Clive

So much of the (modern) church seems to respond less to Jesus’ overturning of the priorities and preoccupations of the world and more with attempts to read those same prioriites and preoccupations back into the Bible.
So it is with ‘authority’. Christian faith is perhaps the most anti-authoritarian  faith there is. It seems to presume the fruit of the spirit: kindness, etc;  and cast its community with that presupposition; not the presupposition of ‘command and control’ that we garner from the history of the Church of Rome, and that permeates our experience of the local church run as an ‘authority club’; which it is not.
We see it over and over with people giving and taking unbiblical titles (Dr., Rev., Pastor, etc.) that is unbiblical in the very idea of titles for members of the family of God! From titles we get authority structures, power and its abuse and the failure of everyday Christians to live out ther (our) call.
Finally, we see it come to land in those men who think that marriage is an authority relationship, rather than the ‘side by side’ relationship we see in Adam and Eve pre-fall.