We all know that institutions
change. Even when started with clear
mission statements, their mission drifts.
Their values change, their practices change, and they change into
something very different from what those pouring their lives and money into
them at the beginning intended. The
prominence of a chapel at the centre of a secular university is often more an
embarrassing, bad joke than the statement of faith that the layout of the
university originally intended. Even
when started with orthodox Christian convictions, a generation or so later the
institution tolerates and eventually espouses unorthodox views. We need historians (my preference) to help us
understand this change. Here are some of
my own reflections based on nothing else than my own experience over many years
of study and ministry with different institutions on three different continents. As such, this is meant to speak into a
conversation that needs to be had at Christian institutions in perhaps the most
volatile period of change in the history of the faith. (I would argue that our generation is seeing
far more radical change in Christian institutions than during the Great
Reformation.)
The first cause of change to
consider might be when people argue for necessary change. The original vision and activities might
actually be inadequate for the mission statement itself. What is important in setting up institutions,
then, is attention to the process for handling this sort of rethinking things
and altering or adding new activities. These
need to be part of the original mission itself.
How does the voting take place by clergy, faculty, board members, and so
forth? How does a strong administrator
relate to bodies charged with oversight of the institution? Boards, in my experience, have often been
weak. They want their chief
administrator to run the institution and do not get that involved except when
crises arise. Yet they are the ones that
are especially tasked with conservation of the institution’s vision. I’ve also experienced boards in which the
members serve on boards for each other’s institutions, which means they are
deferential and uncritical when they need to be. I’ve often said that there are good arguments
for different ways in which to elect someone to office, but what is needed is a
clear and efficient process for removing a person from office. Institutions with good processes for
processing necessary change will be ones that relate the original mission
statement to its form of government.
Suspension of these processes should be defined in detail and limited
rather than open ended. Often, radical
change is snuck in the front door behind a stated crisis (financial, e.g.) that
requires the chief administrator to have more power.
A second cause of change to
consider is that change is sometimes inevitable. People inevitably come and go within
institutions, and some have a significant impact while with the
institution. Their personalities,
relationships, and the institutional authority invested in them involve a
certain amount of power. When the
founder of an institution retires, for example, the institution will probably
transition from an entrepreneurial leader whose personality represented the
institution’s values and practices to a maintenance administrator. Every change of a person with significant
authority in an institution brings with it institutional change. That new administrator may not hold the
original vision of the institution as tightly as those who started it had
expected and hoped. I have often worked
closely with those who have set up institutions and therefore been closer to
the original vision of those institutions, but I have also seen an incredible
shift in institutions simply by the appointment of a new leader. Leaders typically see themselves as persons
to bring about change, even if their role is supposed to be more a matter of
oversight and administration. This is
why Christians should return to the language of ‘ministry’ (service) and drop
the attachment they have grown into with business (and sometimes political) models
of ‘leadership’. If a board of an
institution believes some change is inevitable, they should, in that process of
discernment, set up a process to remind themselves of their historic values.
A third cause of change is the
reordering of values. The institution
may uphold the exact same values, but a reordering of those values will bring
change. Check the statement of faith
pages of any number of denominations and you will find that they value
Scripture’s authority. Yet we know that
mainline denominations in the West purposefully set out to oppose Scripture on
key doctrinal issues and ethics, despite their affirmation of Scriptural authority. The value of Scripture sits decoratively on
the shelf behind an active clergy pursuing their own theological and moral
agendas. Greek ethicists not only sought
to explain what values and virtues should be held, but also the right ordering
of them. They spoke, for example, of the
cardinal virtues and their own ordering and how other virtues were
defined by them. Reordered values or
virtues can cause seismic shifts in the institution, even turning it into the
very opposite of what it once was.
A fourth cause of change is the
introduction of new values. An obvious
example is how values in modernity have changed in postmodernity. Modernity valued objective truth, postmodernity
subjective relativism. Modernity valued
general principles, postmodernity functional practices. Modernity valued universality, postmodernity
diversity. Modernity valued expertise, postmodernity
personal identities. In my experience,
the introduction of a postmodern understanding of ‘diversity’ into an
institution brought about significant change.
This subtle change from unity to diversity has actually entailed a major change—the camel’s nose
behind it is the whole body of a postmodern worldview.
A fifth cause of change is the
introduction of some discipline with a clashing worldview. In this, I think mostly of institutions for theological
education. In my experience, I have seen
seminaries with a clear vision for training ministers for the Church develop
into ‘Christian’ universities. The pressures
on the seminary with such a change are significant. New disciplines bring with them their history
and academic requirements that are different from theology and the Church. Perhaps the most serious challenge to
theological seminaries is the change from courses in pastoral counselling to the
introduction of therapeutic counselling.
Pastoral counselling was based on Scripture and the Church’s theology
and ethics, whereas therapeutic counselling is based on secularism through and
through. The necessary accreditation of
therapeutic degrees by secular accrediting bodies and licensing boards introduces
into the seminary radically conflicting views to the Christian faith. This is not a challenge to be worked out; it
is an impossible conflict of worldviews.
Psychology does not work with the notion of sin, does not believe in spiritual
forces, does not accept divine healing, rejects Biblical authority about right
and wrong behaviour, rejects the authoritative role in pastoral care of the
Church, holds to a different understanding of values and virtues, affirms
sinful, sexual practices as expressions of identity that should be accepted, etc. Seminary administrators expand counselling
programmes first because they value pastoral care and do not think through the fundamental
differences between it and therapeutic counselling, and second because they see
that a counselling degree is a cash cow for the seminary. This is in part because women are often
forced to find ministry as counsellors rather than as pastors and teachers in a
number of denominations—and this only drives a deeper wedge in pastoral care in
the churches themselves between theology and counselling. The larger point here, though, is that the
introduction of disciplines into an existing theological institution is not a
matter of ‘all truth is God’s truth’ but is a matter of conflicting worldviews
that need a thorough critique from the perspective of orthodox, Biblical theology.
A sixth possible cause of change is a concern for quality.
A Christian college that wants to develop a competitive literature
department may find that faculty from this field of study are often trained in
ways that are resistant to the Christian faith.
A reigning theory in literature approaches interpretation from the
reader’s perspective, whereas those pursuing theology through the centuries
have held the Biblical text to be authoritative over against interpreter’s
interests and views. There are
incommensurable hermeneutical convictions between these two approaches. So far, this example has to do with the
fourth cause of change. The next step,
however, is when the institution makes small compromises of its own views in
order to pursue quality in different fields of study. Quality, of course, is an important value,
especially for academic institutions.
Yet, time and again, the pursuit of quality has led to a compromise of
institutional values. I have seen this
take place in political ways, where hiring processes are skirted by individuals—senior
faculty or presidents—pushing their candidates through in the name of quality. ‘Quality’ was, of course, defined one way
during modernity and another way in postmodernity, with the latter focussed
more on an individual’s group identity and the relative values ascribed to
different groups. A seminary may shift
from values that pertain to the strengthening of the church and the
denomination to values that focus on academic quality (modernity) or identities
(postmodernity).
A seventh cause of change is
relational and experiential. It is one
thing to hold to a system of belief, it is another thing to relate to
others. In our own families, we negotiate
relationships rather than relate to each other through systems of belief,
although these can cause clashes. Institutions,
however, are not families. They should
embody the convictions they profess.
Christian denominations, mission agencies, seminaries, and colleges
should understand that their core identities are not shaped by experience and
relationships more than by their commitment to Biblical truth and orthodox faith. One of the major changes that has taken place
in the West has been the sexual revolution in its various phases since the
1960s. Each phase has brought a new
challenge to the traditional teaching of the Church to the point that some
denominations are indistinguishable from the culture and have no continuity
with the historic Church. One of the
reasons for this dramatic shift in the Church has been relational and
experiential. In fact, not a few ‘Evangelical’
scholars and pastors have changed their views on homosexuality and
transgenderism because they have a child, sibling, or friend who is homosexual
or transgender. They then say to the
faculty or to the denomination, ‘We need to have a conversation about …,’ and
that ‘conversation’ turns into a protracted ‘listening’ to the experiences of ‘victims,’
followed by conversations, the introduction of pastoral care procedures that
are not corrective but inclusive and loving (‘welcoming’), and so forth. That is, the process is driven by experience
and relationships that sideline Scripture, theology, and the historical
teaching of the Church. Similarly,
relationships on faculties or among clergies exercise their own authority over
against the original values of the institution. We see this working out with the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis or the Church of England at this time: a radical shift in teaching and practice on homosexuality and transgenderism that breaks from the definitive teaching of the Church, thanks to the defining of teaching through relationships and experiences. Especially when an older faculty member who, in some ways, ostensibly embodies
the values of the seminary (simply because of many years on the faculty) suddenly
pressures others to change, there is a kind of legitimization of radical
change. Out of the mouth of persons
representing history and conservation comes a call to give ear to experience
and prioritize relationships over previous values. Someone arguing against this is considered a
prude.
Eighth, institutional change can
also occur because of pressure for validation.
Like peer pressure in relationships, this pressure is because of concerns over accreditation, or it can also be felt in the concerns that drive the admissions department. Accrediting bodies that are unfriendly to an
institution’s own values and admission departments that want to attract a wider
variety of students have often led the institution away from its initial
values and purpose.
Ninth, financial pressures can
lead to a change of mission and established practices. This has already been noted but needs its own
focus. The introduction of new
programmes, the attraction of new students, the deemphasis of past practices, the
desire to attract certain faculty, and so forth can all be the result
of making financial pressures primary in institutional decision making. Financial
concerns can introduce new degree programmes (the Doctor of Ministry, Therapeutic
Counselling, and degrees in ‘Leadership’).
The new programmes require new faculty and new courses. Like a boulder falling into a pond, the
ripple effects of this are felt throughout the institution.
Tenth, change often comes because
people at all levels of the institution can be disconnected to the history of
the institution. Some have spoken of the
importance of people in institutions who are tasked with reminding everyone and
teaching newcomers the story of the institution. Such people can be sidelined, even maligned,
as stuck-in-the-mud. They represent resistance
to the dynamic, exciting, change agents in the institution. Students sometimes show up without any
understanding of a college’s or seminary’s history and mission and seek to
bring about change in conformity with their limited vision adopted, more than
likely, from the airwaves of contemporary culture, only to fly away after
graduation. Students can play a role in holding the institution to the values it advertises; they should have no role
in trying to change the values of the institution. (If they want something different, they
should go to a different institution.)
Eleventh, change comes when an institution does not serve or relate directly to its clearly defined constituencies. (This is a basic point in business: 'who are our customers?') This disconnect sometimes happens when an elite group forms that is not in agreement with, even despises, those whom the institution initially served. This is a typical problem with denominations, when an administrative elite forms and increasingly wishes to manipulate the rest of those in the denomination. Typically, seminary faculty are more liberal theologically than average people in the congregations. To be sure, they know more than average people do about theology and ministry, but if they themselves are not involved in ministry, they sit critically above others. Denominational administrators focus on serving the institution itself rather than existing to serve the mission of the institution. An elite group can look down on others, as is also at times the case of news outlets. This is a dynamic that happens regularly in society at large, and it happens in church ministries as well. A variation on this is when a seminary serves individual students ('we need more students' rather than 'what does this core constituency need from us?') and teaches for the curriculum more than seeks to serve denominations and core groups. This redirects energies to financial survival ('we need more students') and to meeting academic goals ('our accrediting body requires this of us;' 'we teach these courses and do not need to teach for particular denominations, mission organizations, parachurch ministries that are our core constituencies'; etc.). The problem here is that the institution does not serve clearly defined groups. This is a problem because it leaves the mission of the institution too undefined. Scholars pursue their own academic interests, students are told to take certain courses, and there is little concern for ministerial formation for the key partners. One cannot teach a 'preaching course,' for example, without focussing on the nature of preaching in particular denominations and regions.
Twelfth, change often comes because people within an institution who maintain continuity with its original convictions and values are not united and/or trickle away, giving up the fight to start a new institution--like a new denomination. This is no endorsement of those who remain, just an observation as to how things play out. The New Testament offers no encouragement to those who wish to maintain an institution. It offers much encouragement to make decisions based on unwavering fidelity to God and obedience to His Word that people may remain pure. Paul says, 'Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers...' (2 Corinthians 6.14). He is likely talking about Christians somehow engaged with pagan temples (such as a celebratory meal with unbelieving neighbours, eating food sacrificed to idols). His words apply to fellowship with false believers, those advocating doctrinal change and immorality. He continues, with a quotation from Isaiah 52.11: 'Therefore, go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing, then I will welcome you...' (v. 17). Isaiah was speaking of Israel's departure from the idolatrous nations after the exile and captivity. The problem holders on have is to know when to leave. Paul offers some further direction. The issue has to do with becoming 'unclean' through the defilement of body or spirit (7.1). False teaching and immorality do not only affect those advocating and practicing such things. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5.6, '... a little leaven leavens the whole lump,' and he advocated removing an immoral person from the church. Others can and will hinder the righteous from obeying the truth, as Paul says in Galatians 5.9 when warning believers about their association with false teachers. Such texts are not the only ones to consider in a decision to separate from those seeking to change the denomination, church, seminary, mission organization, or parachurch ministry, but it is a start. The point here, however, is that people debate these things, and what happens is a weakening on the part of those wishing to maintain continuity. Some leave, some stay. Of those who stay, some take one approach, others another. Staying typically involves some sort of compromise. The weakening of those trying to conserve the institution, in numbers, unity in their own ranks, or in resolve, means the strengthening of the forces relentlessly pushing for change. The goal, however, must not be to remain united and stay but to remain united in truth. The Church must never be so confused with the institutional denomination that its testimony and purity are compromised, that its children are misled, or that its mission is undermined. There is a time to leave to maintain continuity with 'the true Church' rather than the denominational institution. Some read Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in John 17 as an encouragement towards unity with the latter, but the prayer is all about maintaining unity together by being united to Christ and to His unity with the Father. Indeed, Jesus' attack on institutional Judaism produced a new religion. Unity with Christ will often mean separation from the changing institution. When the trajectory of change becomes so entrenched within an institution, it is time for the Church (the 'City of God,' as St. Augustine put it) to separate. This same scenario plays out in other institutions than the denomination. Faculty trickle away from an institution being led by a few administrators who are intent on changing it in one way or another. Focussed on their research and teaching, faculty may be too disunited to oppose the redirection of an institution by a few top administrators whose day-to-day efforts are to redirect the institution. Indeed, the disunity of the majority often leads to the tyranny of the minority who seek change. This may be the very story of the past two Archbishops of Canterbury in the Church of England, driving an old institution off the theological and moral cliff.
Thirteenth, sin is personal, social,
and spiritual, and each involves a pressure against the good of Christian institutions
in their pursuits of justice and holiness.
This seems to be such a powerful dynamic that virtually every
institution ultimately succumbs to change from righteousness because of sin. This is why it is important that congregations, not
denominations, own the assets of local congregations. This is why I prefer to see Christian ‘houses’
with Christian tutors operate alongside universities than to see people pour money
into ‘Christian colleges’ that eventually become secular universities, unless
the donors are happy with influencing just three or four generations before the college
takes such a turn away from its founding values. And this is why the Church needs to oversee
the seminaries rather than seminaries operate apart from the Church as
academic institutions in their own right.
In conclusion, the focus here has been on how change comes to institutions, such as denominations, mission agencies, theological seminaries, and Christian colleges. At times, a conserving perspective has come through, but this should not be read as a broad endorsement of institutional identity and practices. There is more to ministry than institutions—there are operational means of change as well as intentional communities that bring change, for good or for ill. Institutions can be set up poorly or even to do harm from their very beginning. The motivation for this study, however, is to give some thought, during a time of radical change, to how good institutions’ vision and mission might be maintained and how they are lost. At times, we simply have to abandon institutions that have strayed too far from their original purposes. It is sad to see people distorting the mission and vision of great institutions, although there is a certain inevitability to this if history is our guide. Staving off these distortions, at least for a time, is possible, however, and perhaps the thoughts offered here about institutional change are of some help to that end.
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