feature of this crisis.’
Still, Charles Brock, founder of Church Growth International, which aids start-up ministries in the United States and abroad, said the economic meltdown that has led to massive US job losses is fuelling a return to church.
‘Any time there is a crisis, economic or otherwise… people tend to search for peace and security,’ said Brock. ‘The greater the crisis, the greater the return to the church.’
Johnston said at his Overland Park church, he was specifically aiming outreach efforts at businessmen and women.
‘This is the ideal time to reach that demographic of people, h said Johnston. ‘We will tell them it is time to change things.’ – Nampa-Reuters

Stay informed with The Namibian – your source for credible journalism. Get in-depth reporting and opinions for only N$85 a month. Invest in journalism, invest in democracy –
Subscribe Now!

Latest News