LITTLE ROCK — The National Association of Evangelicals, a wide-reaching organization that includes more than 45,000 churches of various denominations, has drafted a code of ethics for ministers. Early signees include big-name pastors in the evangelical world, including Rick Warren and Max Lucado.
The Code of Ethics for Pastors, developed over an 18-month period, was the idea of the group’s president, Leith Anderson.
Anderson said the idea grew out of the association’s doctrinal statement, which was crafted to be agreeable to evangelicals acrossthe denominational spectrum. The statement has been affirmed by more than 40 denominations, including Pentecostals, Baptists, Anglicans, Wesleyans and others, as well as many nondenominational churches.Anderson said he hoped the association could come up with a similar statement of professional ethics for pastors.
“I realized journalists, doctors, dentists have a [ professional] code of ethics and for the most part pastors don’t,” Anderson said. “I thought it was something we could do that would serve the churches of America, to have a code that transcends denominations and wouldbe comparable to what other professions would have.”
Evangelicals are a subset of Protestants. They generally believe repentance and conversion are necessary for salvation, stressthe authority of Scripture and emphasize the redemptive power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Anderson said most pastors have high ethical standards but few said they have signed a written code. The association surveyed leaders within the group in March and found that 71 percent said they are not required to sign a formal code of ethics by their denominations or churches. He hopes the association’s code of ethics will serve as a guideline for pastors interested in a set of professional, biblically based standards of conduct.
The association brought to-gether a task force of ethicists, ministers and denominational leaders to craft the code. It was unanimously adopted by the National Association of Evangelicals Board of Directors in March.
“The first thing we found is some wanted a lot of specifics and we would have ended up with a book of ethics,” Anderson said. “It wouldn’t be practical. So it’s relatively brief.”
The Code of Ethics for Pastors includes five standards of behavior - to pursue integrity, to be trustworthy, to seek purity, to embrace accountability and to facilitate fairness. Each category includes a subset of further guidelines.
“This succinct statement provides guidance for pastors who desire to honor the Lord by their examples as well as by what they confess and preach,” Luder Whitlock, chairman of the task force, said in a news release. “We expect it will soon become indispensable as a reference for pastoral ethics.”
Anderson said the association is encouraging pastors to sign the code online and he’s also encouraging them to print out the document and discuss it with their church councils or leadership boards.
Each category addresses specific behavior. The section on integrity deals with personal character, such as exalting Christ, not self. Pastors are encouraged to “be honest, not exaggerating or overpromising; peace-loving and not contentious; patient, not volatile; diligent, not slothful.” Pastors are also urged to avoid and, when necessary, to report conflicts of interest.
Other topics include plagiarism, keeping confidences and the requirements of law, refusing gifts that could compromise ministry and avoiding sinful sexual behavior.
“We are quick to think about money, sex and power because those are temptations in every part of society, and pastors are not exempt,” Anderson said. “But with a professional code of ethics for pastors, there are some specifics. An example is when a pastor is studying the Bible or theology and preparing a sermon. You start with the Bible. Don’t start with other things people have written. Go back to the Bible as theprimary source. It’s tempting to just read somebody else’s book, use somebody else’s sermon and skip the Bible as the source.”
Anderson said reactions so far have been very favorable, and hundreds of individuals have signed the code.
“It took a long time to get this done, and we released it to a selected number of people who gave their endorsements early on. People like Bishop Charles Blake of the Church of God in Christ, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren. That gives a consonance to people that this is something familiar names have endorsed,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the association is also planning to develop a similar code of ethicsfor churches to be used by lay leaders.
The Code of Ethics for Pastors is available to read and to sign at naecodeofethics.com.
Religion, Pages 27 on 06/28/2012