Vocabulary of Obedience

“Put another way, the Bible does not tell us whether the British or the American military salute is ‘more proper’ than the other. But it does require the fact of the salute. Expressions of honor are common to all human societies, and the Bible requires that we honor others and maintain such expressions of honor. To allow cultural expressions of honor to fall into disuse and to forget them is to lose the vocabulary of obedience. Then, when we find ourselves needing to obey, we have lost the means to do so. Consequently, we must distinguish between the position that says (correctly) that expressions of honor may vary and the position that says there is no such thing as an expression of honor” (The Paideia of God, pp. 43-44).