34 Ethical Issues All Christians Should Know

34 Ethical Issues All Christians Should Know


Comment: Helpful. Image source

"Thou Shalt not Steal" - Everyday ethics for the business professional

Scripture:

• “You shall not steal" Exodus 20:15
• "Let him who stole steal no longer" Ephesians 4:28

Comment:

I was a bit surprised that that technology group of which I am a member has a new time and attendance policy taking effect on January 1st. Basically there are workers who have time-based performance (this may loosely relate to being non-exempt) or performance based (loosely related to being exempt). The net of the communications was this - be on time ... and don't leave early ... and let your manager know if you will be away from your work for such and such time (like a Dr's appointment).

Christians are called upon to have the highest level of ethics with regard to employment. In thinking about my own work environment, I see these areas where the Christian needs to be carefully observant:

• Don't steal time. A full time employee should work full time. 
• Don't steal office supplies: Occasionally and inadvertently I will bring a pen home from work. Seems like a minor thing! But it is best to return it. If one needs personal office supplies, buy them for oneself!
• Don't cheat on expenses: I have a company credit card. I only carry it in my wallet when I travel - otherwise it is locked up. While we are not required to keep receipts for meals of less than a certain amount, I keep all receipts and am careful to only expense what was really spent. If I have breakfast for $ 4.00 at McDonald's ... I don't expense as if I spent $ 10 at Perkins.
• Don't take technology: I have 4 or 5 keyboards stowed away in my office. If I need a keyboard for home, I buy it. When I need a mouse, I buy it myself.
• Don't take services: We have an internal mail system where I can mail any package to any company employee anywhere where an employee is located. I used to have relatives who worked for the company and lived miles away. It would have been wrong to send Christmas presents via the internal mail system to a relative-employee.

Who is watching? The Lord says: "Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?”. Jeremiah 23:24. We are called to high ethics because God is just and holy. We live and move in God and cannot escape His presence or observance.

Hey Nancy .... pick this out of your swamp!

Rangel charged with multiple ethics violations

Excerpts:

A House investigative committee on Thursday charged New York Rep. Charles Rangel with multiple ethics violations, a blow to the former Ways and Means chairman and an election-year headache for Democrats.

...

Nancy Pelosi had once promised to "drain the swamp" of ethical misdeeds by lawmakers in arguing that Democrats should be in charge.

...

The investigation of Rangel has focused on:

• His use of official stationery to raise money for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York.
  
• Whether he had the Ways and Means Committee consider legislation that would benefit donors to the Rangel Center at the same time the congressman solicited donations or pledges.
  
• Preserved a tax shelter for an oil drilling company, Nabors Industries, which has a chief executive who donated money to the center while Rangel's committee considered the loophole legislation.
  
• Used four rent-controlled apartment units in New York City, when the city's rent stabilization program is supposed to apply to one's primary residence. This raises the question of how all the units could be primary residences. One was a campaign office, raising the separate question of whether the rent break was an improper gift.
  
• Whether Rangel, as required, publicly reported information on the financing and rental of his ownership interest in a unit within the Punta Cana Yacht Club in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Rangel also had to pay back taxes on the rental income.
  
• Intentionally failed to report — when required — hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in assets. The amended disclosure reports added a credit union IRA, mutual fund accounts and stock.

Comment: See earlier post Charles Rangel's Special Deal

Harvard gets and "F"

Harvard Medical School in Ethics Quandary

Excerpt:

In a first-year pharmacology class at Harvard Medical School, Matt Zerden grew wary as the professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.

Mr. Zerden later discovered something by searching online that he began sharing with his classmates. The professor was not only a full-time member of the Harvard Medical faculty, but a paid consultant to 10 drug companies, including five makers of cholesterol treatments.

“I felt really violated,” Mr. Zerden, now a fourth-year student, recently recalled. “Here we have 160 open minds trying to learn the basics in a protected space, and the information he was giving wasn’t as pure as I think it should be.”

Mr. Zerden’s minor stir four years ago has lately grown into a full-blown movement by more than 200 Harvard Medical School students and sympathetic faculty, intent on exposing and curtailing the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories, as well as in Harvard’s 17 affiliated teaching hospitals and institutes.

They say they are concerned that the same money that helped build the school’s world-class status may in fact be hurting its reputation and affecting its teaching.

Comment: Full disclosure is the key. Anymore on the financial programs on TV, the analyst will disclose whether they have stock in the same company whose stock they are promoting. Park Nicollet (health care clinics in Minnesota) recently instituted a policy requiring clinic doctors to disclose their financial relationships with drug and medical device companies: Park Nicollet doctors will disclose ties to vendors

Excerpt:

Park Nicollet Health Services has become the first health care system in Minnesota, and one of an elite group nationally, to require doctors to publicly disclose their financial relationships with drug and medical device companies.

This week's move by Park Nicollet is designed to allay concerns that these relationships -- often forged with thousands of dollars in free meals and travel, speakers' fees, royalties for inventions and professional consultation payments -- pose a conflict of interest by influencing doctors' treatment decisions. Drug and device companies defend the payments, saying doctors' expertise is needed to make their products better.

Typically, the relationships are invisible to patients, but now those treated at Park Nicollet can begin viewing the details at tinyurl.com/cy5frs.