Listers,
It is no secret to any of you that I feel we are in digression in the religious world today. I believe we have left the apostles teachings and are wallowing in tradition.
I am in the process of reading a book called, "Distant Voices." I find it informative and interesting to read.
It is my belief that one of the practices that drew us away from first century Christianity is the *church building* which took away the simple gathering of the people and with the pew/pulpit situation, divided the sheep. One chapter in the book is on, "The Trouble With Stained Glass", quoting from Benjamin Franklin, one of the Restoration leaders in the late 1800s. In 1872 Benjamin Franklin said, "The Lord is not attracted by imposing temples, worldly show, nor fine entertainments."
Franklin goes on to explain how the elaborate church buildings came into existence and where they have led. He tells of a time in Cincinnati, Ohio, when the Central Christian Church built a new building with a grand and impressive Structure. The cost was upwards to $125,000 (at a time when the average total wealth of adult males in the U.S. was under $2,400) He said it contained elaborate furnishings, a Catherine wheel window (a round stain glass window) and an $8,000 dollar pipe organ.
To Franklin and others who were trying to take people back to the Bible and pleading that all creeds be given up and the Bible be the standard for Christendom, they found this very offensive.
He said that after the Civil War people became more affluence as the cities grew, and this gave power to the churchgoing middle-class. As the middle-class churchgoing people prospered and their number grew in the cities, they built church buildings that reflected their prosperity.
One historian wrote, "costly and imposing edifices were being built to match the increasing prosperity of the clientele, and congregations vied with one another to possess the tallest steeple as a symbol of wealth and prestige." Along with impressive new buildings went other upgraded features: expensive pipe organs, professional musicians, and more refined, eloquent, and educated preachers.
Later I would like to write on what this did to the poor and where they knew they now belonged.
-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999