Abstract
This paper completes the second cluster of the volume by examining the final dimension of the institutional dynamics that produce Teflon leadership. The phenomenon under examination is the construction of performative sacrifice, in which institutions maintain the appearance of shared burden among all their members, including the leadership, while in fact arranging matters so that the substantive burden falls upon the membership and the leadership bears only the symbolic appearance of participation. The argument proceeds through four interlocking analyses: the dynamics of symbolic austerity, in which highly visible but practically inconsequential gestures of leadership simplicity function as substitutes for the actual disciplines they appear to represent; the operation of burden displacement, in which the costs of institutional commitments are systematically shifted downward from those who articulate the commitments to those who must bear them; the role of institutional theater, in which carefully managed public performances create the appearance of accountability and shared sacrifice that the underlying institutional reality does not contain; and the corrupting effect of these dynamics upon the meaning of sacrifice within the religious tradition that has been their host, in which the very vocabulary of self-denial is converted into an instrument by which self-denial is evaded. The paper demonstrates that performative sacrifice is among the most damaging forms of the broader pattern this volume has examined, because it operates by appropriating the very vocabulary of biblical discipleship and converting that vocabulary into the protective cover under which the actual demands of discipleship are systematically evaded by those whose office is to articulate them.
I. The Final Dimension of the Pattern
The papers of this cluster have traced a sequence of institutional dynamics that together produce the patterns of Teflon leadership the volume is examining. The first paper of the cluster identified the mechanisms by which institutions create elite exemptions through the gap between formal and informal power, the operation of discretionary enforcement, the construction of insider protections, and the architecture of procedural asymmetry. The second paper traced the consequences of these mechanisms in the erosion of trust, the development of cynicism, the onset of institutional fatigue, and the eventual collapse of moral authority. The third paper examined the particular form of the pattern called weaponization, in which standards are converted into political instruments deployed against the disfavored while being suspended for the favored. The fourth paper extended the analysis from institutional structure to sociological environment, examining the prestige shielding, elite networks, and status preservation dynamics that produce the social conditions under which the institutional mechanisms operate.
The present paper, completing the cluster, examines what may be the most subtle and most damaging of the dynamics: the construction of performative sacrifice. The phenomenon is distinct from the dynamics previously examined, though it operates alongside them and reinforces them. Where exemption involves the failure to apply standards to favored individuals, performative sacrifice involves the construction of substitute appearances by which the failure is concealed not only from the broader community but, in many cases, from the favored individuals themselves. Where weaponization involves the strategic deployment of standards against disfavored individuals, performative sacrifice involves the construction of substitute performances by which the deployment is morally legitimated. Where the sociological dynamics of moral insulation produce the social environment within which exemption operates, performative sacrifice produces the symbolic environment within which exemption is publicly justified.
The distinctive feature of performative sacrifice, which warrants its treatment as a separate dimension of the broader pattern, is that it operates by appropriating the vocabulary and forms of authentic biblical discipleship and converting them into instruments by which the substantive demands of discipleship are evaded. The institutions in view across this volume have not, in the main, abandoned the biblical vocabulary. They have continued to speak of sacrifice, self-denial, cross-bearing, costly discipleship, servant leadership, and the various other categories by which the biblical tradition describes the demands of authentic religious commitment. The continued use of the vocabulary is not, in itself, evidence of authenticity. It can be, and frequently is, evidence of the appropriation that the present paper proposes to examine. The institution that has constructed performative sacrifice continues to speak the vocabulary of sacrifice while constructing the institutional arrangements by which the substantive sacrifice is no longer required of those who articulate it. The vocabulary is preserved. The substance is evacuated. The hearers who attend to the vocabulary without examining the substance are presented with the appearance of authentic religious life while encountering the reality of its inversion.
The biblical anticipation of this dynamic is articulated with particular force in the Lord’s denunciation of the religious leadership of His day, examined extensively in White Paper 2. The Pharisees did not abandon the vocabulary of righteousness. They elaborated it more carefully than any previous generation. They produced more thorough interpretations of the law, more detailed prescriptions for observance, more visible demonstrations of piety. The Lord’s denunciation was not that they had ceased to speak of righteousness but that they had converted the speech into a substitute for the substance. “All their works they do for to be seen of men” (Matthew 23:5, KJV). The works themselves remained. The motivation had been altered, and the alteration had produced the conversion of authentic religious practice into its theatrical substitute. The pattern recurs in every subsequent generation of religious leadership, and the present paper examines the form it takes in the institutional life of contemporary religious organizations.
II. Symbolic Austerity
The first dynamic of performative sacrifice is the construction of symbolic austerity, in which highly visible but practically inconsequential gestures of leadership simplicity function as substitutes for the actual disciplines they appear to represent. The dynamic operates through a recognizable mechanism. The leader, occupying a position whose substantive arrangements include various forms of comfort, privilege, and protection that the membership does not share, adopts certain visible practices that suggest the leader has voluntarily forgone advantages that he might have claimed. The practices are typically modest in their actual impact upon the leader’s overall situation but substantial in their visibility within the community that observes them. The community, observing the visible practices, draws the inference that the leader has embraced a discipline of simplicity that brings his life into approximate parity with the lives of those he leads. The inference is not necessarily warranted by the underlying reality, but the inference functions as if it were warranted, and the leader’s standing is correspondingly enhanced.
The mechanism can be illustrated through a familiar pattern. A pastor of a large and well-resourced church drives a modest vehicle to and from the church building. The choice of vehicle is observed by members of the congregation, who comment favorably upon the pastor’s apparent simplicity. The pastor’s overall financial situation, however, includes a substantial salary, a generous housing allowance, comprehensive benefits, expense accounts for travel and study, and various other forms of compensation that place his actual standard of living well above that of most members of the congregation. The modest vehicle is real. The substantive financial picture is also real. The members of the congregation see the vehicle and draw inferences from it about the pastor’s overall posture toward material things. The inferences are not, in fact, warranted by the underlying financial picture, but the inferences operate effectively because the visible symbol has been calibrated to produce them while the underlying reality has remained largely concealed from the observers.
The pattern is not necessarily the product of conscious manipulation by the leader. In many cases, the leader has himself internalized the symbolic significance of the visible practices and genuinely experiences them as expressions of authentic discipline. The pastor who drives the modest vehicle may genuinely believe that he is practicing financial simplicity, and may not have undertaken the kind of substantive examination of his overall financial picture that would reveal the gap between the symbolic practice and the substantive reality. The performative dynamic operates not only upon the perception of the observers but upon the self-perception of the performer, with the consequence that the performer himself becomes a participant in the construction of the performance rather than a deliberate operator of it. The performance is nevertheless a performance, regardless of whether the performer recognizes it as such, and its effect upon the observers is the same in either case.
The mechanism extends well beyond the example of the modest vehicle. It operates through the leader’s adoption of any visible symbol of simplicity, austerity, or shared burden that can be calibrated to produce favorable impressions without requiring substantive alteration of the underlying conditions of the leader’s life. The leader who eats a simple lunch in the church kitchen, while his overall pattern of dining includes regular meals at expensive restaurants paid for through institutional accounts. The leader who wears casual clothing in the pulpit, while his actual wardrobe includes substantial investments in custom tailoring for other occasions. The leader who occupies a small office in the church building, while his actual workspace includes a well-appointed study at home and access to executive facilities at the various institutions with which he is affiliated. The leader who maintains a public posture of accessibility, while his actual schedule is rigorously protected by administrative staff whose function is to filter the contacts that would otherwise burden his time. In each case, the visible symbol is real, the underlying reality is also real, and the relationship between them is the construction of an appearance that does not correspond to the substance the appearance suggests.
The dynamic produces, over time, a particular distortion in the leader’s own perception of his discipleship. The leader who has long practiced the visible symbols of austerity, and who has long received the favorable perceptions that the symbols produce, comes to believe that he is practicing the substantive austerity that the symbols suggest. The belief operates as a defense against any honest examination of the gap between the symbols and the substance. The leader may genuinely resist suggestions that his financial arrangements warrant examination, may genuinely take offense at questions about his overall pattern of expenditure, may genuinely believe that those who raise such questions are engaged in unwarranted criticism of a man whose simplicity is evident in the visible symbols he has adopted. The defense is sustained by the very dynamic that has produced the distortion. The symbols have replaced the substance not only in the perception of the observers but in the self-perception of the performer, and the substance has therefore become inaccessible to the kind of honest examination that would have addressed it.
The biblical critique of symbolic austerity is articulated most directly in the Lord’s analysis of performative righteousness in Matthew 6, examined in White Paper 2. The hypocrite who fasts with a sad and disfigured countenance has produced a visible symbol of the discipline he is purportedly practicing. The Lord’s response is not to question whether the fasting is occurring but to identify what the visible symbol has accomplished. “They have their reward” (Matthew 6:16, KJV). The visible symbol has produced the social reward that the symbol was calibrated to produce. The substantive discipline, if any has occurred, has been displaced by the visible performance, and the heavenly reward that authentic discipline would have produced has been forfeited in the transaction. The Lord’s instruction is not to abandon fasting but to fast in such a way that the practice cannot function as a symbol. The face is to be washed and anointed; the practice is to be conducted in conditions that prevent its conversion into the visible performance that would consume its substantive value. The instruction reverses the performative dynamic by insisting that authentic discipline must be conducted in conditions that prevent its appropriation as a substitute for itself.
III. Burden Displacement
The second dynamic of performative sacrifice is the operation of burden displacement, in which the costs of institutional commitments are systematically shifted downward from those who articulate the commitments to those who must bear them. The dynamic operates whenever an institutional commitment carries actual costs that must be borne by someone, and the question of who will bear those costs is resolved through arrangements that consistently allocate the burden to the membership rather than to the leadership that has articulated the commitment.
The mechanism can be illustrated through a range of familiar examples. A church commits itself to an ambitious program of building expansion. The financial cost of the expansion must be borne by someone. The arrangement that emerges allocates the burden primarily to the membership through increased giving, capital campaigns, and the ongoing maintenance obligations that the expanded facility will require. The leadership that articulated the commitment to the expansion bears comparatively little of the burden; the leadership’s own compensation is typically protected through the expansion process, and may even increase as the institutional resources grow to support the expanded facility. The commitment to the expansion was articulated by the leadership; the cost of the commitment is borne by the membership. The asymmetry is not, in most cases, the product of explicit deliberation. It is the product of the institutional arrangements that determine how costs are allocated, and the arrangements consistently produce the asymmetric pattern.
A second example illustrates the dynamic in a different domain. A denomination commits itself to particular standards of doctrinal fidelity that require ongoing institutional discipline of those who depart from the standards. The actual cost of maintaining the standards is borne primarily by those whose conduct or teaching brings them within the scope of the discipline. The leadership that articulates the standards typically faces no comparable disciplinary exposure, since the leadership has been positioned to articulate rather than to be subject to the standards in question. The denomination can claim to maintain rigorous standards while in fact maintaining a system in which the rigor is applied to those without institutional standing while being substantially attenuated for those who possess it. The commitment to standards is articulated by the leadership; the cost of the commitment is borne by those subject to the discipline that the leadership administers. The asymmetry again produces the recognizable pattern.
A third example illustrates the dynamic in the domain of moral and spiritual exhortation. A pastor preaches a series of sermons on the necessity of costly discipleship, calling the congregation to take up their crosses, to embrace the sacrifice that authentic Christian commitment requires, to forgo the comforts of contemporary life in favor of the radical commitments of biblical faith. The sermons are received with approval by the congregation, who feel themselves challenged to deeper commitment. The cost of the discipleship being preached is borne by the congregation, who must, if they take the preaching seriously, alter their lives in ways that involve substantive sacrifice. The pastor who has preached the sermons bears no comparable cost; his own life continues in its established patterns, with the substantive demands of the discipleship he has articulated being directed toward others rather than embraced in his own case. The commitment to costly discipleship is articulated by the pastor; the cost of the commitment is borne by those whose lives must be altered to conform to what he has preached. The asymmetry is, in this case, particularly damaging, because the substance being asymmetrically distributed is the substance of religious devotion itself, and the asymmetric distribution produces a religious life in which the leadership has appropriated the role of articulator while displacing the role of practitioner onto those it leads.
The dynamic of burden displacement is closely related to the symbolic austerity dynamic examined in the previous section but is analytically distinct. Symbolic austerity involves the construction of appearances that misrepresent the leader’s substantive situation. Burden displacement involves the actual allocation of substantive costs in patterns that systematically favor the leader at the expense of others. The two dynamics frequently operate together, with the symbolic austerity providing the protective cover under which the burden displacement is sustained, but they can also operate independently. A leader can engage in burden displacement without symbolic austerity, simply by openly accepting the comforts and protections of his position while displacing the costs of institutional commitments onto others. A leader can engage in symbolic austerity without significant burden displacement, by adopting visible symbols of simplicity while genuinely bearing his fair share of the substantive costs of the institution’s commitments. The most damaging form of the pattern is the combination of the two, in which the symbolic austerity conceals the burden displacement and the burden displacement is morally legitimated by the symbolic austerity. The combined dynamic produces the institutional condition in which the leader has secured for himself both the substantive advantages of his position and the moral credit that authentic discipleship would have required.
The biblical critique of burden displacement is articulated with particular clarity in the Lord’s denunciation of the Pharisees examined in White Paper 2. The Pharisees did not merely fail to bear the burdens they imposed on others. They constructed the institutional arrangements that ensured the burdens would be borne by others while not being borne by themselves. “They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:4, KJV). The text identifies the dynamic precisely. The burdens are real. The shoulders that bear them are real. The fingers that decline to move them are also real. The fingers belong to those who articulated the requirement that the burdens be borne. The shoulders belong to those who must actually bear them. The asymmetric distribution is the dynamic this paper has been examining, and the Lord’s denunciation is the model for the contemporary critique that the dynamic continues to warrant.
IV. Institutional Theater
The third dynamic of performative sacrifice is the construction of institutional theater, in which carefully managed public performances create the appearance of accountability and shared sacrifice that the underlying institutional reality does not contain. Where symbolic austerity operates upon the visible practices of individual leaders, and where burden displacement operates upon the substantive allocation of costs, institutional theater operates upon the staged events through which the institution presents itself to its membership and to the broader public. The events are real performances, conducted by real participants, witnessed by real audiences. They are nevertheless performances, in the sense that their function is to produce particular impressions in the witnessing audiences rather than to enact the substantive realities they appear to represent.
The mechanism can be illustrated through several characteristic examples. A church holds an annual congregational meeting at which the leadership presents reports on the institution’s activities and finances. The meeting is open to the membership and includes opportunities for members to ask questions and raise concerns. The presentation of the reports follows a carefully prepared script, the questions are managed through procedures that limit their scope and direction, and the concerns that emerge are processed through institutional channels that ensure they will not produce substantive challenge to the leadership’s position. The meeting is real. The members are real. The reports are real. The substantive accountability that the meeting is presented as embodying is, however, largely theatrical. The institutional decisions that affect the membership have been made elsewhere, by parties not subject to the meeting’s review, and the meeting itself is the production of an event in which the appearance of accountability is generated without the substance of it being delivered.
A second example illustrates the dynamic in the domain of leadership transition. An institution announces the retirement of a long-serving leader and conducts a series of public events to mark the transition. The events include tributes to the leader’s contributions, expressions of appreciation from various constituencies, and acknowledgments of the leader’s commitment to the institution’s mission. The events also include the announcement of the leader’s successor, who is presented as the appropriate continuation of the leader’s legacy. The performances are real. The participants are real. The successor is real. The substantive process by which the successor was selected is, however, largely invisible to the audiences who witness the public events. The selection has been made through institutional processes that did not include the broader community whose engagement is now being solicited for the public celebration. The community’s role is to witness the transition that has already been determined, to provide the audience for the performances that legitimate it, and to ratify through their participation an outcome they did not participate in producing.
A third example illustrates the dynamic in the domain of institutional response to crisis. An institution faces public scrutiny in connection with allegations against a prominent figure. The institution responds by announcing the formation of a committee to investigate the allegations, the engagement of external consultants to conduct the investigation, the issuance of public statements expressing commitment to thorough and transparent process, and the periodic release of updates on the investigation’s progress. The performances are real. The committee meets. The consultants conduct interviews. The statements are issued. The updates are released. The substantive process by which the investigation will produce its conclusions is, however, often determined by factors that the public performances do not address. The composition of the committee, the scope of the consultants’ mandate, the parameters within which conclusions can be reached, the framework within which findings will be characterized — all of these substantive features of the investigation are typically determined by the institutional leadership that is itself implicated in the events being investigated. The public performances produce the appearance of independent and thorough process while the substantive process operates within constraints that the leadership has established. The investigation will arrive at conclusions consistent with the leadership’s interests, not because the participants in the investigation are dishonest, but because the substantive parameters of the investigation have been calibrated to produce such conclusions.
The cumulative effect of institutional theater is the production of a public face of the institution that consistently differs from the institution’s actual operating reality. The public face presents the institution as accountable, deliberative, transparent, and responsive to its membership. The actual operating reality includes the unaccountable exercise of leadership authority, the suppression of substantive deliberation, the management of information that would threaten the leadership’s position, and the systematic deflection of membership engagement that would alter the leadership’s decisions. The two faces of the institution coexist, each sustained by particular institutional practices, and each functioning to support the other. The public face provides the legitimation that the actual operating reality requires. The actual operating reality provides the resources and continuity that the public face presupposes. The institution operates with a kind of doubled existence, in which the public events generate the appearances that the substantive operations require, and the substantive operations produce the resources that the public events consume.
The dynamic produces particular complications when the membership becomes aware of the gap between the public face and the actual operating reality. The awareness is, in many cases, present before any specific revelation prompts it. Members who have observed the institution over time often perceive the gap intuitively, even before they can articulate it explicitly. The intuition produces a form of disengagement that the leadership often misinterprets as apathy or ingratitude. The members are not, however, apathetic; they have recognized the theatrical character of the events they are being asked to attend, and they have responded by disengaging from performances they have learned not to take at face value. The leadership, observing the disengagement, often responds by intensifying the performances, on the assumption that more frequent or more elaborate productions will recover the engagement that has been lost. The intensification typically deepens the disengagement, since it confirms the members’ perception that the institution operates primarily through the production of performances rather than through the substantive operations the performances purport to represent.
The biblical anticipation of this dynamic, as suggested in the discussion of the temple aristocracy in White Paper 2, is severe. The temple was, in the period of the Lord’s ministry, the most elaborate religious institution in the ancient world. Its ceremonies were carefully managed; its public events drew enormous attendance; its participants included some of the most accomplished religious figures of the era. The Lord’s response to the institution was not to appreciate the elaborate performances it conducted. It was to denounce the conversion of sacred space into the staging ground for institutional theater that had replaced the substance the institution had been established to embody. “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13, KJV). The denunciation identifies the substantive corruption that the elaborate performances had concealed. The performances were real. The corruption they concealed was also real. The Lord’s response addressed the corruption rather than the performances, and the response stands as the model for any subsequent confrontation of institutions whose elaborate productions have outrun the substance they were established to embody.
V. The Corruption of the Vocabulary
The fourth dimension of performative sacrifice, and perhaps its most damaging effect, is the corruption of the vocabulary of authentic discipleship through which performative sacrifice operates. The dynamic involves the appropriation of the words and concepts by which the biblical tradition has described the substantive demands of religious commitment, and the conversion of those words and concepts into instruments by which the substantive demands are evaded. The vocabulary is preserved. The meaning is altered. The members of the community who hear the vocabulary cannot easily detect the alteration, because the words are familiar and their surface meaning seems unchanged. The substantive content of the vocabulary, however, has been emptied through the patterns of use to which the leadership has subjected it.
The mechanism operates through the repeated public use of biblical terms in contexts that do not correspond to the biblical substance the terms describe. The term “sacrifice” is used in connection with the modest visible practices of leadership austerity, with the consequence that the term comes to suggest those practices rather than the substantive disciplines the biblical tradition has associated with it. The term “discipleship” is used in connection with the patterns of institutional engagement that the leadership prefers from the membership, with the consequence that the term comes to suggest those patterns rather than the substantive following of Christ that the biblical tradition has associated with it. The term “servant leadership” is used in connection with the leadership’s preferred self-presentation, with the consequence that the term comes to suggest the self-presentation rather than the substantive servanthood that the biblical tradition has associated with it. In each case, the appropriated vocabulary continues to be used. The substantive content has been displaced by the institutional usage, and the institutional usage has become, for members of the community who have been formed within it, the operative meaning of the vocabulary.
The corruption produces a particular form of spiritual difficulty for members of the community who have been formed within the institutional usage. The members have learned to associate the biblical vocabulary with the institutional practices that have been described to them in its terms. When they encounter the biblical text directly, they read it through the lens of the institutional usage, and they find that the text appears to confirm the institutional practices because the practices have been described in the vocabulary the text uses. The text’s actual substance, which would call into question the institutional practices, is filtered out by the interpretive framework the institutional usage has established. The members find themselves unable to read the text in a way that would challenge the institutional patterns, because the institutional patterns have appropriated the very vocabulary through which the challenge would have to be articulated. The biblical text becomes, in their hearing, a confirmation of the institutional reality rather than a critique of it, and the institutional reality continues to operate without the corrective that the biblical text would otherwise have provided.
The corruption is particularly damaging because it cannot be addressed merely by the more frequent reading of the biblical text. The reading itself has been compromised by the framework the institutional usage has established. The members who read the text more frequently, under the framework that the institutional usage has provided, simply receive more frequent confirmation of the institutional patterns rather than developing the critical perspective that an uncorrupted reading would produce. The remedy requires the disruption of the framework itself, which requires the recognition that the framework exists, which requires resources that are typically not available within the institutional context that has produced the framework. The members who recognize the corruption are often those who have encountered the biblical text in some other context, who have been exposed to interpretive traditions that operate outside the institutional framework, or who have undergone some experience that has dislodged the framework and made possible the recognition of what the framework had been concealing.
The biblical anticipation of this dynamic is articulated with particular clarity in the prophetic literature. The Lord’s complaint through the prophets is repeatedly that His people have continued to use the vocabulary of covenant relationship while having drained the vocabulary of its substantive content. The sacrifices continue. The festivals continue. The prayers continue. The vocabulary of religious life continues to be employed. The substantive realities that the vocabulary describes — the genuine repentance, the actual obedience, the lived covenant relationship — have been displaced by the formal performances of the vocabulary. The Lord’s response is not to abandon the vocabulary but to insist upon its substantive recovery, to denounce the empty performances that have appropriated the vocabulary, and to call the people back to the substantive realities the vocabulary was established to describe. “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:16–17, KJV). The substantive realities are reasserted against the formal performances that had displaced them, and the substantive recovery is offered as the only path by which the vocabulary can be returned to its proper function.
VI. The Conclusion of the Cluster and the Bridge to What Follows
The completion of this cluster of papers brings the institutional analysis to its conclusion. The biblical foundations established in the first cluster have been supplemented by the institutional and sociological analyses of the second cluster, which together provide the analytical framework through which the contemporary applications and comparative studies of the subsequent clusters will be conducted. The five papers of the second cluster have traced a sequence of related dynamics — the creation of elite exemptions through institutional mechanisms, the cumulative depletion of legitimacy that follows from those exemptions, the weaponization of standards into political instruments, the sociological dynamics of moral insulation that surround elite figures, and the performative sacrifice through which the substantive demands of religious commitment are evaded by those whose office is to articulate them.
The dynamics are not independent of one another. They reinforce one another, combine to produce the patterns this volume has been examining, and resist the kind of partial remedies that address only one dimension while leaving the others in place. The institution that has constructed strong formal accountability procedures without addressing the sociological environment will find that the procedures are silently neutralized. The institution that has reformed its sociological environment without addressing the procedures that produce exemptions will find that the reformed environment cannot operate against the structural dynamics that continue to produce the exemptions it had been intended to address. The institution that has addressed both the procedures and the environment without attending to the performative sacrifice dynamic will find that the appropriate vocabulary continues to be employed in ways that conceal the substantive realities the vocabulary purports to describe. Comprehensive remedy requires comprehensive analysis, and the present cluster has been intended to provide the comprehensive analysis upon which the comprehensive remedy depends.
The papers that follow in the third cluster will turn from institutional analysis in general to the examination of specific contemporary domains in which the Teflon dynamic operates. The cluster will examine the patterns of elite exemption that appear in contemporary environmental policy, in the response to public health crises, in the regulation of financial markets, in the operation of technocratic and managerial classes, and in the patterns of digital virtue and social punishment that have become characteristic of online discourse. The analytical framework developed in the present cluster will be applied to each of these contemporary domains, with attention to how the institutional mechanisms, sociological dynamics, and performative sacrifice patterns operate in each specific case. The biblical critique articulated in the first cluster will continue to function as the standard against which the contemporary patterns are measured, and the institutional analysis developed in the present cluster will provide the diagnostic tools through which the patterns are identified and examined.
The closing observation of the second cluster, before the transition to the third, is that the institutional and sociological dynamics examined throughout this cluster are not features of a fallen world from which religious institutions can claim exemption on the grounds of their spiritual character. They are features of human institutional life that operate wherever human institutions exist, including in institutions whose members are sincere in their commitment to the religious tradition the institutions purport to embody. The recognition of this fact is, in itself, a substantial step toward the work of reform. The institution that recognizes its participation in these dynamics, and that undertakes the difficult work of constructing the structural and sociological countermeasures that the recognition requires, is in a substantially better position than the institution that continues to believe itself exempt from dynamics that operate universally. The papers that follow in the third cluster will demonstrate that the contemporary forms of the dynamic appear with depressing regularity across both religious and secular institutions, and that the biblical critique developed in the first cluster applies, with appropriate modifications, across the full range of institutional contexts in which the dynamics appear. The recognition of the universality of the pattern is, in the analytical economy of this volume, the foundation upon which the comparative work of the subsequent clusters proceeds.
Notes
Note 1. The distinction between symbolic austerity and substantive austerity, developed in the second section of this paper, draws upon the analytical tradition that distinguishes between symbolic action and instrumental action in sociological analysis. The present paper does not endorse the broader theoretical commitments of that tradition, but the analytical distinction is useful for the present purposes because it allows the recognition that visible symbols of simplicity can operate independently of the substantive simplicity they appear to represent. The distinction is not novel, and the dynamic the distinction enables us to recognize has been documented in a wide range of empirical studies of leadership behavior.
Note 2. The dynamic of burden displacement examined in the third section bears some resemblance to the analytical traditions developed in the sociology of class relations, particularly in the analysis of how dominant classes shift the costs of social arrangements onto subordinate classes. The present paper does not endorse the broader theoretical frameworks within which these analytical traditions have been developed, particularly their tendency toward class-based reductionism. The structural observation about the asymmetric distribution of institutional costs is, however, well-documented across diverse contexts and can be sustained without commitment to the broader frameworks within which it has been variously developed.
Note 3. The concept of institutional theater developed in the fourth section bears some resemblance to the work of Erving Goffman on dramaturgical analysis of social interaction, though the present paper does not adopt Goffman’s broader theoretical framework. The structural observation about the staged character of certain institutional events, and about the gap between the public face of an institution and its actual operating reality, has been documented in many empirical studies of organizational behavior and does not depend upon any particular theoretical framework for its validity.
Note 4. The analysis of the corruption of vocabulary in the fifth section has structural parallels in the analytical traditions concerning the relationship between language and ideology, particularly in the work of scholars who have examined how dominant institutions appropriate the vocabularies of opposition to neutralize the substantive challenge those vocabularies originally represented. The present paper does not endorse the broader theoretical commitments of those traditions, but the analytical observation that institutional usage can drain religious vocabulary of its substantive content is sufficiently well-established in the empirical study of religious institutions that the observation does not depend upon any particular theoretical framework.
Note 5. The reference to the prophetic literature’s denunciation of empty religious performances should not be taken to suggest that all formal religious practice is performative in the negative sense the prophets denounced. The biblical witness includes substantial provision for formal religious practice that operates in its proper relation to substantive spiritual realities. The prophetic denunciation is directed specifically at the displacement of substance by performance, not at the use of formal practice as such. The contemporary application of the prophetic critique requires the same distinction. The performative sacrifice dynamic examined in this paper is the displacement of substance by performance, not the legitimate use of formal practice in its proper relation to substantive realities.
Note 6. The conclusion of the cluster, with its observation that the institutional and sociological dynamics operate universally rather than being features of secular institutions from which religious institutions are exempt, should not be taken to imply that religious institutions are no different from secular ones. The biblical standard articulated in the first cluster establishes that religious institutions are called to operate by patterns that secular institutions are not. The point of the present observation is that the call does not exempt religious institutions from the dynamics that operate elsewhere; rather, it intensifies the obligation to construct the countermeasures that the dynamics require. Religious institutions that have accepted the call but have not constructed the countermeasures will produce the same patterns that appear in secular institutions, with the additional culpability that follows from the abandonment of the calling they had accepted.
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