The picture you see here is significant. Let me explain why. This is the view you’ll have if you sit at the foot of the table in the Honor Board Room at the United States Air Force Academy and look up. To be clear, as a cadet you don’t ever want to experience this view. If you do, it’s because your integrity’s being questioned. It’s because you’re suspected of having violated the Honor Code, which says, “We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.” The code is a bastion of cadet life. Its violation is the fastest way to find oneself dismissed from the Cadet Wing. Regrettably, there’s a deep irony to this picture, which I’ll get to in a moment.
The Honor Board Room resides within USAFA’s Polaris Hall, which houses the Academy’s Center for Character and Leadership Development (CCLD). Maybe you remember that Polaris is another name for the North Star. Polaris Hall is oriented toward the North Star. If you sit in the seat at the foot of the Honor Board conference table and look up, the building intentionally funnels your view toward the North Star. The symbolism is purposeful. If you’re here, it’s because your integrity is on trial. What’s your moral compass in this moment? What’s your moral north star?
Now, why is this ironic? It’s ironic because, like much of the moral fabric of American culture today, USAFA’s Honor Code is slowly eroding, and it’s doing so with official sanction. In today’s Air Force, you can don the uniform of a USAFA cadet, having taken the honor oath, and all the while deny your fundamental identity as a human being (see here). You can lie about your gender – man or woman – and your lie will receive not censure, but official sanction. A male cadet can deceitfully claim a female identity (or vice versa) and never have to answer for that lie with a view like the one here. Cheat on your math test…you’ll face this view. Lie about who you are as a person, and you’ll be congratulated for your authenticity.
What does this rumination tell us? It tells us the North Star isn’t a faithful moral compass. It’s not sturdy enough, permanent enough, or true enough. The North Star as a symbol helps us down the road of thinking that truth is objective; that there are moral absolutes which span time, space, and cultures, and thus bind all people everywhere. But, as USAFA so aptly demonstrates, the North Star can’t define the content of that truth, or the nature of these absolutes. We need not the North Star, but the Morning Star. We need the one who said, “I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16b, ESV). We need, “…the prophetic word…to which [we] will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in [our] hearts” (2 Peter 1:19, ESV). We need Jesus. Moral relativism makes foolish liars of all its adherents. It degrades a culture and weakens a nation. It takes honorable (if fearsome) words like, “We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does,” and turns them vacuous.
There’s a better table than the conference table in the Polaris Hall Honor Board Room. It’s a table of perfect integrity where redeemed liars sit clothed in truth. It is the banqueting table of the “…marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9, ESV). It is a table, not of judgment, but of grace. This table points, not north, but toward the Morning. Do you have a seat at this better table?
Fix Your Mind 