"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
1 March 2004Edifice complex"If you build it, they will come." In Tulsa, says Bruce, they mostly build churches:
I do wonder about all the time and energy put into churches and how that effects the quality of life in Tulsa. I can't help but wonder what life here would be like if we put just some of that time and effort into schools and education.
Sounds like an argument for letting the churches run the schools, doesn't it? (Well, maybe not.)
It seems terribly inefficient that we have all these churches for different denominations. They get used for a couple of hours each week then sit empty for a majority of the time. That's lost real estate, its terribly inefficient if you ask me. It would be much better to have different congregations work out a church sharing agreement so that one nice church could serve multiple groups.
Yeah, but with few exceptions, they all celebrate the Lord's Day on Sunday. I doubt seriously that you can persuade any congregation to hold Sunday services on, say, Tuesday evening. (Wednesday evening, well, that's a whole different issue.)
I've heard it said on more than one occasion that Tulsa has more churches per capita than any other American city. I don't find that so far fetched. This is a city where you can frequently find a church across the street from a church, next door to a church. You think I'm kidding, drive down 11th street between 129th and 145th.
He's not kidding. Between Youngs and Independence along NW 50th Street in OKC, a distance barely more than a mile, there are no fewer than five churches, including two from the same denomination. And 50th is a two-lane residential street through the eastern half of that area; imagine what some of the major arteries look like. I have little doubt that the Almighty looks upon small, modest churches no less favorably than the ones that look like shopping malls; still, I can't bring myself to get worked up over people spending their own money to build fancy houses of worship — even if they do take the occasional parcel off the county tax rolls. If Bruce is proposing to municipalize the churches, he's unique in the annals of socialist moonbattery -- especially if he's proposing it on the grounds of efficiency. Well, I suppose someone had to hold down the left-hand tail of the great Bell Curve of Sanity. Some of the bigger churches around here actually manage to get used on days other than Sunday. Classrooms also make excellent meeting rooms. When I was an executive committee member of the county Republican Party, we held our meetings in the Methodist church my wife and I belong to. A subgroup of our ham radio club has begun holding meetings in a palatial Baptist church that the club president belongs to. The local DAR chapter my wife is joining, holds its large-turnout meetings in an even bigger Methodist church in another nearby town. I don't know if the DAR have to pay for the use of the space, but AFAIK neither the political group nor the radio group do. That's just three groups I've had involvement with. They have to use churches because we don't have enough libraries. Posted by: McGehee at 6:56 PM on 1 March 2004And, lest we forget, a hefty percentage of this county's voting is done at various church facilities, perhaps because of their very ubiquity. (My precinct votes at one of the two Presbyterian churches along that stretch of 50th.) Adding to what McGehee says, walk into my church any night of the week and you will find an active thriving community. It is the last refuge for the boy and girl scouts. The city and the public schools use the gymnasium for athletic programs. Support groups, food banks and non-confrontational child "exchange" programs are all housed there. It is the heart of many community activities for which it is increasingly difficult to gain access to public school or public library space. I think it has probably become the safe haven for community activities that no longer seem to function in the neighborhoods even in our small relatively crime free town. On the tax issue, I pay my taxes to support the local schools but see little evidence that those spaces are available to support broader community activities. On the other hand, the church pays no taxes yet is open to the community. Perhaps the benefits are more than monetary even in the church on every corner kind of town. Posted by: Punctilious at 6:54 AM on 2 March 2004Wonder if this fella can get a group of like-minded people together who all fervently believe in the same thing, then organize, and give 'til it hurts, and go out and start building schools? I mean, that's where the churches came from. Who knows, maybe it'd catch on, and there'd be schools next to schools, across the street from schools. Hmmm. Makes sense to me. That would probably kill the idea right there. :) |