Reflections on the Church
A Postscript to the Biblical Ecclesiology Study
It has been some time since I wrote the final entry in the Biblical Ecclesiology study. These posts were companions written prior to in-person discussions (Bible studies) on the topics. The purpose of the study, as noted in the Introduction, was to explore the New Testament, topically, and see what it had to say about the Church; necessarily, I was reading from the situated context of my own church, my own life. Naturally, this is where things get messy. My actions and circumstances have brought me to a particular place. Both in writing the study and in teaching through it, I found myself holding back on being as incisive as I might have been, given where I was in life. This was probably necessary to maintain the study; to write from a relatively “normal” perspective. However, the position I hold includes the belief that the church is very deeply sick, and has been for most of its history. While I have held this belief since before writing the study, I am much more convinced of it now, largely due to the discussions I had while working through the study’s material, both in and beyond the classroom.
In some sense, “we’ve got big problems here!” actually isn’t too weird of an observation: I could fill books with articles written about the “problems” in the Church, regularly publishing additional volumes as more ink is spilled on such topics. Many people have sensed some deep illness, and many more have suffered from it; yet, most focus on what might be called surface-level problems. Perhaps the tapestry of symptoms may constitute something of a clear image of the problem, but this is not necessarily the case. Symptoms may be n-th order causes, if we accept “chain of reasoning” logic for these things at all.1 If we care to truly treat the issue, it is the root causes that we must understand. However, it is no small thing to correctly diagnose a problem, especially one which is as widespread and as varied symptomatically as this.
I want to take a moment and comment that this is a very personal issue for me. Speaking grandiosely about the “problems with the church” and their “root causes” is not something that I do lightly, nor with any pleasure. Rather, through many tears I write to you out of great distress and anguish of heart, to paraphrase Paul. While I aim to be calculated and logical in this presentation, I do so because I desire to work on this issue to the best of my abilities. My real motivation for working on these issues comes from the definitionally personal motivation, apparently my life-long mission, to discover what is the right way for me to participate in the Church…and to do so. In one moment the answer seems within grasp, and then the plot thickens—and here we are.
Fortunately, a path forward has always presented itself. In the present moment, that path involves dealing with, feeling out, working through, and otherwise talking to no end about a particular problem I’ve discovered with local churches, perhaps even a candidate for the elusive root cause.
The problem is this: Local churches are social institutions.
In discussions on this topic, asking and answering a simple question proves to be quite informative: What is the definition of a local church, really? Before going further, it is worth jotting down a (hopefully agreeable) definition:
A local church is an assembly of those who follow Christ.
In simple terms, “Christians gathering regularly” may rightly be called "a church". This “church” is a real thing and not merely something conceptual: We might say it physically consists of the people who assemble and perhaps even the location where they assemble. Particular people gathering at places. What occurs during this gathering? In more time-honored language, what is the liturgy and order of worship? It depends on which local church we're talking about. However, there may be some additional commonalities we can hone in on.
What do (nearly) all church services have in common? It seems that two themes emerge in the litany of practices: Worship (typically music, but often paired with other aesthetic experiences), and Preaching (sometimes involving teaching, but typically focused on moral exhortation). Why is it these two elements, and not different ones, that typically take central stage during church gatherings? It is worth reflecting on this question given the "Biblical Ecclesiology" study we worked through previously.2
If I may follow a tangent on this point for a moment, I’d like to point out that that there is a substantial amount of freedom for church activities implied and even instructed in the New Testament. I would go so far as to say that the practices of communion, teaching, fellowship, and prayer should be more central than those of worship and preaching. Indeed, even above these four, the most emphasized activity in church gatherings should be the practice of Spiritual gifts by those who assemble. Spiritual gifts as the centerpiece of the "church service" may seem off-putting to our modern sensibilities at first glance, but I contest: Isn’t this right, according to the New Testament account of church?
Beyond considering its mere physical constituents, we might also ask: what is the telos of local churches? There may be various answers here, dependent on the amorphous will of members of the church, perhaps especially that of its leaders. Well, what should a church be striving to become? The Biblical answer is clear: The church exists as the body and bride of Christ. As Paul writes in Ephesians 4:11-16, its purpose is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The church, then, must serve as both a witness to the world, as the very hands and feet of Christ, and a nurturing environment for believers, as a community where faith is practiced and where Believers love one another. Does this sound like what is occurring in your local church and in the local churches in your area? If so, that’s great! From my observations, though, it is all too easy to replace these aims with lesser ones: some borne of willful sin, certainly, but also some borne from ignorance about the Church.
If my claim is that local churches are social institutions, we should also ask: What is a social institution? The notion of a social institution has been analyzed in the field of sociology, a field which I have no experience in. However, philosophers have butted in and claimed certain discussions on the topic for themselves, and it is in these discussions that I am at least nominally equipped to participate. From hence we can draw an operating definition, namely, that a social institution is:3
A complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organizing relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment.
It is almost certainly not obvious at first glance why a church functioning as a social institution would be a problem. Indeed, the very fact that churches are social institutions may strike you as both ubiquitous and innocuous—it seems hardly worthy of pointing out in the first place and certainly not problematic. Examining the elements of the above definition, it certainly seems true that churches are complexes with positions, roles, norms and values—social structures stably operating within our broader society and offering meaning-making and the religious answers to some of the most fundamental problems of life. While this has not always been true, it seems that the memory of a time when the local church was not a social institution has been relegated to the dusty annals of history.
Consider these institutional markers present in virtually every local church:
Churches maintain public accessibility and visibility4
Churches maintain relatively stable, rigid leadership structures
Churches develop complex social structures with clearly defined roles
Churches operate with relatively rigid sets of values
Churches serve as enduring mainstays in their local cultures
Churches establish constitutive rules (doctrinal, legal, liturgical)
Churches functionally provide social goods and benefits
Churches receive legal recognition as specific entities
Churches reproduce themselves over time
Churches address fundamental societal problems
Indeed, I believe that this set of features creates several tensions with the biblical vision that are worth examining more closely.
Most fundamentally, consider what happens when churches become publicly accessible. The Bible describes the church as the assembly of those in Christ—a gathering of believers, as our previous definition suggested. However, our institutional churches must, by their very nature, welcome all who come. While this sounds like a good thing on the surface, over time, this creates an assembly where Christians and non-Christians mix. This simple shift fundamentally changes the nature of what occurs within our churches. The practices, conversations, and experiences become diluted to accommodate those who don't share the faith. While evangelism is essential, it is not something that must occur via participation in the assembly. Certainly, it is not worth compromising the assembly’s ability to function as a pure expression of Christ's body, a pure bride of Christ.5
Resulting from this, consider how ministry flows in our churches. Scripture presents a remarkably organic view where "each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation" (1 Corinthians 14:26). The Spirit works through all members, distributing gifts "for the common good." However, social institutional structures inevitably create formalized positions where ministry is performed by the few while the many consume passively. This institutionalization of spiritual authority transforms what scripture presents as organic spiritual recognition into rigid organizational hierarchies. As we cannot trust the assembly to be Spirit-filled, giving of themselves lovingly to the worship of the body, we instead relegate our liturgies and worship to be performed by designated experts. We've traded the unpredictable dynamism of Spirit-led community for the reliable efficiency and stability of institutional structure.
Additionally, these markers of social institution may threaten to misalign our priorities. Jesus identified love among believers as the distinguishing mark of His followers: "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Indeed, this notion is even referred to as the very “Law of Christ”. However, institutional churches must concern themselves primarily with metrics—attendance, budgets, facilities, programs, community perception—they must be concerned with how well they are fulfilling their societal mandates as a social institution. These aren't inherently wrong, far from it, but in succumbing to these social pressures, churches often displace the primary calling to embody Christ's love among one another. We become religious service providers shaped by consumer demand rather than communities unified by Christ's love which we express among one another.
Even our understanding of unity shifts as the church conforms to the framework of the social institution. The Bible grounds Christian unity in our shared union with Christ, a mystical reality that transcends human organization.6 On the other hand, social institutions maintain their perception of unity through hierarchies, policies, and authority structures: so-called unity through efficiency and hierarchical cohesion. We unite around charismatic personalities, institutional loyalty, and boundary-defining statements rather than our shared life in Christ. The paperwork precedes the prayers; the organization before the organism. This institutional approach directly contradicts Paul's rebuke in 1 Corinthians, where he confronts divisions based on which leaders people followed. Our institutional structures often recreate these very divisions, segregating believers on the basis of secondary matters while forgetting that as Christians, we all follow only Christ.
True unity in Christ has serious implications for church life: While the biblical assembly should comprise only believers (exclusivity in membership), it should simultaneously welcome all believers (inclusivity among Christians). Our institutional structures have inverted this pattern. We've created assemblies that welcome non-believers (through public accessibility) while simultaneously excluding many genuine believers through denominational boundaries, doctrinal litmus tests, and cultural preferences. Our churches as social institutions, in competition for relevancy and public legitimacy, have continued to fracture and fragment the Church as a whole into pieces too numerous to count. A single small town may have a dozen churches in it in the so-called “Bible belt”. A larger city may have thousands. The New Testament knows nothing of the plethora of institutional divisions we've normalized. Paul confronted the Corinthian church precisely because they were dividing along lines of preference rather than recognizing their unity in Christ. The institutional church, by its very nature, establishes boundaries that often have more to do with preserving institutional identity than reflecting the true boundaries of Christ's body.
If this institutional model has indeed become normative for local churches, we must ask: How serious is this problem? Are these effects of church-as-institution truly preventing the Church from fulfilling its calling?
I believe they are. What's more concerning is how blind we've become to this reality. The institutional church model spans every tradition—from Roman Catholic to independent Protestant, from Orthodox to Pentecostal, from prosperity gospel proponents to fundamentalist congregations. When the very organization that provides our spiritual meaning-making operates upon principles that undermine Christ's vision for His Church, is it any wonder we've struggled so much throughout much of Church history?
Nevertheless, in recognizing this problem—in identifying what may be the root cause behind many symptoms that we know too well—we might discover a path forward. We face a sobering question:
Do the Scriptures or our institutional churches offer a better path to Christlikeness?
I greatly hesitate to put such a stark contrast between these two things, yet, if we take the idea of church as social institution seriously, I see no other alternative. Indeed, what other options do we have? Are we to merely accept this systemic reality that acts as a cancer in the body of Christ?
Could I simply attend a non-institutional church? Where? It is practically imposed and certainly expected by those in the broader culture that churches should be social institutions. Forget outside pressures—we have the internal pressure of our very long history of this practice to contend with! This is simply the way that Christian churches operate.
The solution is remarkably simple, if difficult to implement: Return to the foundational understanding that "a local church is an assembly of those who follow Christ." Return to centering our gatherings around communion, teaching, fellowship, and prayer, supported by thoughtful worship and preaching. Return to prioritizing Christ's central command: to love one another.
While there is much more to be said, perhaps it is best to end on a hopeful note. I find hope in the local and immediate. It is precisely in small-scale, face-to-face community where genuine fellowship with believers flourishes. Here in our neighborhoods, in everyday relationships, we find tangible opportunities to live as Christ's body. This Church seeks the proclamation of the gospel primarily through the quiet and peaceable lives of Christians who love one another. This vision is attainable. This is the burden of Christ’s cross: To sacrifice oneself for the salvation of all who receive it. This is the right way for me to participate in the Church.
A couple of different perspectives are cogent to the modern mind on this topic, probably going back to Hume. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ for an exploration of Hume’s idea.
Some may argue that for any sufficiently complex system, any single-cause explanation is insufficient—it may be a “genuine but insufficient cause”.
To the issues that Hume proposed, I suggest a solution that involves an absolute Rationality—we might say the Logos—to ground or justify causal reasoning. Yes, reasoning cannot justify itself by itself, but it doesn’t need to, so long as we have some portent of that Logos within us.
The second argument is an over-generalization that would be trivial to disprove given any sufficiently large and complex codebase. A single variable could be changed—a single character deleted—and we could have a single-cause failure of a very complex system.
Quote from Jonathan Turner in Miller, Seumas, “Social Institutions”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-institutions/.
In his introduction, Miller further notes the constituent elements of structure, function, culture, and sanctions in social institutions. These four elements probably could be composed into a more succinct and salient definition of social institutions.
It should also be noted that social institutions are not treated as particularly distinct from “institutions” more generally by Miller, and although I previously drafted articles following the same convention, I have tried in this article to stick to the more specific term “social institution”.
While being a critical point in this article, this marker is probably the point least supportable given only the SEP article. Nevertheless, I would argue that social institutions typically have a public dimension that private clubs or exclusive communities lack. While not all social institutions are completely open to everyone (universities have admission requirements, hospitals have patient intake procedures), they generally present themselves as accessible to qualifying members of the broader society rather than being inherently exclusive.
Some nuance is worth noting here: we can allow observation of our practices (public visibility) without allow public participation (public accessibility). The former is fantastic, while the latter is lethal. I have observed that in our modern churches this division is not held in practice, even if held on paper. I believe that this is due to churches’ status as social institutions. We may have “members” and “non-members”, but the actual practice within our churches varies little to not-at-all between these two classes. Perhaps we reserve certain roles or positions for members—a normal practice of social institutions—but the actual practices of liturgy and worship are not reserved exclusively for members. Indeed, to do so would limit public accessibility and social benefits, and perhaps would go a long way towards revoking a church’s status as social institution altogether.
Reading the high priestly prayer is critical to grappling with this divine reality.