Why We Need Institutions | A Conversation with Yuval Levin

How can the Church remain faithful and hopeful amid institutional decline? This week on The Cartographers, Russell Moore sits down with Bryce and Ashley to discuss the relationship between institutional belonging and Christian formation, how congregations can model the gospel by bearing one another's burdens, and why healthy churches require a sense of shared responsibility and long-term hope.

How do institutions form us into people capable of meaningful action? This week, Yuval Levin joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss how true change requires institutional formation, why formative friction is necessary for personal and communal growth, and how focusing on our roles within institutions is the first step toward cultural reform.

Welcome back! On our new series of The Cartographers, we are exploring Good Institutions: what institutions are, why they matter, and how they are fundamental in shaping and connecting the individuals and communities within them. In this series, Bryce and Ashley consider the institutions that make up our society, the challenges they are facing today, how we belong together, and what it looks like for the Church to build institutions that foster belonging and human flourishing.

What is charisma, and what is the church’s role in navigating the charisma-driven ecosystem? This week, Molly Worthen joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss the Reformation’s historical impact on individualism and leadership, how stories invite communities into larger narratives, and the influence of charismatic leadership on American evangelical society. 

How can we help people imagine a different way of living? This week, David Zahl joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss the repercussions of seculosity in the way we relate to performance, how community points to a bigger mission than our own wants, and how language and stories can offer a fresh way of engaging with issues in Christian spaces.  

What is the beauty and dignity of dependence? This week, Leah Libresco Sargeant joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss how individualism has created an illusion of autonomy that contradicts our identity as children of God, our need to see our strengths and crosses as fruitful because of God’s power, and the stories and images in the Bible that depict our dependence on God and on others. 

What does it mean to not belong to ourselves? This week, Alan Noble joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss the consequences of striving for self-fulfillment and self-sufficiency in our society, the need for community for individuals’ stories to flourish, and the assurance that our identity rests in the loving gaze of our Father.

How can a robust understanding of our finitude help counter the dangers of individualism? This week, Kelly Kapic joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss how trinitarian theology can deepen our understanding of personhood, how suffering can teach us dependence on God and others, and the effects of technology on our relationship with the world around us.

What are the consequences of forgetting what it means to be human? This week, Carl Trueman joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss what it means for humans to be made in the image of God, how community and hospitality can restore our sense of the imago dei, and the acts of consecration that hold the tension of our agency as individuals and our responsibility to the Body.

What does the self mean for a Christian identity? This week, Angela Franks joins Bryce and Ashley to discuss identity in individuality throughout Christian history and in the Church today, solid versus liquid identity formation, and how body-related issues are deeply connected to identity struggles.