c. 1997 Religion News Service
(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)
UNDATED _ On Friday (May 16), President Clinton is scheduled to deliver a long-overdue apology to the unwitting victims and their families of a notorious experiment in Tuskegee, Ala.
Officially called the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, the federally funded experiment allowed 400 black men to be infected with the venereal disease over a 40-year period, from 1932 to 1972. In each case, the infection went untreated and the progress of the disease was tracked.
The men, who thought they were receiving free medical care and were never told of the experiment, may have spread the disease to their wives and offspring.
The formal apology from the government provides the president with an occasion made to order.
By apologizing for sins committed in the nation’s past _ and for which he has no personal culpability _ Clinton is given a high-profile, low-risk forum to look presidential that fits well with his stated desire to make racial healing a hallmark of his second term.
Well, one might ask, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what the bully pulpit is all about?
But note the irony: Isn’t it strange that a man whose moral character is questioned by a significant portion of the electorate can now be esteemed as the nation’s moral leader? Such a turn of events is due to more than Clinton’s good fortune and skillful spin control. Rather, it reflects the moral relativism pervading America.
Look at the facts.
In Clinton, we have twice elected as president a man who, at least according to public opinion polls, many of us do not even trust. Yet we justify our votes by pointing out the ethical and moral failings of some of his predecessors and others in government.
But isn’t that setting the bar rather low? Shouldn’t we require a higher standard for arguably the most powerful man on Earth?
Closing a blind eye while choosing our leaders isn’t the only time we get our ethical wires crossed.
Film critic Michael Medved, for example, has noted that while most Americans attend church regularly, most movie stars do not. Medved says this demonstrates how isolated the film industry is from the values embraced by the nation.
Yet we spend millions annually at the box office, suggesting that if Hollywood does not reflect the nation’s values, it certainly helps establish them. The stars whose sex lives we follow with lurid fascination take our money and affect our souls.
But whatever happened to right and wrong? Why has gray become society’s color of choice and”tolerance”become our national mantra?
Can it be that our homes, neighborhoods and communities are all made of glass? Are we so guilt-ridden by our own sins that we cannot identify evil when we see it?
I fear we have misinterpreted Jesus’ admonition to the self-righteous:”He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone”(John 8:7). In that instance, the religious rulers wanted Jesus to pass sentence on an adulterous woman whose guilt was never in doubt.
Jesus, however, was concerned the rulers wanted to punish her by the letter of the Mosaic Law, a standard by which the rulers themselves had never been judged. The religious leaders were so anxious to condemn the woman they failed to offer her compassion and forgiveness. So Jesus himself offers her forgiveness:”Go, and sin no more.” That is the standard by which we should judge. Sin must be addressed, but it must be addressed with compassion and love. Anything less is to compromise our integrity as a nation.
MJP END ATCHISON
