Marriage has a "special power" to bind people into communities and into other families, Rauch thinks.
Moreover, it was exhilarating for an Australian kid from a plain suburb to look forward to being entrusted by Christ with the power to "bind and loose" sins.
The court did not hold that Congress "lacked the power to bind state governments to the federal law barring age discrimination".
In the Gospel According to Matthew (16:18 18, 18:18) the power to "bind and loose" was conferred on St. Peter and the other Apostles.
On the same day, however, Parliament also passed the Declaratory Act, which declared that Parliament had the power to bind or legislate the colonies "in all cases whatsoever".
In spite of protests, especially that of the schism led by the theologian and schismatic pope Novatian at Rome in 251, the final consensus held that the power to bind and loose (compare Matthew 16:18–19), to excommunicate and absolve, was vested in bishops and presbyters by their ordination.
If the parties have the power to bind themselves by exercising this normative power, then the upshot of the social contract was obligation.
Consent is saved from irrelevance only if we can explain why we also value a power to bind ourselves to obey.
Now in the hands of these theorists and in much ordinary discourse the idea of "consent" implies a normative power to bind oneself.
We should begin with the New Testament, which conferred on the Apostles the power to bind and loose sins.
You yourself aren't doing it, but you are calling upon Jesus' power to bind them.
