Growing Edge
July 1, 1996
Virtuous Preaching
In today's culture, how can we speak about integrity?
No doubt our people need more virtue, but how do we address the issue without
our sermons becoming modern Aesop's fables?
Stephen L. Carter's (integrity) (Basic Books, 1996, $24) can
help us understand some nuances of integrity, but the book raised for me
a larger, more critical issue: Why is there such an integrity shortage?
In the opening section, Carter, a professor at Yale Law School, outlines
integrity's steps:
1.Discernment. People of integrity act rather than react.
They do not understand "the right thing to do" through mere tradition or
trends, but through strenuous moral reflection.
2. Consistency. Carter relates the word integrity to
integer and concludes, "a person of integrity, like a whole number,
is . . . a person somehow undivided," a seamless weaving together of
understanding and action.
3. Forthrightness. "A person of integrity," he writes, "is
unashamed of doing the right." We must be willing to say openly we are acting
on principle.
Carter ends his opening analysis by demonstrating that integrity is much
more than mere honesty or forthrightness. One can be honest about one's lack
of integrity!
What good?
In the next section, Carter provides case studies of integrity in the areas
of academ-ics, journalism, marriage, law, and sports. Although I found a
dozen relevant, useful illustrations in these pages, I was somewhat disappointed.
First, Carter never applies his definition of integrity to the world of
business—a rather large omission. Second, most of the examples cited are
obvious. So the book raises a burning question that it never answers: If
integrity is so important for a strong society, and if the ...
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