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Why cash remains sacred in American churches


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2017 Jun 25, 3:23pm   1,801 views  5 comments

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On Tuesday, June 27, it will be 50 years since the first automated cash dispenser – which came to be known as an automated teller machine (ATM) – was inaugurated in London.

Later, in my work as a historian of American religion, I extensively studied the role money has played in religious life. In my book, “In Pursuit of the Almighty’s Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism,” I retold the American history of the nation’s largest religious stream in terms of the search for money to pay for religious ministries and the purposes for which churches spent the money they collected.

So, what impact did ATMs have on church life?

Marty Baker, pastor of the Stevens Creek Church in Augusta, Georgia, was widely credited as the first to install two ATMs in the church lobby in 2005. The first year the donations produced $100,000. They more than doubled by the next year to more than $200,000. He was so successful in increasing giving by making cash available (up 18 percent over pre-ATM machine levels) that he took it one step further, by introducing the “automatic tithing machine” that took cash out of the giver’s account and deposited it directly into the church’s coffers. This new ATM was beginning to virtualize the all-important collection. Some users responded by placing their receipts in the plate at the appropriate time in the service.

There are two interesting dimensions of this appearance of ATMs and churches to consider.

One is the strong affinity between cash and conservative evangelicals. For many evangelicals debt is a form of bondage – a message conveyed through conservative radio financial guru Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University to tens of millions of his followers on AM radio each week in his call-in programs. Ramsey teaches how to “dump debt, budget, build wealth and give like never before!” The building of wealth is a corollary to eschewing debt and it makes Christians free, in Ramsey’s view to be godly.

The point is, money isn’t just a fungible means to various ends, it is sacred to these believers.

The second dimension for consideration in the appearance of ATMs in the lobbies of evangelical churches is that they signaled something by their very presence: America was in fact becoming a cashless society. The debit card that people carried in their wallet could be just as good as cash anywhere else, but in the sanctuary, cash was the appropriate offering.

https://theconversation.com/why-cash-remains-sacred-in-american-churches-79167?sa=google&sq=50th+anniversary+of+atm&sr=3

#Religion #Cash #ATM #DonateYourWayToSalvation

Note: This morning while doing some quick channel flipping a televangelist was asking for the tidy sum of only 1K to ensure your place in the good place and was really pointing that finger into the screen basically telling you if you don't give that much, Fire Lake* for you sinner.

*Not sure if Bob Seeger will be singing for you as you head into said lake for failing to donate said amount. Perhaps an extra 2 to 3K can get that done.

Comments 1 - 5 of 5        Search these comments

1   Tenpoundbass   2017 Jun 25, 3:53pm  

I would take out a twenty and keep the $20 and tell him my offering was the ATM fee I paid the Church.

2   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2017 Jun 25, 3:57pm  

So you hate the basic premise of Pat.net, which has absolutely nothing to do with religion?

I'll also note the author uses the most extreme example(highly utilized tactic of leftists) as this is the first time I've even heard of an ATM in a church.

3   PeopleUnited   2017 Jun 25, 6:00pm  

Matthew 21:12 Jesus threw the money changers out of the

"And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves"

These charlatans will have their reward. There is a time to give, but i would never give money to a church that had an ATM in the lobby. Sadly most churches are using fear and intimidation to control people. And taking from your wallet is one of the big ways they achieve control.

Still, just because relious leaders an religious people do stupid things, is NOT evidence God will not keep His promises.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God doesn't want your money. He wants you to change your mind about your sin.

4   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2017 Jun 25, 8:45pm  

anonymous says

FWM - ????

I don't think I've seen the most extreme example yet but I fondly remember all the suckers who got taken in by Marvin Gorman, some of them were old co-workers. The amounts they coughed up for old Marv make that 1K look like chump change and boy were their faces red and tounges silent after old Marv fucked up.

As for the ATM you need to get out more and get with the times guy.

So you believe con artists = all preachers?

5   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2017 Jun 25, 8:46pm  

anonymous says

Had to come back to this just for you FWM.

If using Italics is a highly utilized tactic of leftists - does that mean that all the lies coming out of the current administration is "de rigueur" for rightists ?

Btw - have you given your 10% ?

I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that your TDS has reached epic proportions.

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