Regarding a recent opinion revolving around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building temples instead of helping the poor and needy by Charles Hubbert.
Does Charles also feel the same about all other religions’ efforts to build their houses of worship? Are Catholics wrong to build cathedrals? Are Muslims wrong to build mosques? Are Jews wrong to build synagogues? Are Buddhists wrong to build their temples? The list goes on.
If we expand the assertion by Hubbert to say that, “God would be more pleased if all churches or religions would stop spending money on houses of worship and give it to the less fortunate,” the flaw in this idea begins to be revealed. If we do the same financial analysis on all faiths that he did on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we’ll see similar portfolio activity. Are all churches bad under this light? No.
Does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints feed kids and help the less fortunate and build temples and chapels? Yes. Do most religions? Yes. Is it wrong to do both? No. In fact, doing both is imperative. One effort doesn’t exist without the other.
Our houses of worship reflect our love for God. They are his houses. We sacrifice properly by giving our very best to him. Our cathedrals, temples, synagogues, mosques, and chapels are built in a way to reflect our sacred regard for his majesty.
This is the foundation of why we care for our fellows in the first place. They/we are his children. If we neglect religion and our aspirations to know and serve God better, we lose the mainspring of our motivation for helping the less fortunate and downtrodden. A core of christian teaching is when Jesus said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” Matthew 25:40. We learn and are taught these types of things in churches, temples, mosques and synagogues. Together.
Seth Seaman, Quincy, Illinois
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/y4Dz7FU
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