(Bernard Madoff)
If 2008 taught the world one lesson, it is that religious people are not morally superior to those who are non-religious. Indeed, faith often shelters the shameless and provides cover for the most corrupt among us.
Sanctimony was the sanctuary of Bernard Madoff, the con artist who bilked fellow Jewish people who never imagined this man of piety would mastermind a Ponzi scheme. A New York Times article summed it up: “…Jews all over the country are already sending up something of a communal cry over a cost they say goes beyond the financial to the theological and personal.”
The article quoted Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angles who said, “I’d like to believe someone raised in our community, imbued with Jewish values, would be better than this.”
Apparently, the rabbi has a short memory. In 2006, corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff disgraced the Jewish community. When he wasn’t stealing from Indian tribes and polluting Washington, he could be found in synagogues extolling his Jewish family values.
Many in the Jewish community seem shocked by recent events. They have the same befuddled looks on their faces as Christians ripped off by televangelist Jim Bakker. Or, the wide-eyed puritans in the pews who were stunned that Revs. Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard had a proclivity for prostitutes.
This is not to say that religious people are necessarily more corrupt. But, the myth that faith makes one less fallible and more pure must be punctured. This fable comes at a great cost to the holy who keep getting hosed. Charlatans are acutely aware that when religious institutions confer credibility, it is easier to con the credulous. Needless to say, churches, temples and mosques are often a refuge for reprobates. As escaped slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglas noted in his tome “Autobiography,” the most devout Christians made the most brutal slave owners.
Clearly, there are many people of faith who live exemplary lives of upstanding morality. It is the assumption, however, that attending temple makes one less likely to succumb to temptation that is dangerous. Madoff would still have fooled many of America’ wisest investors had he not immersed himself in the Jewish community. But, without this powerful veneer of morality, perhaps investors would have looked closer at his scam.
In 1997, James Hedges, founder of LJH Global Investments, met with Madoff to discuss investing money for wealthy clients. He says that there were red flags for those who bothered to look.
“His whole tone during the meeting was curt, truncated, and he volunteered nothing,” Hedges told Barron’. “It was an extraction process to get him to answer anything. “…What it told me was that it was a fraud.”
A separate New York Times article discussed religious extremism among students in the nation of Jordan. Frustrated with dishonest “secular” politicians, these students wrongly assume that religious leaders are less corrupt and mindlessly regurgitate the slogan, “Islam is the answer.” They ignore the endemic corruption among Shiite leaders in Iran, the barbarism of Al Qaeda and the suffocating repression in Sunni Saudi Arabia.
Honesty is the answer — not Islam, Judaism or Christianity. If people of faith happen to be honest, it is really beside the point, not a prerequisite for morality.
The largest problem with religious leaders is that they have trouble apologizing for their sins — because they are supposedly speaking for God. So, if they apologize, it is akin to God having been wrong.
One example of such spiritual arrogance is Saddleback pastor Rick Warren, who clearly and unquestionably compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia. As a result, gay activists accurately called him anti-gay. Now that his reputation has taken a hit, he put out a new video denying that he verbally assaulted gays. Wouldn’t a true moral leader simply say, “I’m sorry,” rather than offering slick PR from the pulpit?
San Francisco State University’s Family Acceptance Project released a study this week that found that young gay people who are rejected by their parents after coming out were more likely to attempt suicide, experience depression and use drugs than those whose parents were accepting. Will a single religious leader, including Warren, reconsider the harm they are doing to gay youth?
The U.S. has spent more than $200 million on abstinence-only programs, which promote ignorance over education in schools. A new study, reported in Pediatrics, shows that such programs are a fraud, with teenagers who pledged to avoid sex until marriage as likely to have sex as other students. The teens that took virginity pledges were also less likely to use birth control pills or condoms than those making no promise. Will a single religious “leader” have the morality to give up their dogma to prevent the deaths of teens that are having unsafe sex?
This New Year, let’ vow to judge people by their good principles and not their piety. As we learned in 2008 — they are not necessarily the same thing.
I do not have the privilege of knowing Rabbi Wolpe, though we surely know many of the same people. I do know that if you are quoting R Wolpe in context I fundamentally disagree with him. It simply does not matter what community one is raised in. Immorality is a plague that infests even well-trained religious people, which is why ethics is an essential component of religious development. R Wolpe confuses observance and ethics.
Hello Rabbi Arie Chark
I have read your article in the Welland Tribune, regarding the difficulty of being Jewish at xmas time.
I am a Christian, but for several years have shared this perspective from a Jewish lady. Thought you would like to read it too.
“It strikes me as odd, how quickly the Christmas spirit turns on just after halloween, and turns off on January 2nd. Perhaps Christmas has just become an excuse to do, once a year, what we should be doing all year round: be charitable, connect with friends, and live life — have a good time. I guess I’m saying that I do enjoy the fringe benefits of Christmas without participating. The lights are lovely, the music joyous, the giving admirable. But it is nice to come home to the simplicity of the Chanukah candles.”
“Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.”
“Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.”
How true……..
“Morality” is sometimes, unfortunately, a rationalization of baser instincts.
Wars fought over shortages of territory and resources are rationalized as a fight for the moral superiority of one tribe or culture over another, when parties decide that they cannot or will not share what is available.
It just shows that you can get away with almost anything if you call yourself a man of faith.
Whilever worshipping, or believing without evidence, is considered socially acceptable – a virtue in fact – these things will go on happening.
The late, sadly missed Carl Sagan hit the nail on the head in his last work, possibly the best defence of reason and rational thinking ever published, ‘Demon Haunted World’ – When you teach people not to think, not to doubt, not to ask probing questions, not to inquire, not to use their critical faculties, then society is at risk of falling prey to fraudsters, as well as those who want to destroy freedom.
We need to stop judging a person’s actions by their reputation. Never mind Abramoff, Haggard, and co, the same applied to the fanatical Albanian nun Theresa of Calcutta, treated like a goddess by the worlds rich and powerful, while her hospices were like death camps – according to those who worked with her.
Wayne is right, but didn’t go nearly far enough; we don’t get our morality from religion. There’s plenty of scientific evidence, after lengthy studies of other primates that back this up. ‘Do as you would be done by’ is in fact, written into our genes.
Arguably, when inspired by Christianity at least, good deeds are done out of compulsion – to evade a wrong action; or out of fear, from being monitored every minute of the day and night by a tyrant in the sky; or to expect a reward, in terms of eternal life. That is not morality, it is not an encouragement to be good for goodness’ sake. It’s blackmail: accept my message or go to hell. This is evil, Orwellian, Stalinist. And the notion that I can abdicate any responsibility for my actions, is appalling. Go on a killing spree, get a whitewash, pretend it didn’t happen and start all over again.
Teaching people that, without the supposed gruseome death of a man in Palestine (in fact he didn’t even die), I could not know wrong from right, is an insult to dignity. We deserve better than this.
And historically, human rights, and the associated advnaces in morality, have been secular triumphs – like the American Constitution – gained in spite of religious opposition. Otherwise look at the crime and sexual disease rates or human rights records in non-religious countries like Northern Europe, and compare them with deeply religious countries.