A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Leith Anderson is the Senior Pastor of Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. This article is excerpted from Winning the Values War in a Changing Culture, Bethany House Publishers, 1994, and appears with the author’s permission.
The movie “Indecent Proposal,” starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore, was more than a top box-office attraction in 1993. It was the topic of talk shows and coffee breaks across North America. The film raises a provocative moral dilemma when a very wealthy man offers one million dollars to spend the night with another man’s wife.
It was not the movie as much as the moral questions at the heart of it that fascinated so many people. How much is a marriage worth? Are women to be bought and sold by rich men and husbands? But the real question everyone debated was, “Would you do it if you had the opportunity?” If you were rich enough, would you pay a million dollars to bed another man’s wife? If you weren’t rich enough, would you prostitute your wife for a million dollars? If you were a woman at the centre of such an indecent proposal, would you agree if the price were high enough? The fantasies of millions played the game.
What is really at issue here is integrity. For great financial gain would we go against what we believe to be right?
When researchers James Patterson and Peter Kim wrote The Day America Told the Truth, they asked people a similar question: “What are you honestly willing to do for $10 million?”
- 25% said they would abandon their entire family
- 25% would abandon their church
- 23% would be prostitutes for a week or more
- 7% would kill a stranger1
The next time you’re in a crowd of 100 people, try to figure out which seven of them would kill you for the right price. Out of every 1,000 there are 70, and in a metropolitan area or state with a population of 4 million there could be about 280,000 murderers for hire if the price is right.
Patterson and Kim did a follow-up survey, asking the same people if they would do the same things for less money. At $5 million, $4 million, and $3 million the answers were pretty much the same. Below $2 million there was a fall-off in what people would agree to do, leading the authors to conclude that “our price in America seems to be $2 million or thereabouts.”2
What wrong do you think a Christian would do for enough money? Or do you think Christians value integrity more than anything the world can offer?
What is Integrity?
The old Candid Camera TV show had an episode where an apartment was advertised for a very affordable rent. Prospective renters were shown around the luxury unit by rental agents until they would ask, “Where is the bathroom?” The agent then answered, “This apartment doesn’t have a bathroom, which really saves a lot of space.” The reactions of the prospective renters were classic as they expressed their disbelief that there could be a luxury apartment without a bathroom. One lady, after host Allan Funt said, “You’re on Candid Camera,” asked, “Yeah, I understand that, but where is the bathroom?”
The apartment wasn’t consistent. It wasn’t complete. Something that should obviously be there wasn’t. It lacked integrity.
Integrity has played a significant role in the business concepts of Total Quality Management and Zero Defect Manufacturing. Who wants a heart pacemaker that works most of the time? Who values an airplane with 90% of the systems operating? Who hires a surgeon who sutures so well that the scar is nearly invisible but who tends to leave scissors inside the patient?
Integrity brings all of life together into a consistent whole. When each part of a person’s life agrees with every other part, when everything is there that is supposed to be there, that person has integrity.
For the Christian, integrity is more than God, truth, salvation, godliness, faith, fellowship, love, prayer, evangelism, suffering, and good works. Integrity is none of these. Integrity is all of these.
Christian integrity isn’t faith without good works. It isn’t loyalty to God when life is easy but disloyalty when life includes suffering. It is not telling the truth at home but lying at work. It can never be saying that we believe the Bible and then disobeying what the Bible says.
Christian integrity is total Christianity. It is Zero Defect Living.
Immediately some say, “That’s impossible! We’re still sinners. We can’t live with total consistency and zero defects.” You’re right! Just as there is no such thing as Zero Defect pacemakers or airplanes. But no one would dare to seek anything less, nor tolerate defects once they have been discovered.
Christians are not perfect because human beings cannot be perfect, but we can still value integrity – because God values integrity. We can still do our best to see that all the values of Christianity come together with consistency in every area of our lives.
If we need an example, Psalm 15 describes the person of integrity:
Integrity is much more than a definition or a description. It is a call for self-evaluation: “Is my life integrated or segregated?”
Self-Evaluation
The segregated life is divided into separate and disconnected departments. This is the person who has a home life, a church life, a business life, a private life, a public life – and who believes and behaves differently in each.
When life is segregated different parts operate by different values. It is heard in the voices of those who say, “You should never operate the church like a business,” and “there’s no place for religion in the workplace.” It is the philosophy of those who would never have pornography around their homes but regularly indulge in it on business trips. It is the man who is proud of keeping his word in business deals but does not keep his marriage vows. It is the woman who condemns sexual harassment and racial discrimination at her company but fights to keep minorities out of her neighbourhood. It is the couple who are generous in their giving to the church but underpay their employees in the family business.
You get the picture: Segregation is the opposite of integration and integration is central to integrity. Historically many Christians have viewed Christianity as a “seamless garment” where every part is connected to every other part without divisions. Thus, the Christian’s life is to be a smooth and uninterrupted continuity between all beliefs and practices and relationships.
An interesting line in Proverbs 10:9 says, “The man of integrity walks securely.” I think we could add that the person without integrity walks stressfully. It is very stressful to live life compartmentally and inconsistently, operating with different values for different segments of life.
When I think of integrity, I always think of Job. Actually, Job is most famous for his suffering, when he should be most famous for his integrity. That was God’s observation in that rare conversation he had with Satan. Job 2:3 reports that “the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity.’” God was proud of Job because he didn’t change his values when he lost his family and his fortune. He was a man of integrity.
Satan then zapped Job with a terrible, painful illness that racked his body. Job’s wife told him to change his values when life became so hard. She asked him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9).
Mrs. Job had plenty of company. Most of Job’s friends told him he was wrong to stay consistent to his values when everything was turning bad. He had a right to change when life dumped on him. After long dialogue, however, he made his position clear: “Till I die, I will not deny my integrity” (Job 27:5).
Job valued integrity. He was a whole man, consistent, every value connected to every other value, undaunted by the changing circumstances in his life.
Job made a choice that every Christian needs to make, regardless of whether we evaluate our present lives to be integrated or segregated.
Which Life Operating System?
Those who work with computers know the importance of “operating systems.” It is the operating system that makes a computer work. No matter how powerful the chip or how sophisticated the hardware, it can’t do anything without an operating system.
The system one chooses determines all else that follows. Those strange combinations of initials are very important – like MS DOS for “Microsoft Disc Operating System” and AMOS for “Alpha Micro Disc Operating System.”
As I understand it, a choice must be made. A computer can’t operate on all operating systems nor repeatedly switch around or run software incompatible with the operating system chosen.
This suggests many parallels in life. We must all choose a “Life Operating System.” Those who become Christians switch from a “Sin Operating System” or “Self Operating System” to what might be called JC LOS or a w”Jesus Christ Life Operating System.”
With our operating system comes a whole set of values, and if we are going to function well, we cannot choose some of these values and not others. It doesn’t work well to try to mix the JC LOS system with any other system – they are mutually exclusive. When Jesus Christ operates our lives, we become incompatible with a lot of programs. And when we are Christians, we can run whole new programs never before dreamed possible. The truth of it is that the hardware of our lives and bodies were designed to be run by Jesus. And when we are fully up and running, we value and have integrity – all of life and all of Christ’s values consistently running together.
Another way of saying this – a way very familiar to older generations – is to say that we live under the “the Lordship of Jesus Christ.” He runs our lives.
Matthew 6:24 says it even better, comparing a Christ operating system to a money operating system: “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Any other operating system could be substituted for money. We cannot serve God and Sex, God and Power, God and Self, God and Business, God and Anything.)
As Christians, we choose Jesus Christ to operate our lives. As Christians we value Jesus Christ running all of our lives; we value integrity.
Living by Choices More Than Circumstances
Everyone’s life is impacted by circumstances we don’t control. We cannot choose our parents, control the behaviour of other people, or exempt ourselves from the unexpected. Unfortunately, too many people assume that circumstances control life and we are either good-luck winners or bad-luck losers. This defective, fatalistic philosophy has contributed to the victim mentality of an entire generation.
Fatalism is not a doctrine of Christianity. We accept the certainty of circumstances but also exercise the responsibility of human choice. The percentages vary from person to person, but the norm is probably 10% of life controlled by circumstances and the remaining 90% determined by our response. This is obvious when we compare persons with similar circumstances who handle them in opposite ways – one for defeat and the other for victory.
Integrity is living Christianly because it is the right and best thing to do no matter what our circumstances. The choices of the Christian life are determined by the values we have learned from God, not the circumstances that happen to us. Wouldn’t it be great if we moved the emphasis from “What happened to you?” to “How did you respond?”
A fascinating example of this kind of integrity appeared in a paid advertisement in a Nairobi, Kenya, newspaper, The East African Standard:
ALL DEBTS TO BE PAID
I ALLAN HARANGUI ALIAS WANIEK HARANGUI, of P.O. Box 40380, Nairobi, have dedicated services to the Lord Jesus Christ. I must put right all my wrongs. If I owe any debt or damage personally or any of the companies I have been director or partner i.e.
GUARANTEED SERVICES LTD.
WATERPUMPS ELECTRICAL AND GENERAL CO. SALES AND SERVICES
Please contact me or my advocates J.K. Kibicho and Company, Advocates, RO. Box 73137, Nairobi for a settlement. No amount will be disputed.
GOD AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST BE GLORIFIED.3
Now there is a man who values integrity. Like Job, no matter what the cost, he wants all of life to hang together, consistently, operating by and for Jesus Christ.
Endnotes
- James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth (New York: NAL-Dutton, 1992).
- Ibid., pp.65-66.
- R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1991), pp.126-127.