This series of blog posts were originally presented as a speech at the October 1998 Ontario Women's League Day in Ancaster, Ontario. Much of the spoken style remains.
"Authority" is
often thought of in negative terms. One would ask why. The answer is two-fold.
Authority is often despised because of the frequent abuse of authority. Sadly
it happens often that one in authority over others abuses his power. We will
speak about that in a future instalment.
A second reason authority is
often despised is because man has an inherent unwillingness to submit to
someone else. Ever since the Fall into sin, every human being has a natural
urge to be completely autonomous—a law unto himself. This is not a new
development in humanity. You see it already with the first humans, Adam and
Eve. God had placed them in the Garden. He had given them a beautiful place to
live, work to do, food to eat. They could eat from every tree in the Garden,
except for one. There was one tree they were not to eat from. That was God's
law. The man and the woman, however, rejected that law. They rejected God's
authority and ate from that tree.
Ever since, man has
continued to reject authority. By nature, man is lawless.
Media comment on authority
It is very interesting to
see how the media comments upon the biblical teaching of authority. There was a
profound example of interesting media comment the summer of 1998. On June 9,
1998, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a Declaration on Family Life. It
reads as follows:
God has ordained
the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of
persons related to one another by marriage, blood or adoption. Marriage is the
uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a life-time. It is
God's unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and his church, and to
provide for the man and the woman the framework for intimate sexual expression
according to biblical standards, and the means of procreating the human race.
The husband and the wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created
in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his
people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the
God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A
wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as
the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image
of God as is her husband, has the God-given responsibility to respect her
husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the
next generation. Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and
heritage from the Lord. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral
values and to lead them, through consistent discipline, to make choices based
on biblical truth. Children are to honour and obey their parents.
Media comment on this
declaration was very interesting. That
the media had lots to say about this statement was not unexpected. What was
surprising was what the media focused on. The declaration began with a very
narrow definition of marriage. It said that marriage is the union of one man to
one woman for a life-time. Part of the liberal media agenda is gay rights. With
the legalization of gay marriages, it is surprising that the media did not
latch on to that point.
Furthermore, the declaration
says that the marriage between a man and woman is for a life-time. It excludes
divorce. Again, how surprising that the media had nothing to say on this point.
When the Declaration on
Family Life spoke about children, it said that children are a blessing from God
"from the moment of conception." Largely, the media rejects that. The
message promoted in our culture is that a woman can terminate life in her womb
if she wants. And yet the media did not zero in on that part of the statement.
Neither did they comment on
the declaration's call to parents to provide "loving discipline" to
their children. The child rights advocates hate the word
"discipline." Yet the media let that pass.
It let all of this pass. It
let pass the opportunity to lambaste Christians for their views on marriage and
divorce, abortion, and child-rearing—typical hot-button items. Instead it
fixated itself on one sentence: A wife is
to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband…
Isn't that interesting? Of
all the places the media could hook into this statement, they focused on this
aspect. Why? Because of the hatred of authority. Because of the inherent human
tendency to reject the idea that there are levels, structures, of authority in
life—in society, in families.
(The next post will be about the source of authority.)
