Imagine yourself as a Christian student. You have worked hard for three years; you have just passed your final exams. But, before he recommends you for a degree, your professor demands a bribe. Do you say this is the custom of your country and pay up, or do you remember that the apostle Paul spent two years in prison rather than pay a bribe to the Roman governor for his release?
I met a girl at the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) European conference in Hungary last year, who had to make the choice of re-taking her course or paying the bribe. She had had excellent marks, but was in tears because she knew she had to try again. 'They don't dare to demand a bribe the second time.' She was not the only one facing the problem of bribery. The room of students who wanted to discuss the problem of bribery was packed.
The problem does not go away when they graduate. A young Christian doctor who was my interpreter in the former Soviet Union had refused, unlike all the other doctors in the hospital, to ask patients for bribes, and he could not live on the government's meagre salary. That was why he was hoping to emigrate and was working meantime as a freelance interpreter.
