Churches
Churches are run pretty much like a business corporation. The leadership is like the board of directors and the members and visitors who show up are like the consumers. Long-term members who donate large amounts are like large corporate contracts that no business wants to loose, and the visitors are like potential new customers. The main goal of a church, when it comes down to it, is to keep its members happy and try to attract new ones. Which means walking very fine lines on ideology. If they say or do something that people disagree with, they might loose members. And loosing members means loosing money. In many ways this is good for the people attending because the church provides what its members want just like a business provides what its customers want, and therefor the system works. The problem is, it is impossible for a church to challenge common theological beliefs, even if there are good grounds for doing so, because it will upset the system. Many theological or scientific issues which are hotly debated are ignored completely for fear of offending one side or the other. The hope being, by ignoring the issue, they will keep both sets of customers happy. Then there is the issue that some people go to church out of guilt. They thing God has some holy calendar where he places check marks for every time you went to church and it will be part of your final judgement when you die. Other people go just to socialize and make friends. That’s fine with me but I realized long ago that the friends I make at church are just like the friends I made in school, work, and all the other churches I’ve been to. Once one of you moves on to a different church, you’ll likely never see them again. So what’s the point?
