Article November 20, 1976 Issue

The Success of Honesty

RICHARD A. NENNEMAN

What is your reaction on hearing a large corporation has paid a bribe to get a profitable piece of business? Are you grateful you are not tempted to do such things? If one is truly innocent of whatever impulses lead to dishonest or unethical acts, that is fine. But one might also apply to himself Christ Jesus' parable of the publican and the Pharisee. Jesus rebuked the self-righteous prayer of the Pharisee: "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican."^{Luke 18:11;}

The gap between ourselves and the person who lies, cheats, or steals his way through life may appear comfortably large. But anyone trying to follow in the steps of the master Christian cannot feel comfortable in the knowledge, or acceptance into his own thought, of any degree of error. Each one of us has the individual responsibility to make his own way to the kingdom of heaven, to demonstrate in his own life that man already is the sinless child of God. But from the parables of Jesus and the letters of Paul, we also get some sense of our duty to live so as to help others trying to find the way. Paul wrote: "Let us not...judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way....Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another."^{Rom. 14:13, 19;}

What has this to do with the giving or taking of a bribe? The connection is that the mental environment in which each human being makes his decisions includes the thoughts of every one of us. And it is the responsibility of every one of us to contribute to the improvement of that mental atmosphere. In a country whose laws are responsive to the citizens' will, the moral standard set by the people is reflected directly in its legislation. But even in the absence of legislation the individual can largely influence the tone of his society by what he consciously assents to in his environment.

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