Stopping the Loss of Conservative Institutions
Editor’s note: This speech was delivered that the 2023 Repairing the Ruins Conference hosted by the Association of Classical Christian Schools.
The past decade has taught conservatives that we cannot rely on existing institutions. From the medical community to higher education, we have seen institutions forsake sanity, morality and fealty to their original, animating purpose.
Yet conservatives are not anti-institutional. We have learned from Charles Taylor that institutions are required to pass on truth and tradition from one generation to the next. The challenge arises when we consider the track record of institutions, their degradation over time. Princeton University is a ready example. Rooted in the Log College seminary of William Tennent the school developed into an important educational center for American Christian intellectuals. However, by the early 20th century the school embraced modernist theology which led to its current identity as a progressive-capture institution disgorging the most destructive ideas in the West into our civic life.
If conservatives are building, and we are, how to preserve what we build for posterity and their neighbors should be a ground-level concern. None of us wants to labor for another Princeton only to hand over to secularists for the propagation of their ideology. Schools are a ready test case for the question at hand: combating mission drift.
My interest in the question of how to build new, resilient institutions first led to a request I made to the headmaster of a classical Christian school my family had helped to start in 2007.
In 2019 I asked to address the school board. Like many conservatives at the time, I was reading Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds, which captured the animating energies of the moment. It was clear that Murray had identified the cultural forces at work, and it was equally evident that institutions like ours—Christian, Western, historic, and unapologetically right—were precisely what the spirit of the age despised. If one were to create a composite profile of the people most hated by the radicals who had captured places like Evergreen College, The New York Times, and even the Pentagon, it would resemble the colleagues, families, and students at our schools.
I presented this reality to our board because I did not believe that our relative isolation in a place like Middle Tennessee would shield us from the mob. One ill-timed social media post or article could ignite a crisis. My goal was to prepare them, urging them to envision a scenario where serving on the board exacted a deep personal cost. Drawing from Doug Wilson, I posed a central question: Would you cross a picket line to attend a board meeting? Would you respond with joy when calls flood your business, accusing you of associating with a “bigoted” organization? I warned that if such pressure would force a resignation, it would be better to step down ahead of time, lest it legitimize the critics during a real controversy.
The outcome was the resignation of one board member, who took issue with my critique of “systemic racism” and accused me and the headmaster of radicalism for rejecting its fashionable definition. For this I gave thanks to the Lord—this revealed a hidden weakness in a time of peace rather than crisis.
My experience leading institutions has primarily been in the local church, though there are clear parallels with classical Christian schools. While churches and schools differ, both require steadfastness amid controversy; both require knowing what you’re about before the storm comes, and getting in formation before battle.
In my second year as a full-time pastor, I watched every founding member leave over a decision I could not bend to their demands—seven of our top ten givers, including long-tenured deacons and a former state senator. His wife orchestrated a gossip campaign, spreading wild doctrinal accusations that reached new members and even friends unaware of the context.
More recently, as I have considered launching a classical Christian vocational college, my focus has turned to preventing institutional drift from founding commitments. Many ask how to achieve this, but few offer comprehensive answers. Conservative leaders today cannot afford to be peacetime administrators; they must cultivate institutional bravery. What follows draws from my reflections on this challenge, aiming to restate what many already know in stark terms and urge action—or, if unwilling, to step aside.
O’Sullivan’s Law and Institutional Identity
John O’Sullivan’s First Law of Organization (or, as some attribute it, Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics) states: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”1 To apply this explicitly: Conservative institutions must continually affirm their identity as enterprises unapologetically rooted in historic Christian faith and Western culture, aggressively maintain that identity, and remain unashamedly hostile toward the fashionable threats of our day.
Institutions Are Only as Strong as Their Documents
Foundational documents must be historic where possible, supplemented by resources like those from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). They should include formal statements on contemporary issues, distributed directly to stakeholders. For church-based institutions, these ideally come from elders; for independent ones, involve connected pastors in review.
Embrace a reactionary posture. As inheritors of an eternal faith and ancient Western tradition, we indict the toxic trends of modernity through our very existence. Yet, Christianity’s resources must confront current controversies. Loving our neighbor means challenging destructive lies; loving Christ means opposing what steals affections from Him.
Address hot-button issues by name—Critical Race Theory, Revoice, egalitarianism, the dangers of Big Tech and Disney. These are the battlegrounds. Position your institution as the proactive voice, framing opponents as reactions to your clarity. A comprehensive Christian paideia must engage and repel the regnant secular one.
Institutions Are Only as Strong as Their People
This applies not only to leaders but to the broader community, especially churches and elders. Attractional churches—think Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, Andy Stanley—foster misguided views of God’s governance, the church’s mission, and success metrics. Enroll from such churches if needed, but with safeguards to shepherd their members.
Cultivate deep affections for the true, good, and beautiful among leaders. Beyond this, foster a culture that rejoices in natural law and laughs—unwinsomely—at its perversions. Laughter is an underappreciated pedagogical tool, long weaponized against normies by figures like Jon Stewart and John Oliver. Yet, as Drag Queen Story Hour infiltrates civic life, we must notice its absurdity.
Scripture supports this: God laughs at the wicked (Psalm 37:12-15), Christ at nations rebelling against Him (Psalm 2). Wisdom laughs at folly’s calamity (Proverbs 1:24-27), and the Lord scorns the scornful (Proverbs 3:33-34). Elijah mocked Baal’s prophets, Christ derided Herod and Pharisees.
Sharon Hodde Miller critiques the idolatry of niceness: “Niceness is a false form of spiritual formation that has crept into the church… It is one of our generation’s favorite idols.”2 Published in Christianity Today in 2019, her words remind us that laughing at wickedness is not nice, but good. It resolves the tension in Proverbs about answering fools—offering a ladder out while inviting shared laughter, revealing moral compasses.
Recognize gender dynamics: Men often exhibit bravery outwardly, women inwardly. Make room for men with “rough edges”—preferring spine over manageability. At the board level, favor those willing to sacrifice thriving businesses for faithfulness over mere competence.
Institutions Are Only as Strong as Their Ambitions
Mortify desires for large enrollment, funding, or respect—these pull institutions toward unfaithfulness. Martin Vogel observes: “As an organization grows… its continued survival becomes confused with the purpose it was originally founded to deliver.”3
Nurture a strong immune system: rigorous enrollment, swift discipline. This requires slaying prestige ambitions, as they accelerate drift.
Avoid catering to the least committed—they betray in crises. Aim for faithfulness, not coolness.
Become self-credentialing, prioritizing demonstrated expertise over prestigious degrees, evaluated by institutional goals.4
Fear the right danger: not institutional death, but survival devoted to destroying your work (e.g., Princeton).
Refutation: Is This Approach Too Harsh?
Some may argue this is overly abrasive, lacking winsomeness. I disagree. Our work, even if a “long defeat” like Tolkien’s, brims with joy—stories, meals, laughs. Evangelical leaders err toward nuance, not black-and-white clarity. In conflicts, loyalty must favor one side; reflection shows which deserves it.
Conclusion
Conservative institutions must explicitly affirm their Christian and Western identity, aggressively defend it, and oppose fashionable threats.
Consider Tim Keller, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Anthony Bradley, Russell Moore, Michael Horton, Danny Akin, Thabiti Anyabwile, James K.A. Smith. Once invaluable, their works now gather dust; their organizations have drifted. Without vigilance, we risk becoming “Drag Queen Classical Schools”—externally intact, internally corrupted.
God bless your efforts. Keep up the good work.
