And I mean to define authority in its most conventional ways. Authority is the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues. It is the right to control or command or determine. Authority is sometimes thought of as an accepted source of information, and that's what some people are looking for. Or the right to respect or accept one's word as a command.
Authority is sometimes the warrant for action, and it is often the testimony of a witness.
Real authority is what the church is based on in its best moments, and, on this Independence Day weekend, real authority is what a national community should be based on. The national community and the Christian faith community may have something to tell one another. But caution is in order. Things are bad for people and for the truth when these, the religious and the patriotic, get fused. When everything that is right about one's faith is imposed on the nation or, alarmingly in the American experience, where everything that is thought to be sacred about the nation is thought to be identical with what is sacred in the faith community, liberty is likely to be at risk.