Kirby on church authority

I feel Robert Kirby hasn’t for the most part been quite the writer he was prior to his suspension. But today he hit a home run.

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2019/09/29/robert-kirby-church/” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2019/09/29/robert-kirby-church/

I’m not exactly sure when I realized that authority didn’t mean the same thing to me that it did to others. Best guess is probably around the time I started Sunday school.

The boredom I experienced there defied description. Some kids found validation in mindless obedience. I much preferred to go my own way, even if it meant disapproval.

Somewhere in there I discovered that authority had every chance of being deeply flawed, and thus just as capable of being empty-headed as those it presumed to govern.

I couldn’t have articulated it this way as a kid. Instead, I studied the matter by doing whatever I wanted as long as the consequences were somewhat of a fair exchange.

It’s probably just me — and others with the same problem — who doesn’t find much validation in the approval of other people. It’s not wrong that others do, but it doesn’t work the same for me.

We all require some sort of acceptance from our chosen (or assigned) tribes, but you have to ask yourself how far you’re willing to go along to get along. And that says a lot more about you than it does them.

I’ll go along right up to the point where I either get bored or I figure out that I don’t agree, usually arriving at both about the same time. Then I do things my way.

And I accept the fallout for it because, as Mark Twain said, “The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.”

If you are going to the effort of believing in a loving God, what point is there in filtering his or her value of you through the minds of people who just might not have one that works any better than yours?