Religious Institutionalism

We have good reason to hold religious institutions in suspicion, but no more or less than we do other cherished cultural institutions. While our culture is largely founded upon the idea of rugged individualism, the reality is that our institutions have, as an intrinsic purpose to their being, the goal of turning out a relatively uniform constituency. Governments are infamous for their inefficient bureaucracies and apathetic non competitive workforces, because government does not reward innovation nearly as well as it rewards uniformity and compliance. Public schools, which have the presumed goal of educating the youth of a society, actually produce relatively few truly bright students, because the environment and curriculum is too uniform to produce creativity, too programmed to produce self teaching learners, and just generally too much geared toward the lowest common denominator. Thus, our educational institutions produce a few remarkable students, and an exceedingly large number of unremarkable or even deficient students. Granted, the self motivated can sometimes glean an exceptional education, but it must also be presumed that this environment suppresses the real potential of others.

These institutions produce a public that is educationally sufficient, industrially uniform, and easily manipulated. This might explain why, as a nation, we are willing to believe that the government, with its lackluster management track record, is going to suddenly and magically possess the ability and knowledge to fix our ailing economy. We are not, generally speaking, taught to think for ourselves or to resolve our own problems.

But further, it illuminates a frightening reality about the institutional church. That too, I'm sad to say, has as a central goal the production of a uniform and marginally educated membership. Religious institutions, as a rule, do not produce members who routinely think for themselves about the faith, but rather individuals who are loyal to the institutions interpretations of Christian principles. Nor do these institutions teach their members to seek or expect a calling. That is, we have all sort of bought into the idea that a few people have a calling from God to do something of significance for the Kingdom of Christ, and that the rest of us have no higher calling than membership in the institution.

At its worst, institutionalism in all its expressions becomes a vehicle of indoctrination rather than hope. A few will emerge as leaders. A few will excel as students. A few will rise to prominence in the work force. And a few will follow the Spirit of God into new places. The remainder of the society will practice rigid compliance.

The frightening prospect in this, for the church, is that it suggests a subcultural ethic in which a few are called to walk in the Spirit, and the rest are called to membership, wherein they participate, by proxy, with the Spirit led among them. Too many Christians in the church today are entirely too content to let others live the life of a disciple for them, while they donate a bit of time and money and try, generally, to keep their noses clean. Too many more non-believers reject the faith entirely because its original import and vitality have been dimmed by institutional varnish.

Seems like we need a good old fashioned rebellion.

The Organized Religion Problem

So, if I'm not opposed to organization, then what, exactly, is my issue with organized religion? It has mostly to do with the way an organization tends to separate us as individuals from our responsibilities. Large companies incorporate, in part, to insulate themselves from liability or, in other words, to avoid a measure of personal responsibility for the actions of the company. I'm afraid churches often work the same way. It is somewhat symptomatic of our culture. We turn over more and more responsibility to the government, relieving ourselves of the threat of personal responsibility for our success or failure. We let public schools educate and partially raise our children for us, and we become less responsible for their future. We let organizations accomplish the work of being the church for us, and we then get to just "go to church." We may opt to be more involved than that, but as a baseline, all we expect of ourselves is to show up on occasion, and perhaps to fork over a little money for a good cause. Thus organized religion fosters an atmosphere where church is a place I go, rather than a movement of which I am a part.

Most people reject organized religion, it seems to me, for fairly legitimate reasons. Organized religion is not what it purports to be. It does not accomplish, in large part, what it was created to accomplish. It actually has a tendency to make its members less accountable to the ideals of the faith, by diminishing these as a matter of personal responsibility in favor of a more corporate responsibility.

The flip side of this problem is that few of the people who claim to have a problem with organized religion are doing much at all about their spiritual health, either in or out of organized religion. There is hard spiritual work to be done, if we are at all serious about it. But most people don't seem to be prepared to do it. Some will rely upon organized religion to be spiritual for them, and some will do little or nothing about faith and will blame organized religion for their disinterest. Neither will do the hard work of following Jesus.

Organized Religion

In our community, like in so many others, there is a high level of skepticism about organized religion. Since I make my living as a minister, some people make the mistake of thinking I'm a sort of advocate of organized religion. Truth is, I'm probably as skeptical as they are. But I don't think its the organization that is at issue. I think the issue is the import people place on the organization - making a specific practice of religion the point of religion.

If you think about it, when we say we believe in God, but not organized religion, its a little like saying we believe in accounting, but we're against organized accounting. So we will practice accounting, but we will reject accounting software, accounting firms, CPA's or anything else that appears organized.

Organized religion is merely a tool we use to accomplish certain objectives of our faith. Some people have tried to make that tool more than a tool. Some people have used the tool very poorly. But it's still just a tool. The sad thing is we sometimes get so focused on keeping the tool of organized religion in motion that the tool isn't even accomplishing its purpose. The resulting emptiness and irony of organized religion is easily recognized, and thus, we reject it.