The Eroding of Christian Institutions
If you have been reading along for a while, you know that I have a particular interest in the downfall of Christian institutions. I have been wrestling through these things since Jamin Goggin and I began wrestling through the question of what true power looks like in the kingdom of God in our book The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It.
In that book we focused exclusively on the church. What is funny about the story of that book is that we started writing it thinking that no one would care at all (this was before the Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill stuff, and everything that followed it). We felt called to grapple with what scripture says about power and not because we thought it was a hot topic. By the time the book came out that had changed.
As a side note, one interesting phenomenon concerning that book is how peoples’ responses reveal a total inability to think about power that isn’t governed by political categories. Inevitably, if someone has a criticism, is it because they presuppose a “left” or “right” view and assume we must be the opposite. The truth is that we don’t think the Bible can be mapped onto these categories, and the degree to which you assume them is the degree to which you are unable to hear what the Bible says on the matter.
Since the book has come out, I have often been invited into various discussions about applying it to other spheres of life outside of the institutional church. Often, this is about higher ed, parachurch ministries, or one’s engagement with things like finances. In particular, I am interested in Christian higher ed and parachurch ministries because of how often these institutions become warped by worldly notions of success and significance.
In particular, Christian higher ed must remember that it does not stand on neutral ground. Scholarly endeavors and the academy is not neutral ground, but is governed by the same system of value that Paul spends much of his time dismantling (see 1 and 2 Corinthians for obvious examples, but also, clearly, Philippians).
The question I find pressing is: Where does this all start?
Let me suggest that one of the problems we have is that we often answer this question with a great deal of naivety. But let me go further. I have often answered this question with a great deal of naivety. If you are familiar with the fact that we had to do a second edition of The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb, some of that had to do with our naivety. We assumed that wicked power will always look like the narcissistic celebrities we’ve all watched demean Christianity.
But, it turns out, even with most of them, it didn’t start out that way. It starts much smaller. It begins in places most of us wouldn’t even notice.
I remember talking to an old friend after he ruined his ministry and family through an affair. I asked him, “How did this happen?” I’ll never forget his answer: “It started by holding my gaze on her for a half a second longer than I normally would.”
This is where all waywardness starts. It starts by millimeters and not by miles.
In parachurch organizations it often starts with overvaluing things like metrics that lead us away from the notion of faithfulness to contemporary concepts of impact, significance, and success (notice that none of these are necessarily bad in themselves, but everything hangs on how we relate to them).
In Christian higher ed, it often starts by a desire to be seen a serious academic establishment rather than embracing the fact that faithfulness, holiness, and cruciformity are not values of the academy.
As institutions become seen as more impressive by the guilds that bind them - academic or accreditors alike - they often lose the power they had to do the serious work of the kingdom. They trade the cross for worldly prestige, and while, perhaps, their students get impressive jobs, they often have lost a distinctively Christian vision of work and vocation.
The solution to this is not simply avoiding the errors we’ve made and temptations that seek to seduce us, but also holding firm to a Christian vision for higher education that is governed by the cross. We can talk about “integration” all day long, but if it is not a vision of life governed by the cross and by love, it leads to nothing.
Our nation is a continual story of how Christian institutions of higher education gain the world but lose their soul.
Likewise, academics, typically starting with a vision of intellectual life to love God with all their mind, can easily get lost serving an academic system the empties the cross of its power.
While we are called to be in and not of the world, Christian higher ed must be in these places but not truly belong to them. It is that dynamic that proves elusive for too many. But it is this calling that we must support. These institutions are crucial for Christian witness and faithfulness, and they can serve as prophetic witnesses to the church if they abide in Christ. Please pray that we, who live and move in this sphere, remain faithful individually and institutionally.
For my paid subscribes I offer a bit of a longer reflection today on how nefarious forces of darkness are always trying to subvert Christian faithfulness institutionally, not only in higher ed, but in the church and para-church organizations.