Our church was banned from airing commercials showing that we welcome gay couples, the homeless and people with disabilities because it was deemed too controversial. Love to know what “Christian” church the DA and judge belong to.
Banned by who, and how?
Your view would be wrong. If you’re a poor person you can show any way you want. If you have some means please, don’t dress down for church.
Because an omnipotent, omnipresent, creator G-d who sees and knows all for all of time gives a rat’s patootie if you come to church in blue jeans, folks!
Clearly, they need to feed the people in need on the bus on the way to church. Make sure nobody brings any food with them off the bus, and then they should have a foodless Saturday service.
That way the city would be happy, the church would be happy, and the neighbor who complained about them feeding people who needed it would be happy.
Actually, shouldn’t the rich dress down so as not to embarrass the poor?
Cite? From the article, all I could tell was that giving free food to the homeless was considered a charitable enterprise. I see nothing saying that if they’d bussed in crowds of wealthy people that that would have been any different.
Now, maybe they’ve been having these breakfasts all along, and only when they started bringing in the homeless that they were called out for violating the zoning restrictions. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t operating as a charitable enterprise before, only that no-one cared enough to make an issue out of it.
If you’re giving food to someone who can pay for it, it’s not charity, it’s a gift. (Or you’re being suckered.) Charity is, by definition, giving to those who are in need. So if the ordinance opposes “charity dining halls” then the ordinance specifically criminalizes feeding people who need food the most.
Er, yeah. It criminalizes it just as much as it would criminalize a store opening in a residential zone, or a house in a commercial zone. This isn’t some dick law targeted at churches and charity halls, it’s just a byproduct of the zoning law that was invoked when homeless folk started making nuisances of themselves.
And the same could not have happened in a hall somewhere else? or the worship aspect depended on pancakes? Honestly I am not aware of any religious belief that involves a requirement for eggs and flour and milk to be combined with a blessed whisk and cooked in a holy saute pan of Antioch.
What, you never heard of pantheism?
[In the actual decision](http://www.crossroadsphx.com/pdfs/Justice Corcoran’s Decision 11-9-09.pdf) (pdf), the judgment notes that the ordinance specifically targets *charity *dining halls, then gives several definitions of charity, all of which note that the receivers are ‘needy’ or ‘poor’.
False. It’s a dick law that targets churches and charity halls.
My God! A law that targets people who are in violation of a law! Stop the insanity!
No, it is not. Is it really worship if the homeless are just showing up for the free grub?
Well, it’s Sunday morning, I COULD put on a suit to go to church, or I could go in jeans and a T-Shirt. I guess I’ll just stay home instead.
We’re not talking about poor people in general, we are talking about a specific group of poor people who have been introduced into a community by a church, and are causing problems that the church refuses to accept any responsibility for. It’s not about rich versus poor, and it’s not about freedom of religion, and portraying the residents of this neighborhood as selfish, callous bourgeois oppressors is monstrously unfair.
It depends. If your God happens to have commanded that you help those who need help, as the Christian God is said to have done, then yeah, it’s an act of worship. It’s doing what God told you to do.
Of course, a lot of the groups that claim to be Christian don’t give a rat’s ass what God actually commanded – they’re interested in using Scripture to bolster their own prejudices.
But yeah, if you’re serious about being a Christian, then you do what God commanded. And that, quite clearly, includes feeding the hungry.
49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." (Ezekiel 16:49-50, New Intl. Vers.)
If your definition of “community” is “white middle-class suburb, making money off the plight of the poor, but feeling no responsibility toward them,” then yeah, the church “introduced” into the community a group they didn’t want to be bothered with.
Of course, I personally would prefer the homeless over fire raining from heaven, but that’s just me.
You’re saying the people in this community never help and have never helped the poor?
Please tell me how these people were supposedly making money off the poor. And do you know for a fact that this is an exclusively white neighborhood, or that it’s not a working class neighborhood rather than a middle class neighborhood? Or do you just automatically assume that if something’s wrong, it must be the evil greedy middle class whites who are at fault?
:rolleyes:
But you’re also required to respect your neighbors, and to use some common sense when engaging in charity. When you distribute your charity in such a way as this, you aren’t respecting your neighbors and you aren’t using common sense.