There's been some talk lately about the dangers of being part of the institutional church. It's certainly not an ideal environment for men. But how did things get this way? There's actually a cyclical pattern that has been occurring throughout most of church history. Here it is:

(1) A VISIONARY: A man with a vision rises up. He begins living it out, modeling his vision for the rest of the world.

(2) GROWTH: As people observe him, if his vision is powerful and worthwhile enough, they will start to follow him.

(3) ORGANIZATION: As enough growth happens, there is a need to add some degree of structure so that those on the fringe edges of the expansion of the movement retain the core elements of the vision itself, lest it be lost in a large game of telephone from the visionary to someone else to someone else to someone else, etc. on down the line.

(4) INSTITUTIONALIZATION: The line is blurred between the vision and the organization and leadership takes the position that they are one and the same. Accordingly, advancing the institution becomes the means of advancing the vision. People begin joining not for the purpose of adopting the vision, but to identify with what the institution allegedly stands for. The leaders gradually reallocate resources (time, manpower, finances, etc.) from the vision toward operational efficiency of the institution in order to maintain members and recruit new ones. The new recruits are rarely trained to adopt the vision for themselves; they are trained to find more recruits for the institution because the institution itself is now the vision as the leaders see them as one and the same. The primary driving force of carrying out the "vision" is the leadership itself and not the people, who otherwise see themselves as existing to support the leaders (again, because their primary interest is identification with the institution, not reorienting their lives toward a new vision, although maintaining that identity does involve a reorienting of one's life in some capacity too).

(5) RECYCLE: At some point, someone will determine that the original vision and the institution are no longer aligned or that the institution isn't doing enough to address a "new vision." A conflict occurs causing the following: (1) some people agree and follow the new visionary who starts the process all over again, or (2) the institution goes back to its roots for a brief time, reminding everyone why they're "right" for staying. The institution also usually begins utilizing secular tactics (bribery, fear, cultural appeasement, etc.) to keep people in the institution and continue drawing new people in, while rationalizing some consistency between this and the original vision (it is now more akin to a corporation than a church). Examples of this conduct include: "If you go with them you will be condemned to hell, so you'd better stay!" or "They were just over-zealous fundamentalists and we're glad they're weeded out; don't worry, world, we're not as bad as them, you'll like it here."

THE PATTERN IN ACTION

This pattern happens both on a micro and macro scale. I see this going on in individual churches. For example, my own church right now started with a pastor who met with a few people in his home, and it grew until he eventually had to start organizing a meeting place, scheduling a set time, etc. in order to facilitate that growth. It is now teetering into institutionalization, as the church has made an intentional pronouncement (in this last month) that its focus will no longer be on organic relationships, but on "systems and processes" as the means by which the church will continue to grow, arguing that nature proves God's intent is to operate through systems and processes, such as mitosis and photosynthesis and oxidation and all kinds of other natural, God-created phenomena.

It also happens on a denominational level. For example, John Wesley had a vision and people started following. He organized into the Methodist church. Some people within that church concluded that the "systems and processes" were running the show and the influence of the Holy Spirit was dwindling, so a guy named Phineas Bresee, with a few others, became a new visionary and started the cycle all over again with a greater emphasis on the Holy Spirit's work in the church.

Then it also happens on a macro level. Jesus had a vision: get the Good News to the nations through a lifestyle of disciple-making. He himself was the good news and modeled a disciple-making lifestyle and people followed everywhere he went. He quickly started preaching about the "Kingdom of Heaven" on earth, which was the church - the organizational structure that would carry on his work after his ascent. That church, over time (and rather quickly, I'd suggest) institutionalized, exchanging the vision of disciple-making for the vision of church-building, suggesting that these are actually one and the same. The "recycle" phase has happened twice on a macro level: first in 1054 when the orthodox split away and again in 1517 when the reformation began.

I've re-worded this from how I typically write it in order to be as sensitive to my Cathodox friends as humanly possible, who generally continue to glorify institutionalization. As a Protestant, I don't understand this concept, and it makes sense that I cheer on the visionaries who are constantly pulling people back to what I believe Jesus modeled for us. Nevertheless, that's a debate I don't care to get into here (Cathodox v. Protestant) and any such comments will be removed from this thread as off-topic.

RP DOES IT TOO

Now, the church is not the only one to follow this pattern. It happens in the secular world too. Some PUA was having success (visionary) and people started learning from him (growth). Eventually it turned into a reddit community. That community was more interested in maintaining its structure than incorporating a new vision, so TRP was born ... and it grew and developed a structure of its own that didn't incorporate a vision for married people, so MRP was born ... and it grew and developed a structure of its own that didn't incorporate a vision for Christians to prioritize our faith as a broader context within which our sexuality would be expressed, and so RPC was born. Will it happen again? Probably. I have no idea when ... it could be a few months or a few years or a few decades ... who knows. All I can say is that this cycle always repeats. It always perpetuates itself.

But what I do know for certain is that the core of the Gospel has endured throughout time and I am confident that the vision for disciple-making, which has been lost by the institutionalized church, must be restored if we are to see the nations reached with the Gospel.

FEMINIZATION

The most concerning aspect of any of this is the culturalization that happens during the institutionalization and recycle phases. Specifically, when there is a distinct split between advancing the vision and advancing the institution (which are not always aligned), institutions will always favor the institution itself over the vision. They reason that the vision could not be carried out if the vision died, so there has to be some balance. Unfortunately, this is not what Jesus modeled for us.

Over time, especially in the most recent century, there has been a clear trend away God in most first world countries. Churches are now seen as the enemy because they stand against culturally accepted ideologies. How does the church respond? Well, those that are in the visionary, growth, or organization phases don't care - they keep doing their thing, standing strong. Those who have institutionalized have often not been training their members to carry on the vision of discipleship, so their numbers started to decline. How do they keep it up? They culturalize themselves. They say, "Hey, look, we're actually cool with those ideologies now. We might not agree with everything, but we'll adopt all of your biggest concerns and that way you can still go to heaven without giving up the ideologies most important to you ... and if you don't, then you can go to hell. But hey, that's your choice."

Sure enough, feminism was one of those ideologies that most churches adopted. But what is truly terrifying is that the new visionaries that are rising up from these institutions to start fresh are not abandoning this cultural thorn in the church's side. It makes sense that the visionary will draw from the institution he's leaving as a source of inspiration. After all, it was his home for so long and he loved everything about it "except these few things," which are the focal point of the new vision. If feminism isn't one of those few things he's specifically trying to change, it stands to follow that it will be carried over into the things he's adopting into the new movement.

As alluded to in the last section, Christian bloggers in the manosphere are attempting to be the new visionaries, and RPC attempts to do this on a communal level. There has been a lot of growth - RPC having reached over 600 subscribers in only 7 months, and people like Dalrock having thousands of readers. I can't say we've done much to organize (as compared with the MRA's level of organization, for example), but that makes sense given the comparatively underwhelming minority of people we have behind us at this time. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to see some traction in the effort to remove feminization from the church - and I encourage you all to do your part in carrying on that vision in both bold and tactful ways.