Cult Authority

Authority. This word presents a problem in our culture. We are a generation of think-for-ourselfers. We don’t like anybody to tell us what to do. I have been thinking about this as our family has been watching LOST. The people all seem to want a leader – someone to make the big decisions, someone to run to in case of a crisis – and yet, when that same leader turns around and makes decisions they don’t like, they snort and scrape their feet like a bull in a stall before a fight.
I encountered some of this when I was the coordinator of a co-op for the homeschool families where we lived in West Virginia. Every minute detail of how things were run was constantly in question. I was talking to a more mature woman about the subject and she said to me that people are just rebellious against authority. We don’t live in a society where that is respected – even to the end of people making fun of the President – not just his politics but how he looks, walks and talks, what he wears, etc.
The opposite extreme of this is people who follow any authority like blind sheep. This specifically annoys me when it is in a church setting. People amen anything the pastor says with little or no knowledge for themselves about God’s word and what it says. They sit swallowing what is spoon fed and never question, never dig deeper into the Word for their own growth, and never ask questions. When a pastor or leader says that something is “not up for discussion”, I think that is dangerous territory. I may even suggest cultish. Anybody who tells me I have to believe what they say without question treads on altogether different and seriously more dangerous territory.