Taming Ambition
Richard Exley
We are not tempted to do bad things as much as we are tempted to try things God has not called us to do.
— Richard Exley
In August of 1976, a jury found the Reverend Charles Blair, pastor of the 6,000-member Calvary Temple in Denver, Colorado, guilty of seventeen counts of fraud and illegal sale of securities. Blair had raised $14 million from about 3,400 investors to finance the church's ill-fated geriatric center.
Blair was fined $12,750 and placed on five years probation, but he was allowed to remain as pastor of Calvary Temple. Under his leadership the church was able to repay the investors according to a plan approved by the bankruptcy court.
From all reports, Charles Blair is a man of integrity, a conclusion reinforced by his commitment to repay every investor. No evidence suggests he, or his family, benefited in any way from the illegal sale of securities. Though Blair knowingly allowed financially troubled investors to invest in the Life Center, nothing suggests he intended to defraud them.
All of which makes this scenario more troubling: this is not the story of an evil man reaping the wages of sin but the tragic account of a good man whose vision exceeded his judgment.
In reflecting on the testimony about Blair's financial and religious empire, Gerald H. Quick, one of the twelve jurors who found him guilty, said, "Maybe the Rev. Charles Blair should stick to preaching and stay out of the securities business.… Maybe ambition got in the way of his common sense."
Was ambition, the drive to succeed, the culprit? Perhaps. Yet without ambition nothing of significance is ever achieved. How can we make ambition our servant rather than our master? Or as one person put it, how can we tame our "drum-major instincts"?
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