Here’s What Conservative Institutional Capture Looks Like
Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
If you are on the political right and want to change institutions, your best bet is to think like a private equity firm: take it over, restructure from the top, and be indifferent to the squawking about the changes. This isn’t always easy to do, of course. But as the case of state universities show, red state governments actually have the ability to do a lot of things they are not actually doing.
One of the principles I keep highlighting between left and right is asymmetry.
The left and right have different values, operate in different ways, and are in different positions in society.
Hence, if you are on the right, you have to remember that what worked for the left won’t work for you. You need to use different tactics.
Yes, there are some techniques that are available to anyone, but it doesn’t work to simply read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and think you can make those same rules work for you.
Today I want to highlight that institutional capture works completely differently for the right vs. the left.
The left seems to do well at burrowing into organizations, working their way into positions of authority or leverage, and then using those to transform the institution from the inside out.
People on the left typically don’t care about the actual mission of the organization. In fact, they frequently think the organization has a bad mission, and that it’s their job to change that. Hence, they can devote all of their efforts to institutional capture and transformation. Conservatives are often bad at stopping this because they are more interested in the mission than organizational politics.
This left approach is sometimes called the “long march through the institutions.”
Some people have advocated that conservatives try to do the same thing. However, it’s highly unlikely to work. For one thing, left controlled institutions are not dumb enough to let conservatives in the door, or allow them to do any sort of subversion. And by nature, few conservatives have the interest, conscience, or stomach for successfully capturing institutions from the inside.
However, there’s a right wing version of institutional capture. Rather than attempting a bottom up project of capture and infiltration, the right wing model is a top down restructuring of an institution modeled on a private equity approach.
The way someone on the right captures and restructures a failing institution is to take it over from the top, the way a private equity firm would buy out an underperforming company, and then reform the organization to function well and on mission.
I will highlight some examples of this.
The first is what Ron DeSantis is doing at New College of Florida (NCF). In many states, governors nominally control state universities because they appoint a majority of the board. But most of them stuff those boards full of milquetoast cronies who rubber stamp what the administration wants and even enthusiastically support the administration in empire building endeavors.
DeSantis saw an opportunity with NCF. It would be very politically challenging to try to shake up, say, Florida State. But NCF was a very small, liberal arts type public school without a high profile. Thus it was a good test bed for his approach.
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What is the Most Important Thing Taught in the Bible?
If you ever feel discouraged about your lack of progress in the Christian life, remember the words of 1 Corinthians 15. Let the words you find there bathe you once again as you reflect on Christ’s accomplishments, rather than focusing on your failures. He died and was buried in your place. Though you feel unworthy and condemned, in Christ you are graciously accepted and reconciled. And he not only bore your sin but was also raised again to new life, objectively—for you. It has already been accomplished.
If I were to ask you to write down the most important things taught in the Bible, what do you think you might include on your list? Worship, prayer, discipleship, faith, heaven, grace, the Trinity?
Now this next question is a little harder. Which of the topics that appear on your list would you end up placing at the very top? In other words, what is the most important topic in all of Scripture? Would you be able to come up with a single answer to that question, or do you think it’s just too difficult to rank biblical topics in this way?
Jesus himself said that some matters of the law were weightier than others.
You may be tempted by the thought that because the Bible is God’s inspired word, all its precepts are of equal weight and value. Yet, Jesus told the Pharisees, “You tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). Now of course it wasn’t that tithing mint, dill, and cumin were unimportant things, but according to Jesus they apparently carried less weight and significance when compared with the much more important themes such as justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
There is also another passage in Scripture where a lawyer asked Jesus which of the commandments found in the law of Moses was the greatest. And as you may recall, Jesus didn’t end up saying that all the commandments were of equal value and importance, but he instead cited the words of Deuteronomy chapter 6, which says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This he said, “is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:36-40).
There is an important distinction between the most important commandment in the Law and the most important thing in all of Scripture.
Perhaps, then, following Jesus, we could say that “loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength” is the most important thing in all of Scripture. Well, if we consider carefully the lawyer’s original question, he didn’t actually ask Jesus, “What is the most important thing in all of Scripture,” but rather, “What is the most important commandment recorded in the Law of Moses?” This, as we’ll see, is an important distinction.
The thing we should notice at this point, however, is that Jesus didn’t seem to have any difficulty ranking various biblical themes in the order of their importance. And so, in light of this, what do you think every Christian should place at the very top of their list? What biblical idea should be considered the thing of first importance?
The apostle Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the most important thing in all of Scripture—the gospel.
Thankfully, we don’t have to go through the difficult process of weighing and comparing all the doctrines of the Bible in an attempt to answer this question, since the apostle Paul has already done the heavy lifting for us in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 15:Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures… (1 Cor. 15:1-4)
According to verse 1, Paul makes clear that he is writing to the Corinthians in order to remind them of the gospel of Jesus.
In many churches today the focus ends up drifting away from the gospel to other things.
Now, I’m convinced that in far too many churches in our day the gospel appears to be taken for granted. And because it’s something that many pastors simply assume that everyone already knows, over time our focus ends up drifting away to other things—things that are more practical, relevant and me-centered.
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We Can Know Who Jesus is by Observing What He Did
Jesus is described as the Word, who is God. “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). When asked for evidence of his identity, Jesus—the creator of space, time, matter, and the spiritual realm—performed miracles showing his power over space, time, matter, and the spiritual realm.
“Can I see some ID?” We get this question a lot. We all have many kinds of ID that verify who we are by our eye color, height, weight, where we were born, where we live, and our family of origin. Verifying a human’s identity is simple if you have the right documents, but how would God verify his identity to humans?
Jesus has something to say about this: “The works which the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works that I do—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me” (John 5:36).
Jesus claims that the works he does, the signs and wonders, verify his identity. But how do they do this?
To understand what the miracles performed by Jesus prove about his identity, we need to look at the types of miracles he performed.
The God described in the Scriptures is said to be omnipresent. This big theological term simply means that God is cognitively aware of all things in his creation. Basically, nothing happens that God doesn’t know about because he isn’t limited by geographical space. Jesus performed miracles showing he was aware of things happening away from his physical presence.
In John 1:47–49, Nathaniel comes to meet Jesus, and Jesus says Nathaniel is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Perplexed, Nathaniel asks how Jesus knows this, and Jesus replies, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” This statement shocks Nathaniel, to which he replies, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” Nathaniel was amazed at Jesus’ knowledge of his character and whereabouts because Jesus wasn’t physically present at the fig tree.
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The Ascension
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Jesus says that their hearts will not simply be touched by sorrow or grief or disappointment, but there will be a fullness of sorrow that saturates the chambers of their hearts. They will be overcome with grief. Their mourning will reach the limits of its human capacity. But Jesus says the condition that they will experience will be temporary, that the sense of abandonment they may feel for a moment will give way to unspeakable joy.These men had spent three years in a state of unspeakable joy. They had witnessed what no human beings before them had ever seen in the entire course of history. Their eyes peered openly at things angels themselves longed to look into but were unable. Their ears heard what ancient saints had a fierce desire to hear with their own ears. These men were the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. They were His students. They were His companions. Where He went, they went. What He said, they heard. What He did, they saw with their own eyes. These were the original eyewitnesses of the earthly ministry of the Son of God.
But one day, these men heard from the lips of their teacher the worst of all possible news. Jesus told them that He was leaving them. He told them that the days of their intimate companionship in this world were coming to a hasty end. Imagine the shock and profound panic that filled the hearts of these disciples when Jesus said that it was just about over.
In John 16 we read what Jesus said:
A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.”
“Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, “A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me”? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you’ ” (John 16:16–22).
Just shortly before this enigmatic statement, Jesus had said to His disciples:
But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:5–7)
In the first instance, Jesus says that their hearts will not simply be touched by sorrow or grief or disappointment, but there will be a fullness of sorrow that saturates the chambers of their hearts.
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