How Evangelicals Should View The Matter
When we yield to ‘authority’ it’s better to see it as obeying laws in general. Always putting other citizens first in humility:
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
Romans 12: 3
These days, more than ever, we fill that God given hole of worship with the temporary. We pathetically, emotionally, socially submit to social media influencers, entertainers, athletes and politicians falsely holding them in ‘authority.’ I joke to myself at times waiting on the idiotic reality when we have trading cards of federal legislators like we do baseball players. A more healthy perspective would be to view all law as authority over us and sans seeing a specific individual that way. To perceive other citizens as having authority over us in humility. This keeps our hearts on worshipping the only true source of authority, Christ! Worship of ‘authority’ figures are how cults form.
Prior to missionary field work with Campus Crusade for Christ in 2010, I was exposed to such a demented paradigm where fundraisers were subjected to:
A status as pions who had to submit to everyone we encountered within the most basic structures of the orgnization. One time I made a request for help with my account from tech staff at the ministry’s headquarters in Orlando, FL. They labeled me to humans resources staff managing me as ‘non submissive’ for even calling the issue to their attention. The next day I had a pathological human resources liaison out of their regional office, overseeing my fundraising, call to chastise me for ‘overstepping my boundaries,’ since I called IT directly instead of going through them and not respecting hierarchies. She hilariously stated: “I wish you’d humble yourself and submit to their authority.” Of course campus directors claimed they had ‘authority’ over fundraising coaches. Fund raising coaches, IT dorks and plain crazy people with no authority claimed they were my boss. The experience was a wacky expression of a cult. Not to mention times people have gotten lawyers after me for confronting them for stalking me in my personal life. Those are the times we live in now!
Because of our modern penchant of entitlement evangelicals must be careful of not using the phrase: “we pray for those in authority.” A better expression is: “We pray for those who serve us!” Because, like a homing beacon, those with selfish motives will hear the wrong type of prompting and seek office on the backs of the gullible. Those without a servant’s heart! Stating descriptions like: “Those serving us” will attract the selfless into positions of influence. Due to this, Christians should be reticent of how they phrase the matter behind the pulpit. JCB
