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The Harlot Church System - Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr. - www.charlesnewbold.org

Chapter 7 - Institutionalized

Bob and Joy, Chris and Jena, Troy, Rachel, and Darlene felt connected to one another in the Spirit of Christ and began meeting in each other's homes. They sang spiritual songs, shared revelations and teachings the Lord gave them. Bob did most of the teaching. He had the gift for it. They prayed for each other's needs. People were free to come and go as they pleased. When word got out that God was showing up at their meetings, more people started coming. They soon outgrew their living rooms and decided to rent a meeting room elsewhere. They took up a collection for the expenses. The crowd grew and they decided Bob needed to go full time as their pastor. The money was plentiful and in order to act responsibly, they decided to open a bank account. The bank required a name. So they named themselves. They continued to grow and decided to save rent expenses by buying their own piece of property. They elected elders to oversee the business they were growing into. Several years later, they occupied their fine new building for which they were indebted. But something different had happened. People no longer felt as free to come and go as they pleased. They were expected to be there and expected to pay their tithes there. They had a budget now. They went from being a fellowship of believers to a church. The day they gave themselves a name, they became a Thing. They institutionalized themselves.

Institutions seem to take on existences of their own as if they had minds of their own. They often become greater than the sum of the individuals who instituted them. They can take over and consume everything and everyone around them.

Yet, these institutions are devoid of life. They mesmerize, neutralize, ensnare, and enslave us. We become enmeshed with them and they become our idols. It is not long before our altruistic institutions--orphanages, nursing homes, colleges, universities, seminaries, hospitals, cemeteries, church edifices, and "ministries"--become more important than the people for whom they were initiated. People exist to serve and preserve them rather than them existing to serve the people. Their marketing programs may claim that they are meeting personal needs, and they may even be meeting personal needs, but the underlying motivation of their marketing schemes is often to increase their customer base in order to maintain or increase the institution.

Don Potter wrote in the Morning Star Journal that he had spoken to Jim Bakker after his release from prison, and Bakker admitted that he had questioned if God was in some of the things they were doing in his mega TV ministry. Things were growing so fast that no one would let him stop. Bakker couldn't imagine letting all those people down. Don commented, "He was caught in a ministry machine that had started running itself." fn {12} This happens to churches and ministries of all sizes.

Institutions often garner large sums of money from the people associated with them. People feel good about giving to them, but oftentimes come to realize that most of their time, energy, and resources are consumed merely to fuel the system. Altruism within the system is too frequently reduced to a token. Many TV ministries use altruistic appeals to tug on the emotions of potential donors, but end up using most of the money to keep their own ministry machine cranking.

INSTITUTIONALIZED

It is strange enough that these institutions seem to take on an existence of their own. It is stranger yet how our institutions institutionalize us.

Brooks "done time" in Shawshank prison for fifty years. He spent many of those years as the prison's librarian. Then it happened. He was paroled. Good news? Not for Brooks. He went crazy. They released him, and days later he was found hanging from a noose of his own making. The newer inmates didn't understand. They sat around on a rock waiting for Red to explain. Red had already spent most of his life behind those walls himself. He knew the score. Red answered philosophically. "He was institutionalized. Been in here fifty years. This is all he knows. In here, he's an important man. He's an educated man. But outside he's nothing. Just a used-up con with arthritis in both hands. Probably couldn't get a library card if he tried...These walls are funny. At first you hate 'em. Then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized." fn {13}

BECOMING LIKE THEM

The longer we stay in our institutions, the more we become like them. A few years ago I awakened from a dream in which someone said to me, "Be careful you don't become like the club you join." This saying had a twist of humor to it when I heard it in the dream. On the one hand, it sounded like a warning not to become what I join. On the other hand, it was suggesting I already was like the club I joined. Why else would I join it? A club is made up of people. Once you join the club, you are the club. Once you join a church, you are that church.

Something in us draws us to the things we join. Soon after we join those things, they seem to have a way of possessing us. They become us and we become them. We find our identity in them. We boast, "I am Presbyterian." "I am Southern Baptist." "I am Methodist." "I am Roman Catholic." "I am Pentecostal." Then, we cannot resist asking others, "What are you?"

Jesus told us that we were in Him and He was in us, just as He was in the Father and the Father was in Him. That was not my experience growing up in the institutional church. I felt more joined to it than to Christ. I was in it and it was in me. I was programmed to be one with it and to bring others into that illegal, unholy, mystical union with it. We are either in Christ or in the harlot.

BELIEVING WHAT THEY BELIEVE

To truly belong to one of these institutions, we are somewhat required to believe what we are told to believe by those who rule within them. We often do not know what we believe ourselves apart from the doctrines of our church. Jerry Wilson recounts, "While studying for the ministry a fellow student began asking me questions about what I believed. I answered each one by telling him what the Baptists believe. I continued on for a while. Then he smiled and asked, 'Don't you believe anything?'"

We are to believe in Jesus. Our faith in God through Jesus Christ is how we are brought into the Kingdom. "For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." Eph. 2:8. Believing what our institution says to believe will not save us. Yet, we tend to think it does.

BECOMING DEPENDENT UPON THEM

Just as Brooks became dependent upon those walls at Shawshank prison, so we become dependent upon our institutions. We trust in them to take care of us. In a similar way, our institutions need us. The authorities within them need for us to be dependent upon them and the institution in order to perpetuate their existence and that of the institution.

Bill Shipman noticed this dependency principle when he worked at a developmental center for young offenders. Rather than encouraging them to become productive citizens, the authorities did things that made the inmates more dependent. If one of the inmates showed any individuality, they were prescribed more Valium. Those in charge wanted to conform them rather than reform them because they needed the inmates to be dependent upon them.

On several occasions Bill tried to get some of the inmates out of institutional dependency but was undercut by other staff members. They used fear to keep their young men feeling inadequate about themselves. "You better not listen to Bill," they would say. "You'll get out there and it'll just be a matter of time before you're back in here again."

"I saw things in this institution," Bill related, "that looked just like what I'd seen in the church by heavy-handed leaders with selfish ambition. It's okay when you're bettering the institution or bettering their positions, but when you try to better the clients--the people in need--you're booed down."

"This same thing happened in Haiti," Bill remembered. "The priests first came to Haiti with a mission to truly help the people. Under the influence of the government, the politically-minded superiors in the church persuaded the priests to do otherwise. They were told to teach the slaves that they were second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God and the only way that they could get in the Kingdom was by serving the whites. The black Haitians came to believe that about themselves. It is still difficult for them to break out of that thinking. That idea is institutionalized in their thinking."

You cannot preserve the institution and, at the same time, work to put yourself out of business. Institutions may start out to do good, but by their very nature, almost always end up fostering dependency.

PREEMINENCE OF THE INSTITUTION

Our institutions often become more important than the people for whom they were intended. Here is a case in point. The year was 1750.

Jesuit missions were located around the border lands of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. The Portuguese wanted to take possession of that territory and required the mission to transfer their territory to them. War was waged against the mission and many of the natives lost their lives in the ensuing battle. In the movie The Mission, about this true story, Father Gabriel was puzzled by the decision of his superiors to sacrifice the lives of the natives in order to comply with the Portuguese demands.

Señor Hatar, trying to make Father Gabriel understand, asked what he thought was at issue here.

"I think the work of God is at issue here," Father Gabriel naively answered.

"No," answered Señor Hatar. "What is at issue here is the very existence of the Jesuit order both here and in Europe."

To save the order, Señor Hatar did what he thought he had to do. He allowed the slaughter of many natives and the destruction of the mission. His rationale: "If the Jesuits resist the Portuguese, then the Jesuit order will be expelled from Portugal--and if Portugal and Spain, perhaps Italy, who knows. If your [Jesuit] order is to survive at all, Father, the mission here must be sacrificed." fn {14} The preservation of the institution--in this case the Jesuit order--was a greater cause than the lives of the people they came to save.

When we see the truth and attempt to speak against the abuses of institutionalization, we are viewed as the enemy. We are of no use to the institution. When we cease to be of use to the institution, the institution seeks ways to expel us.

THE CORPORATION CHURCH

Many church organizations have chosen to incorporate themselves according the laws of the states, primarily to receive tax breaks and to offer tax deductions for donors. Churches ordinarily have this tax status without having to legally incorporate. Nevertheless, whether they have officially incorporated or not, most have structured themselves according to the principles and policies of corporations. They turn who they are as a fellowship of believers into a business and give this business the power to control the activities of their members.

The corporation church, like corporations in the world, have distinct characteristics. They are typically human-initiated and governed, management-based, profit-oriented, success-driven, client-friendly, product-focused (programs and services), and image-conscious.

A distinction must be made between the corporations of men from the body of Christ. We are not necessarily serving God and contributing to His causes just because we serve and contribute to these corporations. The ministry of Christ is accomplished in and through the members of the body of Christ as they serve each other, not through legal documents in filing cabinets. God's building is not made with hands, but is eternal in the heavens. 2 Cor. 5:1.

This corporation church mentality is a modern invention of the western world which is completely foreign to the New Testament expression of what it means to be the body of Christ. Yet, missionary boards and Christian zealots peddle the principles and policies of the corporation church mentality around the world. This worldly concept is promoted as the only way to do church. Believers who dare to stand outside of this system are thought to have backslidden. Bob Hughey says, "What began as a movement in Israel became a philosophy in Greece, became an institution in Rome, became a culture in Europe, and became a big rich enterprise in America."

INSTITUTIONAL HIERARCHIES

All institutions whether governmental, educational, social, scientific, or religious have some form of hierarchical power-positions structured into them. These are the old guard, so to speak, those who not only have vested authority but exercise strict control. Very little, if anything, is allowed to happen without their say-so. It is no less true in the churches.

This hierarchy is often tiered as in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Orthodox traditions. The highest position within the Roman church is the Pope who is given extraordinary authority and esteem. The college of Cardinals are tiered under the Pope, having been appointed by the Pope to assist him. Bishops in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Orthodox traditions are clergymen who rank above a priest and have authority to ordain and confirm, and usually govern a diocese. In these traditions, Priests are clergymen who rank below a bishop and are authorized to perform the sacred rites of their churches. Deacons in these traditions are clerics who rank next below a priest. In most other traditions of Christian churches, deacons are laymen who are elected to perform various functions in worship, pastoral care, or administration.

Less liturgical traditions, such as we have in most Protestant churches, have their own form of hierarchy. Nearly all church groups have some form of high court in their general assemblies, conventions, or conferences to which officers are elected and given limited powers. People rarely stay in office long enough to build a political machine.

However, control in these traditions is more likely to come through certain individuals of influence who are sometimes hidden within the system. Hugh was one of those men. He quietly influenced much of his denomination's social policies. For more than four decades from his hired, bureaucratic position at his denomination's headquarters, he remolded the theology of this church from conservative to liberal.

Some associations have been formed to cluster independent churches of like nature. These associations are generally headed by a charismatic personality who in turn has an inner circle of drones to help fulfill his agenda--a variation on the Pope and Cardinal scenario. Local assemblies, likewise, have positions of hierarchical authority within them--pastors, elders, deacons, and boards. Many Pentecostal traditions have bishops who are given greater esteem than others. These hierarchies within the churches are the traditions of men and have no basis in scripture, but appear necessary for the perpetuation of institutions.

INSTITUTIONAL RULES AND REGULATIONS

Many things have been started in the Spirit and founded upon solid scriptural principles, but were later institutionalized. The process is quite simple, natural, and common. Once the activity has begun, men tend to want to organize it. They wish to put some kind of structure around it in order to control it or at least maintain control within it. Institutional structure is generally made of rigid rules and regulations. Once set in place, these rules are hard to change. They become the authority over even those who made them. Even the people who make them bind themselves to the rules and, thereby, elevate the rules as the higher authority.

Organization requires rules. Once we institute rules and regulations to govern our relationships with one another, we have almost always institutionalized ourselves. We restrict the Holy Spirit's liberty to lead us. Control is one of the greatest enemies to our liberty in the Spirit. The rules men make to control church life are likely to become unhealthy boundaries. We often become slaves to these rules.

Nevertheless, good rules provide healthy boundaries and are necessary even for our participation in one another's lives in the body of Christ. These rules are generally in the category of "love one another." The word of God is the law of God and serves the well-being of those who keep it. We have the ability to keep God's law by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us.

All too often, however, the rules of the institution supersede the word and Spirit of God. Such was the case when I believed the Holy Spirit wanted to abolish the Sunday School. The rules of the organization did not allow that. "We don't do that here" is the common excuse. Church rules confine the activities of the Holy Spirit.

We need to distinguish between God's law which sets us free in Christ and church laws which impose restrictions upon us and bind us to men.

The institution of church is one among many of our Babylonian inventions and is perpetuated by those in THE Ministry.

Footnotes {12} Don Potter, "Talent For Sale," The Morning Star Journal (Charlotte, NC: Morning Star Publications, Summer 1997) Vol. 7, No. 3, 63. << Back To Text {13} The Shawshank Redemption, produced by Nike Marvin, directed by Frank Darnbont. Based on a novel by Steven King, titled, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. << Back To Text {14} The Mission, produced by Fernando Ghia, David Puttmen, and Iain Smith (associate), directed by Roland Jaffe, writing credits to Robert Bolts. Distributed by Warner Brothers, 1986. << Back To Text