Pay-Per-Pew
SHREVEPORT, La. - Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church will pay white people to attend services during August to increase the diversity of its congregation.
Bishop Fred Caldwell says he will pay $5 per hour for Sunday services and $10 an hour for the Thursday service. The idea came to him during his sermon Sunday.
"Our churches are too segregated, and the Lord never intended for that to happen. It's time for something radical," Caldwell says.
He is basing the initiative on a parable from Matthew 20:1-16, the story of the workers in the vineyard. A landowner hired men to work in his fields for the day and throughout the day kept seeking more workers. No matter what time they came to work, the workers were all paid the same.
Church member Criss Williams says paying people to attend is a bold step but doesn't have a problem with it.
"I don't see it as any different than a lot of the churches that have different social functions to attract visitors," Williams says. "Bishop just kind of cut to the chase and went to the money."
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What a concept. We could get people back into confession by offering 20$ per mortal sin and 1$ for each venial sin confessed. I know I would have raked in some cash to rival Bill Gates for my first confession. We could even call it the confession concession and advertise with the slogan "Your soul feels lighter and your wallet heaver." The arrangement of us having to pay for our sins could be reversed and ours sins could pay us instead. The only problem is you know the government would get involved since they are already keen on sin taxes. It would be funny though if you could pay these taxes through a computer and if you make a mistake it would say "Sin Tax Error."
If you pay someone to receive a sacrament that is called simony. I wonder what it would be called to use money encourage someone to receive a sacrament? Would it then be a sacramint?
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It would certainly give new meaning to the phrases "treasury of grace" and "salvation economy".
Love it.
my comment is that i think it is utterly ridiculous for a minister to go out of his way to pay a group of people to join his church just becuase "the lord" told him to do so and he wants to increase the ethnic diversity of his church. as a rule, black people are most affected by poverty when you look at per capita income, especially in the south. his intention is great, but his outlook is misdirected. if he were truly interested in diversity, he would encourage members of all races to join his church without giving special preference to whites, given the historical insantiy of racism and hatred perpetrated by white southerners against blacks. he would be hard pressed to find any church in america willing to do the same for blacks, not that any church should od that for blacks or any group of people period. when preference is given to one group only, all other groups are isolated by definition, whatever the case is. whites need to deal with segregation, not blacks. it's not a "black problem", as the minister would falsely have us believe. it was an ideology born of white hatred and it never would have been an issue if whites had accepted the idea of diversity and equality in the first place. all other culturess on planet earth have adopted the philosphy of equlaity in their culture and religion. only white americans have had issues with it becuase of thier own insecurity. that same insecurity has been passed down to black people over the last 400 years and all of the residual insanity of that insecurity. lastly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any race of people deciding to unify amongst themselves either without hurting others. by definition self-unity among a particular group is a sensible philosophy born of survival.