Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 14, 2007

Philosopher Hannah Arendt, one of the most astute analysts of totalitarianism, observed: ?Power is the ability to force compliance with one?s demands; authority is the ability to command voluntary obedience.?

As Mark 1:22 recounts, Jesus taught His disciples ?as one having authority....? As God Incarnate, Jesus certainly had the power to compel compliance, but He chose instead to exercise authority by teaching and exemplifying what the Epistle of James called ?The Perfect Law of Liberty.?

In a free society, power is used only to protect the persons, property, and rights of the innocent, and then only after an appeal to authority fails. In contemporary America, however, practically every social institution has become infected with the plague of power, with the State claiming the role of enforcing ?laws? regulating behavior, speech, and even individual attitudes.

We suffer from a surfeit of power, and a critical lack of legitimate authority ? and a growing inability on the part of Americans to distinguish between the two.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.