There are mega-churches that do have pastor's living in luxury. If that bothers you then by all means stay far away from them. But I would bet 95% of the churches you pass each day has a pastor living very modestly in a home no better than the homes in your neighborhood, and who is probably more charitable than your average neighbor - and who while the rest of us are relaxing in the evening watching TV or the football game or working in the shop, he is taking an evening phone call from a couple who is thinking about divorce, or a young man thinking about suicide, or a family who just lost a daughter in a car accident . Its to bad you want to lump them all together, and It's a shame that the bad pastors give such a lasting impression on people and turn many away from going back to another church for good.
Thanks for that post, Navy.
It's a ridiculous stretch of logic and truth to lump all pastors into a big, greedy bunch because there are a few mega-church Elmer Gantry types who take advantage of people and get rich. There are bad people in every profession.
You are right in your assessment of the average pastor. Low or modest income, giving of self, sacrificing privacy and freedom, to shepherd the flock that God has called him/her to.
I think those who bash Christianity, and make gross (and untrue) generalizations, are looking for excuses to stay away from God's personal calling for them, and my guess is that there's a bit of guilt that makes them angry and eager to lash out at people of faith.
And one last time...............socialism is the ANTITHESIS of Christianity, regardless of the efforts to say it's the same thing.
IF you purposefully leave government out of the equation, you can make a connection, but it's not truthful. The
voluntary nature of giving to the poor and sharing one's possessions in Christianity, and the forced nature of 'giving' and the theft involved in socialism to line the pockets of the powerful, is the bottom line in this discussion.
But some people are clearly (and deliberately?) blind to that very important bottom line, and that's a shame.