Quotes about Institutional

Here was another peculiar Trump attribute: an inability to see his actions the way most others saw them. Or to fully appreciate how people expected him to behave. The notion of the presidency as an institutional and political concept, with an emphasis on ritual and propriety and semiotic messaging—statesmanship—was quite beyond him.

Many ministers are more the church's institutional managers than its theological guides; correspondingly, many read more management ("leadership") books than they do works of academic theology.

The so-called spirituality that was handed to me by those who put me to the task of pastoral work was not adequate. I do not find the emaciated, exhausted spirituality of institutional careerism adequate. I do not find the veneered, cosmetic spirituality of personal charisma adequate.

What appeared as unendurable hardship to soldiers of other nationalities produced a species of exhilaration in our lads, raised on a diet of Kipling and institutional porridge. Some

Unless the church quickly recovers the authoritative biblical message, we may witness the spectacle of millions of Christians going outside the institutional church to find spiritual food.

the institutional church, which exists to serve the people of God, is never to be confused with the church as mystery - the Christ-centered, biblically faithful, tender, and compassionate cloud of witnesses who walk the talk.

In Jesus, Christians believe, everyone gets a good look at what it means to be both fully human and fully divine—not half and half, as if he walked around with a dotted line down his middle, but fully both, all the time. His full humanity was on full display as he taught, healed, fed, and freed people, just as it was when he honored the poor, defied the powerful, and turned the institutional tables along with his own cheek.

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we're making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus. Are we determined to have nothing to do with all these people? They are convinced that it is not the Word Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching.

Oh yes, it exists, and the news media is always quick to highlight examples of anti-black racial hostility, but it is not the all-powerful, institutional beast so many say it is. But once people believe racism is their main problem, they become subject to that idea, and it prevents them from progressing.

In 1965, in the Council's "Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests" (Pres-byterorum ordinis, 10), the Church proposed a new institutional form, called the "personal prelature." Such an institution could accommodate both clergy and lay members cooperating to accomplish specific pastoral tasks.

It really works very well, but the trouble is that it feels so godly that much, if not most, religion is a belonging system more than a search for intimacy with God. Jesus was not into tribal religion, groupthink, and loyalty tests. Much of the institutional church is into them, however, and always has been. It works too well to call it into question. It holds us together and that feels like salvation, even if it is a very deteriorated form.

Since we now live in a society—and a world—that is fitfully drifting toward fascism, the breaking of silence is altogether urgent. In the institutional life of the church, moreover, the breaking of silence by the testimony of the gospel often means breaking the silence among those who have a determined stake in maintaining the status quo.