A recent survey from LifeWay found that 9 out of 10 evangelical Christians in the U.S. say that their local church does not have the authority to declare that they are not Christians. While on the surface this might seem admirable, there's a subtle, disturbing message underlying this statistic.

What principle does this highlight? That Christians do not see their local congregation as holding much authority in their spiritual lives at all. There's no questions that in a fallen world, authority—especially church authority—can be abused. But the Christian vision is of communities where we mutually submit to one another, speaking authoritatively into one another's lives in mutual ways. What do we lose if we lose that commitment?