What is integrity?

As most people know, I’m a bit of a fanatic about driving ethics, particularly driving the speed limit. So when a good friend of mine was recently driving me somewhere, he jabbed at me while speeding that maybe he wasn’t really a Christian. “That’s okay, “I replied, “I already suspected.” Naturally, we both laughed about it.

But in thinking it over, I realized that although there are lots of different ways to discuss the ethics of obeying the speed limit, some of them can sound rather high and mighty, like, “The Bible tells us to obey the authorities….” or “Who has the authority to decide such things?” But sometimes simple questions are more compelling: How do you drive with a cop behind you? And, do you pass a cop who is driving the speed limit?

See, if you drive differently because someone may enforce the law you want to break, then there’s really no other description for the behavior besides hypocrisy. It’s not even rebellion, since true rebels endure the consequences. As the noted scholar Dudley Moore once said, “The best car-safety device is a rearview mirror with a cop in it.”