Battle Royale: Actions Versus Affiliations

Hello again, Shiloh!
As you've probably noticed, we've been placing a lot of emphasis on "ownership" in relation to our stewardship and spirituality. I've decided to go ahead and approach that from kind of a different angle this evening here at the Shiloh Stewardship Blog, using an idea of Carl's as a springboard of sorts. At Bible study, and probably at some point on Carl's blog (carlrobinson.blogspot.com), the idea keeps coming up about, "Why are religious people so mean?" This isn't a concept that applies exclusively to Christianity, but across all religions. This week, I've decided to try to take a stab at explaining some of my ideas on this problem.
I think it is fair to say that a good amount of these "mean" religious people can be explained by these individuals being "blinded by faith" if you will... However, this is not their faith in their God or any sort of spiritual faith that is blinding them... It is their faith in the institutional church. It is their faith in this organization that was created and is maintained by man. This institution that assures these individuals that, no matter what religious group the church may represent, the individuals have chosen the one, true path to salvation. Of all of the spiritual avenues that their lives could have taken them down, these individuals have all chosen the one, correct spiritual pathway. And the institution pumps them up as such. The institution tells the individuals that they are superior because they have made this excellent spiritual decision, and thus creates a structured hierarchy in the minds of the individuals in which they are superior to those who believe differently, or those they would even claim believe "wrongly." Thus, it could be said that the institutional church fuels these individuals to be so "mean."
Here at Shiloh, we look at things a bit differently. We see everyone of every faith as brothers and sisters, all working towards Kingdom though they may be working from different angles. It is our actions that define and develop our stewardship and our spirituality, not our religious affiliations. So we have to take back the power and the responsibility of managing our own stewardship away from an institution that tries to make us feel superior to our brothers and sisters, and realize that the responsibility falls on us, not the institutional church, to use our actions through stewardship to bring about Kingdom. We can no longer sit back and allow the church to tell the world what WE are all about. This is OUR stewardship. OUR actions. It is up to us to go out into the world, and bring about change and ultimately Kingdom. No longer can we check our spirituality at the door as we leave church on Sundays and then pick it back up on our way in a week later. It's time for change.
So what do you think Shiloh? Do we want to just sit back and wait for the institutional church to bring about Kingdom (because I'm pretty sure they have concerns higher up on their priority list) or are we going to take the responsibility to go out and live the word by serving the world?
Isn't it about time we took back OUR stewardship and OUR own spiritual development?

Justin