Insight on the News
Churches’ Money Woes
● Religious apathy has closed scores of old churches in England. Many have been sold and converted into community centers, theaters or just dwelling places. The Anglican Church is especially concerned about many of its big cathedrals—suffering from the corroding effects of pollution, the decay of old age and the high costs of spiraling inflation. Public appeals have raised millions of British pounds to repair cathedrals in York, Winchester and Canterbury. Salisbury’s cathedral now charges a voluntary entrance fee to cover its expenses. But the situation remains critical. The head of the Church of England is considering asking the state for financial support.
In Nigeria, the “Sunday Times” reports that “many Roman Catholic parishes in East-Central State are broke.” To cope with the situation, the “Daily Times” says, a bishop in the area “sharply raised fees for church services by between 300 to 400 per cent.” Fees for weddings are up and adult baptisms now cost about double those of children.
The Vatican has had problems of another type: bad investments. Reporting on the crumbling empire of Italian financier Michele Sindona, “Business Week” magazine lists the Vatican as one of the “big losers.” Of the Vatican’s investments in two of Sindona’s banks (one now bankrupt and the other closed by Swiss authorities), the magazine says that “the smart money in Rome puts the total Church loss between $40-million and $50-million.” The “National Catholic Reporter” comments that if all the money given the Catholic Church were put in one bank account, “the Church of Rome, Inc. would undoubtedly be the world’s largest multinational corporation.” “And,” it adds, “dollar for dollar, it would probably be among the worst run corporations in the world.”
“In God’s Image”
● Not long ago, men made glowing predictions of the part that computers would play in directing human affairs. A recent article in “Saturday Review” magazine says: “In the sober light of the mid-Seventies, it now appears that both futurists and popularizers have been premature in their assessment.” Why? Because, though able to perform amazing computations, research has shown that “even the largest, most advanced computer cannot be made to understand sentences which a four-year-old child can comprehend without hesitation.”
This more sober estimate enhances appreciation of something else. Not that computers are not remarkable inventions but, the article continues, “that human abilities are far more wonderful than we had dreamed. . . . the number of possible interactions within the brain alone is beyond the current skill of our best mathematicians to compute in a meaningful manner. The best way of expressing the total creative capacity of the human central nervous system . . . is that for all practical purposes it is infinite.” Quoting the Genesis statement that “God created man in His own image,” the article adds, “it is still clear that we are operating with only a tiny fraction of our true abilities. Studying nature, we find that systems are created to be used to the full. What is the purpose of all the unused human capability? What is its destination?” Only the Bible points to the answer: everlasting life in a righteous new order where human capacities will be used to the full with resulting happiness and delight.
Pious Criminals
● It is well known that many members of the Mafia are active church supporters. Also, over in Israel, where a Jewish criminal underworld has begun to develop, it seems that some persons view crime and religion as compatible. Criminologist Dr. Menahem Amir says that some Israeli criminals are religious Jews despite their activities in robbing, prostitution, narcotics, smuggling and gambling. He cites an example of a man belonging to a narcotics and prostitution ring who was shot and buried in an orange grove. A member of the gang that carried out the murder became concerned because this Jewish man had been buried without proper ritual. So he had the body moved to a cemetery—to his own undoing, as the move led to police investigation and arrest. As in the first century, people make God’s word invalid while holding to man-made religious tradition. God’s Son said such worship is in vain.—Matt. 15:7-9.