 In this video, I want to discuss the role of ethics in the application of persuasion. And more specifically, what are some of our Christian responsibilities as people of faith? What responsibilities do we have? And where does that intersect with ethics and persuasion? So to start off, I want to ask you kind of a, just to consider a situation here. I want you to think about, you know, you're in church on Sunday and your pastor is giving a message. And it's a message about tithing. The pastor is giving a message about tithing and why it's important for you to give to the church, why it's important for you to give a percentage or some of your, you know, what God has provided you and maybe provide that to the church or some other worthy causes and things. He's really pressing this idea of you need to give, we need to dig deep, we need to give back from what God has provided us. Is that persuasion? If so, is that appropriate? Is appropriate in the pulpit on Sunday mornings? For the congregation on Sunday mornings and so forth. So then I want you to also consider another situation. Back in the 80s, famous evangelist Oral Roberts several times said to an audience that God had told him if he does not raise X amount of dollars for this mission or this purpose by a certain date, then God is going to end his life. And he said to these people, will you help prolong my life by giving to this cause? If you don't give money to this cause, it's going to cost me my life. So will you help prolong my life? Will you help save my life in this situation? So what's the difference there? What's the difference between, you know, is one persuasion and one manipulation? Or is there a difference? Are they all the same? Are they all good or bad? All appropriate or inappropriate? Well, you know, that's kind of what we're going to be talking about today, is the role of ethics in persuasion. And specifically, how is that affected by our Christian faith and what responsibilities do we have as Christians? So first of all, let's start with a discussion of what are ethics? What do we mean when we say ethics? Well, ethics are the dictionary definition is that there are moral principles that govern a person's behavior with the conducting of an activity. So I rephrase that a little bit in my own words by saying it's a framework for acting and speaking within certain moral or values-based guidelines. And I think of ethics as guardrails. When we're driving down the road, we've got these guardrails, especially dangerous areas of the road. You have these guardrails to kind of keep you on the road, keep you from going off the road and keep you there in a safer area. Ethics kind of act as those guardrails for our life. And as persuaders, those are very important that we have this sense of what we can or can't say or should or should not say, so to speak. So I think of them as these guardrails. Ethics are guardrails that help us understand and create a framework for persuading within these certain boundaries, keeping them within these certain boundaries. So where do they connect to persuasion? How do ethics connect to persuasion? Well, this is where we really need to understand that there are a variety of different ethical frameworks. There's no one right or wrong ethical framework. And we may have multiple frameworks that work within ourself. So we need to understand that as well. So we can look at a few different. There are lots of different ethical frameworks. I'm just going to present a few examples here. But one is, for example, our communication values framework. The communication itself, and we talked about this in the previous video, that communication itself has some values, has some ethical standards for what it means to persuade responsibly. What are the criteria for responsible persuasion? Well, they are first an equal opportunity to persuade, the equal opportunity for both sides to be heard and to persuade, and relatively equal ability between the two persuaders and equal access to the media of communication in that situation. So that's the first sense of ethical framework that we have this equal opportunity and equal ability and equal access for those people. Secondly, that we have a revelation of agendas, that nobody's working from a hidden agenda. We're not trying to manipulate and coerce people that we have the revelation of agendas so that the audience understands what each person is working toward. And then finally, the presence of a critical audience, critical receivers in the audience, that these are people who are not just letting it kind of wash over them and just internalizing it because, just because. But they are critically thinking about what this means and whether they agree with this person and whether it matches up with their own ethical values and framework there. So the presence of critical receivers, so that's one kind of ethical framework, though. This sets some standards, it sets some rules for us, everything which we can persuade. When we venture outside here and we go outside of those guardrails, then we are no longer acting in an ethical way. So it establishes that ethical framework for us. Another type of ethical framework could be built around your cultural values. Every culture is a little different in how it values every aspect of communication, but certainly persuasion is no exception. So for example, from an American perspective, in the United States, the cultural values of persuasion would imply then that we have consistent and free democratic processes, that persuasion be consistent with free and democratic processes, that the persuader have good character and integrity of ideas, that they not be snake oil salesmen trying to manipulate and fool us, but this person has good character and their ideas are solid, they have good integrity of ideas. It also means that the persuader is considering the diversity of perspectives. America is a very diverse nation, lots of people have different backgrounds and different values and different things. So the persuader needs to not only understand that, but accept that, consider that as part of their persuasive effort. That we look at both the means and the ends and that they both be ethical, that we're not allowed to go outside the ethical idea of, well, the ends justify the means. Not here, not in the United States, that's not part of our cultural value in terms of persuasion. And then finally, we consider both the long and short term good of that suggestion of that persuasion, that we be thinking both in the long term and the short term. So different cultures have different values, but those are some of the ones that we have here in the United States, for example, that establish our cultural framework for ethics in persuasion. A situational values imply that the situation kind of dictates what is and what is not allowed, right? That the context and not the individual, so it's not about individual ethics, it's not about what I believe to be right or wrong or whatever. It's what the context or the situation establishes as ethical. If it establishes rules that are outside of my normal ethical framework, situational values would say then that those apply, those override my own personal. And that typically unethical behaviors are deemed acceptable and even necessary. So this would be the end stress to find the means, or if you find yourself in a situation where you're trying to talk somebody out of not doing harm to somebody else, is it okay to lie to them, is it okay to persuade them in a way that is less ethical than you might normally use because of that situation? Is the situation dictated that you move your guardrails, remove your guardrails or at least adjust them for something else? So you could have that type of situational ethical framework. And finally of course we have our religious values, which establish an ethical framework as well. So we need to consider that, that the ethical framework then will reflect the moral guidelines of the faith. Whatever faith that is, the ethical framework will be established by those moral guidelines. And those moral guidelines will more than likely be established by the ideology and the sacred literature of that particular faith, right? So for Christianity it's going to be established by what we find in Scripture and what we know to be the teachings of Christ. That's going to establish our religious ethical framework for somebody who is a Muslim, who would be established by the teachings of the Koran and Muhammad. And then the different ideologies would be established by those different sacred literatures and sacred texts and sacred ideologies for people of that faith. We'll get back to religious values here in just a second as it applies to Christian persuaders specifically. But before we do that I want to talk about the responsibilities of one other important group here, which is the responsibilities of the listener in ethical persuasion as well. So it's not all on the speaker, not all on the center of the source here. The listener or the receiver has certain responsibilities here as well. In the broadest sense they need to be critical. Again, not just letting things wash over them, not just accepting things as true because the other person says they are. We need to be critical and be questioning, you know, does that fit with what I know to be true about the world or what I believe to be true about the world? Does that fit with my own ethical values and ethical framework? And if not, you know, where are the differences and how, if I want to, would I justify those? And so we need critical listeners. Listeners who are going to be actively engaged in the listening process and be critical of what that person is saying. We need listeners who are going to apply their own ethical standards. So as a listener, as a persuasive listener, you also need to do this, apply your own ethical standards. And again, how do they match up? If at all, where they don't, what does that mean? We need to support the efforts of ethics and honesty. When people or persuaders are being ethical, when they are being honest, we need to reward that. It doesn't mean we have to accept what they're saying or agree with what they're saying, but we do need to respect the fact that they're being upfront and honest. When sometimes the easier play would be to just, you know, fudge the details and omit some facts and things like that. But we need to support those efforts toward ethics and honesty. We need to resist the urge to silence our opponents. We just want to immediately shout them down just because we disagree with their saying or we don't want to immediately close down and begin to, you know, combat that. We need to let them have, again, a fair reasonable opportunity to express their ideas. That doesn't mean we can't wholeheartedly disagree with them either internally and even externally by speaking against them or whatever. But what we need to do so in a respectful way that allows them to continue to express their own ideas and not just automatically silence them. Then we need to reject logical fallacies. And fallacies are essentially the logical logic. It's logic that doesn't line up. So there are lots of different types of fallacies just a couple to share with you. One is that homonym where you don't have, you know, either the ability to or the opportunity to attack what they're saying. So instead you attack that person. You attack the person talking about their personal traits or whatever instead of talking about the flaws or in their ideas and their arguments. We focus that on the person. That's an ad homonym attack. Or straw man, for example, arguing against an oversimplified or otherwise distorted version of your opponent's argument. We see this a lot in politics where one politician will present a plan for a program or for a budget or whatever. And the other person just really oversimplifies or picks out one specific part of that program and says, this is awful. This is evil. Let's focus on this. And ignores the other better parts, the good parts of the program. So without taking it as a whole, you just find the one little thing to argue about. So straw man is another type of policy. There are lots of differences. But just we need to be aware of those and guard against not only using them ourselves, but believing them from other people. Okay, so let's get into what this means for us as Christians specifically. What does it mean to be a Christian persuader? Well, first of all, we need to understand that persuasion is a tool. It's not a weapon. It should not be weaponized. It should not be used in that way. How much in the same way that a hammer is a tool? I mean, it can be a weapon, of course, right? And it really depends on the user. It depends on how we're using it. So we need to remember that persuasion is something that we should be using as a tool. Something that is, you know, like so many other things that it's God given and God provided for us. But that we now weaponize that and start to use our powers for evil, so to speak, right? To manipulate people and to cross over there. So it's like a hammer can be used to build things. It can be used to destroy things. And we don't want that to be the case with our persuasion. We also need to bear in mind the difference between persuasion and manipulation. Again, persuasion is something that is God given. And it can be used to what do pastors do if not persuade us, right? Persuade us first to follow Christ and then to grow in that relationship. So, you know, pastors are great persuaders and there's nothing wrong with that. There's, you know, Bible mentions persuasion on several instances. But you get into the problem is that we cross over into manipulation. And I think for my money, that's what we see in that oral Roberts example that I gave earlier, that he's crossed over into manipulation. He's crossed over into, you know, when he says, if you don't give this amount of money and I'll be dead by this day, boy, that's emotional manipulation. That's really frightening somebody and almost coercing them into doing something rather than giving them the full choice to do something or not, depending on where they feel like to use their gifts and use their resources. So we need to be cautious that we're aware of the difference between persuasion and manipulation. And focusing on and emphasizing one and not the other. Thus, I need to consider the source. I need to consider the source of all this. What is it that God would have us do in these situations, right? We need to follow God's will when we're persuading. Is this something that he would have us do? Is this something that is going toward the building of his kingdom? And so we need to consider, you know, is this God's will? And if so, then yes, let's push you that and let's persuade and let's get passionate about it. Otherwise, you know, we need to not persuade for our own sake, but really persuade for his sake. And finally, we need to use all of our God-given tools, including persuasion. But we need to use our God-given tools like the Scripture and like depending on the Holy Spirit and following those things as well. And use all of our God-given tools. God has given us a veritable Swiss army knife of tools to use in the building of his kingdom that all exist within this ethical framework of the Christian faith. So we need to be using all those tools and making sure that they all, you know, kind of exist within those guardrails of that framework. Just a couple of last thoughts here on considerations for Christian persuaders. These from an article by Clay Smith from 2019 in Preaching Source. He talks about persuasion versus manipulation. He talks about one of the key aspects here. How do we know when we're persuading as opposed to manipulating? Well, we know first of all from the intent. What is our intent? Is our intent to glorify ourselves? What's glorify God? We know from Colossians 3.23 that tells us, excuse me, everything you do do it all for the greater glory of God. If we are persuading and pushing these ideas and pushing these things for our own benefit and our own gratification, then we need to consider how that fits within our ethical framework and how that exists within the guardrails. Because what we should be doing is persuading in anything else to bring glory to God and to build his kingdom, to use those tools for that, not for our own purposes or just our own goals. We also need to persuade with integrity. I mean by that is with honesty, truthfulness, sticking to those things that we know that God would have us do and remembering that as we're told in 2 Corinthians 5.20, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. So we are representative of Christ here. So when we do that, when we persuade and we make these choices, these ethical choices or non-ethical choices, we need to remember that we are representing Christ. And that's the image that people are going to get of him is through us. So we need to be ethical and responsible and have the highest standards of integrity when we are persuading, when we're doing anything else, but in this instance, when we are persuading. And finally we need to consider impact. What is our ultimate goal here? What impact are we hoping to have? We know in Colossians 1.28, we use all our wisdom to warn and teach everyone so all of Christ's followers will grow and become mature. That's really our goal. Our goal is to bring people into the kingdom, bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ, lead them to that, and then to help them grow and mature in their faith. That's our other purpose here. So there's some element of persuasion involved in that. We need to do so responsibly, but we need to do so really with the end goal being that impact of bringing them into the kingdom. So again, ethics are these guardrails that keep us on track. Regardless of the framework that you're using, whether you're using the communication values framework or the religious values framework, whatever, and these will exist in combination as well. They're not mutually exclusive. We know that Christian faith underrides and serves as an undercurrent for everything that we do and every choice that we make. So we need to keep that in mind as well that that's really an existing framework over everything that we do. We also can apply all these other frameworks along with them to establish these guardrails. That's what they do to keep us in line, keep us in on the road when we're persuading, when we're doing anything like this and that we are always represented by God. So keep those guardrails in mind as we're persuading. If you have any questions about ethics and persuasion or anything else related to persuasion, feel free to email me. I'm always happy to respond via email. In the meantime, get out there, make some good choices, be critical listeners and really start to think consciously about the framework of your own ethical choices and how that fits in with your faith and the other areas of your life.