Avoiding ethical lapses

Peter was waiting, sitting in the easy chair across from my desk. His look told me this wasn’t a social call. He wasted no time getting to the point.

“I’ve known Harrison for years; he’s a good man,” Peter told me. “Yesterday he was indicted on six counts of fraud. It scares me to death. If this can happen to Harrison it could happen to me. Can you help me?”

I didn’t know Harrison, so I asked Peter if the charges were warranted and whether he knew any of the others involved.

He answered yes to both questions, adding, “The others have dubious reputations, and several have been a part of shady transactions before.”

I wanted to know how someone like Harrison got involved with such people.

“Three years ago he recruited them as clients,” Peter explained. “It was a great coup—made his year. Since then Harrison’s business has grown rapidly and profitably. They’re now his biggest clients.”

I asked Peter how well he knew Harrison spiritually—was he a believer, a churchgoer, a student of the Bible?

“Like I said, he’s good guy,” Peter related. “He once told me he walked down the aisle as a boy and made a commitment to Christ, and he now goes to the big center city church where all the movers and shakers attend. But he shies away from any spiritual discussion—says he doesn’t need talk about it.”

I cautiously told Peter that I couldn’t pass judgment on Harrison’s guilt or innocence but that there were two principles I could help him with to avoid any ethical lapses in his own life.

First, I told him that the root of all ethical failures is a failure of “theology,” which is knowing what the Bible says and understanding how to rightly interpret it. That’s essential to a solid ethical foundation. Both parts of this equation are essential. To know what the Bible declares but to interpret it wrongly is dangerous. To know little of what the Bible communicates is to operate with only with our own wisdom—thus rejecting God’s wisdom. The entire Bible was given to us as a gift for our own benefit and our own good. Many Christians believe that Jesus loves them and that they need to love other people, thinking that’s all they need to know, but that’s a shallow formula.

The second principle involves compromise. I told Peter that Harrison probably didn’t set out to defraud anyone. Most evil begins with a small compromise or a seemingly insignificant oversight. The attraction of a large profitable client can be enticing—enticing enough to overlook proper due diligence. Then one small favor is asked, leading to a tiny infraction of a rule, one that seems at the time harmless and minor. When the money starts to roll in, we tell ourselves that everybody else does it and it’s no big deal. Then the second infraction became easier, the third is hardly noticed, and by the fourth it is business as usual. By the time Harrison realized who he was in bed with, he was hooked. The point is simple: Few people set out to do evil. It begins with little allurements and it escalates in such small steps it is barely perceptible. But in the end it is an abscessed evil.

In conclusion, I told Peter to know his Bible and not to make even small compromises, hoping that would help him. He nodded his head, the pain of his friend’s failure still reverberating in his mind, but he was seriously thinking about what he had heard.