Why Do Churches Go Liberal?

It's a matter of mission...

Why do churches (and institutions) always seem to go liberal?

Simple. They end up conserving the wrong mission. Here's how it happens.

All churches have a purpose they were created to achieve. Naturally, they are conservative about that purpose.

But every church also has an unwritten, unstated, and hidden purpose: preserve the institution. What do I mean?

Church leaders draw direct benefits from the church, such as jobs, relationships, power, and clout. Protecting these benefits eventually starts replacing the church's original purpose, and the church drifts away from its founding purpose and focuses too much on preserving the institution of the church.

When faithful people notice this drift taking place, they call upon church leaders to refocus back on the biblical priorities as prescribed in scripture. Doing this makes them enemies of institutional leaders, however, because this might require unpopular decisions that could hinder growth.

A church must grow because jobs, respect, resources, relationships, clout, and power are at stake, and these institutional benefits are more reliable and stable when the church is growing. Growing the church drives its activities, and anything that threatens growth must be opposed.

The church's main purpose can be unpopular at times since she is called by God to maintain a prophetic witness as light amidst darkness. Thus, to maintain growth, church leaders pivot to safer, more popular priorities. The central purpose gets pushed to the margin in favor of more popular initiatives, such as community service projects. These things create an illusion of faithfulness by focusing on biblical yet secondary priorities.

Focusing on the main priority is risky, because preaching about sin, calling people to repentance, and practicing church discipline might shrink the church which puts the institutional benefits in jeopardy.

This is nothing new. It happened in Bible times. The institutional structures in ancient Israel created a ruling class that exercised authority on God's behalf. But when Christ stepped on the scene, his radical message and rising popularity threatened their wealth, power, and status, which they depended on the institution to provide. So they used their institutional power to kill Jesus. This is what the parable of the tenants is about (Matt 21:33-45).

Institutions have always operated this way, including churches. Those who work for the institution want to keep it going because they derive direct benefits from perpetuating the institution, not accomplishing the institution’s mission. For example, employees of pro-life organizations would be out of work if abortion were eliminated and the mission was accomplished.

Politicians talk this way all the time. They talk about “creating jobs,” but job creation is not the purpose of government. Governmental agencies may employ people to accomplish tasks, but the purpose should never be simply to give people jobs.

The same is true of churches. Pastors and elders need to keep the primary purpose of the church in the forefront of their minds. The church may provide them with a job, but giving people jobs is not the purpose of the church.

When preserving the institutional life of the church eclipses the true purpose of the church amongst its leaders, it is already compromised. Once decision-making based on personal impact to the leaders becomes a habit, it’s a hard habit to break. Anyone who questions them is a threat to job security.

These days, accommodating the spirit of the age feels like a safer position than prophetic witness. Ultimately, however, doing so ends up driving out the Spirit. The most commonly cited reason is some version of the mission, such as “reaching the lost,” “serving our community,” or “loving our neighbor.”

Michael Clary is a family man, church planter, and pastor. He is the author of “God’s Good Design”. Find his Substack blog below: