COMMENTARY: When the wrong people have moral authority

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ Question: What happens when the wrong people do the right thing? When the good works of an otherwise abhorrent […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ Question: What happens when the wrong people do the right thing? When the good works of an otherwise abhorrent individual or group provide a platform from which to control the issues facing a community? And when, in the words of Edmund Burke, the 18th-century statesman,”good men do nothing?” Answer: The moral integrity of the community is compromised and evil is permitted to prosper.


For an example, one need look no further than the nation’s inner cities, many of whose inhabitants are supported and maintained through an underground economy.

In the ‘hood, some youths deemed unemployable through conventional means are put to work by drug dealers and other street corner entrepreneurs. The profits from the most lucrative of these operations are often invested in neighborhood businesses, creating jobs for local citizens and buying loyalty for their benefactors.

The Rev. Eugene Rivers, who runs a ministry to gangbangers in Boston, observed firsthand the effectiveness of this approach. As he noted in a recent Newsweek article profiling his ministry,”Selvin (a local drug dealer) explained to us, `I’m there when Johnny goes out for a loaf of bread for Mama. I’m there, you’re not. I win, you lose. It’s all about being there.'” Yet the drug pusher and his white-collar partners are not the only devils with whom we make deals. Far more insidious and pervasive are the nation’s”vice”industries, including gambling, alcohol and tobacco, which facilitate the corruption of our morals through more socially acceptable means.

Directly, and through legitimate industries _ such as farming, paper, glass, ink production, technology development and advertising _ these vice industries provide enough jobs and invest in enough good causes to tempt even the purest among us.

In Atlantic City, for example, the gaming industry has transformed the entire look and culture of the city _ and not all for the better. Economically depressed for years before legalized gambling was approved in the 1970s, the city has in recent years been the recipient of a tremendous infusion of capital, as the past two decades have seen casino after casino erected along its famous boardwalk.

As a result, the casino industry has become Atlantic City’s major employer, expanding its tax coffers and making possible the creation of an $83 million state-of-the-art high school on the edge of town.

Yet the quest for easy money that drives the gaming industry has a negative impact, too. Local businesses and social service agencies have been affected, often finding themselves unable to compete with the salaries offered by casinos. Even more ominous, in recent years several school district and city officials _ including at least two of the city’s mayors _ have become entangled in corruption scandals. At the same time, the city’s public school system is among the wealthiest in New Jersey, yet ranks among the worst in academic performance.


At the heart of this tendency to strike morally questionable deals is a lack of faith. Yes, faith. Faith in ourselves, our beliefs, what we know to be right and wrong. And, most assuredly, faith in God, to whom we must ultimately give an account.

Indeed, if we are honest, the American yearning to reclaim”civil society”is, at bottom, a politically correct way of reclaiming our biblical roots. For the values we hold dear are rooted in the Sunday School lessons of our youth. It is also the reason we mourn the loss of screen icons like Jimmy Stewart and Roy Rogers, who _ at least on the silver screen _ stood up for right regardless of the cost.

Today, however, there is little in society that supports the notion of an absolute moral standard or a pure religious faith. Lacking such a support, we fear being labeled politically incorrect. Ultimately, this robs us of our convictions and compels us to join hands with those who have mastered the art of the deal.

MJP END ATCHISON

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