The search for authority

When I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1946. I learned very quickly some lessons about authority. Stripes and insignias were very important. How many stripes a person had earned gave significant power. The particular insignias of the commissioned officers let every person in uniform know who was in charge. As an American soldier, it was not my job to question an order. It was my duty to do as commanded.

I was a very good soldier. I obeyed. However, at the end of my enlistment, I was not tempted to reenlist. I had enlisted. I served my country. I had no desire to live under military authority.

As a cradle Baptist, I was taught the challenges of church and state. I was a citizen of two kingdoms…..the Kingdom of God and the United States of America. As a young man I made a commitment to Jesus from Nazareth. He was God’s anointed one, he was the only one that I could ever call “Lord.” Any other commitment that I might make was second. Jesus, God’s Christ, was always first. No earthly organization or government could come ahead of Jesus.

Then in graduate school I came face to face with existential philosophy. It was the rage of philosophy in those years. In existentialism, truth is to be found at the point of our existence and experience. I suspect that the dominance of existential philosophy was the key that led to the narcissism of the last half of the 20th century in America. The love of self is still a debated subject. In Hamlet William Shakespeare gave us the words “to thine own self be true.” The meaning of those words to Shakespeare is still debated. I see it as an early expression of existential philosophy. These words seem to fly in the face of the words of Christ “If any among you would be great, let him deny himself and come, follow me.” The clear image of Jesus is that he was a man who denied himself in order to serve others.

My purpose is not to create a debate about Shakespeare’s intent. Rather, it is to point out that the self is powerful and has an ever present demand for control. I am drawn to that authority of the self by my Baptist heritage. In our history we rejected the Roman church. We rejected Luther and Calvin. We rejected all of the creeds of Christianity. We embraced the Bible as our authority, but with an important caveat. Every person has the right to read and interpreter the Bible for himself/herself. It was Baptists, who argued the case for the United States to be a place with complete religious freedom. In our beloved country there is no religious test for a person to be a full, participating citizen, and at times of military conscription, citizens have always been able to be exempted as conscientious objectors. Our Bill of Rights forbids government to interfere with the practice of religion. Religion is left to the individual.

The United States has been an experiment of a mix of people with competing authorities….government, religion, and self. While there are other competing authorities, these three each demand first place. America first! Christ is Lord! To your own self be true! My Baptist tradition is especially adept at placing individuals in first place. In Baptist history at one time there were two distinct traditions. The Free Will tradition was quite different from the tradition of Particular Baptists. The Free Will Baptists believed that a person’s relationship with God was totally dependent on the will of an individual believer. Particular Baptists believed that God chose who would be in his kingdom. In America, the Free Will Baptists won decisively. And Baptists have flourished.

I am a part of the Free Will tradition. I truly believe that much of life is determined by conscious decisions on the part of an individual. In the review of my life, I can identify key decisions that I made that made me a different person and has directed the course of my life. I have no explanation for my decisions, except my own will. I am significantly in charge of my destiny. In graduate school I fell under the influence of psychiatrist and philosopher Victor Frankel. He convinced me that even in the worst of life situations, I am still in charge of determining the attitude that I will have toward the forces that may surround me.

In my assessment of the authority that guides my life, I will never abandon first place for my own will and persuasions. However, my will must always be disciplined by the teachings and life of Jesus from Nazareth. My commitment to my country comes in a far distant third.

At this particular time, my commitment to self and my Christ places me in political defiance of the America First population of my fellow American citizens. There is no doubt, chaos is the result. I welcome the chaos. Chaos is a part of my Baptist freedom. I have come to believe that chaos is not to be feared, but to be celebrated. Chaos is the seedbed for creativity, invention and opportunity. Nothing is more sterile than a completely orderly society.

I look forward to a fruitful future for us all….together.

The End

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.