But The New York Times is reporting on a much smaller case of fraud not coming from a position of power in the church, but from the pew. Bryant Rodriguez, 44, began attending El Camino Church last year. He attended baptism classes, became well connected with the small congregation, and subsequently defrauded members of the church out of $600,000.

The authorities said that Mr. Rodriguez asked parishioners to invest in an electronics firm he represented, which he said wanted “a blessing for a blessing” by providing Jews and Christians with the opportunity to invest in his company, a criminal complaint charges.

The complete article recounts numerous stories of how parishioners invested their savings with Rodriquez only to discover the money disappeared. Many of them lost their life’s savings.

One night this week a few dozen worshipers gathered for a regular service in the basement of El Camino…. The group sang a Spanish version of “Silent Night,” their hands outstretched, their palms up. At the end of the service, the pastor, the Rev. Miguel Amadis, addressed the congregation.

“We’re going through a very hard time,” he said. “We have to stay united.”

“He came to us like anyone else comes to the church,” Mr. Amadis said. “When I met this guy, he convinced me he was a true original Christian. Man, this guy could talk. He could convince anybody.”

The sad story reminded me of an interview I did with Ken Sande from Peacemakers a few years ago. Ken spoke with me about the importance of church membership. At a time when many congregations are de-emphasizing the importance of membership, Sande says it’s more important then ever especially if the church leaders are going to take their responsibility to protect the flock seriously.

Ken recounted this story:

I counseled a church where an attender used his relationships within the church to persuade people to invest over $2 million with him. The money was never returned to the investors. The church leadership struggled to respond because the man was not a member. If they said something publicly and warned the congregation about his actions, they risked a lawsuit for slander and defamation of character.

The church leaders finally asked the man to leave, but said nothing to the congregation. As a result he continued to scam people in the church for another year. When the victimized members discovered that church leaders knew about the man’s actions but failed to publicly warn the congregation, they in turn threatened to sue the church for failing to protect them.

Several courts have ruled that churches may not discipline people who have not specifically consented to discipline. In this case, church leaders could not publicly warn the congregation about the man’s actions without threat of a lawsuit because he was not a member, and had not consented to discipline. By not emphasizing membership, the leaders were prevented from fulfilling one of their most important biblical tasks-protecting the flock.

Read the full interview at LeadershipJournal.net.

What do you think? Is church membership passé, or should we be making it more important to protect people in these uncertain times. There are certainly other reasons for membership other than financial security, but this story vividly illustrates just one. Are you familiar with stories of people entering the church to grow their business? Even when not illegal, how do you feel about attenders using their church contacts for business?

1. Red states are most likely to give to non-profits, and states in the Northeast are the least likely.

2. European countries give more humanitarian aid per capita than America, but they don’t give as much individually.

3. The least charitable are the French.

4. Gays are one of the most charitable groups in the US.

5. Some of the stingiest in the US are secular conservatives. (I guess they don’t love God or their neighbor.)

6. “If donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do. But Mr. Brooks says that if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes.”

7. Liberal donations often go to non-profits that benefit the rich–art museums, symphonies, schools and universities.

8. Conservatives give more blood. (Sounds like a patriotic country song.)

9. The working poor give a higher percentage of their income to charity than the middle class.

Read Kistof’s entire column here.

Going through the Torah again has gotten me thinking about the current dialogue (if you can really use such a civil word to describe it) about same sex marriage. Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman in their book unChristian, have documented the widespread perception that Christians are homophobic due in no small measure to their very vocal opposition to ssm. And the passage of Proposition 8 in California last month putting a halt to state recognized same sex unions (at least temporarily until the courts reassert themselves), has brought heavy criticism upon churches from the gay community. In fact, Barack Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren perform the invocation at his innauguration has triggered the wrath of gay leaders. (Although Warren says he has many gay friends, he is doctrinally opposed to ssm.)

The battle lines seem clear. Conservative Christians and the gay community are locked in a culture war, and the Christians have drawn a line in the sand–”Marriage is defined as one man and one woman. Period.”

Last week former evangelical pastor, Arkansas governer, and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. What ensued was a polite but strong conversation about ssm. (It still amazes me how many guests underestimate Jon Stewart’s intelligence and debate skills. The fact that he can pose such stinging questions and crack a winsome joke at the same time speaks to his talent. Bill Maher, take note.) In the end Huckabee’s arguments just fell flat against Stewart’s secular logic. Here’s the video:

The Daily Show clip reveals the dilemma facing religious conservatives (not just Christians). In a culture that does not see the Bible as authoritative, you’ve got to base advocacy of social legislation on something other than Scripture. So far the conservative Christians have not made a convincing case that permitting gay couples to marry would cause measurable harm to others. If they are going to continue to fight this battle (and that is a big “if”) they’re going to have to win over the minds of a very diverse American population with arguments outside Leviticus.

But that raises another question: Should conservative Christians fight to oppose ssm? Bob Hyatt, a pastor in Portland and a regular contributor to Out of Ur, wrote a very interesting post calling for a compromise on the issue. Drawing from his experience ministering in the Netherlands, he believes the state should get out of the “marriage business” altogether. He writes:

[The state] should recognize that as long as it uses that term and continues to privilege certain types of relationships over others this issue is going to divide us as a nation and is only going to become more and more contentious. We need to move towards the system used in many European countries, where the state issues nothing but civil unions to anyone who wants them, and those who desire it may seek a marriage from the church. When I pastored in the Netherlands, couples got a civil union certificate at the courthouse and then had a marriage ceremony at the church. This division largely negated the culture war aspect, and allowed those churches who objected to same sex marriage on biblical grounds not only to opt out, but to be able to continue to teach their biblical view of marriage unchallenged by the state.

Hyatt’s live-and-let-live approach will probably be seen as completely unacceptable to cultural crusaders, but might be appealing to those who fear the state may force churches to perform same sex marriages or risk losing their tax-exempt status. Interestingly, response to Hyatt’s blog post has been fairly positive with a number of pastors believing this may be the best solution for the church.

Here are three final thoughts that seem to be missing from most conversations about ssm that I’ve encountered:

1. I wonder if the energy and zeal around this issue for some conservative Christians is fueled by the realization that the church has lost its position as chaplain to the culture. In the Constantinian era, the church was very close to the state (even in officially secular states) and helped define morality for both government and society. It had a privileged position, set the agenda, and was widely respected. In the position of chaplain, the church’s definition of marriage was never questioned.

Now that we are, by most accounts, in a post-Constantinian era in which the church does not serve as a chaplain to the state, for the church to impose it’s definition of marriage provokes protests and accusations of intolerance and bigotry. By not budging on the ssm issue, are some conservatives actually trying to hold on to their chaplaincy dream for the church? Will the war over ssm prove to be the Constantinian church’s Waterloo?

2. A Christian friend of mine who teaches at a law school has traced the current debate about ssm back to the widespread acceptance of no-fault divorce in the 1970s. The precedents set in those cases laid the legal foundations for the redefinition of marriage we are now witnessing. (I don’t have the time or legal expertise to recount his entire lecture, but I assure you it was brilliant.) And even though divorce is strongly opposed in the Bible, conservative Christians did not rise up in opposition to those laws thirty years ago. The argument could be made that as a result of their silence they are now reaping what they’ve sown. Which brings me to the final point.

3. Strong opponents to ssm often say they are seeking to protect the “sanctity of marriage.” It seems like a watertight claim. After all, who wants to be against the holiness of marriage? But statistics reveal that divorce rates among “born-again” Christians may be just as high, and in some states higher, than divorce rates among the population as a whole. If Christians want to defend the sanctity of marriage we might do well to get our own house in order first. After all, if many Christians don’t believe in the sanctity of marriage, how can we fairly expect others to?

You might be one of them. And if you are, the Seventh Day Adventists want to know. Ken Wetmore, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor in Spokane, has launched the WhyIQuitChurch.com campaign. The site, which is being advertised on buses in Spokane, features a simple survey where people can explain their church background and why they’ve stopped attending.

At that address, respondents are faced with a number of questions that range from “Did you grow up in a family that attended church” to “In general, which factor(s) led you to stop attending?”

In addition to ferreting out the various reasons why people quit church, Wetmore says there’s a second, more important, feature of the STA campaign: trying to make amends.

“Sometimes as a church we don’t do a good enough job loving people and taking care of them,” he says. “So we wanted also to be able to let people know that we’re sorry for having failed them.”

What has the survey revealed? Here are some of the early results:

Turned off by the attitude/behaviors of members of the church:  53%

No longer believe the doctrines/teachings of the church: 31%

The credibility of the leadership discouraged me: 30%

The church didn’t meet my needs: 23.9%

Something happened and I no longer felt comfortable: 20.9%

I was specifically hurt/offended by a person within the group: 20.6%

Take the survey for yourself at www.whyiquitchurch.com.

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