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The Bible is the ultimate authority and infallible, not the pastor and not the elders. And it doesn't mean that you believe everything he says without examining it.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it?

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

I now add, farther, that the apostle's argument is so far from proving it to be the duty of people to obey, and submit to, such rulers as act in contradiction to the public good, and so to the design of their office, that it proves the direct contrary.

The words of the Bible, and the Bible alone, should be heard from the pulpit.

Authority is by nothing so much strengthened and confirmed as by custom; for no man easily distrusts the things which he and all men have been always bred up to.

I do think there's a difference between what a religious leader says and does and what a public official or legislator does. But there's no question that a lot of our legal underpinnings find a good bit of their foundations in the Scriptures.