Can Biblical Ethics Save Corrupt Leadership?

In the next several issues of New Wine, it is our desire and direction to deal with some vital issues of daily life having to do with ethics and morals. Right living—by a standard which we will describe—is God’s requirement for all mankind; but especially for those of us who profess to be followers of Jesus.

In our day of moral and ethical confusion, both political and spiritual leadership is being put to the test. Most of us learned the story of the man who built his house on the sand, and his house collapsed because the foundation was shifting and unstable. It should not surprise us when the men to whom we have looked for moral and ethical leadership fail personally and officially in the realms of ethics and morals. Most of these lives have been built upon the shifting sands of twentieth-century ethical philosophy and should not be expected to stand the storms of temptation in our day.

Present ethical and moral problems in Washington, D.C., the sudden resignation of the Vice President; plus increased surges of white-collar crime, moral and sexual breakdowns of many apparently successful clergy; coupled with the open violence, murder, rape, and organized crime, condoned by a corrupt and bribed police, leave many of us with a cold chill running down the spiritual spine.

How Did We Get Here?

“Where do we go from here?” may be a valid question which needs to be answered; but first, let me explain in simple language how we got where we are as individuals, as a church, and as a nation.

It may seem true to some for me to say our nation was founded on godly principles, especially if you research the personal lives of some of the early heroes. Sinners they were—as are we. There was one ingredient, however, which may have been overlooked, and that is the place which the Scriptures held among these people.

Everywhere in Colonial America, the Bible was held—consciously or unconsciously—as a standard of conduct. This was true in business, the school, the court, the legislature, as well as the church.

Because they had a common inheritance to which they all looked, even if one was not a professed believer, the Bible was a source of social and moral stability from which all benefited, because it functioned as a standard or common ground, whereby they could at least communicate. Words were understood and had meaning, because from a common source they drew a frame of reference, which gave them meaning. The word “love” was understood, as was the word “steal,” “lazy,” “sin,” or “responsibility.”

Today in our society—from the elementary schools to the Supreme Court—we are groping. No one can agree as to what is a “norm,” a standard, or even what the word “steal” means. Adultery, for instance, has lost its meaning. How did this happen? The maze of semantics, relative values, who or what is authority, leaves the ordinary person in an intellectual and spiritual dilemma.

When I was following the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee a few years ago, and watching their frustrated attempts to establish a standard, much of what I seek to share now was made vividly clear. There is no standard!! Who are you to judge me? How can you tell me what is right or wrong?

Suddenly we saw exposed in our own governmental system the anarchy of ethical situation: Each man doing what is right in his own eyes. Dr. Carl Henry said in essence: “Theologians no longer declare a biblical norm as a rule for faith and morals, but rather suggest ‘what is the norm for me.’” All of us should be able to see where that will lead us—complete anarchy—and it very nearly has. There are as many “norms” as there are people, and there appears to be no solution to each doing his own thing.

The Lost Standard

Permit us to go back a few years and show how this happened and some chronological sequence. A casual reading of church history will reveal a continual drift from the place of Scripture in the lives of people, churches, and nations. It also reveals that a nation is blessed or blighted in proportion to the place given the Scriptures by its leaders. America and India would be the two most dramatic examples of the results of following and not following the teaching of Scripture and the result in national blessing.

Why the Bible? Simply, because the Bible comes from the ultimate authority, God Almighty. The minister cannot be our ultimate authority for he has problems of his own. The judge—never, “we all know that he takes bribes.” The policeman? No, he is involved in an adulterous relationship with the waitress at the local diner. Perhaps the school teacher can . . . but no, he or she is involved in divorce and has too many personal problems to have the authority to tell anyone what to do. The ultimate authority of God is the only source to which we may turn with the assurance that His judgments will be equally fair to the man on the street or the man in the White House.

The new morality would have us believe that “right” and “wrong” are to be determined by the results; are they good or bad. Of course, we must then face the dilemma of what standard we use to judge the “goodness” or “badness” of the result!! We must face the only alternative—a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, simply because God said it is so. It is the only answer which we may embrace with confidence in its stability and fairness.

No one, however, will dare to suggest that the authority they search for is the eternal Word of the living God who in love provided for us what someone has called the Manufacturer’s Handbook—the Bible.

God, as creator, gave us in those sixty-six books an objective, propositional revelation which is the guide to successful living for business, home, marriage, . . . and politics! It does, when properly understood, speak with an eternal and authoritative voice to all issues of life—both personal and spiritual.

As a nation, we have taken the Scriptures from the schools, rejected their authority in the seminary and personally mocked those who sought to conduct themselves in the light of their authority; seeing them as impractical or fanatical! We have taken the Bible from them in the schools and have sought someone to give it back to them when they are in the jails.

When a people, church, or nation leaves the concept of the Scriptures as a unique and final authority, it takes only a generation or two to see the decline and degeneration of the home and family. Then follows degeneration in sexual conduct, morals, business, and ethics. Bible-pounder, you say! Bibliotony in its most blatant form! It has been charged that in our day such an approach to ethical questions is mere obscurantism, the resistance to human progress and enlightenment; or a form of resurrectionism, the desire to return to old ideas and concepts, thus avoiding the future. To this we must answer—NO, NEVER!

Scripture Rejected

Follow with me now as we trace the rejection of the Scripture. During the seventeenth century, the intellectual and philosophical world entered the period of Rationalism. Rationalism, according to Francis Schaeffer, is “man, beginning only from himself, gathering enough details in order to make a universal with no knowledge from outside himself—and particularly no knowledge from God.”

“No knowledge from God,” of course, means the Bible. On the heels of Rationalism came the liberal theology and Higher Criticism (Literary—the Bible is full of contradictions, etc.), and Lower Criticism (Textual—the original manuscripts are dubious, etc.). The effect of these three thrusts was tantamount to the emasculation of the authority of the Bible as the Word of God. Gradually, this filtered down to pastors and finally to the man on the street—people like you and me. Its practical result was that the Scriptures no longer could require anything from me, for, after all, the Bible is not “from God” as originally supposed and therefore has no real authority.

There followed the teaching in the seminaries and pulpits which was basically subjective, rooted in experience and man-centered. Due to the loss of the Bible as any final authority, people began to look within, establishing their own authority. This is the essence of modern theology. Man thinks that God and the Scriptures are the problem and he is perfectly normal!

The loss of the authority of the Scripture leads us to search for a new authority, for no matter what happens, there must be one. Could some theologian, or perhaps a philosopher, give us a certain standard by which to form some personal ethics and morals? Theologians and philosophers could not, because they themselves have been cut loose from the standard given by God and are themselves floating in an uncharted sea in a boat made of salt water.

In the absence of solid leadership, a clear standard or someone to tell us what is right or wrong, we entered what is called the “new morality.” New morality is a result of the rejection of the morals and beliefs of the Holy Scriptures. New morality—we are told—is based on love. As long as we love, we can do anything to anyone in any manner, for who has the authority to tell you that what you are doing is “wrong.”

Six-Inch Ruler

Our dilemma can be clearly illustrated. In Washington, D.C., there is a department of the government called the Bureau of Standards. It is the job of this department to maintain a fixed standard of all measurements used in the United States. They have a standard measurement for a foot, a yard, a pint, a gallon, a pound, etc. All other measuring devices—ruler, scales, graduates, etc.—are calibrated against the common standard thus assuring uniformity of measurement in all parts of our land. Without that single standard, there would be no way of saying that my six-inch ruler were any more accurate than your six-inch ruler. Without a fixed standard, all measurement becomes a matter of opinion.

In like manner, then, the Scriptures are a ruler which enables us to measure right and wrong. Without this standard, we find ourselves totally unable to measure or judge moral and ethical questions.

Here we are, even as Christians, without a clear understanding of the authority of the Scriptures over the life of the believer. In our confusion, we embrace self-realization, mystic and subjective feelings, new morality, situation ethics, or different and various forms of spiritual anarchy with all of its related diseases. As the church sows, so shall she reap. Across our nation—police chiefs, judges, ministers, school teachers, presidents, and other men of esteem lie, cheat, steal, misrepresent and otherwise perjure themselves before God and their fellowman. Why? Because we have lost the authority of God’s Word as that which we should and must obey, if we are to be pleasing in His sight. It is the answer to our present moral and political confusion.

Listen to the Prophet Jeremiah describe the situation in his day—a people who rejected the authority of the Scriptures in daily conduct:

Oh, that my eyes were a fountain of tears; I would weep forever; I would sob day and night for the slain of my people! Oh, that I could go away and forget them and live in some wayside shack in the desert, for they are all adulterous, treacherous men.
“They bend their tongues like bows to shoot their arrows of untruth. They care nothing for right and go from bad to worse; they care nothing for me,” says the Lord.
“Beware of your neighbor! Beware of your brother! All take advantage of one another and spread their slanderous lies. With practiced tongues they fool and defraud each other; they wear themselves out with all their sinning.
“They pile evil upon evil, lie upon lie, and utterly refuse to come to me,” says the Lord.
Therefore the Lord of Hosts says this, “See, I will melt them in a crucible of affliction, I will refine them and test them like metal. What else can I do with them? For their tongues aim lies like poisoned spears. They speak cleverly to their neighbors while planning to kill them. Should not I punish them for such things as this?” asks the Lord. “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jeremiah 9:1–9, Living Bible)

Let us who profess to call upon His name hear a clear call to personal integrity, proper business conduct, fidelity in marriage, trust between neighbors and friends. Let us learn to depend upon the rock of God’s authoritative and infallible Word, and when we do, we shall find the joy of the Kingdom of God. Our own confidence can then be manifested to a confused and degenerate nation. We could, as someone has suggested, need only one genuine Christian for each ten square miles.