| Well ... I'm not sure what the question is but I can sure comment on
the "opulence" of some houses of worship.
When I was a kid I remember well the white wood frame churches out in
the country. No air conditioning, an out of tune organ or piano, no
microphone, perpetually in need of paint, park_where_you_can, and the
little cemetery out back ...
Those are the memories of my childhood and the "church" that I really
liked.
Then, when we started going to the "city" churches I felt VERY out of
place with the mega-dollar pipe organs ... TV cameras ... sound systems
that would make Elvis envious ... etc ....
Sure, some of this is necessary as churches grow ... but ... there's a
side of me that always wondered just why so bloomin' much money is
spent on things that *I* always thought unnecessary or ... extravagant.
Not too dissimilar from some government spending today?
Every time I turned around they were asking for money ... I wanted to
say "Do you really need the jillion dollar sound system that you just
bought?" .. but ... obviously didn't ... daddy would have slapped me
'side the head.
There's a "relationship" between this opulence that the base note
alludes to and my current pseudo-desire to go to church. I'm not
looking forward to the large congregations, extravagant buildings, etc
... hey .. perhaps I'd best venture out into the country and see if I
can locate the white frame building ... perpetually in need of paint
... an out of tune piano ... ?
Bubba
[Even after we started going to the city churches ... my brother and I
would go to the "black" churches in the country, crawl *under* the
church (in the early 60s there's no way two white boys could be caught
in a black church) - so that we could listen to the music!! How I love
it to this day ... what precious, fond, memories ....]
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| The Roman Catholic Church understands her priorities.
The Roman Catholic Church conducts worship in churches, education in
schools throughout the United States, healing in hospitals, hospices
for people afflicated with AIDS, and care for the elderly in nursing
homes, and many other services.
The Vatican and most units of the Church have been operating at a small
deficit or at balance. No parish or diocese is accumulating a huge
surplus that I am aware of.
Involuntary poverty is a great evil especially so when the economic
system and political is not based on personal liberty as it is in most
of the third world.
But the offering up of one's wealth for the benefit of worship is a
good thing. Great love of God will inspire great love of neighbor:
that is the spiritual message of St. Francis Assisi and Mother Theresa.
The apostle who urged that the perfume "wasted" on Jesus be sold to
help the poor was Judas Iscariot (Jn 12:4)
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