Trust moral authority with a blending of commitment and critique

I want to treat science, religion, and other major institutions of epistemic and moral authority with respect, but take them off their pedestal, in what I will call a blending of commitment and critique

Trust we place in them that gives them the right to command our attention. Trust places us in a position of openness to profound insights, but it also places us in a position of vulnerability. Blending commitment and critique recognizes that trust in authority is a good and necessary thing, but that these authorities are, after all, thoroughly human and finite entities. They are, in the truest sense of the old Buddhist proverb, the finger and not the moon, and we must never forget that both are implicated in the act of pointing.