Changing behaviour requires a change to the Honour Code

A great post was added a short while back to the honorshame.com blog titled

'Do you want to change the world?'

It includes a link to the following video by author of the book 'The Honor Code', Princeton Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah

Take a look at the 3minute video.

Interestingly at the time of the honorshame.com post I was pondering over some notes I had been making about almost the same subject as that little video.....

If we are to impact issues in our world that stem from honour, we have to address them in the context of honour.  

We have to redefine what is honourable.

A Missions Mistake

Legal language and concepts will not impact hearts and minds that are honour focused.

Actions of people - in other words, their behaviour - do not emminate primarily from laws but from values. 

As I think about missions, and missions in Africa in particular, I see an error that 'we' as missionaries and other 'change agents' (such as HIV prevention educators for example)  from the West have made.

We have observed behaviours and seen problems with those behaviours - that they were mis-placed, mistaken or mis-directed or mis-informed.  We wanted to change those behaviours.  That was a noble ideal....but...

We measured and assessed those behaviours (what was acceptable and what was not) based on a plumbline, which instead of being biblical was more about 'cultural christianity' or 'cultural morality'.

We tried to 'correct' behaviours based on new 'rules' or educational 'facts' of what is 'right' and 'wrong' - ie new laws.

We failed to see the extent to which the behaviours stemmed from a value system and the honour shame dynamics of those values.

We were hindered by our Western guilt focus which emphasised behaviours (law) rather than honour/shame which is about values (honour - and more specifically honour of the lawgiver)

Behaviour will never be changed by changing the 'rules' or 'laws' alone.

Values are what determine behaviour.

Who we honour determines who we obey.  Relationships determine rules.

and

Honour encompasses obedience.  

Or to say it another way: our obedience code lies within  - and is subject to - our honour code.

Law is not however, disconnected from honour, for honour and values will inevitably result in laws. We were created to receive and give both love and command.  Right from the Garden of Eden God walked with Adam in a relationship of honour, but He also gave commands (to multiply and have dominion over the earth, and to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil).

We all make laws and thus give commands based on who/what we love, value and honour.

This was of course seen in the recent US Supreme Court decision - they made a legal declaration (law) based on the fact that they valued a 'right to dignity' that included in their thinking a 'dignity' of same-sex marriage.  (see previous blog about this)

Values determine laws.  

Laws only reflects values, they don't determine or control them.  Laws have no power to change values.

Of course Scripture is all about this - God gives laws to His people but no-one is saved by the law, partly because the law is powerless to change our hearts and its our hearts that determine who/what we honour. (Romans 3:20,7, 8:3)

The law can define right and wrong behaviour - and we need laws to do this, but it cannot produce right and wrong behaviour.  

Our conscience makes us uncomfortable with doing what we believe to be wrong and comfortable with doing what we believe to be right. But all we have to do is change the definition of what we believe to be right or wrong according to a change in values, and our conscience is alleviated.

This can be negative - a culture can change its honour values so as to say 'same-sex marriage is ok', but this possibility can also be positive.  As the video above points out - if you change what is understood and believed to be honourable, you will automatically change the 'rules' of right and wrong and behaviour will change.

The power in the gospel comes with changing the honour code.  

Ultimately all godly change comes because we choose to honour God over whatever we honoured before.  In the West we may not have used that language - we may have talked about Christ's 'Lordship' but the truth is the same. Our biggest problem in the Western church is that we neglected teaching what it meant to live honouring Christ as Lord and King, and instead either emphasised His love without Lordship or His laws without love. We went to two extremes of 'easy believism' or 'legalism' instead of teaching about a loving Lord who gave laws.

If we focus on what is valued and honoured and bring truth to these issues so as to change the honour code - to honour God in Christ above all.... then change will come.