Do you sometimes feel uncomfortable when people approach you and ask for donations? How about those co-workers who every year comes around at work to ask you to buy cookies? Sometimes you don’t want to give, but you give in due to social pressure of giving.  If you don’t give in, you feel like a frugal monster. But they don’t know that you contribute to other charities of your choice.

Let us discuss religious donations. Donation and church are an oxymoron. Why would churches that claim material wealth is not important ask for material wealth from their congregation? It is not surprising that many of our churches are magnificent architectural monuments in even poor communities. But does this ornate dwelling serve a purpose. Possibly it represents a glimpse of the after life?

But what is the cost of spreading God’s truth. Does it come to the enormous amount of donations that are collected by our churches? How much does it cost to print copies of our sacred books? Did Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Oyasama have an enormous purse to spread the teachings. They only needed a pair of shoes, and their passion in spreading God’s truth.

The spreading of God’s teaching does not require money to spread. It is God’s truth that will spread the teaching. It is this confusion of the churches proclaiming the evils of material wealth, but yet soliciting contributions that may be hindering the propagation of God’s truth.  When religious leaders begin to follow their own teaching, the congregation will be able to see a path to follow. For now, the churches may claim to have many member, but yet how many of these members really knows God’s truth?

Heaven’s Truth Church/Tenrikyo Church