It sometimes seems as if American society is a culture of unaccountability.

When something goes wrong take the recent Enron bankruptcy scandal, for instance rare is the person who will step forward and accept full responsibility.

Faiths vary on what age a person should begin to be held morally accountable for his or her deeds, but agree that individuals are responsible for their actions.

Instead, there’s usually a chorus of people spouting, “It’s not my fault” or “He’s to blame for this.”

What typically follows is a series of finger pointing, accusations and hey, this is America lawsuits.

All of which raise the question: When should a person be held morally accountable for his or her deeds? And how early in life should an individual be taught that actions have consequences that if you misbehave, you get punished?

Passage to adulthood

Rabbi Judith Beiner of the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive, explained the point at which Judaism considers children morally responsible for their actions.

“My instinct tells me that when a person reaches adulthood in Judaism which is 12 for girls and 13 for boys that’s when they’re held accountable for the mitzvoth (commandments) and moral laws as well,” she said. “At the age of bar and bat mitzvah (a coming-of-age rite) is when a child becomes an adult in the eyes of Jewish tradition, basically.”

That doesn’t mean Jewish children get a free pass to do as they wish until then.

“I would assume accountability is something we teach our children as early as they can understand it, whenever is developmentally appropriate,” Beiner said.

The preparation of a child for adulthood roles and responsibilities should begin with the very young, she said.

“For instance, my girls who are 6, 7 and 9 aren’t (ritually) obligated to light the Sabbath candles, but they’ve been doing it since they were 3 years old,” Beiner said.

Parents realize the challenges of teaching a child about actions and consequences, she said.

“It’s a matter of being persistent and vigilant and making the hard choices,” Beiner said. “It’s much easier to just let things slide by. It’s hard work, and it backfires a lot.”

Sin and redemption

The philosophy of connections among beings, and responsibility for actions, has an important place in Buddhism.

“One thing that Buddhist teachings tend to emphasize is the notion of karma, which says that if you do something, it has consequences whether you’re 2 days old or 200 years old,” said Judy Roitman, guiding teacher of the Kansas Zen Center, 1423 N.Y. “Everything you do, you’re already responsible for. You can’t help it; that’s how the world works.

“If you drop a cup, it’s going to fall to the floor. How do you teach a child to recognize this? That’s a question that only individuals can answer, and it depends upon the child, the parents, the context and the situation.”

There’s a different way to phrase questions of personal accountability and the concept of consciously choosing right from wrong, according to the Rev. Judy Long O’Neal, pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church, 245 N. Fourth St.

“The way the question is asked in my particular Christian seminary setting the St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo. is, ‘How do you understand sin, and what does it mean to be redeemed?’ That’s my language,” she said.

O’Neal is finishing her master’s degree in divinity at the school.

“For me, the question is huge, because in the Western Christian tradition, we have been oppressed by a focus on guilt,” she said. “I don’t like that, because I think it overlooks a sense of original blessing. The focus becomes how we sin, rather than how we’re blessed.

“There’s a new conversation focusing on blessing, where we lift people up. If the church’s expectation (of people’s behavior) is positive, not negative, that changes the way we approach morals and make decisions.”

Responsibility as sacrament

In the Catholic Church, it’s believed that the moral instruction of children should begin, essentially, at birth.

“That’s the only way people learn, when we start right at the beginning, helping them to understand. And it has to be parallel to their age development,” said the Rev. Vince Krische, director of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, 1631 Crescent Road.

“In the church, we have the sacrament of reconciliation, where a child comes forth and accepts responsibility for his or her behavior,” he said. “This is done when a child is about 7 or 8 years old, and it’s done in Catholic churches throughout the world.”

Part of the reason for the sacrament, Krische explained, is that if people aren’t held accountable at the earliest stage possible, they won’t grow into accepting responsibility for their actions.

And that’s essential to becoming an adult in a society, he said.

“The parent has to from the very beginning make it clear that they are the parent,” Krische said. “Parents are so scared today if they do something (to teach accountability), they’re going to do psychological damage. The truth is that if they don’t do anything, they do greater psychological damage.”