|
The theory has been that churches and schools and other non-profit institutions provide services to the community that would otherwise have to be paid by tax dollars. Whoever set up this tradition could not have foreseen the total information environment of the suburban fundamentalist churches, which do very little for the community and a lot for keeping their members marching in lockstep.
That theory is good, but in fact I don't see the churches providing many services that otherwise would be paid for with tax dollars. In fact, they seem to be setting up their services in such a way that they are able to receive tax dollars to support them, as with the Catholic hospitals and social services. There are sometimes church "committees" consisting of volunteers who donate clothes or household goods... things like that... but these kinds of things are pretty much small time operations. Any time I've ever attended a Christian service, the sermons I hear are teaching about the spiritual "mysteries of faith" or talking about the plans for the new building fund. It used to be that the parochial schools were run with the money from the Sunday collection plate, but any more, even that has changed. You have to pay tuition nowadays, in addition to whatever comes from parish funds.
Still, I think there's plenty of money out there in the congregations. As you note, the fundamentalist churches seem to be able to pull in the large donations. Problem is that they appeal to greed a lot of time. They tell people that whatever they give will be returned to them tenfold, so people give $100. in hopes of getting $1,000. and hope seems to keep them going through quite a few generous donations. So where is the fundamentalist church when that generous congregant is homeless? Nowhere to be found, it seems.
Of course churches need to pay their electric bill, but that bill isn't supposed to be large because of the holiday light display the church puts on. If it's large, maybe it ought to be large because the church is sheltering the homeless in the building when there aren't services going on, eh?
|