On ABC local radio recently a man was talking about a brick that fell on the roof of his car from a construction site as he was driving by. He stopped and went back to tell the construction workers about it. The reception he got at first seemed OK but when he followed their request to put it into writing the response was basically that they were not accepting responsibility and he would have to take the construction company to court if he wanted to go any further. All of that for about $1000 damage. I guess they knew the man wouldn’t bother to go through all the hassle of court for that amount of money. Radio host John Faine responded by asking why people don’t simply just do the right thing: they know what’s right, so why don’t they just do it?

Same week, same programme, and Anna Krien was interviewed. Krien is the author of the book Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport in which she writes particularly of the culture of the St Kilda AFL club. Interviewed about the recent rape charges laid against star player Stephen Milne, Krien said she didn’t think the club would “do the right thing”. She said football clubs are all about winning and not losing and that the club would find it hard to stand Milne down throughout the court process, given his prominence. In previous years they had stood another ‘lesser light’ player aside in similar circumstances but Krien predicted the club would keep Milne on this time (she has since been proven wrong as St Kilda has stood Milne aside in what turned out be a controversial decision). Faine’s response to her predictions was along the lines of “I don’t care who the player is or how important the player is to a side, people have to be treated equally”. He was basically calling for the club to do the right thing. What a novel idea.

Sophia Think Tank recently ran an Urban Conversation on ‘Crisis in Australian Democracy’. Jim Longley was the keynote speaker and he talked about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). As Chief Executive of the NSW Department of Aging, Disability and Home Care he certainly knows something of the subject.  He said that one of the reasons the NDIS had caught Australian’s imagination is that it is a microcosm of what we want our nation to be.  We know it is right to be inclusive of people with disability. Even at a personal financial cost, we know it is the right thing to do. The resultant conversation included questions about when we are going to do the right thing on behalf of our Indigenous people and on behalf of refugees.

Is the idea of ‘doing the right thing’ getting more air time in our consciousness as a nation? The phrase is certainly being thrown around a lot. It will be a good thing for the wellbeing of Australia if it becomes common practice to simply do the right thing.

The Bible talks a lot about doing the right thing. It’s often called “righteousness”, a word which many in our society would think sounds otherworldly and stuffily religious. But when understood properly it simply means justice or… choosing to do the right thing. Here’s a sample of what the Bible says about righteousness:

“Doing what is right exalts a nation” (Proverbs 13:34).  A nation looks good– and is good–when it does what is right.

Moses applied the principle of doing the right thing to the poor, the vulnerable, and to refugees and he states that this will be seen as righteousness (Deuteronomy 24:13 in the context of 24:10-22). He links this to the Jews’ own history of being poor, vulnerable and refugees in exile in Egypt.  “Remember” he exhorts, and then do the right thing, because in remembering what they went through they will be more inclined to treat others well.

Perhaps this is a part of our problem when we act out of self-interest: we haven’t experienced what the poor and vulnerable are going through and so we can’t (or, we choose not to) relate, and we don’t do what is right.

King David was seen as the greatest political leader Israel had in power. It is said of him that he was a king who did what right for all his people (2 Samuel 8:15). No favourites, no justice at a price, no cowering to the opinion polls. Everyone in the land benefitted from this man being in power because he was committed to doing what is right for everyone, for the wellbeing of society.

There are hundreds of references across the Judeo-Christian Scriptures that talk about doing the right thing. The three mentioned above are a very small sampling and yet the point gets across. We are called as citizens in a civil society to do what is right.

And so the call goes out to major construction companies, to Football clubs, to Federal politicians and to all of us to just do the right thing! We’ll be a better nation for it.

Food for thought.

David Wilson is Director of Sophia Think Tank, a Bible Society programme.