Inspired by this thread : http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=309534, in which the high price of both Christian tithing as well as synagogues has been pointed out, I have decided to follow the dictum “Find a need, and fill it!” I am announcing CalMeacham’s Church of Cheapskates
The prime consideration for this group is that everything be cheap. We will only meet in rooms and garages we can borrow from other people. There will be no religious symbols. This is not only because we want to be ecumenical, but also because these things cost money. Cheapness leads us to greater tolerance!
It is OK to decorate with things that cost nothing, or nearly so, provided it’s noot offensive. We esopecially value the faux stained-glass window with its abstract image made from cut-up plastic shopping bags taped to a window with electrical-tape “leading”. We found the tape in the back of a drawer.
Our religious dietary laws forbid us from eating anything you paid too much for.
We will require a donation before every service to cover the cost of gathering the donations.
Our religious library consists of whatever we got on the cheap. We currently have a Gideon Bible from a hotel that no longer exists, a few copies of The Bhagavad Gita As It Is from an airport, and approximately 3,500 “Chick Tracts”.
For a free membership in your Church, I would be happy to donate a hymnal I recovered from a burned-down Church (possibly Catholic).
The left halves of some hymns are mostly scorched, as are the right halves of others. This may serve to keep the services short, so as not to keep the utilities on too long. Let me know, and I can have it shipped by recipient-pay mail.
This sounds perfect! The religious ambiguity of the text is entirely in-line with out cheapness-based ecumenism, the incomplete nature of the book is in-line with our frugality in money and time, and the request for recipient-pay mail shows that you either already have, or else have recently imbibed our values.
If you send it now, we’l pay for it later.
“Later” is holy to the CCC.
I have an old church pew in my garage. It has been cut in 2 from a failed attempt to build a breakfast nook. I have enough scrap wood laying around I could make it somewhat usable again.