What Could Be Done but for the Money of God

While Lazarus Waits

”The love of money’s the root of all evil,”

The apostle of Christ did say.

”But this money’s for God,”

Said the Church, the fraud,

As She stole it all away.

In the minute that it took me to write this limerick, a dozen people starved to death. 25,000 people will starve to death today, and 9,000,000 more will join them this year. Again this year, 15,000,000 people will be forcefully evicted from their homes, joining the 1,600,000,000 living in inadequate housing conditions;8,000,000 will die from lack of adequate health care; and 3,500,000 will die from lack of clean water.

In the midst of the endless suffering I heard Jesus Christ say ”go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor.” I saw a few disciples do as he told, but – a strange thing – many more seem to have ignored the injunction.

But where are they, the lion’s share of those disciples of Christ? In Romania, the Eastern Orthodox are constructing The People’s Salvation Cathedral for $200,000,000;in Spain the Catholics, after 150 years of construction, are still assembling the Sagrada Fam´ılia with a yearly expenditure of $28,000,000;and just recently in the United States, the protestants completed construction of their $130,000,000 First Baptist Church campus. And need I mention anything beyond the 2000 protestant churches around the world that are individually worth over $30,000,000?^–Where are the disciples of Christ? They are spending most vigorously.

I recall a story from Jesus about a rich man who every day outside his gate passed by the sick and hungry beggar Lazarus, and each time he passed by he did nothing to help him. When the rich man died he awoke in Hades. Begging for mercy, he was told ”remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.”And yet, despite Christ’s warning, the first-world Christian so often lives as though others’ suffering in this life didn’t matter.

”Heaven or Hell is all you need worry,”

Says the vicar and the reverend.

But Lazarus in dearth

Has Hell on this earth,

While the rich man has his Heaven.

And another dozen starve to death. I have listed a myriad of utterly horrifying facts and statistics in our introduction thus far. But statistics at the end of the day just mesh together into more numbers on a page. What truly moves us is the horror experienced in the sights, sounds, smells, pains of reality.

In 1993 the journalist Kevin Carter traveled to the famine-ridden Sudan, where he captured the famous photograph ”The Struggling Girl.” A young boy, thought initially to be a girl since malnourishment had stripped any likeness of gendered features, lies hunched in the dirt. Facedown, arms and legs mere bones, ribcage protruding and belly swollen from starvation. A vulture stands several feet away, waiting out the minutes until the child dies so he can feast. Published in The New York Times later that year, Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for this photograph. Four months later he killed himself. This is confrontation with suffering.

Lazarus and The Struggling Girl alike – the 25,000 daily – as these children starve I see the sumptuous peaks and arches of the $30,000,000 church buildings towering above them. And each Sunday as the service ends and everyone leaves to their homes having received their community, their concert and their comforting message, I see the collective rich man passing by Lazarus once more.

But enough poeticism. We must approach this issue in a more analytical nature. Only, as we proceed remember Christ’s story of the rich man and Lazarus. Remember the image of The Struggling Girl.

The stage is set and our scene is laid out before us. We arrive at the question that I hope to both adequately ask and adequately answer in this book. With the extraordinarily many on Earth who go without food, water, clothing or shelter, and with the injunction of self-sacrifice which Christ commands, how is it that the Church continues to spend such a great deal of money on Her own infrastructure rather than using this money to help those who are suffering; and is this spending a greatly corrupt practice that ought to be abandoned?

This is not a radical inquiry. John the Baptist said to the people ”If you have extra clothes, you should share with those who have none. And if you have extra food, you should do the same.” The Church has far more in excess than clothes and food. 

The Best Candidate

In my impending arguments I will direct my attention solely towards the protestants. The primary reason for this is that, of the three main divisions of Christendom, protestantism is ”the most accessible” for reception of the message. To understand the reasoning for this, we must first briefly discuss what is the lifeblood of the other two Churches – the Catholic and Orthodox – what is the fundamental marrow of each: the Mystical and the Political.

The Mystical is that which gifts to the Church an enigmatic nature of the divine. It is esoteric, ethereal and other-worldly – a breathing and pulsing of mystery through Her blood. These are vague whisperings of theophanic intrigue; but in practice, the Mystical is the hermitage. It is the monastery, the convent, and the humble dwelling of those set apart from the world. It is embodied by many more on Ash Wednesday and through Lent, as the masses meditate on Jesus and the events leading to his crucifixion. But very few can always be like the ancient desert fathers, so ascetic and introspective. Outside of isolated events, the spirit of the divine is left to be partaken inside the monasteries. This Mystical essence of the Church, though, is an icon to the parishioner, seen and persuading throughout the Body. ”Here within us lie the secrets of life and the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven,” whisper the sacred artworks and steeples, the priestly robes and garments, and the communion of body and blood exclusive to those within. And by holding the essence of the Mystical, Her authority of the Political is established and effectuated.

The Political essence is the establishment of dominion over the people and over the world. The Divine authority that the Church holds takes life and clutches at every last part of civilization – the social, the intellectual, the moral, the governmental. The Political is the Orthodox Church in modern-day Russia; it is the Catholic Church in sixteenth-century Germany; it is the Spanish Inquisition, The Persecution of Old Believers, and the divine right of kings. The Political is the destructive inbreeding of Church and State that shouts from on high ”The fear of the Lord is the fear of the Church! The fear of the Church is the fear of The Lord!” And so from Constantine until now, the Orthodox and Catholic churches have become institutions that far surpass mere religion. Bearing the face of Christ, they have outstretched their fist and subdued the people under their power.

The Political institutions of Orthodox and Catholic Christianity insist on their authoritative rule and right to bless and to curse. Their mystical power is enacted through the priests and fathers unto the laity; and this relationship establishes them as the access to God. But the protestant replies with the words of Christ: ”You are not to be called teacher, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.” And this response is the third essence, in which the protestants partake: the essence of the Individual. The essence of the Individual is a counter-response to the essence of the Political. The protestants would not be subdued by submitting to the Political Church; for they say that the Political Church is not the holder of the Mystical power, but rather that it is Jesus Christ, who gives the Holy Spirit. It is not the Church as an institution that shapes the Christian’s life, they say; but it is rather the Spirit of The Lord which is given freely to all believers. And if the Holy Spirit is given freely to all believers, then the Political Church has lost its authority, for it does not hold sway where it cannot claim divine power. So for the protestant, the essence of the Political is abolished, and the essence of the Individual supplants it. The outstretched fist and the world-conquering institution are reduced to rubble, and all that is left is the humble gathering of the believers, Individually free in Christ and Mystically imbued of The Spirit.

At least, this was the vision and the intention. By way of five centuries post-reformation, we have seen that the Political essence does not embed itself in the Church because the Catholics are particularly corruptible or because the Orthodox are particularly corruptible. No, the Political essence comes to embed itself in the Church because humankind itself is corruptible. And so it has embedded itself in the protestant church as well these past five hundred years. The protestants too shift away from essence of the Individual and the humble gathering of the believers. The protestants too seek Political intrigue and domineering rule. The protestants too waste vast amounts of money on pompous architectures and fleeting vanities.

But unlike The Orthodox and The Catholics, and the reason that I direct my impending arguments towards the protestants, is that they are not, well, ”The Protestants.” The essence of the Political has steeped a great deal into the protestant Church, but the essence of the Individual is still very present. There is greater opportunity and freedom for change and reform. While there is a plenitude of structure and hierarchy within, each congregation, and indeed each and every congregant, may enact and encourage change in the institution. I don’t dream so big as to effect revision across the entire protestant consortium. But one or a few within may be convinced to upheave their wealth and give it instead to those in need. And after all, the protestants have a history of teaching such. As the great reformer Martin Luther wrote: ”Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of Saint Peter.”

Selling the Basilica of Saint Peter

Upon the completion of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the building’s final architect estimated its total cost to be 46 million ducats, a contemporary price of well over 5 billion dollars. Pope Innocent XI, who commissioned architect Carlo Fontana to record the cost, ordered him not to release this information to the public, for fear that the insurmountable price would further stir up the protestants’ rancor against the Catholics. The Lutherans had already struck a chord with the people of Europe, and the laity were awakening to The Church’s rampant corruption. The disjunction of rich and poor that so shapes history was yet again in apotheosis.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has, of course, always been a gospel for the impoverished. ”Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” sound the words of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount; or elsewhere: ”It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” But somewhere along the way the ancient Church transcended willful poverty. As soon as Christianity overtook the pagan world and entered popular culture, it was polluted with the multitudinous wealthy who would have eternal life but would not have dearth. Continuing the many-hundred years down the line, this is where Catholicism found itself in the sixteenth century – a kingdom for the wealthy and prestigious, guised in holiness and piety.

A millennium’s power accumulated does not lend well to a religion intended upon poverty and humility. Saint Peter’s Basilica – this 5-billion-dollar proclamation of opulence and power – was never built as a monument to Saint Peter or to Christ; for their very natures on Earth would burgeon in opposition to such a proclamation. The Basilica was built as a monument to The Mother Church herself, just as Nebuchadnezzar built his golden image in the plains of Dura for everyone to gaze upon and bow down. Well The Mother Church’s tireless spending birthed Luther’s quandary: ”Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest statesman, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?”

I wonder the same alongside Luther, though of course the question is rhetorical. But at this point the reader may be thinking to themselves ”Why are you going on and on about the Catholics when you said that you would be focusing solely on protestantism? This corruption in the Catholic Church is precisely the reason that the protestants broke away in the first place.” And indeed the reader would be correct. While Christ is the cornerstone and foundational icon of Christianity, the sixteenth-century Catholics were the foundational icon of what went wrong in Christianity. And this has at last contextualized and brought us back around to the supremely consequential line from Luther ”the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of Saint Peter.” This was the inception of the ecclesial divorce.

The matter over which the protestants separated themselves from the Catholics was first and foremost a matter of The Mother Church’s greed. The Apostle Paul wrote to his spiritual son ”The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have  wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” His prophetic words spelled out the Church’s fall and the many pangs with which she would be pierced. And so, even as Christ taught his disciples: ”No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money,” so it was that those who would follow Christ could not serve money, and thus could not serve The Mother Church who clung so dearly to Her Basilica and to Her endless wealth. Thus the ecclesial divorce was contracted, and the newly formed protestant Church broke away in pursuit of the original Christian truth.

The New Foundation

Solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, sola Deo gloria, and sola scriptura. Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, glory to God alone, and scripture alone. These five core tenets formed the base of the new protestants’ beliefs as they separated from the Catholics. Sola gratia: the grace of God is the sustaining source of life which the Christian relies on. Solus Christus: it is only through Christ’s sacrificial death that the grace of God is made accessible. Sola fide: it is only faith in Christ by which the Christian receives this grace of life. Sola Deo gloria: the glory of God is the sole reason for which the Christian lives their life. Sola scriptura: The Holy Scriptures are the absolute authority and guidance by which the Christian lives their life. Solus Christus, sola gratia and sola fide tell the Christian the means by which they have life. Sola Deo gloria tells the Christian for what purpose they have life. And finally, sola scriptura tells the Christian the source of instruction by which they live out that purpose.

Undoubtedly thousands of literary works could be (and have been) written discussing the verbose theology nested in these tenets. But I will leave the metaphysical discussions behind for now. Each Christian can reason out and decide according to their own convictions the means by which they are saved and the consequences of salvation; the metaphysics can be as complex as a scholar’s analysis of substitutionary atonement, or as simple as a child’s prayer. This book, on the other hand, is completely and utterly this-worldly. What I mean to focus on is sola scriptura – how the Christian is instructed to live by way of The Holy Scriptures.

”All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” This is the edict that The Apostle Paul gave to his spiritual son Timothy, and this is the foundation of sola scriptura. And though protestant doctrine may differ in many ways from place to place, this foundation of their living remains almost universally the same, as it has for the past five centuries. The Scriptures guide the Christian’s life.

Here at last I believe I have adequately developed towards and explained the foundations of the protestant Teachings (at least panoramically). But as I have already stated, the arguments of this book are specifically directed towards the protestants. So then, why have I spent all this time retelling to the protestants what they already know? Regardless of what the protestants know or don’t know, what they practice is what carries weight; and so what I have written thus far has been written as a rebuke. For despite the authority of Scripture and the commands of Christ to which the protestants hold, they have woefully overlooked one of the most important and fundamental commands. As I wrote in the introduction, Jesus Christ taught that his followers should give what they have to the poor, and again I say: his followers have direly ignored the injunction.

The First Christians

I have been repeatedly saying that Christ’s followers have ignored his injunction of charity, and I keep hampering upon delving further into what I mean. But I’m afraid I must hamper just a little while longer; for there is one last thing we must look into before seeking a more detailed examination of the modern church’s lack of charity. We have been discussing The protestant Reformation, but now we must step back 1500 years more, to the very start of the Christian church – when the church was not reforming, but was rather just, well, forming.

What did this church look like under the leadership of the twelve apostles? Luke tells us in the book of Acts that the Christians ”devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.” This is the whole overarching summary that we get of how the first Christians lived.

What a stark contrast this early church is to the Catholic church in the time of the Reformation. While the latter hoarded their wealth away from the poor (one again calls to mind the description of ”the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest statesman”), the former sold what they owned to give to those in need. While the latter established Mystical Political domination through vast infrastructural developments and extensive spiritual hierarchies, the former met in public places and in homes and shared everything in common. Jesus said ”You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever desires to be first among you shall be your bondservant, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The leadership of the sixteenth-century Catholic Church was that of those wholly intended on serving themselves. The community of the first-century Christians was that wholly intended, like Jesus Christ, on serving the needy. 

In summary, we may call the earliest Church that church which most resembles how Christ taught his followers to abide: living in dearth, self-sacrificial, and generous givers to all in need. And now at last we can address the complaint that I have been hampering on: the complaint of how very unlike the earliest Christians – how very unlike Christ – our modern Church is.

Modern Protestantism: Ethos

When I say that the modern protestant Church is not alike to Christ, I am not referring to the clear-as-day, radical, raving, violent people of our time who are all too prevalent across the first world – the nominal fanatic who would strangle you with their cross necklace to teach you the fear of the Lord. I am not referring to the hate cults: those Westboro Baptists who make their careers by protesting the funerals of murdered homosexuals and burning Islamic texts. No, I am referring to the pious weekly church-goer – to the local elders of the Pentecostal church, to the Baptist pastor, to the priest of the Anglican gathering, to the many who fill their pews.

These conventional folk are the Christians to whom I address my complaint. They are pleasant and kind, polite and hospitable, quick to invite you to a church service. They are pure and virtuous, zealous and dedicated to the study of Scripture. They are the middle class and the wealthy, prosperous, clean and comfortable.

Now, the church comprised of these people – and most first-world protestant churches are – the church comprised of these people is a pleasant place to be. And how could it not be so? The atmosphere is friendly, the building is spotless, the music and lighting are immaculate, the seats are comfortable, and there will even be free tea and coffee. The staff are ready to serve you; it’s their job, in fact. And all of this pleasant atmosphere, from that of the gorgeous stained-glass Lutheran church windows to the large and lively Pentecostal sanctuaries, is financed by those lovely conventional Christian folk who attend these churches.

Does the church need new carpet? Tithing will finance it. Does the church need new music equipment and lighting? Tithing will finance it. Does the church need to hire a marketing director, or to construct a new prayer wing, or to build a whole new building that is bigger, sleeker and more comfortable than their current one? Tithing will finance it. And no one will complain; they will tithe happily. This is The Kingdom of God we’re talking about! What Christian would complain about making The Kingdom of God a better place to live? New flooring is better; state-of-the-art equipment is better; professional marketing outreach is better; bigger buildings and larger gatherings are better.

The Kingdom of God is seen as existing inside the church building. And so improvement and development of the church building is seen as improvement and development of The Kingdom of God. We recall the parable from Jesus Christ: ”The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” The modern protestant manifestation of this parable – growing the mustard seed into the garden tree – is growing the 20-person church building into the 2000-person church building.

There is a congregation nearby me who owned a beautiful and moderately-sized building of 22,000 square feet. In recent years, however, they decided that this building wasn’t large enough. So they bought a piece of land and built a new building from the ground up, more than double the size of their old building. This new church is located a mile away from their old one; it is located directly across the street from a different church gathering; and it is located less than a mile away from two other churches of the same denomination. When interviewed by local news about the construction of the new church building, the pastor and planner said ”We’re really grateful for the developer that’s saying, ’hey, we want to welcome a church in this community.’ It’s probably a welcome relief to a lot of people.” I’m not so sure that it’s a relief to have yet another church building added to the drove of 125 others within its 10-mile radius. But the conventional Christian mentality is that the mustard seed must grow, that church infrastructure must grow.

Personal anecdotes, however, will not suffice. One or two isolated incidents cannot properly convey the Christian ethos and this wasteful state of church infrastructure which is so prevalently approved and applauded. We must go farther and delve into the statistics of just how much is being spent on growing the mustard seed into a tree.

Modern Protestantism: Expense

In this book’s introduction I cited the statistic that there are over 2000 churches around the world individually worth more than $30,000,000.^–But indeed, many protestants themselves find the opulence of megachurches to be abominable. Surely then, it would be unfair to pretend that all protestants attend megachurches or that church buildings generally cost $30,000,000. I mustn’t straw-man those to whom my complaint is against. I don’t need to though. The complaint is justified enough against the financial norm: the median cost of an American church building.

At a very generously cautious estimate, the median cost of an American church building is $1,500,000. This does not include long-term development costs; this does not include day-to-day operational costs; this does not include staffing costs. $1,500,000 is the conservative estimate for the median cost of a church building – just the building and the land. And this cost is more than enough to be abysmal, more than enough to be aggrieved by, because there are more than 330,000 protestant church buildings in the United States alone.330,000 churches at an average cost of $1,500,000 comprise $495,000,000,000 of expense. Half a trillion dollars of church infrastructure in a single country. And almost half a trillion dollars of Christian waste in a single country.

Of course, I shouldn’t be so bold as to call it ”waste” without proper evidence. I certainly would never call half a trillion dollars of soup kitchens a waste; I would never call half a trillion dollars of battered women’s shelters a waste; nor would I ever call half a trillion dollars of warming centers a waste. These (very often Christian) infrastructures exist and actively function to feed the hungry, to protect the abused, and to shelter the homeless. These are fundamentally Christian practices which effectively help the needy. So if church buildings effectively functioned in similar ways and for similar purposes, I would be gravely mistaken to call them a ”waste” of expenditure.

Well then, do churches effectively function in such ways? Am I mistaken to call church buildings a waste – do they actually work as an effective source of help for the needy? In fact, up until this point I have been scrutinizing church buildings so very much, but I haven’t even asked the most basic question: what do church buildings actually do?

Corporate Worship

The neoliberal economic ideas of Milton Friedman shaped the entire mind of American business. In his famous essay A Friedman Doctrine he wrote: ”A corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires.” This quote and the essay to which it belongs are very often summed up and stated as ”An entity’s greatest responsibility lies in the satisfaction of the shareholders.”

An entity’s greatest responsibility lies in the satisfaction of the shareholders. We’ll revisit this Friedman Doctrine momentarily. For now, let’s return to this question ”What do church buildings actually do?”

Grace Communion International names the six functions of the church gathering to be Worship, Spiritual Disciplines, Discipleship, Fellowship, Service, and Evangelism. Most protestant churches would, I think, agree with these six functions as those that comprise the purpose of gathering. Some churches would rather name Worship as ”holy communion” and ”singing hymns to God”; some would name Spiritual Disciplines as ”prayer and study of the scriptures”; some would name ”Discipleship and Fellowship as ”community”; and some would name Service and Evangelism as ”ministry outreach”. But really all of these different descriptions that churches have for their purposes differ in name only.

As the church service commences each week, hymns are sung, announcements are given about community outreach opportunities, church news and finances, and ministry projects. Then a biblical message is given by a teacher, holy communion is partaken of, and more hymns are sung. At last a benediction is given, and after the service the gathering might share a meal together. I have visited many churches across many denominations over the years; and while the mode of operations may differ in one way or another from place to place, this aforementioned format essentially is The Format for a modern church service.

Now, this is all well and good – we see those aspects of Worship, Spiritual Disciplines, Discipleship, Fellowship – and these actions within The Format can be very religiously beneficial for many people. But out of all these actions, what requires a $1,500,000 building to accomplish? Of all these actions, what requires any infrastructure at all to accomplish?

Does Worship require infrastructure? When Jesus Christ was asked by the woman at the well where the proper place to worship was, he replied ”A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Or again recall to mind when King David made plans to build a temple for God. The prophet Samuel brought this message to him in response: ”This is what the Lord says: ’Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, ”Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’” The place where God is worshiped is insignificant, whether it be Jerusalem or Samaria, a grand temple or a weathered tent.

Do Spiritual Disciplines or Discipleship require infrastructure? Well, let’s look at the practices that constitute Spiritual Disciplines and Discipleship. Is prayer benefited by a large congregation inside a church? Christ told his followers ”When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Is a Bible study benefited by having a large gathering inside a church? If going beyond a small group, it is near impossible to have a proper intimate discussion about scripture; and a Bible study inevitably must become a sermon. So then, does a sermon require infrastructure? There is not a single sermon in the New Testament preached in a church building. In fact, the first known dedicated church building (converted from a house) didn’t come until 200 years after the life of Christ. Jesus and the holy Apostles taught on hillsides, in public squares and in houses.

Does Fellowship require infrastructure? Fellowship is nothing more than a spiritualized word for ”spending quality time together.” ”They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” As self-evident as this is, I see no need to make an extensive argument for it: sharing friendship and meaningful conversation does not require any sort of infrastructure. It only requires people.

It seems, then, apparent that neither Worship, nor Spiritual Disciplines, nor Discipleship, nor Fellowship require infrastructure to accomplish. That leaves us lastly with Service.

Now, I previously said that I would never call soup kitchens or battered women’s shelters or warming centers a waste. I would never call any infrastructure a waste which effectively and predominantly functions as a means of charitable work. And Service really is just another word for charitable work. This is admirable to be listed as one of the six core functions of the church gathering – truly the Christian ideal of Agape Love. Unfortunately, it is not much more than an ideal. I don’t say this lightly or anecdotally; it is statistically not much more than an ideal.

Three percent of church finances go to charitable work – not just international charity, but all types of charitable work combined. That’s only one percent more than churches spend on postage and office supplies. Despite the disgracefully low portion of the church’s money used to help others, this charitable work is generally a tremendous talking point for the congregation. Almost every week in church service, during the announcements an update is given about the church’s latest giving project – wells being built in Africa, backpacks being given to local schools, houses being built in South America! Meanwhile, little more financial effort is being put into the church’s charity work than making sure that the office has enough ballpoint pens.

Service, while (giving the benefit of a doubt) intended upon with a noble Christian motivation, is an output which is hardly produced in the church. The one function for which church infrastructure might be genuinely necessary is the function for which the church uses infrastructure and finance the least.

The soup kitchen is dedicated to providing food to the hungry; the battered women’s shelter is dedicated to providing protection for the abused; the warming center is dedicated to providing shelter and care for the homeless. But what is the church building dedicated to? If the church’s functions outside of Service – Worship, Spiritual Disciplines, Discipleship, Fellowship – don’t (as we have examined) require any church building to be accomplished; and if the one function of the Church which might possibly require a building for effective action, Service, is producing an abysmal three percent return; what’s the purpose? I ask again: What is the true purpose of the church building?

These six functions of the church that we have been discussing are the visible actions done each week. But inefficient, underutilized and otherwise unnecessary as these functions are within the building, we must look past the external, visible actions – not at what functions the church building is used for, but at its true purpose: why the church building exists in the manner it does today.

And now I bring forth the full realization of my complaint of how unlike Christ and the first Christians the modern church is: The true enacted purpose of the modern church within its walls is not to teach, or to provide refuge for those in need, or to provide charity to the community or the outside world. The purpose of the church is found not in Christ’s teachings, but in Friedman’s Corporate Doctrine. An entity’s greatest responsibility lies in the satisfaction of the shareholders. The purpose of the church lies in the satisfaction of its shareholders. The purpose of the church lies in making its congregation comfortable. 

Church of Friedman

My comparison between the modern church and corporate ideology isn’t unwarranted or even unusual in the least. protestant churches have intentionally been run as businesses since the 1950s and earlier. This isn’t a conspiracy theory or some sort of radical idea; it’s just a simple fact of how churches operate. In the United states, churches are legal corporations. They have board meetings, they generate profit, they compete with other churches for attendees, and they provide services to their congregation which people would otherwise pay for elsewhere. In fact, though we have been describing what protestant churches do in the summarization of the functions Worship, Spiritual Disciplines, Discipleship, Fellowship, Service, and Evangelism, what protestant churches do may just as easily be summarized in business terms: The church is a religious community center that provides weekly concerts and public speaking events.

Well, who are the shareholders of this community center, this corporation the church? A shareholder of a business is someone who holds stocks in that business. When the business is run successfully, the stock values increase, and in turn the shareholder’s personal wealth increases with it. This is what we mean by satisfaction of the shareholders. But churches are not publicly traded corporations; they don’t have stock, nor do they have shareholders of that stock. A church might grow as a business and achieve monumental success (recall the protestant ethos of growing the 20-person church building into the 2000person church building), but with that success doesn’t come an increase of value in some publicly traded ”church-stock.” No what the shareholders of a church have stake in is not a financial profit, but a profit of happiness. When a person purchases a membership at a community center, what they expect in return is a commensurately satisfying quality of services provided to them. So it is with those who give money to the church – the congregation. The congregation of the church are its shareholders, and the yield of profit to them is not monetary, but is rather the level of service which the church can provide to them.

On the other side we have the administrators of the church. Just as a business needs customers and investors, a church needs attendees and tithers. Every single person who walks through the doors of a church is a potential new congregant, a potential new customer. Tithing is, if not directly stated, certainly a presupposed expectation of people who attend a church regularly; so getting a new congregant means the church gains a likely new source of revenue. And so the administrators must work to gain new revenue streams, new congregants to keep the church functioning and growing.

To gain new congregants, a church must appeal to those who enter. Greeters at the door, childcare, free tea and coffee, a powerful preacher, emotionally moving music, theology that aligns with the views of the denomination. Whatever administrators set up in regards to these becomes the church’s value – what they have to offer to those who attend.

So the person seeking out a new church is bid on from place to place. One church offers moving music and an atmosphere of serenity and sanctity, another offers childcare and midweek game nights, another offers spiritual healings and glossolalia. And the highest bidder gains a new customer; the seeker has a certain need, the church has a certain value, and from this relationship an unspoken contract is formed: the exchange of community services for tithing.

Now, the vast surplus of churches in the world (see: 330,000 protestant church buildings in the United States alone) makes The protestant Church a jungle of competition. Not every congregation will last, because not every church administration can offer a competitive value of community services. And so just as it is in the corporate world, each church must compete for investors. These investors: the shareholders, the tithing congregants – they can easily leave the church at any point of discontent; there will be a better one waiting for them just down the road. So in this jungle of competition, the administration’s job, in order to keep the church running, is to keep the congregants happy: to bring value to the shareholders.

Is there really anything wrong with this symbiotic relationship between congregant and church though? The church offers the congregant services; the congregant tithes for the services offered; and so a community is established and enabled to persist within each church building, granting happiness to its congregants and perpetuity to its administration. This symbiotic corporate church relationship – let us call it Friedman’s Church: that neoliberal monument of capital and religion – it provides jobs for administration, happiness for congregants, funding for bigger, better, more beautiful cathedrals and places of worship. Friedman’s Church grows the Kingdom of God, and ensures its resilience by maintaining tithers via congregant satisfaction.

Well, in fact, this is exactly the problem: it ensures the Kingdom of God’s growth and resilience by maintaining tithers via congregant satisfaction. This model of the modern protestant church, Friedman’s Church, is not only fundamentally antagonistic towards the teachings of Christ, but it is impossible for it not to be fundamentally antagonistic towards the teachings of Christ. I understand that this is a bold and scathing claim. I certainly must justify the claim; and to do so, we must go back once again to revisit the sixteenth-century Catholic church.

New Indulgences

I stated in a previous chapter that the matter over which the protestants separated themselves from the Catholics was first and foremost a matter of the Catholic church’s greed. This is true, but more specifically the reason the protestants separated themselves from the Catholics in the German Protestant Reformation was over the issue of the selling of indulgences.

Indulgences had a long history, and took many forms throughout that history beginning in the third century; but as they became a greater and greater source of revenue for the Catholic Church starting in the 1400s, by the time of Martin Luther indulgences had essentially evolved into the financial purchasing of the forgiveness of evil deeds. What this effectively meant was that a person could buy the permission to sin. ”When the gold in the coffer rings, the rescued soul toward heaven springs” was the popular adage of the time.

Selling God’s forgiveness, to be purchased so that one could indulge their sins freely – this was a prized product for the laity. The purchasing of pleasure. So prized a product it was, in fact, that the sale of indulgences almost single-handedly financed the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

This use of indulgence sales for funding the construction of The Basilica was more than a financial option for The Church; to maintain Political power it was a financial necessity. ”Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest statesman, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?” Embedded in Luther’s quandary is the fundamental property of financial power: should the pope use his own money to fund the construction of the cathedral, his financials would be sacrificed, and thus his power would be sacrificed. The Church must maintain Her power. And so the impoverished laity must be used as the source of revenue. So then, rather than The Church being the source of help to the poor, the poor are instead the source of help to The Church. To fund Her expansion, the Church sweeps across the lands, absorbing all the finances of the poor by promising some invisible investment (the salvation of the soul and the pleasures promised within the indulgence) in exchange for the physical coin.

And so we see the system that the Catholic Church grew into: To propagate the expansion of the church, funds were required; to raise funds for expansion, financiers were required; to gain financiers, the Church need offer some enticing recompense; and what greater enticement could the Church offer than pleasures within the Kingdom of God? Certainly there are pleasures to be had outside the church; but pleasure outside the church means pleasure with damnation. Far better than that is what the church could offer: pleasure and salvation.

Pleasure in this sense – pleasure within what the indulgence granted – this pleasure could be made manifest through any of the acts of the flesh: ”drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” Certainly not so within the modern protestant church. No, pleasures of such likeness would undoubtedly be condemned as utterly wicked. But ”drunkenness, orgies, and the like”: these are the obvious pleasures, the dirty pleasures. The pleasures offered by the modern protestant church aren’t so dirty; really they’re quite clean-looking, quite well-kempt. The new product that the church is selling is the pleasure of comfort.

”In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” These words of Jesus Christ are comfort in the true Christian sense: spiritual comfort for the earthly difficulties the follower of Christ must face in life. This comfort is not the comfort to which I’m referring. The new product that the church is selling has been taken upon the advisory of Friedman’s Gospel: ”The great virtue of a free market system is that it only cares whether they can produce something people want to buy.” The free market of the church has learned and is now selling what people want to buy: physical earthly comfort, ”comfortableness.”

This ”comfortableness” comfort is woven into the very archetypal fabric of a modern protestant church building. I hark back to my description that the atmosphere is friendly, the building is spotless, the music and lighting are immaculate, the seats are comfortable, and there are drinks and desserts aplenty. This modern church building, this re-branded community center, this is the weekly indulgence that the church is selling. The Catholic Church was selling the indulgence of ”drunkenness, orgies, and the like” coupled with salvation; and in our own times now the protestant church is selling the indulgence of wealth and comfort coupled with salvation.

Following the path of Friedman, the church and Her free-market ways have established an inescapable and unchangeable system of selling the new indulgences. To obtain and maintain property, the church must be run as a business. To succeed as a business, the church must obtain customers. To obtain customers, the church must have something of appeal to offer. And at last, since the teachings of Christ are inherently unpleasant in this life (”Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”), the church must offer something other than the teachings of Christ. And so in the spirit of Friedman, and reincarnating the past idea of the Catholic Church, the new product: the new indulgence of comfort is peddled to the masses so that the modern protestant church can vegetate.

A Burning Bush

Is this really what Christianity is supposed to be? When we look at the modern protestant church across the first-world, it looks almost entirely more alike to the sixteenth-century Catholic church than to the early church of Christ’s Apostles. A luridly marketable peddler of indulgences rather than a humble gathering of love and charity.

The culmination of all these sins of the church is embodied in Her endless spending on property and augmentations. The greater churches absorb or stamp out the lesser. In endless competition, the powerful crush the weak by way of their more palatable and sumptuous offerings and embellishments. As we have seen already, this is inevitable. In the Church of Friedman, the most powerful and the most palatable will always be victorious.

But in Christ’s church, ”the last will be first, and the first will be last.” And to those basking in the wealth of the modern church, he proclaims: ”You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” If Christ’s church still exists, it is not within the walls of these million-dollar congeniality projects we call protestant church buildings; it is in the hearts of the humble and the poor. ”Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

The modern protestant church is the very antithesis of the humble and the poor. As the smallest of churches are absorbed by the largest, the humblest of churches become part of the corporate institution. Church gatherings either adapt to the competitive environment and become a tithing-motivated community center of religious comfort, or they collapse and are ingested by another tithing-motivated community center of religious comfort. The protestant church, as it is, is destined to fail. It will fail inherently, as we have been studying, and the inherent flaws we have illustrated thus far are exactly why megachurches are growing while all other churches are shrinking.

Indeed that model for the modern protestant church that we so thought was the mustard seed growing into the garden tree is proving itself otherwise – proving itself not to be Christ’s Kingdom given in the parable – because this bush before our eyes is burning. And as I illustrate the modern church as a burning bush, I hark back to the encounter of Moses with God in the burning bush of Exodus: ”The Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.” Only, the modern church is not burning with the Angel of the Lord; it is burning with the Spirit of Greed. And unlike the Angel of the Lord which burns but does not consume, the Spirit of Greed incinerates and consumes everything. The Spirit of Greed will consume the church. The Spirit of Greed will incinerate this bush.

On mustard plants there commonly live a number of different caterpillars which feast on the stalk and leaves. Being such a vast garden plant, a caterpillar can feast until they are fattened, ready to build their cocoon. Suppose this caterpillar, fat from feasting, is ready for its chrysalis, but the bush that it dwells on, which the caterpillar has gotten so fattened and so prepared for hibernation by, begins to burn. The only choice for the caterpillar is to flee the bush or perish. 

What Could be Done

What does it mean to flee this burning bush the modern protestant church? I don’t mean for an individual or a family or a group to abandon a single church. I mean for a church to abandon the system. What does it mean for a church, a little caterpillar that has become aware of its burning residence, to abandon that burning residence the corrupt model of the modern protestant church?

As I said before: I don’t dream so big as to effect revision across the entire protestant consortium. There is too much money to be made. So never mind the half a trillion dollars of protestant church property in the US; never mind the ever-growing megachurches; never mind the abysmal 3% of church funds to charity. What would it mean for one church gathering to abandon the inherently corrupt model of the protestant church, to leave the Church of Friedman?

Thankfully, we do not have to search far to see what it would look like. There are already churches abandoning the model. Just last year, First United Methodist Church of Asheboro gave up their church building and converted it instead into a homeless shelter for women and families. Again last year, Caldwell Presbyterian Church gave up their building to be converted into 21 studio apartments for the homeless. In Minnesota, Mosaic Christian Community used their property as a place to build 6 new tiny homes to house the homeless. An awakening is happening; many congregations and church leaders are beginning to see how un-Christian the historic uses of their buildings have been; and they are now taking the infrastructure they have and redeeming its purpose to fulfill the teachings of Jesus Christ. What once served themselves for their comfort – those buildings and embellishments are now being used to serve and comfort the needy.

A measly 3% of church funds could continue to be used for charity, as has been the case with the majority of protestant churches – a measly 3% to charity, while over 75% of their funds go to employees and infrastructure. I suppose the church could continue with these same practices, business as usual. But is that how things should be – how Christianity should be? Churches like Caldwell Presbyterian and First United Methodist Church of Asheboro are answering absolutely not.

In this book I set out to ask and answer the question of whether churches spending such a vast amount on their own infrastructure is a greatly corrupt practice that ought to be abandoned. Perhaps, I hope, what we have discussed in the book thus far is sufficient to convince the reader of a simple yes. There is, however, something astounding which transcends the mere conclusion of the church’s corruption; it astounds even myself as I write. What is so astounding is that the consequence of the church’s corruption need not be to burn everything to the ground. No, there is something that has been developing on that burning bush the Church of Friedman that is worth keeping – the very thing that we oppose, that is the embodiment of the church’s corruption: vast infrastructure.

As the protestant church these past centuries has been constructing ever more and more buildings for expansion, self aggrandizement and personal comfort, they have been unintentionally building something brick by brick which, in the conclusion of the church’s corrupt and self-serving practices, need not be torn down brick by brick. No, what these churches like Caldwell Presbyterian and First United Methodist Church of Asheboro have shown is that what has been continually built brick by brick these many hundreds of years was merely, though unforeseeable, a stage of development towards the healing of the world. For though the church thought that they were constructing cathedrals, they were, in actuality, accidentally constructing homeless shelters.

When the caterpillar has had its fill feasting on the garden bush, it is fat and slow and so very at the end of its season that it has no choice but to entrap itself in its cocoon for hibernation. But as we know, of course, this is not the end of the caterpillar’s life. After a time, that very caterpillar emerges entirely anew, metamorphosed into an astounding butterfly.

So it is with those churches who have fattened themselves from feasting on the profits of the Church of Friedman. The greedy corporate model has made them rich and their infrastructures plentiful; and now they are sitting gorged upon this burning bush. Should they remain upon it they will be consumed in the fire of corporate competition. The only other choice then, is to metamorphose and flee. The metamorphosis of the church however, just like the metamorphosis of the caterpillar, produces something beautiful. 

The metamorphosis of the church building produces the homeless shelter. By the conversion of their already-developed church infrastructures into housing for the unhoused, Caldwell and Asheboro have demonstrated just how close the Church is to the metamorphosis from the fattened caterpillar into the beautiful butterfly. They are the forerunners of the next stage in the history of the protestant church: Ecumenical Metamorphosis. 

Ecumenical Metamorphism

As we consider this idea that protestant churches in our course of history seem poised to metamorphose into shelters for the homeless, we begin to see an almost inevitability to the evolution – and indeed, an inevitability to every stage of evolution that the Church has gone through in history’s course. As the early church spread and began to overtake pagan culture, it was inevitable that the government would adapt with the times and would make Christianity Rome’s national religion; as the most powerful country in the world adopted Christianity as its national religion, it was inevitable the religion would interbreed with the state and become a Political hand of divine authority; as Christianity grew into such a powerful political tool, it was inevitable that immense corruption would be introduced into the organized church; and as corruption spread and greed became a driving force for those wealthy heads of the church, it was inevitable that revolution would begin to brew among the people subject to those misers in charge.

So then, the Protestant Reformation takes its course. The laity, now existing across all of Europe and beyond as Christianity developed those many past centuries, carry out this novel revolution and supplant the Catholic dominion with Protestantism. And as these protestant churches supersede the Catholic churches across the world, those protestant folk, of course, inevitably acquire leeway and influence. So Protestantism spreads; denominations and factions are formed; new churches are built everywhere; and as Protestantism becomes the new religious superpower of the Western world, inevitably that same corruption of the early political Roman church takes root.

Politicians and businessmen and corporate opportunists start attending these protestant churches, not set upon the humble and ascetic teachings of Christ, but rather set upon what their mammon minds cannot help but set upon: commercial growth and expansion. ”This church service is all well and good, but we could get more people attending if we had a more comfortable foyer.” ”The sermon was well-spoken, but we could really start expanding if there was a heavier emphasis on tithing.” ”This place is adequate, but we’d get far more traction if we built a new building in the center of town.” These politicians and businessmen possess that commanding element of natural-born leadership and are always the most potent salesmen of ideas. So then, of course it was inevitable that their corporatist expansion mindset would spread and dominate throughout the church.

So the corporate church, that Church of Friedman, is integrated into the protestant ethos – consumes the protestant ethos. And as the church enters the business world, the inevitable of the business world works through it: the strong survive, and the weak wither. Of course, as is the corporate way, the strong are those churches that make money; and those churches that make money are those churches that have more congregants; and those churches that have more congregants are those churches that have the greatest mass appeal; and those churches that have the greatest mass-appeal are those churches that teach the things easiest to accept; and the things easiest to accept are most certainly not the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As the larger churches consume the smaller, the smaller churches inevitably begin to fail. Without tithing and congregational support, how can administration be afforded? And thus the path has been set out for these failing churches: increasingly empty buildings, and shrinking ministerial allowances. The once successful church which grew itself into this infrastructure finds itself nearly vacant. The caterpillar which grew so fat feasting on the mustard tree finds itself slowing to a lethargic halt. But when we see the caterpillar slowing and torpid, it does not mean the caterpillar is ready to die. It means that the caterpillar is ready to enter its penultimate state of chrysalis.

I believe that the Church’s next stage of chrysalis and metamorphosis is likewise inevitable. What is a near-vacant church? It is a promising parcel of infrastructure, possessed by administration whose extant purpose is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. At this state we arrive at the Asheboro Methodists and the Caldwell Presbyterians. That fattened caterpillar transforms within its cocoon and emerges in its final state: the beautiful butterfly. The Church, at first glance collapsing in on itself, transforms into its final state: the state of the early Christian Church again – only this time, spread across the entire world.

”They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” The Ecumenical Metamorphist envisions this beautiful picture in mass scale across the global Church.

In the changing of the times, people are leaving the Church in droves. In 2007, 78% of US adults identified as Christian; in 2024, only 62% of US adults identified as Christian. In Western Europe right now, while 81% of adults were raised Christian, only 22% of them attend church regularly. Many of the remaining congregants are being absorbed into the larger corporatist churches. But in the view of Ecumenical Metamorphism, this rapidly decaying church attendance is not a cause for despair; the emptying of church buildings is merely a preparation for the global church to enter that final and most beautiful stage.

That church on the precipice of closure may then at last metamorphose, and enter its purest and sanctified form.

“Is not this [the holiness] I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness will go before you,

and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.⁶¹

But like that oft-aforementioned Church who clung so dearly to Her Basilica, O the many who remain attached to their wealth; O the many who cling so dearly to their buildings and infrastructure, for comfort, for congregational pleasure, for personal gain rather than for the gain of the needy! Those proponents of that corporate system the Church of Friedman – those fat little caterpillars resting content on their burning garden tree – for those who cling so dearly to their wealth and their comfort, there is a different fate.

You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices.

Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols.

I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you.

When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you!

The wind will carry all of them off,

a mere breath will blow them away.⁶² 

But for The Money of God

At the vantage point from which I stand, I see two paths for the protestant church: this route of Ecumenical Metamorphosis which we have been discussing, or the route continuing down the path of all-consuming greed. Which of these leads to fruition? The church that metamorphoses into the homeless shelter reaps the benefit of what it sows: ”They will see the good things you do and will honor your Father Who is in heaven.”The church that metamorphoses to provide for the poor and needy is that ”light of the world” and ”city on the hill” of which Christ spoke. When the Church will accept Jesus Christ’s injunction of self-sacrifice is when the light of the world will shine, and the poor will be lifted up out of destitution by Her.

And on the other path lies all-consuming greed. The church which does not change its existence to be for the poor remains in the jungle of competition. She is left scrimping for that socalled ”Money of God” with which she can build Her grand cathedrals and concert halls, fancy foyers and sumptuous sanctuaries, all for the glory of God – the God who never asked this of them.

No indeed, God never asked the Church to build grand cathedrals and fancy buildings for his glory. God never asked the Christians to expand their infrastructure to provide earthly entertainment and pleasure to vast congregations. What God did ask was for the Church to take care of the poor, the widow and the orphan.

But this is not the mind of the church who would remain on the path of all-consuming greed. That church is a corporation in the Church of Friedman. Her goal is to dominate the market. And she will either dominate the market, and conquer the business world of churches, or be dominated by some other in the Church of Friedman. And the one who dominates and conquers all on that path will herself, as we have been studying on and on in this book, inevitably be dominated by greed.

The Money of God is a fabrication. The glorious temple built with this money is destroyed by moth and rust. Those who would remain in the Church of Friedman, who continue to build their vainglorious temples, must be left to their own devices; they have chosen the path leading to destruction and will collapse in on themselves.

But what will remain is the true Church, that real church of Christ which embodies the actions of the first Christians, which embodies the teachings of Jesus, which gives itself unto the poor and the homeless. The rest will be lost to history, a mere step in the evolution towards the true Church’s final and most beautiful state of existence. But that will be alright. The cocoon must be shed for the butterfly to emerge.

May Lazarus Wait No Longer

Must the Church be stagnant waiting in Her penultimate stage? The time is ripe for the final transformation. Lazarus has been waiting outside the gate of the rich man for far too long. Should he experience such evil in this life? It is time to open the gates and let him in.

Another 25,000 people will starve to death today.Could a church property be sold to save a few of those? 700,000 people in the United States alone will not have a home to sleep in tonight.Could a church property be converted to house a few of those? And on and on – can the Church provide? – the answer to these questions is Yes.

The question then is will the Church become that provider? The Ecumenical Metamorphist holds onto the hope that She will. Jesus Christ teaches that She must.

When, then? How much longer before the metamorphosis occurs? The delay need not be. The Church has Her infrastructures ready for the needy; the provisions are well-prepared by history and abundant to be given.

So then, let Her tarry no longer.