! Baptist Leaders Ignore Ebbers' $11 Billion Scandal
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/
Baptist Leaders Ignore Ebbers' $11 Billion Scandal, Act as Character
Witnesses Robert Parham
07-15-05
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=6027
Moral relativism and indifference surface with a pointed clarity in
Southern Baptist life in the case of Bernie Ebbers, a member of Easthaven
Baptist Church, outside of Jackson, Miss.
Ebbers, the 63-year-old former CEO of Worldcom, a telecommunication giant,
was sentenced this week to 25 years in federal prison for what a Jackson
Clarion-Ledger editorial called the worst business fraud in history.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050611/NEWS0108/506110309/1041
His accounting fraud exceeded $11 billion, resulted in the nations biggest
bankruptcy, cost thousands of employees their jobs and wiped out the
retirement savings and investments of countless trusting investors.
Although I recognize this is likely to be a life sentence for Mr. Ebbers,
I find anything else would not reflect the seriousness of the crime, said
U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones.
Mr. Ebbers was the instigator in this fraud, said the judge, who will
recommend that he serve his sentence in a low-security, federal prison in
Yazoo City, Miss., near his home in Brookhaven.
The judge said that Ebbers' financial statements deprived investors of
their money. They might have made different decisions had they know the
truth.
Contrast the jurys decision and the judges assessment with the attitude of
Southern Baptist leaders.
We havent done anything on Ebbers, responded William Perkins, editor of
Mississippis Baptist Record, to an email inquiry from EthicsDaily.coms
managing editor.
I just havent seen the need to give the story a lot of coverage when
weighed against the pressing space needs under which we labor every
weekthe classic editors dilemma of too much news and too little space,
wrote Perkins.
Jim Futral, executive director-treasurer of the Mississippi Baptist
Convention, joined 171 other Ebbers supporters as character witnesses,
asking the judge for a lighter prison sentence late last week.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050611/NEWS0108/506110309/1041
According to the Clarion-Ledger, character letters helped to reduce his
sentence term by five years.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050714/NEWS0108/507140403
Futral did not respond to a request by EthicsDaily.com for a copy of his
letter to the court and information about Ebbers financial support for
Baptist organizations.
But according to a news report, Futral wrote to the court that Ebbers has
been generous and quietly helpful behind the scenes to make a difference
in thousands of lives.
The mission work, the child-care services and the Christian institutions
of higher learning have been all recipients of his generosity with no
request or thought of personal gain, wrote Futral.
According to the Washington Post, Bailey Smith, former president of the
Southern Baptist Convention, said that he had never met a more impressive
person than Ebbers, even though he has met three presidents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/10/AR2005061002014_pf.html
Lee Royce, president of Mississippi College, told EthicsDaily.com that
Ebbers served on the schools board of trustees from 1994-2001, chaired the
colleges $100 million fund-raising campaign and was the board vice chair
in 1999 but would not answer a question about whether he wrote a letter on
Ebbers behalf.
Whether I wrote a letter or not to the Court is not a matter of public
concern, replied Royce.
Worst business fraud in history, wrote the Clarion-Ledger.
Ebbers character defense of hes a good Christian man began in July 2002,
when his Mississippi-based corporation ran aground.
I just want you to know you arent going to church with a crook, he said
after he walked the aisle of his church at the end of a morning worship
service.
I dont know what the situation is with all that has been reported. I dont
know what all is going to happen or what mistakes have been made, he told
fellow church members, according to the Wall Street Journal. No one will
find me to have knowingly committed fraud.
Easthaven church members gave him a standing ovation.
At the time that Ebbers made his character defense in church,
EthicsDaily.com posted two articles titled Where Do Worldcom Execs Go to
Church? and What Responsibility Do Churches Have for Worldcom?.
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=1153
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=1280
The first questioned if churches made a difference in the behavior of
corporate leaders. The second expressed concern about the
individualization and privatization of Christianity, pointing out that
evangelicals generally skirt a moral critique of the American market
system.
Did Baptist leaders fail Ebbers with their failure to teach ethics in
church and critique corporate America in their sermons?
Does the lack of critical commentary from Baptist leaders about Ebbers
now, and their willingness to be character witnesses, suggest that money
from wealthy members buys moral relativism and indifference from religious
leaders?
It sure looks that way.
Robert Parham is the executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.
robert@ethicsdaily.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where Do Worldcom Execs Go to Church?
Robert Parham
07-19-02
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=1153
A number of months ago, Jim Wallis, editor in chief of Sojourners
magazine, wrote a column asking, Where Do Enron Execs Go to Church?
While Wallis did not specifically answer his rhetorical question, he
bluntly connected the violation of biblical ethics within corporate
America with the all-too-often pulpit silence about economic sin.
The latest corporate scandal deserves a rephrasing of Wallis question:
Where Do Worldcom Execs Go to Church?
The answer for Worldcoms founder and former CEO, Bernie Ebbers, is
Easthaven Baptist Church in Brookhaven, Miss., a church affiliated with
the Southern Baptist Convention.
Worldcom is the nations second-largest long-distance corporation, which
disclosed accounting irregularities of $3.85 billion, claiming a profit
when the company was really losing hundreds of millions of dollars and
also providing sweetheart deals for Ebbers, such as over $400 million in
loans at a most favorable 2.15 percent interest rate.
Worldcoms disclosure of its accounting problems has resulted in a
Securities and Exchange Commission fraud lawsuit, congressional hearings
and investor lawsuits. As many as 17,000 employees may lose their jobs.
And Worldcoms stock prices have fallen to as low as a nickel per share
from a record high of $64.50, costing investors their hard-earned money.
After the Sunday morning worship service two weeks ago, Ebbers told fellow
church members, I just want you to know you arent going to church with a
crook, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.
I dont know what the situation is with all that has been reported. I dont
know what all is going to happen or what mistakes have been made, he said.
No one will find me to have knowingly committed fraud.
Church members gave him a standing ovation.
Ebbers is known as a generous man, a church deacon and a civic leader. He
teaches a Sunday School class for young, married couples. He helped
Easthaven Baptist Church purchase stock and sell the stock for some $1
million for its building program.
A graduate of Mississippi College, a Baptist institution, Ebbers chaired
the schools New Dawn Campaign, which had a goal of raising $80 million in
five years. After the first year of the fund drive, the school had raised
almost $58 million. Ebbers said the board of trustees had stepped out in
faith when it began this campaign, and as a result, the Lord has blessed
it. The board increased the campaigns goal to $100 million.
Bendon Ginn, Ebbers pastor, said, Hes probably the most unassuming member
of this congregation, according to the Jackson, Miss. Clarion-Ledger. He
comes in quietly, politely and sits in a place so as not to be easily
seen.
Ginn claimed that Ebbers had a good heart.
Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., had a different take on Ebbers and
Worldcom. Tauzin, whose committee investigated Worldcoms financial
improprieties, said this week, This was a pure case of theft, of inside
stealing, again, from their own investors.
This is a company simply determined for several years to misstate its
earnings to the American public by hiding its costs as capitalized
expenses, doing so in the face of advice from their own officials inside
the company that it was improper and illegal to do so, Tauzin said,
according to the New York Times.
Another former corporate CEO, Ken Lay, has also been described as a man of
integrity, civic involvement and church leadership, known for singing
hymns in church. Lay once said, I believe in God and I believe in free
markets.
Raised in the home of a Baptist preacher and now a member of First United
Methodist Church in Houston, Lays Enron corporation had trading schemes
with names like Fat Boy, Death Star and Get Shorty. He certainly appears
to have lied to employees, cut deals for himself and cheated investors.
Both Lay and Ebbers have claimed the I know no-thing, no-thing! defense
strategy, what one congressman calls the Sgt. Schultz defense.
Sgt. Schultz was a German prison guard in the TV sitcom Hogans Heroes.
Whenever a question was raised about prison camp irregularities, the
bug-eyed Sgt. Schultz said, I know no-thing, no-thing!
Both these godly men have engaged in ungodly activities and have then
attempted to evade their responsibilities by proclaiming their ignorance.
So, where do these men go to church? Stated more painfully, does church
really make a difference in the personal and public behavior of corporate
leaders? Does teaching Sunday School shape the character of the teacher?
Does the biblical witness carry any moral weight?
Wallis wrote, The teaching of both Christian and Jewish faiths would
excoriate the greed, selfishness, and cheating of corporate leaders, and
condemn, in the harshest of terms, their callous and cruel treatment of
employees. Read your Bibles.
Biblical ethics would just call it a sin, he wrote.
Wallis said, Its time for the pulpit to speakto bring the Word of God to
bear on the moral issues of the American economy.
Preach, brother, preach.
Robert Parham is BCEs executive director.
=============================================
Pax Christi,
• Ninure Saunders aka Rainbow Christian
Jesus is my Shepherd and He knows I'm Gay
http://Ninure-Saunders.tk
My Yahoo Group
http://Ninure.tk
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
http://www.MCCchurch.org
The Bible Site - help provide free scripture
http://www.thebiblesite.org
To send e-mail, remove nohate from address
.
|
