“I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.” Sophocles

Sadly, I have come to believe that a strong sense of honor has ceased to exist in 21st century America, and it must be reclaimed.

The world in which I was raised in 1950s Appalachia was peopled by folks who believed in honor as a primary character trait. Our family and friends were neither rich nor poor in material goods, but they were by and large people on whom you could depend and trust.

Were they perfect? No, of course not, but most of them constantly carried the intention of living and being honorable and having integrity. When I hear politicians, preachers, and pundits talk of going back to the best of times (usually meaning the Golden Age of the 1950s) I always think that the principal thing we have lost and need to reclaim is a sense of honor in our culture and among all people.

My father, a Baptist deacon from a very early age, was a leader among his peers and in the community in which I was raised, and he held honor to be his most valuable asset. As a man who taught Sunday School and Bible studies he mined Holy Scripture for the what he called “the golden thread,” which in academic Biblical studies is sometimes called the meta-narrative or “kerygma” (meaning “to proclaim” in Greek).

This golden thread running from Genesis through the Revelation to John carries the message that God is faithful and trustworthy and worthy of our worship, and that God made these divine characteristics manifest first in the proclamations of the ancient prophets and sages, and finally in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians know as the Christ, the incarnation of the creator God.

The key words here are faithful and trustworthy, and throughout Hebrew and Christian scripture these traits of God – what might be called God’s constancy or integrity – define honor as the primary divine ideal to be emulated and imitated by human beings.

Usually we express this ideal as God’s love, and we are told that the very nature of God is love (1 John 4:8) which Saint Paul describes in great detail in 1 Corinthians 13 as being patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude or irritable or resentful, neither does it “rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth.” These characteristics define God’s love – God’s honor.

Unfortunately, Christians by and large choose to focus on God’s judgement or grace while ignoring the core Biblical teaching that says we are to be “imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1).

Therefore, to have honor is to be truthful and honest in absolute integrity of person, no matter what the personal consequences.

In that faithfulness of honor one simply does not lie, cheat, prevaricate, twist the facts, spin the story, or otherwise falsely present one’s self or the facts for gain. There is no such thing as “it’s just business” or “it’s just politics” or “it’s just the way things work” or “appearances are everything.” Honor is honor, truth is truth, and being faithful and trustworthy means living in that integrity all the time and not merely when it suits us or when we benefit by it.

My father worked very hard to be a person of honor, and he was regarded as such by his friends, colleagues, and business associates. I remember going to the bank with him one day to secure a loan for a replacement automobile. The loan officer asked him how much he needed and when dad told him the amount the officer called in a teller, wrote a note which went into the cash box, handed dad a fistful of hundred dollar bills, shook his hand and said, “Have a good day” while I stood by in open-mouthed amazement. No forms. No contracts. Just an agreement based on honor.

Yes, it was a different era for such things, but the honor which undergirded such an interaction was, and is, immutable.

We stand at a tipping point in our culture. We are going to choose to be honorable or not. We are going to choose leaders in business, civic affairs, religious institutions, and politics who hold honor as primary, or not. We are going to choose to hold up honor as a divine mandate, or not.

I leave it to you to discern the consequences of both paths.