Corporate Ethics and Christian Persecution

A Christian Perspective
Every year we are required to review what
passes for corporate ethics. It was the
simple stuff like don't lie, cheat, or steal, and
be sure to respect customer privacy. There
were some more muddled propositions
about conflicts of interest All in all, it
was fairly good advice. The corporation
wants us to be good people with respect for
one another.
In recent years the corporation has moved
toward a seven day workweek with twentyfour a day support. This looks like good
business practice because we have to
support the customer. Recently this type of
activity has been suggested for the testing
environment.
The reasons include the rationale that we
have to get the release and merger events
done more quickly so that the corporate
bottom line pleases the stockholders. In the
process we don't add to staff, we add more
hours to everyone's already busy schedules,
(exempt hours so the company doesn't have
to pay) we neglect to add needed test
environments, and yet we are expected to
produce a better product. The norm is
becoming "let weekends be corporate time."
So we are expected to be good ethical
people and give up our private lives up to
and including our day of worship. It is highly
probable that some 80%, or more, of the
corporate employees are Christian or Jewish
people who believe in God. Their faith
requires them to keep holy either the
Sabbath or Sunday. Isn't this work
requirement a persecution of the Jew and
the Christian?
Before answering this question we need to
review the recent cultural context.
The morals of our nation have been sliding
downhill since the early days of the 1960s
when Christian virtue was the norm. As a
nation, we have allowed liberal atheistic
humanism to replace Christian virtue as the
prevailing norm. As a set of ethical norms,
secular humanism is unable to prevent
humans from degrading into hedonism.

ACP07

David Barton in his book, America to Pray

or not to Pray, demonstrates with solid
statistical evidence that Americas moral
decline began with the US Supreme Courts
decisions to remove God from public
schools in 1962.
He clearly demonstrates by removing
Christian Principle and by indoctrinating our
children with the secular humanist approach,
sexual activity among 15 year olds has
increased by 500%. Sexually transmitted
diseases have increased by 200+%. Teenage pregnancies have increased by 400+%.
During this time divorces increased by
120%, single parent families with children
increased by 160%, and couples living
together without marriage increased by
350%.
David documents the decline of American
public education with the removal of
Christian principle and the introduction of
atheistic humanist teachings. Not only has
the academic education of our children
plummeted but also reported behavioral
problems have changed. Before 1962 the
main problems were talking, chewing gum,
making noise, and misbehaviors like running
in the halls. Today the reported problems
are rape, robbery, assault, arson, murder,
and drug abuse.
Since the courts have forced us to turn away
from God, child abuse has increased by
240%, corruption of public officials increased
by 450%, illegal drug use increased by
1375% and sexual abuse of children has
increased by 2300%. Back in 1990, when
America: To Pray Or Not To Pray, was
written, David Barton points out that the US
had become a world leader in violent crime,
divorce rates, teen pregnancy rates,
voluntary abortions, illegal drug use, and
illiteracy. With the forced removal of God
from our public sector, we the people have
turned to our own devices. Our morality
without God has been abysmal!

5/27/2000

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It is the decline of moral teaching, which led

to the two youth slaughtering their fellow
students and a teacher at Columbine High
School, just this last year. The real problem
lies in the fact that these two young men
were the fruit of a corrupt system, which has
removed God and the knowledge of right
from wrong, from their lives. Ultimately, they
didnt understand wrong doing!
Our courts have removed God from our
schools and the public sector. As a society
we bought Kinseys lies about human sexual
behavior. In the 60s and 70s, with little
discernment, we normalized many of the
Kinsey noted sexual behaviors. Many of
these behaviors had been considered
perversions throughout history. We made
divorce easy in the same period. We
instituted the two working parent families in
the 1970s thereby depriving our children of
the time needed to catch Christian values.
We endorsed abortion in 1973 by calling the
fetus non-human or pre-human. The same
thing was done in the 1850s by the US
Supreme Court to justify slavery. In both
cases it was denied that human life is a
sacred gift from God. Now the right to life is
being challenged for the elderly and sick.
In more recent times of the 1990s weve
released gambling into the mainstream,
knowing that it is a very addictive behavior
for a large percentage of our families.
Weve allowed the obscene to be called art.
Weve allowed the pornography to be
delivered all over the Internet in the name of
free speech. Weve allowed and endorsed
explicit sex and violence on TV. Weve
allowed explicit interactive sex and violence
on the Internet and in computer games.
Weve permitted the perverse to become the
norm. There is no wrong or right. Each
person must determine what is best.
Weve taught our children confusion about
God and confusion about right and wrong.
What should be a surprise is that even more
of our children have not released the
barbarian animal that lies within each of us.
Let's return to corporate ethics; how can the
demand of the corporation to work 7 days a
week be construed as persecution?

ACP07

When a company asks people of Jewish or

Christian faith to work on their worship days
it in fact asks them to dishonor God. The
corporation, at a minimum, is telling these
employees that the bottom line is more
important than their faith in God.
The employee, to be in good standing with
his fellow employees, must help out. In
short the company causes the employee to
turn away from God and pay homage to the
company. Those who don't go along with
this norm are looked down upon as nonteam players. By using peer pressure, the
company forces those of weak faith to
comply. By using the same peer pressure,
those with deep faith, who honor the Lord in
spite of company requests, are viewed as
poorer performers. Discrimination and
genteel persecution has just occurred.
What are the costs of making people turn
their backs on God? In the short term it
appears there are only benefits. Yet can we
not learn from our cultural milieu? When
people are forced to turn from God then their
link in knowing right from wrong is
weakened. People of faith know that lying,
cheating, stealing, and doing anything
without honorable intentions is wrong. They
know that honesty, a sense of fairplay,
integrity and using truth as a guide, are right.
If you take God away you not only
discriminate against a good people, but as a
corporation, you remove the reason for them
to be good people. In a purely business
sense, this is a dumb business decision,
because a lawless ethic will result. Our
society has already demonstrated, that
keeping kids from God has created hell in
their lives.
Not only is it a poor business decision to
encourage people to look down on the
Christian or the Jew, it is wrong. God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son
Jesus Christ to die for us. There is a Truth
here that we will all be held accountable to.
5-27-2000
Mark B. Nemzek
2716 Boone Ave. N
New Hope, MN. 55427
612-593-1241

5/27/2000

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