Are We Really Supposed To Spend So Much $$$$ On Church Buildings?
Two Jewish Ladies, Presence, And A Biblical Theology Of Sacred Structures
If the cynics aren’t complaining about the pastor’s salary, it’s the building fund.
The other night I was in Miami with the boys—Josh Kelly, Davey Dworske, Chris Carmona—eating at this Peruvian spot called Taipa. Unreal. We were losing our minds over the ceviche—the sauce was basically drinkable.
We were loud, rowdy, probably a bit much. Two Jewish women in their 50s sitting next to us started chatting us up—asking where we were from, how we knew each other.
We said, “Church.”
They thought we were joking. Christians, in their minds, weren’t allowed to be fun. Or unfiltered. Or human.
Then came the commentary.
“The churches in Europe,” Holly said, “they’re all covered in gold. Why build golden cathedrals while people go hungry?”
I glanced at her gilded wrists and fingers—glistening in two pounds of 24k, wagging at a goy.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “you don’t strike me as someone who’s forgotten the poor. And yet… here you are, covered in gold. Can’t two things be true? That beauty belongs in the world, and the Church should feed the hungry?”
This isn’t an apologetic footnote—it’s the whole thesis. Humanity worships at the feet of Catholic Europe. Art students cry over the loss of beauty in public space while gagging on the political Christianity that built it.
But Catholic Europe stands as the loudest anthropological apologetic that Christianity—not secularism, not paganism, not postmodern wokeness—is better for human beings. The other ideologies had their chance.
Christianity won.
Chesterton knew this. The Resurrection of Rome isn’t just nostalgia—it’s a prophetic smackdown.
I’m not here stumping for Catholicism. I’m just saying: most of us have theological imaginations the size of a thimble.
How does Scripture record God’s working in buildings? Because yeah, God doesn’t dwell in any place made with hands, but He shows up in places that honor Him—routinely. So how does a Church building come into play?
