Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Organism, institution, and the black church
Organism, institution, and the black church
Jul 3, 2025 2:57 AM

Some years back, I helped put together a small, edited volume intended as a primer on some of the ways in which the relationship between the church and political life has, and ought to be, understood. In The Church’s Social Responsibility, we aimed in part to apply the Kuyperian distinction between understanding the church as a formal institution and as a dynamic, organic body to questions of social justice.

“Sometimes words have two meanings,” as Led Zeppelin has put it, and church is one of those words that is rich with a variety of nuances and significations. The purpose of the institute/organism distinction is to do justice to some of the differences in believers’ responsibilities in their typical, day-to-day lives, as opposed to participating in formal worship services. This distinction can play out in a number of different ways, which is why we attempted to capture a diversity of perspectives in the short volume.

One of those perspectives is from Calvin Van Reken, whose contribution, “The Church’s Role in Social Justice,” employs the institute/organism distinction to argue that the institutional church does not have a primary role in promoting social justice, at least involving politics and public policy. As Van Reken writes:

The primary work of the institutional church is not to promote social justice, it is to warn people of divine justice. Its primary business is not to call society to be more righteous but to tell persons of the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Its primary work is not to tell us who to elect to public office, it is to tell those in every nation of the One who elected many for eternal life. The primary work of the institutional church is to open and close the kingdom of God and to nurture the Christian faith. This it does primarily through the pure preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline.

He goes on to note, however, that there are some important exceptions to this general disposition. For example, the church should, he argues, speak institutionally to “the proper goals that social policy should promote.” But it is generally better to leave specific policy proposals and discussions to the deliberations of civil society and the vocation of the body of believers in their everyday callings rather than to pronounce upon them from pulpits.

I think Van Reken is basically correct in his articulation of the institute/organism distinction and its implications for the church’s social witness. But there are perhaps more exceptions, or more instances of the church getting involved politically, than I have appreciated before now.

It is possible, for instance, for a society to be so corrupted and dysfunctional that the normal institutions of that society no longer work properly. It may be that the church remains one of the few or even the only institution with some level of proper functioning. In a situation like this, it would perhaps be necessary even for the institutional church to act in ways that are more or less overtly political, in part because the political institutions themselves have failed or are failing. It may not be generally good for pastors to also be politicians, but we might imagine some situations where this is not only acceptable but also necessary.

Political action, advocacy, and activity by the institutional church in this sense need not necessarily violate the institute/organism distinction, sphere sovereignty, or subsidiarity. Such action might actually be necessary according to these principles in order to restore proper functioning of other civil, social, and political institutions. Now this does mean, perhaps, that such political activity is unusual, irregular, or occasional. Such action has its limits, including temporal ones. The goal of churchly political activity should be in part to make such action redundant and unnecessary.

All of this plays out differently in different contexts. The church may be in a social setting at one place and time, where it enjoys relative peace and good government, and is free to focus primarily on (as Van Reken describes it) divine justice rather than social justice. But at other times the connection between divine justice and social justice needs to be proclaimed more clearly. And sometimes that proclamation has to terminate not simply in exhortation but in institutional action, as well. Here’s how the pastor and apologist Christopher Brooks describes the American context, where the church has generally enjoyed a kind of social influence and standing: “We believers in America have to wrestle with the challenge of how mitment to justice must play out in the way we vote and engage politically.” And the church as an institution has to grapple with these realities.

In his introduction to a new edition of Charles Octavius Boothe’s classic Plain Theology for Plain People, Walter Strickland II points to a specific time in America where the church became a central political institution by necessity. “In the years following Emancipation,” writes Strickland:

the church became the epicenter of the munity. The church was the sole institution that African Americans controlled, and it was central to the munity—not only as a spiritual outpost, but also as a social hub and political nerve center. Often the most educated people in the munity were pastors who had the rhetorical skill necessary to advocate for their congregants. Moreover, full-time ministers at large churches were uniquely situated to advocate for racial justice. They were financially independent from whites, so they could represent blacks on social issues without fear of lost wages—though they could suffer other forms of retaliation like church burning, physical violence, and intimidation.

The institution of slavery was so corrupting of society that the church became one of the few remaining realities for institutional organization and action. The same has been true in other times and places where societies are emerging from oppressive regimes or political tyranny.

In this way, the black church experience in America has something important to offer the broader munity in our calling to do justice to the dynamics of the church’s social witness, including the church’s social responsibility in an institutional as well as in a broader, organic sense. The recognition of all plexity does not, of course, legitimize absolutely any or all political action by the institutional church. But it does, I think, require a noteworthy proviso to a traditional understanding of the institute/organism distinction.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Verse of the Day
  John 3:18 In-Context   16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.   17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.   18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned,...
Verse of the Day
  Galatians 2:20 In-Context   18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.   19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.   20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Todays Verse   Commentary on Proverbs 22:4   Read Proverbs 22:4   Where the fear of God is, there will be humility. And much is to be enjoyed by it spiritual riches, and eternal life at last.   Proverbs 22:4 In-Context   2 Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.   3 The prudent see danger...
Verse of the Day
  Psalm 27:7,9-10 In-Context   5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.   6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;...
Verse of the Day
  Isaiah 61:10 In-Context   8 For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them.   9 Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed....
Verse of the Day
  Daniel 2:20-23 In-Context   18 He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.   19 During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven   20 and...
Verse of the Day
  Romans 5:19 In-Context   17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!   18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also...
Verse of the Day
  1 Corinthians 10:12 In-Context   10 And do not grumble, as some of them did-and were killed by the destroying angel.   11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.   12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!...
Verse of the Day
  1 Corinthians 3:18-20 In-Context   16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?   17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person; for God's temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.   18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Todays Verse   Commentary on Psalm 37:1-6   Read Psalm 37:1-6   When we look abroad we see the world full of evil-doers, that flourish and live in ease. So it was seen of old, therefore let us not marvel at the matter. We are tempted to fret at this, to think them the only happy people, and so we are...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved