Institutional Ethics: An Oxymoron 
By Joe E. Trull, Editor

As I have become older (and hopefully wiser), my trust in institutions has diminished. Reinhold Niebuhr tried to warn me during my seminary studies, but I am a slow learner.

In his classic work, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr proposed a classic thesis: that individual persons are always more moral than when they function in a social group. As a soldier in warfare or as a rioter in a mob, we act in ways we never would individually. The reason is basic: as individual persons, we seek to fulfill neighbor love; in a social group, the bottom line is the survival of that institution. There are exceptions to this rule of course, but their rarity only serves to prove the point.

For example, a corporate executive might provide food to a hungry person who came to him for help. But on that same day he might cast a vote to relocate a factory in order to sustain profitability for his company, even though it meant hundreds of families would lose their jobs and go hungry that month. On Wall Street, profits come before people.

Today’s newspaper featured slaves and children conscripted by large companies to harvest cocoa on the Ivory Coast to keep the price of chocolate competitive. When I lived in El Paso, I witnessed first-hand the common business practice of hiring Mexican workers of both sides of the Rio Grande for less than a minimum wage. “That’s just business,” explained a Deacon in my church who managed a large assembly plant.

But before we attack the multi-national corporations or the maquiladoras factories on the Mexican border, let’s look in our own backyard. Does integrity have a place in our Christian institutions as well as our personal lives?

The term integrity appears sixteen times in the Scriptures. The Hebrew word is tom or tummah and means “whole, sound, unimpaired, perfection.” It is used to describe men like David (Ps. 7:8), Solomon (1 Kgs. 9:4), and Job (Job 2:9). None of these men were morally perfect, but they each modeled a life of wholeness and maturity.

Integrity describes both who you are and what you do. It is the way you think as well as how you act. Charles Swindoll defines integrity as “ethical soundness, intellectual veracity, and moral excellence. It keeps us from fearing the white light of close examination and from resisting the scrutiny of accountability. It is honesty at all cost . . . rocklike character that won’t crack when standing alone or crumble when pressure mounts.”

But how does this apply to institutions? For church and denominational leaders to do what is right and just if that choice means the institution suffers, is not easy. Occasionally a leader with deep ethical convictions will have a Wittenburg-moment. Like Luther, the executive declares, “Here I stand.” He knows the organization he leads will suffer. but he also knows that this was the right thing to do. We are blessed with a few such men and women of integrity today, but we need more!

Too many Baptist churches have leaders more concerned with “succeeding” than with being faithful to the gospel. I grow weary of those churches that claim to be “Blessed of God,” whose church budget reveals their true priorities. When a church spends 95-99% of its income on itself, and gives a small percentage to missions and the needs of hungry and hurting people in the world, they have lost their integrity.

And what about the content of our worship? As a seminary teacher and interim pastor for the past 16 years, I have seen a shift. Too many churches today seem to focus on entertainment more than enlightenment, on convenience more than commitment, on shallow simplicity more than spiritual maturity. Why? Success! Pastors know what draws and keeps a crowd. When was the last time you heard a sermon on costly discipleship?

When I last visited the seminary where I taught, the faculty met to discuss concerns over chapel services. A new professor from a non-SBC school (who seldom spoke) shared a final thought: “As a newcomer, I have attended every chapel for the last three years, and I think I finally understand Southern Baptist preaching: (1) You always read a text but never return to it; (2) You shout a lot; (3) You never stand behind the pulpit; and (4) You tell a lot of stories that seem to put you down, but really flatter you!”

Our colleges and seminaries (and I have more than SBC schools in mind) are too often guilty of actions and practices that are less than Christian—all in the name of institutional success. Baptist schools have been a major part of my life, and I owe a tremendous debt to them all. Yet trustees, administrators, and presidents make decisions based not on what is right, but what is “best” for the success of the school. This may work for IBM and Dell, but it should not be the highest good for Christian institutions.

And our mission-sending organizations are also guilty. Most missionaries out on the front lines are maintaining their own integrity, often at a great personal price. Sad to say, this is not always true of the Mission Board leaders. Why do we feel we must twist the truth, exaggerate statistics, and misuse the resources provided by the churches? Are we afraid that if the people knew the truth, the enterprise would suffer (survival again)?

In over forty years of ministry, I have served on many denominational Boards and Committees, including three Search Committees for the head of a state paper, a state convention, and the Foreign Mission Board. Yes, I know the plural of data is not anecdotes. Nevertheless, I am convinced that in our churches and our institutions we need a revival of integrity. Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson noted, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”

Am I becoming cynical? I hope not. Institutions are here to stay—in fact, they are necessary for the human social good. Yet Niebuhr was correct—institutions basically will operate not from neighbor love, but from a concern for survival.

Nevertheless, Christian institutions should operate differently from secular ones. For individuals, churches, and denominations, integrity is a precious possession. It is a virtue that no one can take from you—you must give it away.

Every institution is writing its own story. The ultimate test of any story is the sort of person it shapes. As proclaimers of “The Story,” we are compelled to ask, “Does our story fit God’s story?”---JET

Updated Sunday, February 06, 2005