When I think about what really holds a family, a community, even a society together, I always come back to values. Not the cultural signals that come and go with the times, but the steady truths that endure across centuries.
Take honesty. No society admires deceit as a virtue. The same goes for kindness, generosity, or integrity. These are not bound to political tribes or religious denominations. They’re the foundation of character, the soil in which trust and strong relationships grow.
That’s why, when my counseling students tell me we’re not supposed to “push our values” onto clients, I stop them. Of course, we shouldn’t impose our politics, our religion, or our cultural preferences. But honesty, respect, responsibility, and compassion are not optional. Without them, therapy has no grounding.
I saw this difference between values and identity markers play out during the Jesus Movement. I loved the music of Larry Norman, Chuck Girard, and especially Keith Green. Green looked like a hippie, with wild hair and bare feet, but his life was marked by radical generosity and conviction. He opened his home to those in need, gave away his earnings, and preached with urgency. Yet much of the evangelical church struggled with him. They were more worried about his hair than about his character.
A few years later, I enrolled at Southwestern Conservative Baptist Bible College in Arizona. Back then, the obsession with identity markers had hardened into rules. Beards were banned. My mustache had to be inspected by the dean of students to ensure it was “Christian enough.” Women were not allowed to wear pants in public. In practice, the school was less concerned with cultivating values than with enforcing a specific brand of Christianity.
I often think about those years as I look at my own profession. Counseling has its own blind spots. Over time, our field shifted emphasis from character and universal values to a form of social justice that often functions like identity politics. Don’t misunderstand me: justice matters, and so do standing against prejudice, advocating for fairness, and amplifying marginalized voices. They are values in action. But when justice is reduced to adopting the “right” political posture, it ceases to be a value and becomes another identity marker.
The broader culture is facing the same trap. Christians once belonged to either political party, guided by character more than affiliation. Now, many are willing to excuse dishonesty, cruelty, or corruption if it comes packaged with the right cultural signals. We’ve traded integrity for identity.
So, what endures? Not beards or dress codes. Not slogans or flags. These change with every generation. But honesty lasts. Love lasts. Kindness lasts. Integrity lasts.
If there is a God, I doubt He’s counting who has the “right” look, vote, or affiliation. I think He’s asking whether we tell the truth, treat people with dignity, live generously, and exercise self-control when we could just as easily take advantage.
That is the challenge for all of us… in faith, in counseling, in politics, in everyday life: to tell the difference between what is temporary and what is lasting. If we ground ourselves in values, we build something that outlasts the cultural wars of our day. If we cling to identity markers alone, we end up with rules about mustaches and dress lengths while the deeper truths slip through our fingers.
And maybe that’s the truest test of all: when the temporary markers fade, do our values remain?
Dr. Wesley