Organizing Spirit: Communities, Movements, Institutions

This paper explores the pneumatological-sociological picture of the Holy Spirit that appears in much contemporary theology, in which the Spirit is strongly associated with local communities and social movements, and decidely not with "institutions" (complex formal organizations). This picture is elaborated through reference to several examples and illuminated by a discussion of its socio-political context. The picture fits a neoliberal context in which national and international political economies are protected from democratic contestation. The paper also responds to moral, political, and theological worries about institutions in light of concerns that the neglect of institutions undermines resistance to neoliberalism. Finally, an alternative picture is sketched in which human "ritual play" generates a variety of organizational forms that potentially participate in the Spirit.