Snark #1: I didn’t realize Flapjack the Griddle God was so popular these days.
Snark #2: If every church in the nation is an imposition on its neighbors, then I for one am more than happy to see such rude practices being put to the test. I have no problem with religion until it starts intruding on the lives of people who want nothing to do with it, so this is a step in the right direction.
Leaving the snark aside, open breakfasts are simply not essential to the operation of a church. I suppose you could argue that acts of charity are what churches are all about, but that would kind of undermine your previous points about how this isn’t charity.
The last church I was affiliated with bussed in three busloads of (black) children (from the projects, no less) for services on Saturdays, and two busloads of many of those children and their parents for Sunday mornings. Full size school busses, the 50 passenger size. And onto a one-way, narrow street for loading and unloading, even. Oddly, there wasn’t a single complaint from the working-to-middle-class white neighbors who lived around the church. Not one.
And we fed those folks, too. We also gave groceries and clothing, backpacks full of supplies at the start of school, toys and games at Christmastime and again at Easter (as prizes for a giant egg hunt held at a park in the community).
But then, we bussed them back home again when services were over. And that’s what I’m not getting in this story. This church was allegedly bussing these homeless people in from somewhere, at that hour, I’d assume from a local shelter. Why weren’t they bussing them back to that shelter or the neighborhood near it so that they’d be there to get their beds back that night? How was it that there were still homeless people around during the week (for the preschool parents to encounter them in the hallways) if this service was early on Saturday morning? I mean, you can’t quite compel the homeless back onto a bus the way my church could, they don’t have someplace specific to go the way our kids/parents did. But something about that aspect is hinky to me.
If the homeless who were hanging out and being a bother to the community were attracted initially by the breakfast but weren’t part of the group that was being bussed in, that would indicate to me that they were probably in this community, or on its fringes, to begin with. And perhaps more started staying in the area, but my guess is that an already existing “problem” only started gathering notice when the big yellow buses became like a spotlight on what the residents otherwise weren’t bothering to see. We know that homeless people are very often treated as if they’re invisible right up until someone draws negative attention to them.
But I go back to the pastor’s question: what defines a charity dining hall? Is it that the meals are free? (Surely it would be a violation of zoning laws as well as health regulations if the church charged for meals.) If so, then every meal served in a church becomes illegal.
Is it that the meals are served on a continual and regular basis? Then no more monthly Second Sunday potluck lunch, no more spaghetti suppers. Probably no more Bible Study Lunches, either. Oh, and nix the coffee and donuts after Sunday morning services too.
Or is it specifically that the meals are advertised in or organized for the poor? If so, what’s the remedy other than barring entry to anyone who cannot prove their homed and/or financial status? As the pastor says, how poor is too poor? Is it just the homeless, or is it the also the person with $12 in their pocket that has to last 8 days until their next check and could use a meal? And how does that not infringe on the church’s mission to serve the least in society?
And for those who say “well the church should just go buy some property in a commercial zone” how exactly is that an answer? Property isn’t free. Property isn’t as cheap as pancake mix and coffee. Property isn’t even as cheap as pancake mix, coffee and renting buses for a couple of hours on a Saturday. If that’s the “solution” then the answer will be that a lot of people will have one less meal each week – at the very least.
So you actually just don’t approve of religion. That’s really what this is about.
Yes, they actually are. They really are. It’s a community and doing things together as a community is ESSENTIAL. Mealtime is the conerstone of building a community. Churches aren’t about charity they are about community.
I’m done talking to you about this. Your point of view is clear, anything that hurts the practice of religion is an unmitigated good.
May you be stuck next to an annoying proselytizer sometime this week.
tumbleddown The real reason there are more homeless people is that Phoenix has had more people kicked out of their homes than the national average. It likely has nothing at all to do with the breakfast.
Get that? 5000 foreclosed homes sold in April of last year. The neighborhood is overrun by homeless people because Phoenix is overrun by homeless people.
I really hope these people who hate churches so much maintain the courage of their convictions if they ever find themselves homeless and don’t go to a church seeking help. Pretty much any church WILL help them, but I hope that they don’t go out of principle. There is simply no atheist analog to what a church will do for the homeless.
The cheerleading going on regarding an end to feeding the homeless is making me sick to my stomach. These people hate religion this much.
Which coincides with a marked increase in the number of homeless people in the city at large, and may only tangentially relate to the once-a-week breakfast program.
I’m having trouble workign out your opinion on this, mswas.
I get that you think the law is bad, really I do. But do yout hink that the law should not exist, and any group (including the Elks, the Packers’ Fan Club and the Klan) should be allowed to hold such breakfasts in residential neighborhoods? If so, then I don’t see why you think this is a freedom of religion thing.
Or do you think that only Churches should be allowed to do this? In which case, I’d argue you are looking for establishment.
Well, if that’s the case, why not arrest them for the public urination, burglary, panhandling, loitering, etc. etc.?
I don’t think there’s a constitutional argument here, but passing a law that makes it illegal to have an organized charity meal, but allows for organized meals where you don’t charge as long as it’s not charity*, leaves open lots of room for righteous hatred.
“Tough noogies” is obnoxious, in other words. What Phoenix is doing is morally reprehensible. Just not unconstitutional.
*BTW, the judgment defines charity as giving goods and services to the poor and people in need.
And when people from outside that community come in and are cared for, boom, that’s charity. You can’t get around that.
You are absolutely hilarious. You’re just going to continue this tactic of “I’m not talking to you any more” until you’ve shut out anyone even tentatively voicing some kind of opposition. You are arguing in bad faith and your emotions have completely clouded you to reasonable discussion.
Again, religion is fine until it intrudes on peoples’ lives without permission. Religion is not special in this regard, it applies to most things. Someone having a party is just fine until they turn up the music too loud, then the cops get called to deal with the disruption of peace. If the cops have to get called regularly in order to deal with noise violations, then there’ll be an ordinance passed to specifically prohibit excessive noise after such and such a time, bringing heavier penalties against people who break the law.
The difference is religion wants a special exclusion, and that’s not right.
OK - change it to giving free food away. That was my point - this simply has nothing to do with religion. That it is a church busted for it is irrelevant. It’s not about religion.
Ok. I’m not a big fan of the law myself. But you can change everything you talked about in that last post to something other than a Church. There’s a really good arguemnt to be made that laws like this are bad for society, and that the mentality behind such laws is destroying communities and replacing them with places where people sleep and never talk to their neighbors. But that doesn’t make such laws unconstitutional as a violation of freedom of religion.
If such a law did exempt churches, I’m not saying it would be unconstitutional, as in that it would be held to be unconstitutional. I think it should be, as establishment, but it might slide. That said, there is no constitutional requirement to exempt Churches from these laws.
A closer case would be a law much more closely related to the practice of the religion. While one can argue that charity is a required tenet of Christianity, it is much harder to argue that this particular act of charity is, given that the alternative (setting up a table in a parking lot of an industrial park) isn’t much of an imposition. A better example of a “neutral” law would be one controlling use of PA systems in residential neighborhoods, and the effect it would have on mosques and the call to prayer. Do you think mosques should be specifically exempted from such a law?
Fair enough. I guess my real problem with it is the burbclave mentality, more than the religious freedom one.
Valid point.
Actually setting up a table in a parking lot of an industrial park is kind of a twisted way of looking at it. It IS an imposition. The kitchen is at the church, not easily transported, and they can dine comfortably in the churches dining area as opposed to being forced to stand in a parking lot in the blistering summer heat, or the chill winter (as cold as it gets in Phoenix anyway). It’s really not equivalent, it’s demeaning and it does put a huge imposition on the people trying to provide the charity by making it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder to pull the breakfast off.
Then there is of course the fact that this isn’t a charity breakfast, as has been made pretty damn clear by the church. It is a worship breakfast at which some people who require charity attend. So your industrial parking lot solution basically kills the fundamental purpose of the event.
Lets say, that I am a business man who is out of town, and I have time on Saturday morning to attend services at the Methodist church in Phoenix. I go there, and they have a breakfast, I attend the breakfast and receive care and hospitality.
Is that charity?
I really don’t understand why you guys refuse to address the core most fundamental point here. What is it about being poor that makes being fed for free fundamentally different from being wealthy and being fed for free?
OK - not going to argue that point because it isn’t central. There are multiple alternative ways to fulfill the charitable requirement of Christianity, I am sure you would agree. If we take something like the call to prayer, it is a much closer situation where a generally applicable law (No P.A. announcements in residential neighborhoods except during business hours) has a much more direct effect on a religious group. Should there be an exemption there? I know these cases have been litigated, and to be honest I don’t know the results.
Well in modern times I’d argue that there’s an app for that. There’s really no reason why a PA system at a mosque is fundamentally different from an internet messaging system that would call people to prayer individually. So there is a technological solution to the problem you are presenting.
It is very unlikely in America for a mosque to be in a Muslim neighborhood without that being ok. If it’s not in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood then broadcasting the call to prayer serves no purpose.