Underneath every specific dysfunction of the church there's one engine, whether the dysfunction is the passive congregation, the celebrity leader, the building that eats the budget, or the metrics that reward the wrong thing. Jesus named that engine as the cause of unbelief.

How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? (John 5:44)

How can ye believe asks what these people are able to do, which is a different question from what they want. You might read the verse as calling those who seek honour from each other wicked. Jesus says they are unable to believe. That makes the pursuit of human honour the mechanism of unbelief instead of one more sin alongside it.

Why honour blocks belief

To believe is to receive something you didn't produce. A believer depends, is given to, and is indebted. Faith is receptive. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? (1 Corinthians 4:7).

To seek honour from men is the opposite posture, the work of producing an impression, managing a reputation and earning a standing. That work is transactional and self-authored. A person whose fundamental orientation is toward the honour that comes from others is oriented away from the posture that receiving requires. He's busy building; faith is empty hands.

Jesus can say how can ye because the two postures exclude each other. The honour Jesus points to instead, the honour that cometh from God only, is conferred and given. Nobody earns it or competes for it. It's the one honour that doesn't require producing anything.

The rulers who believed and could not confess

John gives the mechanism a case study.

Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. (John 12:42-43)

Many believed. The belief was there. They did not confess. The honour economy silenced it. Each ruler weighed the cost of speaking (expulsion, loss of standing) against the cost of silence, and chose silence. Because each one chose it privately, none of them knew the others believed too. A group in which many privately believe and none publicly confess, because each fears the standing of the rest, is a group ruled entirely by honour.

That's a description of a great many congregations. They'll confess who Christ is. Where they go quiet is on every question where speaking would cost standing.

Matthew 6: the receipt

Jesus's most sustained treatment of the honour economy, the Sermon on the Mount, contains a technical term that translations flatten.

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. (Matthew 6:1-2)

They have their reward. The Greek is apechousin, a commercial word, the one stamped on a receipt to mean paid in full. The person who does his religion for human honour receives human honour, at which point the account is closed. He was paid what he sought; there's nothing further owed. Three times in the chapter, over alms, prayer and fasting, Jesus stamps the receipt.

The honour economy fits in that one word. It is an economy, and it does pay, but in a currency that's exhausted at the moment of receipt, so that the person who lives on it must go back for more, every day, forever.

Seating, salutation, title

In Matthew 23 Jesus names the three currencies of the religious honour economy.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men... And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. (Matthew 23:5-7)

Seating is where you sit, and who sits below you. Salutation is being greeted publicly and recognized. Title is being called by an honorific. Every religious institution since has run on the same three, and they show up as the platform, the acknowledgment, and the "Reverend" or "Pastor" or "Doctor." Jesus forbids the titles outright to his own disciples, be not ye called Rabbi... neither be ye called masters (23:8-10), and he reverses the seating, since he that is greatest among you shall be your servant (23:11).

Diotrephes

The New Testament's one named example of the honour economy inside a church is brief and devastating.

I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not... prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. (3 John 9-10)

Who loveth to have the preeminence. In Greek that is one word, philoproteuon, love-of-being-first. Within two verses it has led him to reject the apostle, slander him, refuse hospitality to the brethren, forbid others to offer it, and expel those who do. The love of first place produces, in sequence, the rejection of correction, the control of who is welcome, and exclusion. In one man John names only once, you can see the whole leadership crisis of the modern church.

Vainglory and its daughters

The medieval theologians called this vice vainglory, the disordered desire for honour, and treated it as a capital vice, meaning a sin that gives birth to others. The daughters Aquinas lists read like a diagnosis of the modern church: boasting; the craving for novelty (because new things attract attention); obstinacy (because backing down loses face); contention (because being right is a form of standing); discord; disobedience (because submitting costs preeminence); and hypocrisy (because the appearance is what pays).

I'll stay with the craving for novelty for a moment. A church driven by honour must constantly produce something new (a new series, a new program, a new building, a new initiative), because attention is the currency and attention requires novelty. The design, by contrast, is boring, with its daily bread, its one another, the same faces and the same table. It pays nothing in honour. So it's hard to sustain in an honour economy, which keeps replacing it with something that gets noticed.

Naming your court

Every person seeks honour from somewhere, so the only question is where it comes from. Jesus's word is the honour that cometh from God only, and the practical discipline is to name your court, the audience whose approval you're actually performing for.

A pastor's court may be other pastors, or the denominational leadership, or the people who fill the front rows and the offering plate. A member may be performing for the leadership, the respected families or an online audience. For a congregation as a whole it may be the community's opinion, the growth charts or the conference circuit.

Name the court. Then ask whether it's the one Jesus named. If it isn't, the receipt has been stamped and they have their reward. The belief that requires empty hands has been made impossible without anyone noticing.

The uncomfortable application

This article is itself honour-bearing. Anyone who teaches about the honour economy is at risk of being honoured for it. The discipline that diagnoses the engine can run on the engine.

So the last test is the one Jesus gave for alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth (Matthew 6:3). Do the recovery work in a way that can't be seen. Bestow honour on the unhonoured and take none for it. Serve at the table nobody is watching. When someone offers the receipt (the platform, the acknowledgment, the title), decline it so that the account with the Father stays open.

Jesus's question was How can ye believe? We believe by seeking the honour that comes from God only, which costs everything the honour economy pays in and is the only currency that doesn't run out.