This episode is part of the Bible and Business series on Christian Ethics for Christian Business Owners. Broadcast on @myfaithradio @connectfaithfr on Wednesday, October 4, 2023. Bill English and Carmen LaBerge @carmentlaberge talk about the starting point for Christian ethics and then apply that starting point to a common situation in which a person in business or ministry exhibits boorish behavior.
Carmen LaBerge
Hey, our friend Bill English is back from Bibleandbusiness.com. Good morning, Bill.
Bill English
Good morning, Carmen.
Carmen LaBerge
I felt like maybe returning, circling back around, starting over again, having a conversation about Christian ethics might be good soil to retill, because there are some who are behaving badly not only in public, but in private. And so can we just talk a little bit about Christian ethics?
Bill English
Yes, we can.
Carmen LaBerge
You have an excellent piece posted@bibleandbusiness.com on this topic, and it addresses the starting point for Christian ethics. So maybe you could walk us around in there, beginning with what’s actually the foundation for a Christian ethical framework.
Bill English
Yeah, this is part of a writing project that I’m on. Surprise, surprise. I’m on another writing project, and I was trying to discern where Christian ethics should actually start. What’s the starting point for it? Some people start with this idea that God is holy or God is just or God is loving. Others. Start with God’s. Grace Stapleford, one of the guys I looked at starts with Christian theology and the nature of God. And even Wayne Grudom, who wrote that huge book on Christian ethics, he starts really with the Ten Commandments. And I was just doing a lot of reading on that. And I was thinking about starting where Wayne did at the Ten Commandments, and then some research. I was looking at it, and it kind of dawned on me, what are the two commands that all of the other commands hang on right? Loving God and loving your fellow man. And the part that I liked about making those two commands, the starting point for Christian, that those are the two commands on which everything else hangs, right? And so I wasn’t just pulling out something about God out of thin air. I just wasn’t going to the Ten Commandments because they’re there.
Bill English
I found a place where Christ actually said he didn’t say it in these words, and I understand this is a little bit more Bill than Bible, but Christ was saying to me at that moment, bill, this is a good starting point for ethics, loving God and loving your fellow man. When you’re faced with an ethical decision, filter that through this notion of, is this loving towards another person the same way that I would want to be loved? And is this loving God the way that he deserves and the way that he deserves to be worshiped? And so that was where I landed on a starting point.
Carmen LaBerge
I like the word filter. I like the idea that as we talk about and construct and evaluate our own ethics, our own ethical decision making and our own ethical behavior, that we would recognize, we are filtering all of that through something like we are using a filter of some kind. We are using a lens of some kind. And so this idea that we would use the filter of Christ’s answer to the question, what’s the first and greatest commandment? And his answer is to love the Lord our God with all we have, all we are, and all we do. And then he says the Second command is also like it love your neighbor as yourself. Which leads us to a conversation about who is your neighbor and gets us into a conversation about showing mercy and all of those things. So ethics are what? And then how do I go about filtering a decision I need to make or something that’s happening? How do I press something through a particular filter? Do you see the two questions I’m asking? What are ethics? And then, how does a person filter something through, let’s say, the sieve of the first and second commandments?
Bill English
Yeah, so let me deal with the first one. I look at ethics as a contrast to theology. If theology tells me what I should believe and what I should think right. Then ethics tells me what I should do and the attitudes with which I should take those actions in those situations where the Bible doesn’t clearly articulate a command. So if you were to say to me, is it ethical to rob a bank? I’d say, of course it’s unethical, but it’s more it’s a sin, because stealing is a sin. Right. But if you were to say to me, Bill, as a business owner, you’re going to have to terminate somebody today, is that an ethical decision? Well, the Bible doesn’t address me terminating an employee necessarily, but I can filter that decision through my starting points. Is this honoring God? Is it loving God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength? And is this loving this employee as I would want to be loved? That’s kind of how I look at that. So I define ethics in contrast to theology, if that’s helpful.
Carmen LaBerge
Yeah, or as a complement, as an outgrowth of theology, I like the way you frame that. Right. Theology is telling me what and how to think about God, and I’m deriving that through what Scripture reveals, right? Through the revelation of his word. But the Bible doesn’t address every ethical question that I might have. And yet the theology of the Bible implies an ethic. It implies what I would do in light of what I know about God’s character and will. So that is a really helpful way of thinking and talking about that. All right, now that’s the starting point. And then we’re going to work that out over time. I like the way you wove the Golden Rule into your description of how a person goes about making an ethical decision about a given thing on a given day. That was nice. Could you remind us what the Golden Rule is as a supplement here to the first and second commandments?
Bill English
Jeez the golden rule.
Carmen LaBerge
I’m looking no, you said it. You said it instinctively, and it’s to treat other people as we would want to be treated do unto others. Well, I’m just saying you said it as an outgrowth of how you go about making a decision like do unto others as you would have them do unto me. That is really good.
Bill English
Yeah, it is. Because is this how I would want to be treated? And that’s how we treat other people. And I know after the break we’re going to get into a particular situation that I’ve outlined in another post on my website. But there are times when, even though it hurts, I’m going back to proverbs here the wounds of a friend are a good thing. That’s the bill. English paraphrase. And even if a friend is wounding me, is that how I would want to be treated? If I’m wounding somebody else in love, is that how I would want to be treated? There are some really interesting things here that crop up when you use these two commands as the starting point for ethics.
Carmen LaBerge
Next, Bill is going to tell us what boorish behavior is and how we can tolerate it. So are you boorish? I mean, you might be boring, but are you boorish? We’re going to find out next here on Mornings with Carmen.
Speaker 3
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Carmen LaBerge
Boorish. Maybe it’s not boorish. Maybe it’s buorish tolerating buorish behavior. Our friend Bill English is here from Bibleandbusiness.com. We’re talking about Christian Ethics. We’re talking about the way Christians are because of who we are and what we’re in the world to do reveal Christ to others, how it is that we then behave. That’s the ethics part here. And so, Bill, what if there is someone at work who is boorish? First of all, what does that mean and should it be tolerated? And if so, how do we go about tolerating that boorish?
Bill English
The way I look at it is uncouth or really damaging emotionally and mentally injurious behavior to other people. So when a person is being being egocentric, they’re being arrogant, they’re being callous, they’re being insensitive, they’re being rude, they will discount the opinions of other people. And amazingly enough, Carmen, some of these people who have these characteristics are also highly talented and very creative people. And one of the ethical situations that I just have been posting on. So this series on ethics at Bible and business is only going to be about five or six, maybe seven posts on it, and then I’ll be done with it. But one of the situations I’m looking at is when boards of businesses or elder boards of churches put up with boorish behavior in either a senior pastor or a key employee because of the great benefit that that person brings to the organization. So, for example, an Elder board might look the other way when a pastor is very boorish behind closed doors but is a highly gifted, highly talented communicator in the pulpit and is able to garner a lot of people to a Sunday morning service because of what that pastor can do in the pulpit.
Bill English
For a boardroom they’ll put up with a CEO or top salesman or something like that because of the great results that they are bringing. A person who dealt with this, Carmen, is a guy named Paul Babiak and I referenced this in my article. He wrote a book in 2006, not a Christian book, but a seminal work in business. It’s called snakes in suits. And if you haven’t read it, I do recommend the book to the Faith Radio audience, especially if you are middle or upper level management in a for profit business. So the ethical dilemma comes in when we’re keeping a key employee on staff, when the owner knows the destruction that lies in the wake of that employee and yet retains the employee because of the benefits that are.
Carmen LaBerge
Do we lose, Bill, or did you lose?
Bill English
I just I wanted to give you a chance to chime in. I’m sorry.
Carmen LaBerge
Oh, thank no, no. That’s good. So snakes in suits when psychopaths go to work is the subtitle of the Paul Babiek book. This is immediately going to resonate with people who have had an experience in a church where a very, very talented and gifted, productive, quote, successful pastor has been a horrible person behind closed doors or is known to have been not only egocentric and insensitive and rude and discounting of others and derogatory, but abusive. I do think that when we talk about tolerating this kind of behavior, we are increasingly living in a time when people are more and more willing to say this is what’s happening behind closed doors and it’s not okay. And there’s an inconsistency here between what this person is proclaiming in public and holding themselves out to be and what is actually happening in private. And so when we talk about Christian ethics and we talk about boorish behavior, obviously there’s a different spirit operating in the life of a person and it’s evidenced in their behavior, it’s evidenced in their words when what they do in private behind closed doors is different from what they do in public and in front of others.
Carmen LaBerge
And so there should be an integrity for the Christian between the public and the private self. Can you touch on that? I mean, I know that this tolerating boarish behavior in a for profit company may be made for different reasons, but when we’re talking about Christians, this just ought not be who we are.
Bill English
Yeah. And this is where a lot of these boorish people and I’ll call them guys, mostly guys in the pulpit, they are also powerful and can be very intimidating people and they tend to build elderboards over time that are rather weak and kind of rubber stampish if I can put it that way. Look, borsche behavior to go back to our two commands is hardly loving your neighbor as yourself. And it also, I think, betrays a lack of love for God. It’s like saying, I’m going to do things my way and I get to treat people the way I want to, and I’m not going to treat them the way God would have me treat them. And so it’s difficult, I think, to reason ourselves into a place where insensitivity or arrogance or callousness are examples of loving one’s neighbor. I just don’t see how we get there. And often the offending pastor is usually simultaneously doing some really good things to grow the church. And so elder boards are going to tend to make the trade off decision that will live with the damage in the wake of this guy in exchange for the success on Sunday mornings and the success in tithing.
Bill English
And I would just say to elder boards that that’s not the right decision, that that is the wrong decision to make the right decision is to let go of the premise that only the offending pastor can bring in the results that are there and instead just trust the Lord for attendance and tithing and things like that. But have somebody in the pulpit who is consistent both publicly and privately.
Carmen LaBerge
I’m going to be looking for leaders and elevating leaders who are like Jesus. And Jesus would never be described as boorish. I don’t think Jesus would be described as one who tolerated boorish behavior among his disciples. I think he would have quickly called them out. So ask yourself, as you’re evaluating this question, how did Jesus treat people in public and in private? How did Jesus’public proclamations line up with his private behavior? How might the Holy Spirit need to bring you and I into greater conformity with Christ in this particular measure? It’s not about how the world measures things. It’s not about how the world measures success or influence. It’s about the measure of the man in terms of God’s plumb line. So how is God measuring us in terms of our thought life, our speech, our behavior, our treatment of others? And if you need a test, here something to test this against. We’re going to use the first and second commandments, the first commandment of loving God, the second commandment like it loving neighbor. And then you’re going to ask yourself, well, what is this love that Christ expects of us? Maybe use one Corinthians 13 as a way of testing the way you love.
Carmen LaBerge
And that would be love that’s patient and kind, a love that does not envy, does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, but builds others up. It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It’s a love that does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It is a love that always protects always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails. So when you think about all of the places in which you encounter and serve alongside other people, let us have this kind of love that the world might know we are Christians and be interested in the Christ whom alone we worship and serve up.