ethics on Fairness

How many shortcuts have been justified with the best of intentions? At the sentencing for her role in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, actress Lori Loughlin addressed the court:  “I mad...

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the co...

For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while ano...

The only reason for doing the right thing is that it is the right thing to do; all other reasons are reasons for doing something else.

The success of every culture hinges not on big points of morality—there will always be issues like abortion or school prayer over which people differ—but on smaller values, like being considerate of o...

A friend who attended a prestigious MBA program once told me about the business ethics course he took there. The professor counseled honest business practices for two reasons. First, if you lie or che...

Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes with a direct standoff,...

But let me point out something we almost always fail to notice. We can only be tempted to something that is good on some level, partially good, or good for some, or just good for us and not for others...

Preaching Commentary Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes ...

There is a Moral sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immo...

A close friend who started a financial loan business took thirty of his executives to the poverty- and violence-filled section of Montreal where he grew up in order to introduce them to the section of...

Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How ...

So how can we form deep Christian convictions without dividing the church? Let’s take a deeper look at convictions themselves. Convictions are like light: they come in many colors and form across a sp...

The British poet Thomas Campbell, attending a horse race with some friends, bet one of them (Thomas Wilson) £50 that the horse Yellow Cap, would come in first place. After the race ended, Campbell, th...

Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end... but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature ... And to...

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue."

This capriciousness of the gods is diametrically opposed to the biblical view. The God of Creation is not at all morally indifferent. On the contrary, morality and ethics constitute the very essence o...

The basis for the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount is not what works, but rather who God is.

The knowledge of good and evil seems to be the aim of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to invalidate this knowledge.

Context of Galatians I still remember my intro to New Testament class in college and the professor discussing Paul’s letter to the Galatians. All of Paul’s other letters begin with words of adoration...

Preaching Commentary Context of Galatians I still remember my intro to New Testament class in college and the professor discussing Paul’s letter to the Galatians. All of Paul’s other letters begin ...

Richard Mouw, the former president of Fuller Seminary and a professor of philosophy, shares an amusing anecdote from a lecture by the esteemed Catholic ethicist Charles Curran. During his talk, Curran...

While from the outside there might not be immediately noticeable differences between a well-run company reflecting a gospel worldview and one reflecting primarily the world-story of the marketplace, i...

Preaching Commentary The teachings contained in this passage are, for my money, as difficult to preach as any lectionary text. Not only is each teaching difficult in its own right, but each has also...

The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has to-day all the exhilaration of a vice.

What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.

In the Christian faith, we frequently take for granted how radically Jesus evens the playing field. No matter your wealth, your position, let alone your race or gender, all of us are equal in God’s ey...