The Authority of Service and Love

This is a very interesting book about the crisis of authority in the Christian Church. It begins with a discussion of the relationship between authority, tradition, power and legitimacy as they relate to scripture and the church as an institution. There is always a balance to be struck between revelation and reason and the relative emphasis between tradition and the Bible varies, with reformers tipping the balance towards the latter and a literal interpretation that itself has partly created the crisis of authority. The author discusses exercise of authority in the early years of the Church and the exercise of power in the Middle Ages. He then examines how we respond to religious authority and why we do so in psychological terms. Living as we do in an age of extremes, it is instructive to look at authoritarianism, dogmatism and kind of blind obedience characteristic of fundamentalism. This leads him to a new understanding of authority as service and love, as indicated in the title. A well informed and timely discussion.