Except for the occasional exposure to church with friends at Christmas-time, Sean knew nothing of Jesus Christ, or of church traditions. Sean's own worry was that what had meant so much to his heart was now beginning to confuse him in his head. He wanted to know, once the authority of his personal conversion began to fade, what it was he could rely on. It never takes more than ten or fifteen minutes in the sharing of one of these circles for the issue of authority to emerge. 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.