Discuss how both as Christian leaders and followers we are called to ethical behavior. How could those Christian leader and follower behaviors influence the building of an ethical organizational culture?
How might those behaviors and resulting cultures differ (or not) from those involving non-Christian from an ethical perspective?
Incorporate the results of your Ethics Audit to discuss the principles within your organization or if not the member of an organization, use an organization with which you are familiar.
Overview
Christian ethics applied to social-economic life began with the birth of Christianity as a revitalized continuation of Jewish morals, in both intellectual and practical advances (Charles 1998). A number of Christian theologians have made substantial contributions to business ethics centuries before the current movement, particularly since the thirteenth century.
Theologians from the School of Salamanca, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolome de las Casas, developed a robust defense of universal human rights with consequences for work in the sixteenth century. Some authors of this school actively focused on business and finance moral issues, such as how to conduct company in accordance with Christian ethics. They typically followed Thomas Aquinas, who incorporated Moral Natural Law—which was available to everyone.
Many pertinent moral concerns related to corporate ethics were championed by Christian Churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, in the twentieth century. Pope Leo XIII defended a personalistic conception of work within the organization as well as some labor rights (1891). More recently, the Catholic Church Magisterium has promoted other major findings and developed norms for reflection, judgment criteria, and action instructions. CST vigorously supports human dignity, innate human rights, integral human development, and the significance of the common good as a reference for moral legitimacy of the social order based on the fundamental commandment of love and natural law.
