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Rich Church, Poor Church
15 steps lead down to Saint Luke’s Pentecostal Church. It’s nothing more than a dark basement with multiple hallways and alcoves that could hide a body for days before anyone saw it. It’s a good place for the children of St. Luke’s to play hide-n-seek while their parents read the bible.
Up above is an abandoned clothing store and a car wash where the residents of Westbury, NY might pay two youths with gold teeth to have their car washed. On the other side of the alley is an apartment building with mattresses piled up and vagrants sifting through the dumpster looking for valuables or a meal.
St. Luke’s is a poor church.
Across the country in Lake Forest, CA is the Saddleback Church complex, a collection of a dozen buildings and tents designed in the style of an open-air mall. Red brick connects the buildings with fountains and ponds and a baptismal tanks made of slate stone. In one of the children’s multiple playgrounds is a giant whale made of rubber and concrete that periodically spouts water from its blowhole. Almost all of the children are white and chubby; while they wait for their parents they can play either foosball or on one of the six Sony Playstations nestled into a faux rock wall that has vegetation growing from its crevices.
Saddleback is a rich church.
The theologies of each of the two churches reflect the disparity in the congregates income levels.
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Posted by 1000monkeys on January 9, 2006 01:14 AM