Challenging the Virtue of the Age
Fred Smith, Sr.
THE INTEGRITY OF A LEADER OFTEN IS SHOWN in the stand he takes for right against mistaken popular concepts—not to be different or difficult but daring to be right, avoiding the temptation to join in the swim downstream by challenging the direction of the flow, searching for the biblical right or wrong in each issue. I heard the writer Chaim Potok say a true leader is never absorbed in the stream in which he swims. The Scripture would say he was transformed rather than conformed. Our society is facing many positions that need biblical challenge and clarification. They include: relative truth, situational ethics, alternate lifestyles, personal responsibility versus rights, the acquisition and distribution of wealth, racial equality, political expediency, self-love as expressed in image and significance, and the power of peer pressure. While these issues rage, values and ethics have become a hot subject in our society, almost to the point of becoming a cultural fad. Philanthropists are contributing big money to projects, higher education is developing departments, and social writers are taking the subject to the bestseller list. I was one of the speakers recently at the Norman Vincent Peale conference on "value-oriented leadership." The conference brought together several thoughtful academics, ceos, and consultants to discuss this subject with heads of businesses. Many fine points and illustrations were brought up and discussed. My talk certainly did not disagree with the need for right values and ethics. However, I did point out that we need to root our human values in divine virtues or we end up controlled by our human desires and made variable by our selfish interest. To have complete authenticity and authority over our behavior ...
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