Lesson Five: Remember Professional Ethics

I was once told to “maintain a professional ethos.” In the context of that situation, I knew that it meant to keep my mouth shut and submit to something that I believed was wrong. 

 Since, my professional ethos is not rooted in obedience, but in the way of Jesus, I refused to submit and I was compelled to speak up. Even though I was punished, I have no regrets.

In the setting that I was in, the people around me assumed the system was just. Therefore since I was punished, they assumed that I must have done something wrong. It’s really hard to convince people that the system they believe in is unjust.

In an unjust system, power is used arbitrarily, so doing the “right” thing can result in harm, while doing the “wrong” thing can be rewarded. 

In an unjust system, the easy thing is to surrender our agency and do what we’re told. When we become aware of the suffering of others, we justify it by saying, “they should have just done what they were told.”

A system in which the only way to stay safe is to follow orders, is tyranny.

In order to navigate such systems, we need a moral compass that exists beyond ourselves and beyond system.

The ethos of the way of Jesus is love. 

The Christian ethos understands that to seek justice means doing the right thing, even when we might get punished. It means to practice mercy, even if it costs us everything. It means to walk humbly, not claiming that we have all the correct answers. 

Jesus taught that the only way to truly live in obedience to God, is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This means that sometimes obedience to God requires disobedience to unjust systems.

Recognizing unjust systems can be difficult. It requires deep listening and that we take responsibility for the harm that we might have caused and making amends. 

This is the work of repentance and reconciliation that followers of Jesus are called to. No one said it was easy and no one said it was free. Freedom in Christ is not the freedom to oppress others, but the ability to break free from systems of oppression and work toward systems of justice.

This is part 6 of a series inspired by my reading of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons Learned From the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder as part of my effort to offer Christian insight to those wondering what to do in this moment.