Quotes about Authority

Authority forgets a dying king.

Jesus] invoked a different kind of power: love, not coercion.

Jesus was not crucified for being a good citizen, for being just a little nicer than everyone else. The powers of his day correctly saw him and his followers as subversives because they took orders from a higher power than Rome or Jerusalem. What would a subversive church look like in the modern United States?

The church has allowed itself to get so swept up in political issues that it plays by the rules of power, which are rules of ungrace

Change came from below, as it usually does, rather than being imposed from above.

When the church joined with the state, it tended to wield power rather than dispense grace.

When the church has occasion to set the rules for all society, it often veers toward the extremism

the Bible gives no direct advice for citizens of a democracy. Paul and Peter urged their readers to submit to authorities and honor the king, but in a democracy we the citizens are the "king.

who are we to sit in judgment of God's moral government of the universe?

It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power.

The church works best as a force of resistance, a counterbalance to the consuming power of the state.

A church that lives by power dies by power.