Is it right for a church to be wealthy?

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I'm unaware of Jesus preaching anywhere "that the faithful should give up their wealth and worldly possessions and spend a humble existence in servitude of God." In Luke chapter 18 we have the account of one person who Jesus said should divest himself of his worldly possessions and distribute his wealth to the poor if he would be perfect, but this is nowhere mentioned as a general commandment.

The theme that does come up again and again, both in Jesus's preaching and in the various apostolic letters later on, is to keep your priorities straight. Wealth becomes sinful if you let the pursuit of wealth become more important to you than the pursuit of righteousness. This is why we are told that the love of money, not the money itself, is the root of all evil.

On the other hand, having resources available gives you the power to do good with them. Witness the impact that the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities have on disadvantaged communities, or the way the Mormons tend to always show up promptly at the scene of any major disaster with large amounts of supplies and volunteers to contribute to relief efforts. These are people living their religion, actively giving of themselves to help those in need, as Jesus and his apostles did.

If you're looking to grade religions on Christian living, a better question than "how much money does church X have?" is "what do they do with their resources?"

Upvote:5

The value of a church's resources are based on market value. They don't necessarily have huge bank accounts. Churches have the same expenses any company would have, such as utilities.

Now, older organizations, such as the Catholic Church, have large collections of art or relics that have value. But their value is only that to collectors, it's not like they are going to destroy valuable pieces to melt down and sell gold.

As for the land they own, again that's market value. They need a certain amount of land in specific places to serve the people in their communities. So does a certain church sit on a multi-million dollar property? Maybe they do, but so what?

Yes, most churches have programs to benefit their communities. That's their point. And I've seen churches with large quantities of electronics that must have cost thousands. I would presume their technology budgets are self-supporting.

But I think the churches with excess budgets, that is, taking in much more than they are spending, are probably in the minority.

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