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What is authority? What is obedience?
- Authority is an interpretation of power.
- Authorities--persons, laws, customs--arise from our judgments about power. We decide together as a group which persons hold final responsibility in this organization, which of these ancient writings are the Word of God, which of these directives have the force of law.
- Obedience is our response to these decisions.
- Obedience is the voluntary accomodation of myself in the face of a larger good.
- Where willing obedience is refused, authority is an empty claim.
- But willing obedience is mature only in response to legitimate authority.
- To set aside my own purposes or seriously modify my behavior for something less than legitimate authority is servility or simply cowardice.
- The reputations of authority and obedience rise and fall together.
- Neither authority nor obedience is good in itself. Each becomes legitimate by its connections with the larger good.
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