CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
AND THE NATURE OF LOVE
© John Armstrong
The Church of God in Williamstown
WEB SITE: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~sanhub/index_.htm

COMPETING INTERESTS
Kevin Gosper has certainly been in the news lately, as has his family. It's interesting to see that upon his daughter Sophie's return to Australia, they were all reluctant to talk to the press. You would think that Australia's first Olympic torch relay member would be glad to speak!

It seems we here have an example of people supposedly acting from an attitude of service, only to have it discovered that they have another more personal agenda that conflicts with their stated goal. We call this a conflict of interest—that is, one involvement competes with another for attention, so much so that it is impossible to serve the stated goal adequately, if at all, because such a bias enters into the motivation behind what is being done. In the Gosper case, the father's interests for his daughter competed with those of the nation and with his role on the International Olympic Committee. Even if the selection of Sophie was in the hands of other parties, it nonetheless sent messages other than the ones intended. For this reason alone (if his interests were indeed solely focussed on the Olympic movement), he should have rejected such an offer, even if only to avoid the possibility of assumed impropriety.

Then there are other innumerable examples: from the cricket betting and match-fixing scandal to Australian state governments that refuse to curb Internet gambling. Is it possible to do anything without having a hidden or vested interest? Is it possible to serve others and not compete with one's own interests? Is it possible to love or serve someone and not be motivated by a hidden or other agenda?

Today, I want to look at this interesting and absorbing subject, one that branches off from my last message dealing with deceit and deception—for deceit is indeed often a feature of vested interests which we prefer to be hidden. Can I appear to be noble and selfless, while all the time looking out for my slice of the pie?

THE CITIZEN ADVOCACY PROGRAM
The importance of this topic has been brought home to me through my involvement with the "Citizen Advocacy" program. "Citizen Advocacy" matches people with a disability to ordinary citizens. These citizens stand with and represent the interests of a disabled person as though those interests were their own, in order to protect and safeguard the welfare and well-being of that person. However, this doesn't mean that the advocate is without personal motivation. Advocates may be motivated by many different things: the desire to obtain justice, to support the lowly, to see right done, etc. But this is different to an interest that conflicts with the role of being an advocate.

Why have a scheme like this? As we know, disabled people are devalued, which then leads to bad treatment of them and to the denial to them of most things that are offered to valued people. Even some of you here have felt the effects of this process.

In order to be an effective advocate, it is essential that the advocate acts without a conflict of interest. That is, he or she has no ties to anything that might even potentially entice them to put that interest ahead of the person being protected. Imagine being a person needing someone to advocate for you, only to find your advocate is colluding, receiving a kick-back, or somehow associated with the entity from which you need protecting. It would be like your jailer or torturer claiming to represent your interests when they are clearly committed to your imprisonment! This is one reason why workers are not recruited as advocates for people with whom they work.

Another way of putting this is that people who can act independently of any other interest are sought as advocates. They are not constrained in their advocacy by other ties or relationships to services, people, histories or allegiances that would in some way weaken their capacity to act just for that person. It's like asking, "What will bring the greatest strength for people who are weakest?" Someone who can speak and act without compromise, who cannot be silenced, got at, sacked, transferred or directly threatened through another alliance. Now that's strength!

Those who have seen the recent movie, "The Hurricane", will have seen an excellent example of non-conflicted, independent and tenacious advocacy. Their capacity to see justice done for a man wrongly accused and jailed (for 22 years) was empowered by their conviction of his innocence, but also by their ability to act independently. Their voice could not be silenced.

Citizen advocates of course are not paid; that would introduce a potential conflict of interest. The relationship is freely given, it is not coerced. Payment would introduce control and potential coercion by other parties. It may indeed be, and often is, the only relationship in the life of a person that is free of other vested interests. Everyone else in the life of a devalued person is there to have some other interests fulfilled, whether through payment or other benefits, like status or prestige.

What is interesting is that when an advocate is truly independent of any conflict of interest, they become loyal to the person their relationship protects. As loyalty increases, so does the strength of the relationship. The person is not only protected, but is quite often befriended. You have two essential ingredients of successful relationships: no conflicts of interest, and the loyalty that flows from this. No form of paid advocacy, whether it be from the Office of the Public Advocate (run by the same government that runs the services), or other forms of paid advocacy, comes even close to this.

DUPLICITOUS VERSUS UNEQUIVOCAL RELATIONSHIPS
What does the Bible have to say about this topic? Does it have anything to teach us in regard to what amounts to duplicity in relating to God and to each other?

Notice how the Scriptures use such strong language to describe this pattern of carnal response to serve interests other than those that are good and beneficial. While Kevin Gosper was chided for his indiscretion, it was hardly described in these terms. Note the connection to deception (v 13), and of course we remember that where deception is, violence is just around the corner (vv 15-17).

So what is the issue here?

Now the commandments set a boundary as to what must not be done. They seek compliance—a suitable starting point for a people learning who God is and the laws that bring happiness. Here the law draws attention to the direction and nature of worship: who is worthy of worship, and what is not. This is a common theme re-iterated throughout the Scriptures. As these themes (who is worthy of worship and what is not) are elaborated upon, there is a shift in emphasis from compliance to internalisation: This is why David could say: Here the theme is the nature of the worship toward God. It is unequivocal; it is worship with our whole being. Therefore, every other concern we have in life is to be subservient to that interest. God also knew that we would be enticed by other things that would present themselves in ways that would draw our attention from what is true to what is false. INCOMPATIBLE AND CONFLICTING INTERESTS
So strongly does God regard our allegiance and loyalty to Him. He has bought us with a heavy price, invested, so to speak, in our survival, redeeming us from death. Naturally He is jealous to keep what is His. How would it feel if He wasn't this way? It wouldn't seem as though He loved us very much, would it? "Go, I don't care!" So He fights for us, and warns us how easily we are led into other interests, to other things in which we place our hopes, causing us to worship "gods that are no gods". To worship another god is to have a conflict of interest, as it were, with the interest or purpose we have with the Father. The worship of another god is to pursue an incompatible interest. Imagine having a relationship with someone, someone to whom you have given a commitment, a relationship that has very specific and unique qualities, then transferring that involvement and loyalty to another entity. The interests of one relationship then immediately conflict with the basis of the other.

Tomorrow we are visiting Angelo, Rachel and the children at their home. Kathy has a series of lectures to attend at Deakin University, so we thought that while she was there we'd go and see the Zavals. Angelo and I also planned to one day cut down one of their trees, and I would bring our trailer and take some of the wood. But our present car doesn't have a towbar. Hmm… I could ask Paul, Sandy and Amelia if they would like to come….or the Falces—and if they could bring the trailer. But do I really want them to come, or do I only want the trailer? What if they discovered that I only asked them as a means of acquiring some wood, and not for their company? Can you see how my interest in the wood could replace my concern for their interests and for our relationship? They could feel used and might doubt the basis of our friendship. Can I serve my own interests and still be loyal to the relationship? If trust is even partly destroyed, it could take much time before it's healed.

One can't have two gods, so which one are we going to worship?

You can't exist for very long in an arrangement where there is a conflict of interest and remain loyal! What these verses indicate is that a compromise or trade-off is forced. One so-called allegiance will suffer to give way to the other. In Citizen Advocacy terms, if a conflict of interest exists for a devalued person, it is the weaker party that is almost always sacrificed; that is, the interests of the person with the conflict will always be served and of course the relationship will suffer, perhaps irreparably.

Here is one classic example:

Sounds pretty tough. However, Saul had allowed a conflict of interest to enter into his dealings with the Amalekites. He sided with their king, Agag—the enemy—and coveted and took their wealth as plunder; that is, he wanted to benefit from what this other arrangement brought him. He was now completely conflicted and disloyal, and in doing what he did, he violated his relationship with God.

Is there a good example of fidelity and loyalty, of faithfulness, where there is no conflict of interest? Yes:

Why is this such a difficult thing for us to achieve? PLAYING THE HARLOT
To be free of a conflict of interest with our God is to be faithful to our God. To pursue interests at odds with that relationship is to worship another god. How is it we have such a hard time staying with the God who loves us? How does God view this? What does He call it? Agag was an enemy of God. Saul befriended him, Samuel had to put him to death. So do we.

When we turn our backs on God and go after the things that we love, God likens this in a figurative sense to fornication. In the King James version, the word 'zanah' is translated 'whoring'. Other translations render it as 'prostitute oneself', or 'play the harlot'. Somehow I think 'whoring' captures it quite well. Whoring, as a concept, is a little stronger than "I think you have a conflict of interest"—and it more powerfully expresses the true nature of such a conflict. For example:

A conflict of interest in relating to God is sin. It means our attention is drawn to worshipping something other than the true God. It is indeed idolatry. Whores can claim to be faithful, but what happens when people go whoring? The relationship breaks down and the whoring party turns against that which they originally professed to love. But notice what happens: There is a natural consequence to all of this: false gods always devour their worshippers because idols by their very nature are false. They can't deliver. So as the follower turns against God, the false god turns ultimately against the follower.

A LIFE-LONG COMMITMENT
Some Citizen Advocacy relationships last a very long time. Some people make life-long commitments to the person they are protecting. We often wonder what it is that makes people commit themselves so deeply, while other relationships don't go so well. One aspect is that the protégé expresses a need for the relationship to the advocate. And the advocate discovers that the protégé brings as much to their life as they do to his or hers—and sometimes more.

Remember the love mutually-expressed in the 'Song of Songs'? The depth of longing, the intensity of the desire for intimacy? Or Ruth's commitment to Naomi?

Will we be faithful to the relationship to which God has called us—or will we be off a-whoring, following interests that betray the very heart of the relationship? Conflicts of interest destroy the loyalty of a relationship. Having other gods is a major source of conflicts of interests with our relationship with God. Do we want a powerful relationship with God, one that can move mountains? Then we must remove the impediments that weaken, pollute and taint that relationship, so that nothing, nothing whatsoever, comes between us and the God we worship.

The God whom we serve is always faithful to us and will never leave us, is always loyal, and will never forsake us. Can we be so in return?

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