Business Ethics

Posted on February 8, 2002 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, the messages and fallout from the Enron bankruptcy. The United States has become a nation of shareholders. Directly or indirectly, through pension funds, 84 million Americans own corporate stock. This week, as congressional committees in Washington investigated the Enron scandal, many of the rest of us must have wondered whether what happened at Enron could happen elsewhere.

A conversation now on Enron ethics. Reverend Jim Wallis is the editor-in-chief of SOJOURNERS magazine in Washington. In New York, Larry Zicklin is a former managing partner at the brokerage firm of Neuberger Berman, and a professor of business ethics at New York University. In California, Kirk Hanson is executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and was formerly a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford.

Welcome to you all.

I want to begin with what appears to have happened at Enron. Larry Zicklin in New York, what were the ethical problems there?

Professor LARRY ZICKLIN (Former Partner, Neuberger Berman): I think Enron was the poster child of a company and a management that forgot why they were in business. They [were] in business to serve clients, customers; to serve shareholders, to serve employees. And they began to believe they were in business to extract the maximum amount of wealth for the management, and that was a critical and fatal error.

ABERNETHY: Kirk Hanson in California, what were the ethical problems as you saw them?

Professor KIRK HANSON (Markkula Center for Applied Ethics): I see this as a case of the ethics of new economy companies. This is an issue where in the new economy we have released many of the regulatory constraints, we’ve permitted a lot of experimentation. And unfortunately, in the process of doing that, executives have taken advantage of some of their newfound freedom. And I think the untruthfulness and stretching the bounds of acceptable behavior has resulted.

ABERNETHY: So, lying, conflict of interest. Jim Wallis, what did you see?

Reverend JIM WALLIS (SOJOURNERS magazine): Well, I think there are religious issues here, not just ethical ones. Being very straight, the Bible — biblical ethics — condemns in the strongest terms the behavior of Enron executives: greed, selfishness, corruption, cheating, and the harshest kind of treatment of employees. This is directly contrary to Jewish/Christian faith.

ABERNETHY: I am interested in what you all think about the culture there, because the kind of climate in which people work is really essential. Kirk, what did you hear from your students about that?

Prof. HANSON: Well, I have had students who have come from Enron and have returned to it, some of them not to last very long there, by choice. I think culture is critically important, the ethical environment in which one operates, and unfortunately, Enron appears to have been a problematic ethical culture, which didn’t encourage the kind of honesty, responsibility-taking, which is central to any ethical organization.

ABERNETHY: And the real issue, I think for us and for so many people, is the extent to which what happened at Enron came out of a culture that is common in many businesses. Larry Zicklin, is this a national problem?

Prof. ZICKLIN: I think it is a national problem. I think Enron may be the most egregious case. But when you look at this management, who for the last few years were taking great responsibility for what was happening at the company, the great success they enjoyed — being on the cover of every magazine, in the newspapers, being interviewed on television — suddenly now appearing before Congress and saying, “We didn’t know, we didn’t see, we weren’t part of it, we didn’t understand.” I mean, that’s a lack of responsibility. That is total irresponsibility.

Prof. HANSON: Bob, I see this problem as one of the responsibilities of very top management. Unfortunately, this top management sought to take all the risks that we take within a capitalist system, but without any of the penalties when they failed. Employees suffered the downside of this: they lost their money, whereas senior executives left with much of their fortunes intact.

Rev. WALLIS: Treasury Secretary O’Neil said on a Sunday morning show that this is an example of a capitalist system where good decisions result in success and bad ones, failure. Well, that’s not what happened here. What we have is a situation now where the people at the top of the economy have made good decisions or bad ones and they get rich either way, and those at the bottom — ordinary people, employees and stockholders — good decisions or bad ones, and they suffer. That’s a systemic problem. This is an extreme case, but we have some more basic cultural and systemic issues here.

ABERNETHY: So what do we do? If the problems at Enron in Houston are problems for many businesses all over the country, how do we change that? Larry Zicklin?

Prof. ZICKLIN: Well, I think this in a seminal event is American business history and I think this will change a lot of things. It’s already begun. If you look at the accounting firms that are now dividing themselves up into audit firms and consulting firms and ridding themselves of the conflict in consulting, it tells you that’s a beginning. I think you are going to see some changes on the boards of directors. Boards are fearful now that actions are going to be brought against them and that they are going to be held liable. I think they are going to be more careful. Audit committees are going to be more careful. And I suspect management won’t push their function beyond where it should go.

Prof. HANSON: I hope Larry is right. I guess I don’t see that this will necessarily be THE seminal event. I think the whole history of the study of business ethics, the promotion of business ethics, is that it is reinforced by a succession of events like Enron. I was hired at the Stanford Business School in 1978, in the wake of the bribery scandals, the Lockheed scandal. That was the one that established and got this rolling, within at least secular universities in the United States.

ABERNETHY: So if there are predecessors here, okay, yes, but then how do we take this, or how does society take this and turn it into something that really is meaningful change?

Rev. WALLIS: By saying that this is not just a business scandal or even a political one, but it is a cultural issue here. I hope it is a seminal event. My question is: Where do Enron executives go to church? And are they hearing on Sunday mornings or Saturdays in their houses of worship, are they hearing preaching and teaching that talk about moral issues of economy? When this moves from a Sunday morning issue to a Monday morning question and back and forth, that’s when it becomes, I think, a serious conversation.

Prof. HANSON: And I see this as part of a broader, societal problem of the winner takes all. We have created a culture, we experience a culture in which only the very top athletes, only the very top businesspeople, only the very top entertainers really see themselves as being very successful. And that’s sad because that drives people to try to go for the extreme money, for the extreme success, rather then settling for success in a lot of other terms.

Rev. WALLIS: And winning by any means necessary.

ABERNETHY: Larry Zicklin?

Prof. ZICKLIN: I was just going to say, and this applies to a broader range of people than any other event we have had in our history. This is the management, this is the board, this is the audit committee, this is the accountants, this is the employees, this might also involve politics. This is an extraordinary event.

ABERNETHY: And do you think [it will] really cause serious change in the culture? That’s a big assignment.

Prof. HANSON: Well, I think Larry’s point, talking about the audit firms already beginning to separate their consulting activities, I think boards of directors here in Silicon Valley — so many questions about what are the responsibilities of boards being asked just in the last few days — I think there are elements that change is coming.

Rev. WALLIS: All those involved want to limit the damage. I want to extend the conversation.

ABERNETHY: Jim, that’s the last word. Jim Wallis in Washington, Larry Zicklin in New York, Kirk Hanson in California — many thanks to each of you.

Tibetan New Year

Posted on February 8, 2002 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: On our calendar this week, new year’s for the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tibetans. It’s the Year of the Horse, which is known for natural disasters. Asian fortunetellers advise caution.

For Tibetan Buddhists, the new year is celebrated with dancing, and we sat in as members of the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Washington, D.C. performed. Our guide was Geshe Lobsang Tenzin, who spoke of the power of negative and positive energy, and about the legends associated with snow lions and [the] Black Hat Masters.

GESHE LOBSANG TENZIN: Sha-nak Gar-cham … Dance of the Black Hat Masters originated in Tibet in about 11th century.

Legend has it that there was a tremendous revolution that destroyed the dharma, the spiritual practices in Tibet. The dance was performed to overcome the intense negativity.

The dancers have in their left hand a skullcap, and in their right hand, they hold a dagger. [The] skullcap representing the blissful state of mind. The dagger symbolizes the wisdom that cuts through the ignorance of the negativities.

Most of the Asian cultures, certainly India, China, Tibet … the division between the culture as a pure culture and religion really is not there. The culture incorporates the spiritual practices and elements.

[The] snow lion is very symbolic in the sense that, if you see the Tibetan flag, there are two snow lions holding a wish-fulfilling jewel in the middle.

For Tibetans, [the] snow lion represents the quality of fearlessness that is needed to uphold the positive qualities in our daily life.

Part of the reason we do this performance is to show that, through the positive state of mind, collectively, in the community, we can bring positive change not only to human beings, but to everyone sharing the environment.

Islamic Finances

Posted on February 8, 2002 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, another business story. Some devout Muslims believe the Koran forbids them from paying any interest. But they can still manage to finance buying a house if they can find — not a lender, but a partner. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Houston on Emran (not Enron) — Emran and Israt Gazi, Muslims and new homeowners.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Emran and Israt Gazi are an immigrant success story. He is a petroleum engineer who owns a successful business. She is a physician hoping soon to begin a residency. And they now live in their dream home.

ISRAT GAZI: It is a four-bedroom house; it has two living areas and the master bedroom is downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs.

DE SAM LAZARO: However, it took almost 10 years of scraping by in rented apartments before the Houston couple and their three children were able to move in. It wasn’t that the Gazis had bad credit. They simply don’t believe it’s right to pay interest. Their credit card bills are paid in full each month.

The Gazis, originally from Bangladesh, are devout Muslims. He is president of their mosque council, and has always adhered strictly to the Koran’s prohibition on “riba” — the receipt or payment of interest. It was at the mosque that the Gazis learned about MSI, a Houston lending cooperative that specializes in so-called Islamic financing.

EMRAN GAZI: This is like rent to own, you know; I pay same rent, except difference is I paid 25 percent down first. Slowly I am getting more ownership.

DE SAM LAZARO: Although there are variations in the details, MSI’s is a typical model for Islamic financing: borrowers usually make a down payment of 20 to 25 percent. For its part, the bank becomes a joint buyer of the home. But the monthly payments are not pegged to an interest rate, as in a mortgage. Instead they are based on the home’s rental value, calculated through a market survey of similar homes for rent.

Professor MAHMOUD EL GAMAL (Islamic Economics, Rice University): Say if the house we’re talking about rents for $1,000 a month and you own 80 percent of it, then I have to pay you $800 in rental and then maybe I can pay you $850, where the $50 is the reduction of the total amount that you own in the house.

AYUB BADAT (MSI Financial Services): So the next year when he will send the payments, then his share will go up and our share will go down. Eventually in 10 to 15 years, he will be the owner of the house.

Professor EL GAMAL: Basically you’ve taken out the interest payment part and replaced it with the rent part.

DE SAM LAZARO: What’s the difference?

Professor EL GAMAL: That is the obvious question, the best question. It may seem that all we’ve done is take out the word “interest” and put “rent” in its place. The difference is how you decide on that rent.

DE SAM LAZARO: It’s a bit like splitting hairs, El Gamal says, but that’s not uncommon when it comes to interpreting religious law. In fact, the prohibition on riba is not unique to Islam. Both Jewish and Christian scriptures admonish believers to avoid usury, although both faiths have relaxed their interpretation.

Even Islam lacks a consensus on the intent of the Koranic pronouncement. Only a minority of Muslims are thought to rigidly avoid all interest-based credit.

Professor EL GAMAL: There is a group of Muslims who view the prohibition of riba as historically predicated on the circumstances in Arabia at the time, which is that lending with interest was mostly an activity of loan sharks who used it to exploit the needy. They don’t see the mortgage loan contract to be exploitative in any way and therefore don’t feel that that is the forbidden riba. But even those people who feel that way have lingering doubts in their minds so that if Islamic financing could be provided competitively, I think many people would migrate over just for the peace of mind.

DE SAM LAZARO: Sensing a sizeable market in Islamic financial products and services, many mainstream companies have entered the field. There are brokerages and mutual funds that avoid stocks in companies involved with alcohol and pork products, for example.

The growing acceptance of Islamic finance should gradually make it easier for families like the Gazis. Even after making their down payment, they had to wait a full year before the bank raised enough money to put up its share of the purchase. About their banking relationship, though, they have nothing but good things to say.

Mr. GAZI: Each year, we do appraisal and if the value of the house goes up, then we share the profit; but if it goes down, it is negative for them but they still share it.

Mr. BADAT: The other major, major difference is we also share the taxes. Another important factor is if some major thing happens to the house.

DE SAM LAZARO: Repair?

Mr. BADAT: Repair — we also share that. Another thing is insurance. That we also share, according to our share program. If he has problem with job loss, with a bank they will kick him out in six months. We work with him.

DE SAM LAZARO: Ultimately, Islamic financing spreads risk evenly between borrower and lender. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Houston.

ABERNETHY: Of course, if you don’t have a mortgage you get no income tax deductions for mortgage interest. But it’s not a total loss. If you can find a partner the way the Gazis did, you get to share your costs for real estate taxes, repairs, insurance and any drop in your house’s market value.

President’s Council on Bioethics

Posted on January 18, 2002 by Michael Bailey

Leon Kass
Chairman, President’s Council on Bioethics

On human cloning:

Human cloning is just one of a whole series of developments which will give this generation power over the genetic endowment of the next generation, and we ought to be thinking through the full import of starting down this road.

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We are not going to be driven by the need to feed into the Senate’s discussion [of human cloning]. We’re going to try to do a good job rather than bend ourselves out of shape in the hope of influencing that debate. If the Senate would like to have testimony from members of the Council, we’re available. If they would like to see materials that we develop provisionally, we would make them available. As you can see from the briefing papers, we feel obliged to take up the question of the policy options and not just the ethical aspects of it. We will follow the timetable that the inquiry dictates. NBAC [President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission] got 90 days for its cloning report. If we could do something useful sometime by the summer, we would have done something good. We are working this out as we go along. There isn’t a preset timetable for anything at the moment.

On reading Nathanial Hawthorne’s story “The Birthmark” with the Council:

It invites us to reflect deeply on the human aspiration to eliminate all defects from human life — the aspiration to perfection in whose service science has now been asked to lend a very large hand. It’s an old story, but now we’re really able to do something about it. It also invites one to think about — what’s a birthmark? What does it mean to be marked by being born? And whether that is an imperfection that science thinks it can do battle with. On the one hand, procreation mortality; on the other, the quest to produce human life under some ideal. How do you get people who have not met one another before to start talking together as human beings, not hiding behind their disciplinary boundaries? You give them a human story to which they cannot help but have a human reaction. If we’re lucky, this will not be an academic conversation. You won’t be able to tell who’s speaking, whether they’re lawyers or physicians it’s a non threatening way to get the conversation started on the really important subjects and on what the deep human questions are that are at stake here. And finally I would like to show that the resources available to us in thinking about these matters are not just to be found in the journal articles that people like me write. What’s relevant to doing bioethics properly is not just the literature of bioethicists like myself. We can get a lot of help from humanists, from religious thinkers, from philosophers, from political thinkers who have actually pondered some of these questions before. It’s not that we’re going to go to “The Birthmark” and somehow produce public policy out of it. That’s not the idea. But one might see more clearly what’s at stake here than one will if one is reading policy analysis.

On bioethics and ancient questions:

When you have the power to intervene in the human body and mind, not just to heal disease, which everybody wants to do, but to begin to make possible fundamental changes in human nature, you have to have a fairly good idea of what makes human life human and what it would mean to improve us. The ancient question of ethics is: What’s a good human life?

On public perceptions of bioethics:

The public really recognizes, it intuits somehow that what’s at stake in these questions really is the deep character of our humanity. And their fears and worries about it are not just owing to ignorance. Their concerns — they may not be able to express them very well, because they recognize that the project for the mastery of nature has now come home to work on the master himself and herself. That’s novel, and that means we ought to be thoughtful about what we’re trying to accomplish when we unleash these powers, and know how to regulate them to have their benefits without suffering the degradations.

On how the Torah guides thinking on bioethical issues:

I am not an expert. I am proudly Jewish, but my thoughts on this subject are not primarily Jewishly shaped.

Charles Krauthammer
Columnist, The Washington Post

On the most important issue confronting the Council:

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I think the real overlooked issue is not so much the origin of stem cells, for example, or cloned cells, but their destiny. What are they going to become? What kind of human hybrids, what kind of super-humans, what kind of sub-humans do we now have the power to make? It’s the first time in human history we’ve ever been on the threshold of really realizing kind of brave new world manufacture of human beings. I think whereas the debates have been mired on the question of where do the cells come from, when does life begin — I think those are important, but that is not the whole debate, and what this Council has to do is to make people understand that with the unbelievable technologies we now are about to manipulate, we’re going to have the power to create kinds of human life, maybe non-human life, that are quite monstrous — also to some extent, perhaps, promising. But that’s what these issues are really about. We have to face that. It’s not so much the origin of stem cells, but their destiny.

On the Council’s diversity:

On the issue of abortion I’m pro-choice. I believe in legalized abortion. I’ve written and I’ve said that. And yet I have grave concerns about what will be done with these cells, these new technologies. What are the possibilities for the kind of manufacture of human beings that are in our hands? I don’t think that the traditional categories (pro-choice/pro-life, liberal/conservative) are really going to be terribly applicable. I think only if you look at it through the crude lens of the abortion debates can you say, well, this may be conservative or liberal. We have new issues, new technologies, and new moral challenges on this commission, and I think we have an extremely thoughtful and very distinguished group of people who’ll bring an open mind. I think we are going to get very interesting results.

James Q. Wilson
Professor of Public Policy
Pepperdine University

On the issues before the Council:

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Right now I would say our most challenging problem will be therapeutic cloning — cloning not for the purpose of producing a child (my view is that’s bad), but rather for developing an embryo to the point where stem cells can be used to cure illnesses, and whether this does violence to one’s essential humanity or whether the overriding social benefit is larger. This is not a question that’s easily answered. My guess [is] this will be our most difficult problem.

Our mission is to tell the President of the United States what we think, and we may think it in two or three somewhat contradictory batches; I’m not sure whether we will come to agreement or not.

Dr. Daniel W. Foster
University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

On the Council’s meeting with President Bush at the White House:

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[The president] wants us to educate him and educate the people about the new bioscience. He asked a number of the members of the Council to make comments about what they thought. It was not just an ordinary conversation. I think serious things were pointed out — that this is very much on the public’s mind, that there are going to be different views, that there’s not going to be one answer. One of the things that was most impressive was that he said he wanted the Council to take all views. Even though he has publicly said that he is against cloning, he wants the Council to take all views. One of the scientists said, “Well, that’s what the scientists are here for, to inform you about those things.”

On human cloning:

Leon Kass has interpreted the president’s direction to say that the cloning issue is the one that we’re going to start with. He’s described it as a short-term issue, so I believe that we will try to deal with that before we deal with things like stem cell treatment of diseases and things of that sort.

The different views are all focusing on serious issues of what it means to be a human. I’m nervous about enhancement and the fairness of that — if only the rich can get a higher IQ, or something like that. Repairing defects and illness is different, in my mind, than enhancement. I believe in a meritocracy — the idea that all humans are deserving of respect, but not all are deserving of praise. If you clone everybody to be smart, then there’s no such thing as merit. There’s no fairness.

The cloning of a whole human being, like the cloning of a sheep, is a very different issue. The real issue for physicians is whether we can use gene therapy to repair sickle cell anemia, let’s say, or Parkinson’s disease. And even here we’ll discuss the difference between somatic gene therapy, that is, the repair of a single human by putting in a gene that they’re missing, as opposed to germ line gene therapy, because if you put it in the germ line then all the progeny will be well, but you’ve also got the dangers of mutations. I’m very comfortable with the idea of somatic gene therapy for individual illnesses. So the cloning is not going to be for the repair of diseases; it might be for a set of humans that don’t have any diseases if you want to do that.

On human imperfection and gene therapy:

As a physican-scientist, I’m all for trying to help humans who are sick. But I heard a minister speak once who had lost his nine-year-old daughter to acute leukemia, and he said, “If you ask me, would I rather not have had her born or had her for nine years, I would not trade the nine years that I had her with her imperfections.” None of the great things in humanity are available if there’s not risk. There’s no role for bravery if there’s not risk. There’s no role for compassion if there’s not suffering. A lot of what makes humans great comes out of these imperfections.

Francis Fukuyama
Professor of International Political Economy
Johns Hopkins University

On issues beyond human cloning:

My basic concern is the longer term institutional one. I was in favor of the Weldon bill [Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., sponsor of the House-passed legislation to ban human cloning], and I testified on that. But I think that this kind of legislative ban isn’t going to work in the future for a lot of the issues that have to be dealt with. To the extent that I think I can help as a political scientist, it’s in trying to understand what kind of an institutional structure would be capable of making the kind of decision that goes way beyond cloning. You’re going to have all sorts of issues coming up in the future: Should we allow parents to select enhancement characteristics in their children? Right now there’s no regulatory structure that will allow you to make that kind of a decision. The more important issues go beyond the immediate cloning thing.

Right Not to Be Born

Posted on January 18, 2002 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In France, a major ethical debate. The government has stepped into a furor over whether there is or should be a right not to be born. The highest court implied there should be, but the National Assembly said no. Paul Miller reports from Paris.

PAUL MILLER: Nicolas Perruche, now 18, is deaf, mute, mostly blind and has other physical and mental disabilities. His mother was exposed to German measles, which can cause serious birth defects. She asked her doctors if she could safely continue her pregnancy. They said yes.

The parents sued, charging malpractice, and won. The parents said they should have had an abortion, and sued again. A year ago France’s highest court awarded them more money on behalf of the child and not the parents.

The ruling said Nicolas could claim damages because doctors had not detected his disability in the womb. The decision never used the phrase “wrongful birth”, but it was widely interpreted to have established that concept.

Some legal experts said the recognition of the child’s right to damages effectively created a right NOT to be born.

Professor LAURENT AYNES (Sorbonne University): Your damage is that you are in life. Why is it a damage? Because you are handicapped. And the remedy is that you should have been aborted. The way of reasoning is that for this child it would have been better not to be born. So he can sue the doctor because he was born.

MILLER: It was not an isolated case. Recently the same court ruled that a child with Down’s syndrome was also entitled to more money from a doctor who didn’t notify the mother, who said she would have had an abortion if she had known. The French Catholic Church said the verdict was an insult to people with Down’s syndrome and their families.

Groups representing the disabled were outraged, saying that, in effect courts were deciding that some people were worth less than others, or worth more dead than alive.

GUY MARECHAL (Attorney for the Disabled): It was based on the notion of wrongful life. We cannot accept the idea of a “wrong life.” For us, life can only be right and not wrong. You cannot say that a life is of a lesser value because you suffer a handicap.

MILLER: Some people predicted France would soon be practicing eugenics — that abortions would increase, that doctors would recommend ending pregnancies at any sign of trouble rather than risk legal action. Indeed, the court rulings and rising insurance costs have caused many doctors to stop obstetric ultrasounds. They don’t want to be sued for missing something.

Dr. BERNARD HUYNH: Mostly in France you have examinations for the screening of abnormalities of the fetus, and that sort of examination we are going to stop now.

MILLER: Some say that’s unethical but the anger of the doctors, the disabled groups and others forced the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to introduce legislation to change things.

The National Assembly passed a bill saying that no one can claim to have been harmed simply by being born. The bill may be modified, but the main issue has been decided: France does not have a “right not to be born.”

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Paul Miller in Paris.

Military Chaplains

Posted on October 5, 2001 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: As of this weekend, 30,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the Middle East and Central Asia, and among them are some of the country’s 2,800 military chaplains. How are they helping prepare U.S. forces for whatever lies ahead? In particular, how are they counseling American military personnel who are Muslim? Lucky Severson has our special report.

LUCKY SEVERSON: They don’t stand out in the faces of a military going to war, or on the bow of a battleship, but chaplains are always there — ministering to the spiritual needs of the military — have been since the Revolutionary War. Chaplains like Jay Magness.

CHAPLAIN JAY MAGNESS (U.S. Navy): Our job as chaplain officers in the Department of the Navy is to help people find their moral equilibrium, which is their spiritual equilibrium.

SEVERSON: Chaplain Magness is in charge of all the chaplains in the Atlantic Fleet — the chaplains who sailed recently with the carrier Roosevelt battle group to support America’s military response. The chaplain was at the Pentagon September 11th, looking for survivors, until he realized there weren’t any more. Now he’s searching for answers.

CHAPLAIN MAGNESS: As I look at the religious traditions, religious scriptures, whether it is the Koran or the New Testament, or the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, evil was always dealt with, evil was always confronted, evil was never ignored. And the traditions and cultures where evil is ignored, there will be a demise of that culture.

CHAPLAIN TIMOTHY GAULT (U.S. Navy, Destroyer Squadron, speaking to sailors): So how does it make you feel going into the coming deployment?

SEVERSON: Chaplain Timothy Gault ministers to a destroyer squadron that will be joining the Roosevelt battle group. He was a pastor for a nondenominational evangelical church in Florida until, he says, he was called by God to serve in the navy.

CHAPLAIN GAULT (counseling sailors): What does your mama think about this?

UNIDENTIFIED SAILOR: She’s sad that I’m leaving, but she’s happy that we’re actually taking part in something as courageous as what we’re doing right now.

SEVERSON: The chaplain has no qualms about his mission. He says he is guided by scriptures in the New Testament.

CHAPLAIN GAULT: Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes and he says that the governing authorities are there because God has allowed them to have that authority and it is government responsibility to avenge wrath [sic] upon those who do evil.

SEVERSON: Inside the Pentagon, an image that might startle some who expect to find only things military. This is an Islamic Ju’mah prayer session for military and civilian employees, conducted by Army Captain Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad. He is the military’s first Muslim chaplain. Now there are 13.

CAPTAIN ABDUL-RASHEED MUHAMMAD (Walter Reed Army Medical Center, speaking at the Ju’mah prayer service): We should ask ourselves, would our prophet kill innocent men, women, and children? Even if a Muslim becomes a terrorist, his answer would be “no” to this question.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (Address to Congress): I have a message for the military: be ready. The hour is coming when America will act and you will make us proud.

SEVERSON: When the president said this would be a different kind of war, it resonated through the military and among the 4,000-plus Muslims now serving — some of whom may have to wage war on Muslim soil.

CHAPLAIN MUHAMMAD: Probably it’s very similar to what sons and daughters and husbands and brothers experienced during the Civil War, where you had, literally, families fighting against each other. And I think anytime you have that happen, you will have a conflict of conscience.

SEVERSON: Of the Muslim sailors and airmen we spoke with, some, like Petty Officer Umar Salaam, sought counsel from their chaplains, but none say they have qualms about going to war against terrorists, even Muslim terrorists.

PETTY OFFICER UMAR SALAAM: Right, because in the Koran, we believe in justice, no matter if you are a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, and I believe in the same thing.

SEVERSON: This is Lieutenant Commander David Koch, a Muslim in the navy 14 years.

LT. COMMANDER DAVID KOCH (U. S. Navy): When you look at the acts that were committed — terrorist acts — and you have documented proof, there shouldn’t be any qualms about going after those who were responsible.

SEVERSON: In some ways, chaplains have never faced a challenge like the one they face now. This isn’t some far-off war. The stakes are higher. The questions are more complicated. Suddenly even those sailors, soldiers, and marines who’ve claimed no faith are searching. Everyone is.

CHAPLAIN MAGNESS: People are asking questions of their clergy, of their chaplains they never asked before. They are wondering about what will happen, what will happen to me, not only the service members, the family members too. They are wondering about the role of their religious beliefs in their life today.

SEVERSON: For Chaplain Magness, ministering to servicemen is a sacred mission. He remembers his painful search for answers in Vietnam.

CHAPLAIN MAGNESS: I’d realized that — people so often do in a war — warfare is man’s greatest inhumanity to man on some level. I could look down at my own hands and say I’m a participant in this. I’m not an innocent bystander. I came to the conclusion there’s only one thing that could hold my world together, in the midst of all the evil, all the inhumanity, and that was God.

SEVERSON: When the chaplain heard reports of harassment of Muslim sailors, he immediately ordered that all chaplains in the fleet become involved at the slightest hint of harassment. And that must have been comforting for Lieutenant Sana Savage.

LT. SANA SAVAGE (Naval Leader Training Center): We are all Americans, you know. Americans in the military took an oath to serve and they will do the services that they need to do. We’re grieving just as everybody else.

SEVERSON: Lieutenant Savage is with the Naval Leader Training Unit. She is Muslim, and, she will tell you, she is an American.

LT. SAVAGE: I prayed about it. I joined the community in praying. I pray with my family. I pray every day for it. I pray for our leaders to guide them, give them wisdom so that we can do the right thing, and what’s right for the nation.

SEVERSON: It is difficult to imagine the heavy responsibility that weighs on the shoulders of the commander of a warship or a naval flotilla.

Chaplain MAGNESS: I had a senior commander, a general officer not too long ago, in the last couple of weeks, tell me he wouldn’t think about making a major decision that would affect lots of lives without first having a conference with his chaplain and praying with him.

SEVERSON: But the bottom line is always the young soldier, or sailor or marine or airman. And it is not just to help them make it through their mission or their enlistment, it’s so they will come home spiritually whole.

CHAPLAIN MAGNESS: We’ve got to have people who think, people who have spiritual centers and foundations, who conduct themselves rightly and do the right things, so that they don’t delve down into the evil they are trying to confront. There is a very thin line between the two.

SEVERSON: The questions and prayers may not be very different from those of all wars. But with this one, they’re searching even before the battle begins.

PETTY OFFICER SHELTON RUSSELL (Navy Instructor): I feel that Allah will guide me there. I can’t say what I will do, what I don’t do; I trust in Allah, that Allah will guide us.

SEVERSON: For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson at the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia.

Prayer Service for Aid Workers in Afghanistan

Posted on October 5, 2001 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban is moving ahead with its trial of eight foreign aid workers, two of them Americans, who have been held since August on charges of promoting Christianity. On Friday, the father of one of the American women issued an urgent plea to Taliban officials on behalf of his daughter, who he says has become emotionally unwell during her imprisonment.

As concern for the aid workers mounts, emergency prayers are being offered across the U.S. Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: At Antioch Community Church, in Waco, Texas, talk of U.S. military action against Afghanistan hits close to home. The two detained Americans, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, were both active members of this nondenominational evangelical church before they left for Afghanistan. Pastor Jimmy Seibert visited the two women there in June.

REV. JIMMY SEIBERT (Antioch Community Church): For both of them, when they landed in Afghanistan, they were living the dream of their lives: to be in a place where people were in tremendous need, and they could be practical help, and they were just being who they were.

LAWTON: The dream turned into a nightmare on August 3. 29-year-old Dayna Curry and 24-year-old Heather Mercer were arrested by security officials and accused of preaching Christianity, something strictly forbidden by the Taliban.

They were taken to this detention center, along with six other foreigners, colleagues at the German-based Christian relief group Shelter Now International. Sixteen Afghans also were arrested.

Shelter Now sponsored several relief projects to help Afghanistan’s poor, including food distribution and small business development. But the Taliban alleges the relief work was a cover for missionary activities. As evidence, they displayed confiscated Christian books, tapes, and CDs — many in English.

Shelter Now says evangelism is not part of its official mandate in Afghanistan. But a statement on the group’s Web site acknowledges Shelter Now does not control the leisure-time activities or personal belongings of its workers.

Friends say the two women are motivated by their strong personal faith to help people in need. Jeannie McGinnis is Heather Mercer’s former roommate.

MS. JEANNIE MCGINNIS (former roommate): She exudes what she believes. And she is not ashamed of what she believes, and so through relationships, I’m sure it came out of what she believes and what she does. Because that is why she went, because she loves God and she loves other people.

REV. SEIBERT: When they went to Afghanistan, they knew the dangers they were getting into. They had counted the costs. We’d had many discussions about it. And they said, “It’s worth it. If Jesus died for me, surely I can give a part of my life in a way that would honor him.”

LAWTON: The Taliban’s trial against the eight foreigners has been on again, off again since early September. Under Taliban law, the potential punishment ranges from expulsion to the death penalty. Parents of the two women had been allowed to see them briefly in Kabul, but they were evacuated to Pakistan after September 11.

MS. NANCY CASSELL (Dayna Curry’s mother): If you have a child and you have to leave them in a situation like this, you can imagine. I do not know how to describe it. It is just heartbreaking.

LAWTON: In Waco, the Antioch Community Church has set up a special room devoted to prayers for the women and the situation in Afghanistan. Congregation members have committed to round-the-clock prayer shifts.

REV. SEIBERT: We are saying, “God, make a way for them where there is no way.” It doesn’t look good for them in the natural, but God is into doing miracles.

LAWTON: The church has received faxes, e-mails, and letters from people around the world who are joining them in prayer.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

Moral Implications of U.S. Anti-Terrorism Policies

Posted on October 5, 2001 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: As the U.S. builds coalitions and deploys troops in response to last month’s attacks, an old moral question has resurfaced. In order to fight a great evil, how much evil do you have to condone? For instance, in order to get the help of unsavory governments in the fight against terrorism, does the U.S. have to abandon its pressure on those same governments to recognize human rights? Nina Shea is an international lawyer and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the human rights organization, Freedom House. Stephen Morrison is director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and John Wimberly is Senior Pastor at the Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Welcome to all of you. Nina Shea, let’s begin with you. What are your greatest fears about the costs of fighting terrorism?

NINA SHEA (Director, Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House): I am very concerned, Bob, about a policy trade-off. That we are in effect saying to our new allies, in this alliance against terrorism, that as long as you cooperate in not exporting terrorism, you can commit terrorism against your own populations inside your own borders. And this will be used as an opportunity to do political housecleaning, if you will.

ABERNETHY: But is there any question in your mind that the fight against terrorism is the first priority?

SHEA: No, it is a first priority and I think it is compatible with our human rights goals because in the end, these governments that are engaged in slavery, mass murder, and genocide against their own populations and, in fact, religious minorities in some of these cases, are ultimately no stable, reliable ally of the United States.

ABERNETHY: Dr. Morrison, I gather that you think engagement with some of these governments is not so bad?

DR. STEPHEN MORRISON (Director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies): Well, I agree with Nina Shea that there is a serious human rights problem that we cannot ignore as we make these immediate, urgent measures to address the terrorist concerns. And, it’s a problem that cuts across a broad swath of states, the Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia, Sudan, and we need a strategy. We need a medium-term strategy in which we bring our diplomacy forward, to apply new — both inducements and pressures upon these governments to address their internal human rights environments.

ABERNETHY: But do you fear the same thing that Nina fears, that an alliance with us will in effect give some of these governments the sense that they can go after their domestic political opposition in the name of fighting terrorism, just wipe out people?

MORRISON: There is certainly a risk these governments will take that cue and act on it. There is also a risk that in the midst of a war, of a very uncertain war, that the United States becomes distracted and doesn’t engage in the sort of sustained pressures that are needed.

ABERNETHY: John Wimberly, if it is a choice between fighting terrorism and protecting human rights — and probably not, but both have to be done — what guidance is there that religious traditions have for us?

REV. DR. JOHN WIMBERLY, JR. (Sr. Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church): Well, the Christian community became involved in a controversy during World War II, with some people saying we shouldn’t be allying ourselves with the Soviet Union because communism is atheistic. Carl Bark, who is the founder of the modern evangelical movement, responded to that by saying, “We have a common enemy here. And even though we disagree with them on issues of faith, we have this common enemy and we have to focus on that.” I think we are in a very similar situation. The other thing that I think issues of faith bring to this, whether one is Christian or Jewish, Islamic, or any other religion, is that we should be looking for common ground with other people. And I am kind of excited about the coalition building that is taking place.

ABERNETHY: But you have no doubt in your mind that the fight against terrorism is the first priority right now, do you?

WIMBERLY: That is the common ground upon which we can engage in dialogue and conversation with some people. People, as we are sitting here today, are talking with each other around the world, in terms of diplomats, who have not been speaking to each other for a long, long time, if ever. And that’s progress.

ABERNETHY: What do all of you think the basic ethical principles are that should help us decide how far we go, whether there are any limits to what we will tolerate in the name of fighting terrorism?

SHEA: Well, I think this is an example of how we have gone overboard. Yes, I am for negotiation, dialogue, bargaining, but put human rights out on the table at least in this deal making. In the case of Sudan, we have the administration spiking human rights legislation, lifting sanctions, and suppressing a human rights report of the State Department, all for an exchange for a few tidbits of information. I don’t think that is right.

ABERNETHY: Steve Morrison, some say we are in a war against terrorism. Others see it more as a matter of a terrible, terrible crime for which the response should be criminal justice. Where do you come out on that and what difference does it make in this that we have been discussing? If it’s war, what are the implications of that for the trade-offs between the fight against terrorism and the preservation of human rights? Or if we call it something else, does that affect how far we can go and making deals?

MORRISON: We are threatened by a phenomenon that has been loosely described as Al Qaeda, which is a series of terrorist networks that operate in permissive environments. And our objective right now is to deny those networks, those environments, and crack those networks. Now, in the case of Sudan and some of the other places that have provided haven in the past to Osama bin Laden and to Al Qaeda, the question is, What is it internally within those states that motivates them to go down that road? If you don’t get to some of the root causes, you’re not going to have an enduring solution to this. So, criminal prosecution is one set of instruments that have to be brought into play. Very tough military action are another. And working the human rights, the humanitarian and democracy agendas in some of these key places that in the past were permissive environments has to be a priority as well.

ABERNETHY: John Wimberly, you’ve spoken of the possibility of good coming out of all this tragedy. As everybody’s grieving, mourning, that seems hard to believe. But what do you have in mind there?

WIMBERLY: Well, what I have in mind is a uniting around justice. I don’t think this is a war. I think it was a heinous crime committed against all humanity on September 11th. And justice is a common theme that runs through every religious tradition. And it is something around which everyone can unite. If it is a war, people begin to ask themselves, why are we participating in this war if I am a Ghanaian, or if I’m Chinese or something. But if it is a crime that is committed against all of humanity, I think that’s something we can unite against. It’s a good that can come out of this. Obviously, what happened was an awful thing. God wept as that happened. God had nothing to do with that. But there is a good that can flow out of it.

ABERNETHY: We are going to leave it there. Many thanks to each of you. To Nina Shea of Freedom House, to Stephen Morrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and to John Wimberly of the Western Presbyterian Church in Washington.

Sukkot

Posted on October 5, 2001 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: On our calendar, the weeklong Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Many Jews build lean-tos, open to the elements, called “sukkahs,” to recall the way their ancestors lived for 40 years in the desert after their escape from slavery in Egypt. We spoke to Rabbi Kenneth Cohen of Bethesda, Maryland about the messages of Succoth in the aftermath of September 11th.

RABBI KENNETH COHEN (Hillel Director, American University): On Rosh Hashanah, the day of judgment, we reflected on God’s justice; on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, we reflected on how we, both individually and collectively, might be better people, better communities.

Now we’re celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and there’s a lot of symbolism involving Sukkot that can tie into the mood now. First of all, we take the Lulav and Etrog, the four species, and we shake them to the four compass points, up and down, signifying the universality of God, that God is everywhere.

On Sukkot, we build and we take our meals and we live in tabernacles, booths, which are similar to the ones which our ancestors lived in, just after they left the Egyptian slavery, Egyptian bondage.

Now, my sukkah has four sides, but nevertheless, the roof is open; it’s exposed to the elements, and this reminds us of the vulnerability of human life. Particularly at a time of trial like this, we have to be sensitive to other individuals, to other faith communities, to national groups who don’t have it quite as well as we do in the United States. Now, after the events of September 11, I think we’re all feeling just a little bit more vulnerable.

My son Zachary and I actually slept in it last night, and I can tell you it was cold, and I can tell you it wasn’t comfortable.

So last night as I was on the cold ground I was thinking particularly of the refugees in Afghanistan, and my heart and I know the hearts of so many of my people go out to them in particular at this time of trial.

Holocaust Survivors: The Search for Faith

Posted on August 3, 2001 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: One of the consequences of the Holocaust was its effect on the faith of observant Jews. How could a just God have permitted such a tragedy? Today, the personal story in his words, of Menachem Daum, a New York television producer, whose parents were both Holocaust survivors. Daum has explored these issues of faith with survivors including his aged father.

Mr. MENACHEM DAUM: A Hasidic master once said, “A God who limits himself to actions that we humans can understand couldn’t possibly be God.” Essentially, that was my father’s approach to the crisis of faith raised by the Holocaust.

However, that was not the approach taken by my mother. On my mother’s tombstone, we inscribed that she endured much suffering. This was our way of asking God to forgive her sins. In effect, we were saying she already suffered enough for them in this world.

However, I don’t think my mother felt the strong need for God’s forgiveness. On the contrary, she told me when she’s called before God in final judgment, she will turn the tables. She will demand to know why he stood by silently during the Holocaust as her large family was being destroyed.

Her mother, two brothers and six sisters, her first husband, she had a son before the war, his name was Avrohom. So at least we have some recollection of who they were.

Just a few months after the liberation, my parents, Moshe Yosef Daum and Fela Nussbaum, were married in a displaced persons camp in occupied Germany. They named me Menachem which means consoler or comforter. Apparently, they hoped I might be able to restore some happiness in their lives.

Actually, the happiest time in my mother’s life, she once told me, had been the year she spent as a student in Beis Yaakov, the network of Orthodox schools for girls in prewar Poland.

My mother told me she retained the pure faith of a Beis Yaakov girl until she got off the train at Auschwitz, but she never spoke about what actually happened on the train ramp that forever shook her faith. My mother had arrived at Auschwitz with her sister, Bluma. Many years later, my aunt Bluma revealed to me that my mother had her infant son in her arms. As they were roused out of the train, a veteran Jewish prisoner hurriedly came up to them. He knew mothers who were together with their young children would soon be directed to the gas chambers. He urged them to do the unthinkable.

Ms. BLUMA POSNER: (Foreign language spoken) “Give up the child. Hurry. We can’t stay here too long. We know what we are doing. Give away the child. You are still young trees. You can have more fruit. Because of the child you too will go. Give away the child.” A prisoner came from behind us and grabbed the child from Fela’s arms. She felt the child being taken from her. She said “Oy, vey. The child hasn’t eaten anything. Bluma, maybe we can still send him some food?” I tried to calm her down. I told her, “You’ll see, today they’re taking everyone separately, children, young people.” I made excuses but I knew what was happening.

Mr. MENACHEM DAUM: At the Passover seder, my mother would get annoyed as my father recited the Exodus story. She would ask him, if God did so many miracles during biblical times, then why hadn’t she seen any such miracles during the Holocaust?

My father’s only response was that we humans, with our limited minds, cannot expect to understand God’s ways. We must live with faith despite our unanswered questions. The tenacity of my father’s faith has always been a mystery to me. It’s a lot easier for me to understand the religious defiance of my father’s only surviving relative, his cousin Dora.

Ms. DORA LEFKOWITZ: I cannot see a God who will allow a little baby to be killed for no reason at all. And I really lost my belief then, right there and then. I had one sister and two brothers. I was the oldest and the only survivor of my family. Why? What did they do so terrible that they had to perish? I think if God is so great and so powerful, he could have struck Hitler down before he killed so many Jews. That’s my feeling.

Professor ARTHUR HERTZBERG (New York University): That is one of the deep religious responses to the Shoah, to defy God. To take it with indifference is not a religious response. To go and rebuild is a religious response, to defy God is a religious response because that is to take what happened at the utmost seriousness, as a matter of life and death, of your own life and death.

Mr. MENACHEM DAUM: In the early 1950s, just as my father was on the verge of realizing the American dream, he gave up a good job in upstate New York and moved his family to Brooklyn. He did so in order to send us to yeshivas and give us a religious education. Most of my yeshiva classmates were, like myself, children of survivors. Our teachers, survivors themselves, never mentioned the Holocaust. I suspect that, like my parents, they too had no answers to offer us.

(to Father) Dad, we’ll pray, yes? We’ll put on the prayer shawl and tefillin. Yes? We are going to put the tefillin on your hand.

According to Jewish religious law, my father’s physical condition exempts him from the need to put on the tefillin. However, I know how much this ritual means to him. During the Holocaust, he was also exempt from putting on the tefillin. And yet in the ghettos and forced labor camps, he risked his life in order to do so.

“Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Our God, Master of the Universe, who has sanctified us through His commandments and commanded us to put on the tefillin.”

(to Father): You put on tefillin the Skarzisk camp?

He remembers.

(to Father): It wasn’t easy, was it?

Mr. MOSHE YOSEF DAUM: No.

Mr. MENACHEM DAUM: I try to continue my parents’ ways, but to be honest, I do it more out of respect than out of conviction. I really don’t understand my father’s faith. I don’t understand why he would risk his life in the camps for a God who had seemingly abandoned him. Nor do I understand my mother’s strange combination of faith and doubt. How she continued to observe the commandments of a God she could not forgive.

Prof. HERTZBERG: But there is an answer. To me, the miracle of Jewish history as a whole, is our capacity to begin after tragedy, after disaster.

ABERNETHY: Menachem Daum also passed along this story. A Hasidic rabbi lost his wife and 11 children in the Holocaust. Afterwards, he was asked, “Why did miracles occur only during biblical times? Why don’t they happen in our time?” The rabbi replied, “The fact that there are Holocaust survivors who, after all they endured, can still keep faith, is itself, the greatest miracle of all.”

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