Authors Of Life Together

If you want to feel the aroma of Christianity, you must copy the rose. The rose irresistibly draws people to itself, and the scent remains with them. Even so, the aroma of Christianity is subtler even than that of the rose and should, therefore, be imparted in an even quieter and more imperceptible manner, if possible. --Mahatma Gandhi

Christianity has been largely filtered to the world through the mind and experience of Western civilization. Naturally, it has taken on many of that civilization's colorings and questions. It shows a preference for the words of Scripture which are supposedly active, rational, aggressive, decisive, conclusive, divisive, measurable, and provable. It usually neglects or at least fails to comprehend many other biblical teachings. As a result, much of Western Christianity lacks a deep inner authority and is forever caught up in disguised struggles to find that authority. More often than not, it settles for an extrinsic authority instead of the deep inner authority which alone can be called biblical faith.

Inner authority seems to come from "experiencing our experiences," and experiencing them as deeply our own. Most people seem to be satisfied with gathering their authority in the form of ideas, opinions, and quotes from significant sources. They might control their information in rather creative ways, but it is obvious that the authority is outside themselves. They might even have an authoritative role or function, but they are not themselves sources of power, energy, or life.

We seem to be able to intuitively recognize the difference. We might need to be close to the authoritative role; but we will usually want to be close to the authoritative person. They "author" us. They create life in us. They seem to write life more than they are written upon. As with Jesus, power comes out from them.

This does not mean that people with inner authority are rare and heroic. Their power need not be immediately noticeable or highly charismatic. It is commonly much more shaded and subtle.

Gandhi's rose gives us an appropriate image. The quiet and imperceptible authority of the rose comes from the fact that it is in fact beautiful, that it gives off a lovely fragrance. It does not need to prove itself or convert you to its side. It knows it is a rose. If you are a human being with a nose and an eye for beauty, you will recognize the inherent authority of the rose. In fact, its inner authority might well be so pressing and demanding that you might say to the rose, as did Francis deSales, "Stop shouting!"

If Christianity relied on its inner authority, the weight of its truth and the sheer power of genuine goodness, the world would also say to Christians, "I hear you; stop shouting." And we would not have preached a sermon or spoken a single word.

When the world meets people whose center of gravity is within themselves and not just in religion or answers, the world will draw close like moths to a flame. When we meet people who know that they know, and know that they know so much more than they can understand, and finally have the trust and patience to remain in that knowledge, then we will have people who can truly represent the authority of God. In their presence we will grow strong.

There is usually a direct correlation between one's need and reliance upon mere external authority and one's lack of true inner authority. The communities of the future will no longer be able to survive, or make any lasting contribution, unless they are fostering and protecting a true inner authority in their members. Our communities will only be as strong as our individual members are strong.

Our age has become too sophisticated not to see through the old-time motives of fear, law, and "Scripture says so." It believes that the law is written on our hearts, and knows that Scripture will also be confirmed by the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit.

The authority that we need must be total. It can no longer come from mere church mandate or Bible interpretation, but it must also come from our souls. We need Christians who have souls!

The Catholic and Orthodox traditions have tended to substitute church authority for soul authority; the Protestant tradition has replaced soul with Bible or individualism. Both sets of traditions are searching for the true seat and center of authority; that is precisely what religion purports to do.

But they are both at least one step removed from true authority. They have settled for the common religious substitute: law instead of spirit. They foster conformity instead of true biblical obedience, traditions instead of truthfulness, and mediocrity instead of faith. "The law killeth, but the Spirit alone gives life."

External authority is quickly grabbed onto precisely because people do not know, have not listened, studied, struggled, or prayed. In the realm of the Spirit, this is false coin. It is counterfeit. It is much easier to produce than the real thing.

But when the majority of people are using counterfeit coins, people forget what the real thing looks like. They, in fact, judge the real thing to be showy, unnecessary, or presumptuous. In the world of religion, inner authority is unfortunately considered threatening, divisive, and even fanatic. Those who operate from a free place within, not merely reacting to trends and traditions, are often thought to be overly conscientious or "taking themselves too seriously."

Dorothy Day was fairly well ignored by both church and state in her lifetime. Only in death, when she cannot embarrass us anymore by the challenge of her life, do we admire and admit to her immense inner authority. She had soul. We all knew it, but were afraid to allow her to influence us too much. We had to protect ourselves from the rose by not looking.

We might say that we all knew it because she knew it first herself. People with inner authority recognize their center as within themselves. They draw life from this deep well. They are called self-starters by educators, labeled self-actualized in the schools of psychology, and named saints by the church. The canonization process is, of course, held up until long after death--one reason, perhaps, why Dorothy Day told those who would call her a saint, "Don't write me off that easily."

Those with inner authority draw life from within because there is a life within--not just laws, principles, duties, or fears, but life. And they know what wisdom has taught them: You can only build on life.

Ordinarily they do not attribute this life to themselves. They are insistent that the life is gift. They are anxious to give it away and call others into it since they know it cannot be earned, diminished, or hoarded. It is not theirs. They do not possess it as much as it possesses them.

Inner authority has no need to shore itself up or protect itself by status symbols. Jesus did not need to prove to anyone that he was the Son of God.

Inner authority lets truth speak for itself, allows other ideas to live or die on their own merits, and like love itself, "takes no pleasure in other peoples' sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes" (1 Corinthians 13:6-7). Only people with inner authority, what Gandhi called satyagraha or "soul force," are capable of true nonviolence. Only they can both let things be and call them into being. They alone create. All the rest of us simply rearrange.

Although many in a community may possess inner authority, certainly all true leaders do. That is why people follow and trust their leadership. That is also why people often have an ambivalent relationship with their leaders. They are at once in love with them, envious of them, and sometimes hate them for possessing what they want and fear they themselves do not have.

Leaders are the object of much community transference and projection. The most fundamental relationship in any group is between the group and its leader or leaders. The leader is the symbol of the deepest level of life within the group. He or she is the non-rational symbol of the group's power, but also of the group's weakness and fear of death. The members transfer to the leader their own fears and lack of inner authority.

The goal of good leadership is to promote the growth of inner authority among members. As they grow in their own inner authority, they will alternately love and hate those whom they once needed. They will have to find ever new reasons for trust and obedience. This is the necessary rhythm of growth. It probably explains many of the conflicts in community and also much of the burnout of leaders, who do not usually understand the emotional complexity of their role.

Human beings both worship and fear power. We are fascinated by those who have power in any form. We admire them, give them our loyalty, and depend on them because they put us in touch with our own inner power or desire for it. We find strength in their strength. But we usually do not know that this is happening. When we do, we become ashamed and deny our need for the leader.

It is at this point that we desperately need clarity and wisdom. A kind of pride, what the Greeks called hubris, usually takes over and keeps us from a deeper truth. In the classic Greek tragedies, the illusion of independence from the gods kept the hero from becoming a hero and himself becoming a god. We are afraid to admit that we are not essentially self-created (and neither is the leader), but all tied together in a chain of being and dependency whereby we all enter into deeper life.

We only come into inner authority insofar as we admit a positive and mature dependency on others and freely enter into a mature exchange of life and power. This is necessary and good. In fact, the Christian tradition has named it the communion of saints, the body of Christ.

Unfortunately, we are often resentful and mistrustful toward the very persons who might do for us what we need and ask them to do. We double-bind them and trap ourselves; and community does not happen. We are satisfied to become a conglomerate of opinionated loners, who periodically try and even torture one another with our sophistries. We hope that community can happen logically or rationally so that we can avoid the compassionate and vulnerable life. We are still dealing with the first, most all-pervasive, and best disguised sin of all: the pride that keeps us from depending on another.

Perhaps we can be aided through this obstacle course by one essential insight: The power is not finally in the leader but in the group. The authority is in the leader, and that authority is precisely the ability to recognize, affirm, and tap the power of the group. When a person can release and integrate that power for the good of the group, he or she will be a founder or leader of some aspect of community.

This charism of community authorship seems to be even rarer than the gift of leadership itself. Many people are at least leading people to grow, but few are leading people to grow together. The latter is the pastoring function of the church, which is rare simply because for the most part it has not been expected.

When leaders can no longer tap the power of the group, they will no longer lead. They might hold a role or office or even a sacred ordination, but they will not be leading unless others are freely following; their authority is not authoring other people.

This kind of leadership only destroys and discourages others' experience of their own power. A good authority will always give a group and individuals a deep sense of this power.

Good leadership, therefore, is not simply having good ideas or the ability to exercise control but having the ability to deeply love and believe in other people. Thus, as Jesus said from the beginning, leadership is the truest kind of servanthood, and its job is to listen rather than to speak, to hope rather than to enforce.

Inner authority becomes external authority when it both comes from within and simultaneously attracts, affirms, and directs others. This is almost too much to hope for in one human being. Human history, even church history, has become so despairing of ever expecting it that we have settled for authoritarian leaders to fill the gap. And these often must be authoritarian precisely because they are not authoritative. They are not in touch with deep human truth.

The powers of the world, who are always fighting time deadlines, management goals, and profit scales, do not expect to be motivated from within. They cannot afford to be, lest people seek truth instead of control. But we who seek to build the earth in the image of God--what about us?

The author of life bids us share in his freedom and authority. This will take longer, but it will also last longer; and this God seems to be building for the long haul. God waits, as only God can wait, because he knows that he is God. Those with true authority can believe because they know that they know. And the rose can both blossom and die because she knows that she is a rose.

Richard Rohr, OFM, was pastor of the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a Sojourners contributing editor when this article appeared. A companion article appeared in the February 1981 issue of Sojourners.