Author VICTOR LEE AUSTIN
Publisher T&T CLARK
ISBN 0-567-02051-2
The era in which we live despises authority and talks incessantly about freedom. The churches inadvertently follow suit at times, and then there are those who react against the ‘every man for himself’ mentality and set in place authoritarian regimes instead. It is a mixture and confusing to say the least. This particular author is a theologian, preacher and Episcopalian priest from New York and has clearly given much thought to issues related to authority as found in the world and more particularly as revealed in the Scriptures of the Bible, the result of his ponderings are found in these chapters. It is not a long book but certainly not bedtime reading, it demands concentrated attention as he reasons his way through his subject. The subtitle “Why we need authority to flourish as human beings” sums up the central issues he grapples with. His arguments are compelling. His first chapter shows that we just cannot get along without authority and from that he considers authority and freedom and their relationship to each other, then authority and truth, then looks at authority and power covering political, social and ecclesiastical power. He proceeds step by step until he examines disputed authority and rounds everything off with a wonderful but short chapter with the title Authority in Paradise. This book is an antidote to the doctrine that there is equality without authority in the relations of the Trinity. If man is made in the image of God then, although there is equality between persons yet they can only thrive as persons when the authorities God has set between human relationships are both accepted and enjoyed. Further, the attainment of human beings as true persons can only be found in the community of persons dwelling together in their various orders. There is no blossoming of the human without the joyful acceptance of being both under authority and bearing it in some form also. Some theologians and popular Christian writers would argue that the need for authority and submission only entered in after the fall of Adam and Eve in paradise. This book argues persuasively that authority and submission is present in the Godhead and therefore is eternal and not transient and temporal. Austin does not evade issues concerning the fallibility of authority as it is found in the various spheres in a fallen world, this fallibility is present in church life, the political sphere and all social relationships but these failures and breakdowns should not be allowed to become an excuse for the vain attempt at making a world where there is no authority nor looking to a paradise where the same is true. True individuality in its richness and beauty can exist only where authority and submission are accepted and the amazing multi-faceted reality of what it means to be human and made in the image of God includes these as intrinsic. So, the book is a mixture of theology, philosophy and anthropology and a helpful read.
