MAN’S SHORT-CIRCUITED CONSCIENCE

 

Rev. Elmer Manzo
Kipling Ave. Baptist Church
Etobicoke, Ontario

I have just read thesentencing of Bernard Madoff now considered the most reviled person in the business world. The Federal Judge sentenced him to 150 years in prison for what he called an “extra-ordinarily evil,” multibillion-dollar scam that victimized charities, celebrities, pension funds and average investors world-wide. He was guilty of embezzling US$13 billion from thousands of investors.

The punishment imputed upon him far exceeded the prison terms given to other noted white-collar criminals whose convictions involved smaller securities frauds. Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years. Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling received a 24-year prison term. Not long ago, we also read from the newspapers the sentencing of Conrad Black, a Canadian well-known businessman who also embezzled US$7 billion from his clientele.

Lucky for him he was only slapped 6 1/2 years in prison. Why are these decent people, highly educated, do such an immoral thing as this? Don’t they have any conscience at all? The news said they were sorry for what they have done but are they truly sorry for the damage they have done to their victims or are they sorry that they were caught?

Have you heard about a “conscience fund,” which was created for those who have lied, cheated or stolen, and who now wish to salve their consciences by returning to someone the money which they had gotten dishonestly. The “Conscience Fund” was established by Congress in 1811 when an anonymous donor who claimed to have defrauded the government sent five dollars to the Treasury Department. He said that he could not live with his conscience until he had paid the debt. This reminds me of the story of another gentle-man who sent in some money to the Treasury saying that he had cheated on his income tax and wanted to make things right. And if his conscience continued to bother him, he said that he would send in the rest of the money he owed!

Conscience is, indeed, a strange thing. One can only wonder: Where does conscience come from, and what is it, anyway?
Some people believe that conscience is “the voice of God.” Others speak of it as the “still, small voice which tells us what is right and wrong.” I do believe that conscience is what God has placed in our hearts to know what right from wrong. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 2, all human beings have a conscience, a “law written in their hearts.” But conscience must be trained, just as we must be trained to speak a language. A child raised in the wild, will be unable to speak despite an innate capacity; likewise, children raised in a moral “wilderness” never learn to judge right from wrong. The most crucial training takes place in the family. Parents must teach their children by example and by the behavior they require. Aristotle wrote “virtue consists not merely in knowing what is right but also in having the will to do right. A person must be trained through repetition.” In Aristotle’s words, “We become just by practicing just actions.” But with divorce and dual careers, parents today spend 40 percent less time with their children than a generation ago. And their job is made harder by a weakening of public standards. Modern thinkers have rejected the very idea of objective morality.

Charles Darwin, reduced morals as an extension of animal instincts; Sigmund Freud, considered it as repression of impulses which is the source of neurosis; Karl Marx, who disdained morality treated it as an expression of self-interest.

Under this onslaught, confidence in any common morality has crumbled. When children are raised in this climate, their moral sense remains unshaped, untutored. Like feral children incapable of speech, many children today are incapable of drawing moral distinctions—or controlling their passions and impulses. Parents, therefore, should teach their children right from wrong. Teachers in every classroom ought to pass on a culture that is our common moral heritage. Above all, we need to accept the Biblical injunction that all men are sinners and in need of redemption. Unless a man is born again, and radically changed from the inside, man will continue to carry with him or her defective conscience. We will continue to see the like of Madoff, Black, and many other swindlers abound in any society.