We Answer to Another

"In this timely and highly valuable book, Koyzis exposes the problems and points the way to solid, balanced answers. The subtitle of We Answer to Another sums it up: 'Authority, Office, and the Image of God.' Humans have been created in the image of God and called to serve the Creator--the One to whom we are ultimately accountable. To exercise a responsibility is to hold an office of real authority as servant-stewards of one another. We can thus participate in holding one another accountable to the responsibilities of those offices. Sound old-fashioned? It's the most contemporary word of wisdom we and our neighbors throughout the world need to hear today!"

--James W. Skillen, President Emeritus, Center for Public Justice



"Liberal societies, regarding themselves as premised on the generative moral autonomy of the individual, have a constitutive problem with authority--freedom needs no justification, only authority. In this highly illuminating, wide-ranging, and exceptionally clear book, David Koyzis shows how this view not only destabilizes authority but actually diminishes our humanity. Authority is not autonomy but 'responsible agency,' exercised individually and corporately in many diverse human settings--'offices'--that arise from our being created in God's image. Recovering authority as 'answering to another' makes us more, not less, human."

--Jonathan Chaplin, Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Cambridge