Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Friday, November 05, 2004
The hurricanes that wreaked havoc in Florida in September visited their wrath on area churches as well. Many are damaged. Some are unusable.
The cost of repairing them is expensive and unfortunate. It might also be unnecessary and, arguably, even blasphemous.
Christians are meant to be a pilgrim people with no home in this world. Church buildings are essentially a contradiction to the Gospel.
The New Testament identifies Christians as a people on the move, on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land. Christian theology urges the faithful to be wary of becoming comfortable in this world. Certainly, no such people would build houses of worship reflecting a sense of permanence that denied the pilgrim's vocation.
Yet, many churches look like fortresses built to stand forever. Expensive to build, exorbitant to maintain, they divert extraordinary attention from the church's mission.
Some churchmen estimate that as much as 90 percent of all money raised by local churches is used to pay staff and maintain buildings. That leaves less money and less energy to do the church's work.
To be sure, Christianity and Judaism were the only early religions to house the faithful. Most ancient religions built shrines for the deity alone. The faithful gathered at the holy place to make sacrifice unprotected from the elements.
Christian and Jewish followers were housed so that they could worship, study scripture and develop community. Many churches serve the poor and others from their buildings. While that is laudable, most of that work could be done more economically using other means.
The early church met in the homes of the faithful. The house church was the norm until the fourth century when Christianity became the emperor's religion. Then the church built structures worthy of a king's attention. Some argue that was the time when Christianity lost its way, gave up its pilgrim imagery and decided to settle in as privileged residents of the world it once renounced.
House churches may be impractical today given the size of many congregations, but most churches have fewer than 150 members. They might do well to give up their expensive buildings.
That would not satisfy many congregations. Most want their own digs. They enjoy taking inordinate and idolatrous pride in their property and spending accordingly.
They suffer from a blasphemous condition that some may call an edifice complex.
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