The Institutional Way
Back in February, I wrote a piece exploring broken understandings of authority and power dynamics in “Bible-based” male elder-led churches. The comments were encouraging and included some poignant experiences, but I’m still receiving private feedback full of frustration and confusion, including from some evangelical pastors and elders. For the most part the responses are in good faith, but along the lines of I think you’re letting people problems cloud your understanding of what the Bible says.
Not at all. There’s nothing new under the sun, and I doubt I’ve ever put forward a novel observation or idea. But what makes some of the things here feel a bit different is that I’m less interested in personal spats and more curious about the structures, beliefs, and processes —or lack thereof— that lead to and amplify relational issues. I’m also genuinely interested in letting the Bible speak on its own terms and studying Scripture in all its multivocality, literary genres, and cultural context as opposed to approaching it as a mere rulebook written directly to us.
Our lives are not lived in a vacuum, but in this time of extreme individualism it can be difficult to see larger forces at play. It can also feel really uncomfortable to try to understand how the groups we belong to can control and push us into believing and doing certain things without our even realizing it. Both are especially difficult in the dominant evangelical and fundamentalist church cultures here in the American South, which often confuse their interpretation of Scripture for what the Bible says. As I mentioned in my original piece:
“What the Bible says” is usually just a flat reading of very select passages of Scripture that ignores the many others that root authority and power in love and kindness. Authority, then, becomes more about having power and less about how it is wielded. Those who boldly declare they are “being biblical” fail to see that there are at least seven different models of church community and leadership presented in the New Testament that do not match their own.
So, this month I’m doing something I probably should have done a few years ago: expound on why I look at things the way I do. I don’t expect this will make everyone agree with me —that would make for a very boring world— but my hope is this will help some folks better understand where I’m coming from.
I’m an institutionalist. Here’s what that means.
A lot of people assume an institutionalist is someone who merely emphasizes the importance of institutions in human life. This can include everything from government to churches, legal systems to schools, and more. Many people can get on board with that easily enough.
But it goes much, much further. Institutionalists are decidedly focused on the practices, norms, processes, and rules institutions create and enforce, or don’t. We know institutions are deeply formative for individuals and can be vehicles for social change when needed. The why and how are just as important as the what. Naturally, we also care about how institutions evolve over time, how they interact with other institutions, how they can help individuals become the best versions of themselves, and are constantly thinking about how they can be reformed to create more fair and better outcomes.
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This is what separates true institutionalists from those who claim to be, especially during a crisis. A real institutionalist will see a systemic failure and have no problem saying We blew it. The institution failed and we see how. We’re going to do everything we can to repair the damage done to people and fix the problems to try to make sure this doesn't happen again. A faux institutionalist will slide into “protecting the institution” by refusing to accept responsibility —including for crises of the past— and silencing those who have been harmed or are speaking out. They fail to understand that institutions denied the opportunity to correct, grow, and reform will become irrelevant by their own doing.
Like most types of people, institutionalists can also be further understood by what bothers us. The January 6 insurrection was an existential nightmare because a critical institution was overrun by a mob that was violently rejecting a core democratic process. We find the very idea of a celebrity pastor to be offensive because that’s antithetical to what pastoring is all about. Indeed, even hyper-individualism inside an institution that elevates someone beyond accountability leaves us very suspicious of both. And when we run into a group of leaders who are knowingly neglecting real problems or using the institution for their own gain…well, buckle up, because we’re about to make you very uncomfortable.
All this to say, looking through the lens of institutions is what makes things feel different or new for many of my readers and listeners, most of whom seem to be struggling in or leaving American evangelical and more fundamentalist strains of Christianity. The obvious question, of course, is why?
It’s the worst and best time to be an institutionalist, especially in certain types of churches
Very few institutions today have been untouched by a particularly vile form of populism, the pandemic, a rising form of unhealthy individualism, and the ongoing economic and technological disruptions of the past 20 years. All have put a serious strain on institutions while shining a bright spotlight on the need for serious reforms. Sometimes we have learned our institutions have too many rules and outdated processes. Other times we learned norms we have taken for granted need to be re-entrenched or perhaps even codified. In some cases we came to see a new problem that an institution isn’t designed to address at all. And we’ve all witnessed the collapsing trust in institutions brought on by those tasked with tending to them day-to-day failing to do so.
Local churches in the vein I described earlier —again, “Bible-based” and led exclusively by men— have taken some of the noticeably heaviest hits. This is already a model that has proven to be at extreme risk of becoming toxic, but there is also often no mechanism in such churches to critique themselves because there is no true institutional lens. These are spaces that often unquestioningly assume their theology is 100% correct and their culture completely “biblical,” so the very idea of looking beyond people-to-people interactions as a source of problems can be an utterly foreign concept. This is most easily seen when leaders take minor critiques of their church as severe personal offenses and engage in cancel culture instead of a call to fulfill their responsibilities.
Put another way, the institutional lens brings one much closer to being able to see your local church from the perspective of people outside of it and those hurting within it. Without this lens the local church will eventually fail to be the Church. Leaders will look inward instead of outward. Actual relational problems become harder to resolve. Culture warring can easily replace the call to help the broader community thrive. And when a true crisis does emerge, leaders on the inside will struggle to understand how their words and actions hurt others and why those on the outside look on their church with suspicion and anger.
It is a poor time to be someone who takes institutions seriously in churches like these, for the above reasons and more. Something that has struck me the past several years is that it’s not just that people are leaving churches like this, it’s that some of the most dedicated and serious Christians are the ones departing in complete exasperation. That includes a lot of institutionalists; I know plenty.
Look, I’ve had a number of good and bad experiences with institutions in my life just like everyone else has. Good institutions aren’t the solution to everything and they are not perfect. Institutions that have not been well-tended to can wreak tremendous damage. Look no further than today’s Republican Party for evidence of that.
Reform also takes time. Institutionalists who are often the first to call for change usually pay a steep price so that the place they are in may be able to benefit later, often after they themselves are long gone. I’ve had the unfortunate experience twice in my life of being in a local church where I uncovered severe problems and saw a better path the church needed to take before most other people were willing to even consider something was deeply wrong. People can get so set in their ways not even a crisis can wake them up to reality. Institutions have paths of change and life cycles. Those can be sped up but never rushed. Yet still, the institutionalist must speak out.
I believe this is also why it’s a wonderful time to be a true institutionalist in other parts of the Church and American life. People from all walks of life are beginning to recognize that extreme individualism is just that: extreme. There’s a growing sense we need to move forward, not backward or into autopilot. People are tired of feeling isolated and yearn to belong to a safe community with others that feels like a second home. A lot of normal people are weary of being told we’re screwed when their experiences and reality proves we don’t have to be.
Change is in the air and evidence for this abounds today. An older generation that has clung to power across American life for far too long is beginning to exit the stage, even if that isn’t entirely by their choice. A new generation of leaders in some of the long-declining denominations of American Christianity is rediscovering the joy of evangelism, not just through community and deed, but in words. In a handful of more conservative denominations and church cultures, some are discovering for the first time that effective evangelism is best done in community and in deed, not mere words. The shift from dark despair to energized joy over the last few weeks in the Democratic Party —regardless of what you think of that institution- cannot be denied, as the desire for stability morphs into a realization that the country can, in fact, start moving forward again.
The common thread in these examples and more are institutions and the people who believe in them. And not just institutions, but ones that are reforming and evolving in real time as people become more active in tending to them. Without these spaces and places people wouldn’t just be stuck, they would be trapped in a very dark place. Change would not be possible, or hope itself.
Closing Thoughts
I’m not arguing that everyone should be an institutionalist. That would make for a monochrome world that is designed to be experienced in color. Still, there are a lot of corners of our country that would benefit greatly from taking institutionalists much more seriously, especially parts of Christianity.
How do we come together in a culture that has increasingly isolated us through algorithms and an unwillingness to listen? Why do so many people feel excluded from certain groups and places? How do we create new spaces and engaging possibilities for working, listening, and living together? What are the obstacles to getting there?
These are good questions a lot of people are asking right now. We don’t have all the answers, but one is undeniable: the need for good and healthy institutions that protect people and help communities flourish. Many institutions we have today are worth preserving and reforming because they can still do that. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just replace and repair some of the spokes.
But we must also begin bidding farewell to institutions that prove incapable of reforming and are unable to look beyond themselves. Those enforcing a culture that gazes with nostalgia on a past that is not as good as people believe it to be and lash out at the changing world should be left behind. The vast majority of the institutions that will meet this fate will be at the local level and include many churches, the kind that were built exclusively on a type of individualism that history suggests never lasts.
The institutions of the near future —secular, Christian, and otherwise— must be more flexible and designed to embrace the best aspects of expressive individualism without permitting the destruction of community and crushing of souls. Healthy institutions are not the only ingredient to an abundant future together, but they are a required one. We’ve already seen what happens when we fail to tend to them well. Let’s not repeat that history.
About Me
I explore faith and church culture in the American South from my hometown of Memphis, TN. I’m an institutionalist who believes the means are just as important as the ends. Everything here is an expression of my faith and love for the Church.
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