The Presidential election is drawing toward its climax Nov. 7 and again we have witnessed how ethics has been thrown under the bus. We have seen half-truths, exaggerations, and outright lies by both candidates and their TV ads.
As I recall, the campaigns began with untrue and offensive ads. Republicans early- on called President Obama the "food stamp president"and then wrongly charged that he took work requirements off welfare requirements.
The former charge has a racial overtone.
Going to the Democrats, we also have some untrue TV ads, one featuring Romney as the head of Bain Capital cancelling insurance for a sick company employee resulting in his death.
There is a lot of crazy campaigning going on but one comment from a conservative web site "takes the cake". It states that our vote is recorded in Heaven. No comment!
I would be remiss if I didn't offer some guidance for voters. President Mouw of Fuller Seminary spoke to a crowd recently about the 2012 election with the title, "Practicing Convicted Civility in the Political Arena". The first point was that we often lack a spirituality of public engagement, and must cultivate manners.Secondly, social justice is central to God's design for the world and the work of the Gospel is to blend evangelism and social justice. Then we must find a way to promote"shalom"where we live as well as keep our sense of humor and maintain a balance of humility and hope.

Source: Fuller Focus Magazine, Spring, 2012, p. 26

Racial prejudice is alive and well

The shooting of a black unarmed teen by an armed Hispanic man has caused an uproar in the US. By all accounts, this was a man who felt threatened by a young man in a hoodie who was black.

This is only one example of prejudice that thrives in the country. During  the mortgage meltdown debacle, many persons of color were charged higher loan fees than white borrowers. Countrywide especially behaved badly. Well over half of the African-American and Hispanic loan applicants to Countrywide had to pay higher notes. This despite being fully qualified on the same level as the white borrowers. Yet what was true at Countrywide was true also with many other banks. Racial profiling continues to keep deserving, qualified persons of color from home ownership by jacking up the costs.When justice prevails, all qualified persons regardless of color will be charged the same for a home.

A recent postscript to this injustice was issued by, appropriately, the Justice Department which fined Bank of America $ 335 million as the now-owner of Countrywide. The money is to be paid to African American and Hispanic borrowers who paid more than their white counterparts. I applaud the department for stepping in to bring some right into a wrong. Was the amount adequate to enable the victims to buy the house that eluded them? Probably not, yet some measure of justice was accomplished.Will we see the end of racial profiling soon ? Probably not. But we must work for justice no matter how elusive it is.

What do you think?