“ALWAYS question authority,” Sarah Burton tells her girls in Andrew Davies’s recent television adaptation of Winifred Holtby’s novel South Riding. Clunkingly anachronistic when they purport to come from a 1930s Yorkshire headmistress, Miss Burton’s words express the default position of many who have lived through, for example, the 1960s, or the great authoritarian dictatorships of the 20th century.
In this subtle and elegantly argued book, Victor Lee Austin shows that the adolescent tendency to find all authority suspect, simply because it is authority, needs a re-think. Far from being an alien and arbitrary imposition on human beings which inevitably limits and restricts them, authority is necessary if they are to flourish and be free. And, however resentful and envious this may make us feel, such authority is inevitably vested in living persons. Contrary to the hopes of modern managerialism, it cannot be replaced by transparent and open procedures.
The cover illustration shows a conductor, baton in hand, with an Aertex shirt crinkled over his slightly distended belly, his face all scrunched up, and his mouth in a moue. This slightly off-putting image illustrates Austin’s paradigm case of a symphony orchestra, whose members need an authoritative figure to co-ordinate their efforts if they are to perform at their best. They may not agree with the conductor’s interpre-tation of a piece of music, but ultimately they must rely on his or her judgement if they are to fulfil their individual potential and to “participate in the complex good of music played together”.
Similarly, students who are learning any academic subject need authorities whom they can trust if they are ever to make progress — in Augustine’s words, “unless you believe you will not understand.” Contrary to what is often assumed, this is especially so in scientific disciplines in which students are taught to think within the paradigms laid down by academic authority figures, until such time as the paradigm shifts and a new — and equally rigid — one emerges.
Of course, authorities can be wrong, and musicians in an orchestra or learners in a particular discipline may, and sometimes should, question them; but this does not mean that authority is itself dispensable.
When it comes to the Church, ecclesial authority (like other types) is not a regrettable necessity in a fallen world, but actually necessary for the flourishing of God’s people. Authority in the Church primarily belongs to Christ, however, and then in a secondary sense to individual Christians, who, by virtue of their faithful witness to Christ, have an authority that is proper to themselves (something similar to the authority of conscience). The institutional structures of the Church exist to support them in their personal articulation of the Church’s faith.
The ultimate aim is not that church authorities should become more powerful, but that the training that an individual Christian receives within the Church should equip (him or) her to make “the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6.12). As Austin writes, “the hope of the universe is that she is being prepared to sing her own aria. And when she does, we will rejoice in her authority.” Given the current controversies, I would have been intrigued to know precisely what forms of authority Austin believes are most conducive to this, but on this point he is somewhat coy.
At a time when university education in this country looks set to move in a more utilitarian direction, it is encouraging to see that the author of this book holds the post of theologian-in-residence at a church. This surely points the way to the future, albeit that St Thomas’s, Fifth Avenue, perhaps gets a little more in the collection plate than do many English parish churches.
The Revd Dr Edward Dowler is Vicar of Clay Hill in the diocese of London.