this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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Walk in to any church thats actin' right and you can get help volunteering somewhere. Every church ive been a part of has had things like food banks, outreach events, volunteering groups that do just about everything, oh and want to know a sweet secret? Most churches DO have mortgage/rent assistance. The church i go to right now will give anyone 300$/month, for any reason, as long as you actually need it, but you dont really have to verify anything, but for that you do have to be a "member" of the church, and to become a member, you have to come at least once, thats it, just show up once, or twice maybe someplaces.
That's lovely there's still churches like that, which actually do measurable things to protect their communities, and give to one another freely without pretense.
These are the kind of groups that capitalists systematically dismantled and replaced with profiteering megachurches.
This part makes me kinda sad though. I know Lemmy doesn't have a huge reach but it can't help but taste a little sour that everything you said sounded awesome until it ends with a "jus between you an me pal" nudge-nudge about how to take advantage of freely given generosity and communal resources. That's called being a scumbag.
Like the people who got kicked out from my local foodbank line because they were trying to get free ingredients for their restaurant.
Such behavior sabotages the struggling remnants of genuine humanity left in this world.
I wanted to say something about this because it dont think this has ever happened? Can you give me an example?
People dont go to churches or give money to churches that they believe are profiteering. Ill concede that some large church's have bad leadership who are greedy, no doubt. But if the congregation assumes something of the like, tithing and attendance is likely going to dry up.
Ok... going to back up, because what you said could be true maybe about the catholic church? or a different denomination maybe? What im talking about is non-denominational churches specifically.
Sure! I'll be transparent with you, I could probably stand to memorize my history a little bit more, BUT...this is going a little bit far back.
There's actually a REALLY GOOD pair of podcast episodes by "Behind the Bastards" called "How the Rich Ate Christianity."
Part 1: https://youtu.be/gyHd6wEC4IE
Part 2: https://youtu.be/LL8s7N0TU-c
It does a very good job of detailing how churches back in the day just didn't have the sorry reputation they have today among the general public.
The rich-n-powerful of the time actually considered Christians to be pesky bleeding-heart socialists that hurt their plans for maximum wealth extraction. Churches were busy feeding their communities and protesting landlords and stuff, rather than worshiping work.
So the fatcats got together and worked to supplant churches of MANY denominations by sneaking in pro-capitalism doctrine in exchange for financial support, for instance. It's where we started hearing this absolutely bananas idea that God shows His love and approval by making one wealthy. (?!?!?!?)
As well as "preaching" about individualism instead of community and looking out for ones' neighbors.
Along with lots of other weird nonsense like I heard in my non-denom circles growing up, like :
"Oh, the 'eye of a needle' was actually some kind of weird gate in the city walls that camels had to awkwardly pass through, so uh, it's not impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and be wealthy, just uh, difficult! Yeah! You have to be worthy of handling the wealth! But you can be rich, yes!"
(Zero anthropologic / archeological / literary / theological / historical support for this notion.)
So that's what I meant about good churches doing God's work getting "replaced" with profit-friendly religiously-flavored feelgood self-help seminar campuses.
I hope that helps explain where I was pulling that from! :)