I find I must, again, offer an alternative view. Springs from Anglicanism, about authority.

In the original languages, what MOST people object to in the Bible about "authority" are very different concepts from what we, now-so-PC, understand under several LATER languages (and cultures) as "Bad Authority."

To simplify (which is very NON-Anglican and for which I will take a lotta heat in various quarters):

"GOOD Authority" is authority ceded by free (non-coerced) choice, by a strong person, within a concept called "right relationship," to a power the person acknowledges to be a higher power. Not necessarily "higher" in terms of more-power, but power of a higher SORT than that power which the person has for one's own.

Like a 220 line is a higher-order power than 110, OK, that is higher in more-power terms, and is sorta going to seem to behave in a different way than 110 the minute you put it to work. But more importantly, electric power is a different SORT of power than human-muscle power, and you want to be in right relationship to both 110 AND 220: a mistake with one will get you a strong tingle, but a mistake with other will get you t'rowed across the room.

"Power" and "Authority" are not at ALL the same things, and they can be Good, or Bad or-- even-- [gasp] BENIGN!

~Susan