“And he who gives more than a thousand shekels will become a Supply Side Jesus Pioneer and have access to me at our annual Yom Kippur “Break the Fast” dinner.”
“The word of the Lord!!”
I grew up Catholic, converted to Evangelicalism, and am now an atheist. The one thing I’ll always give the Catholics that at least I grew up around is that they took the “feeding the poor message” pretty strongly to heart. They had a HUGE food pantry and they gave food to the local people in need of it every week. There were always drives happening for food and clothes and whatnot. It was enough of an institution that they had full time staff dedicated to it. I’m sure this isn’t the case for many other Catholic churches, but my anecdotal experience of at least one midwestern Catholic Church was pretty good on feeding the homeless. Now, the transubstantiation (literal bread turning to body, etc) stuff was bullshit and played a key role in my deconversion. People in my community didn’t even know that we believed that and when some of us kids found out, that was a bit of a reckoning 😆
Evangelicals, on the other hand, had their acts of charity but they were weak sauce compared to the Catholics. Occasional Christmas toy drives or whatever. They did free car washes. It was pretty inane compared to what the Catholics had been.
While the Catholic Church has a very long history of terrible things, they’ve also done some nice things like providing humanitarian aid, hospitals, foster homes, homless shelters, schools, etc. It doesn’t cancel out the terrible stuff but it does make it complicated. To quote Dave Chapelle “He rapes but he saves”
Christianity is a cult.
Fun Christianity detail.
All three Synoptics (Mark, Matthew, Luke) have Jesus telling his followers they aren’t allowed to bring purses or money to minister.
This naturally would have prevented monetary collections.
But then in around 54 CE, 20 years after Jesus is killed, a guy who never met him and was known to be persecuting his followers shows up in areas outside his jurisdiction telling people he’s one of them now and to ignore any versions of Jesus he doesn’t approve of. He even acknowledged that people were saying he was doing evil in the name of good (Romans 4:8).
He argued with the church in Corinth that their belief “everything is permissible” was wrong and on top of it argued that he was entitled to make a living off his ministering, while then asking for monetary donations “for the poor in Jerusalem” (but in other letters we see he was also enriched himself with donations).
Eventually the gospel of Luke had Jesus at the last supper straight up like “Hey guys, remember when I said you can’t carry purses? Let’s 180° that.”
I say eventually because the likely earliest version of that text we have was the one preserved by ‘heretics’ following Marcion, and their copy of Luke is missing that part at the last supper.
Christianity as canonized was in at least one way exactly opposite what had likely been the actual command of a historical Jesus. Out of all the various sects, the one which succeeded was not the one with divine editorial oversight, but simply the one with the most adaptive policies for sociopolitical success (such as fundraising to the point they eventually became endorsed by the emperor of Rome).
Additionally, other sects deemed heretical (with their texts eventually banned on penalty of torture and death) were also vehemently against profiteering by religious officiants:
Jesus said, “The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, ‘When will they come and take what belongs to them?’”
- The Gospel of Thomas saying 88
TL;DR: It’s so much worse than most people realize, especially Christians, who arguably should be made the most aware.
Look, I’m a good person to other Christians so I’m a good person.
Well, I’m a good person to other white Christians.
Well, I’m a good person to other white catholics.
Well, I’m a good person to other white catholics who are at least middle class.
Well, I’m a good person to other white catholics who are at least middle class and who also agree with me politically.
Well, I’m a good person to other white catholics who are at least middle class and who also agree with me politically to their face while talking to them.
Well, I’m still a good person, God said so.
Well my pastor said God said so…
