Article June 6, 1994 Issue

Challenging corruption

Elise L. Moore

The paying of bribes to obtain jobs, housing, protection, telephone service even, is unfortunately part of life for millions. In some countries, corruption is accepted as a privilege, or at least an inevitable abuse, of power. In fact, the United States is not exempt from the temptations placed before officials to profit illegally from their positions, as many news reports over the years have indicated.

There is a universal need to challenge corruption in all its forms. It is not merely the dishonest action that needs to be corrected but also the thought that excuses or overlooks unethical behavior. We can contribute to this important goal by earnestly and honestly examining what motivates us. Money? Position? Power? False gods all, which promise security and deliver little of substance—nothing that could not be taken away by another individual similarly motivated. Right motives have God as the foundation of action.

At the root of corruption is a mistaken concept of God. The one almighty Love may be misrepresented as capricious, with humanlike responses, like the deities of the ancient Maya or Aztecs. As Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer of the Christ Science which heals and saves, wrote in Unity of Good (p. 15): "There are, or have been, devotees who worship not the good Deity, who will not harm them, but the bad deity, who seeks to do them mischief, and whom therefore they wish to bribe with prayers into quiescence, as a criminal appeases, with a money-bag, the venal officer.

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