Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

To me, congregations should welcome such individuals with no regard for economic or social background or circumstances, and make an effort to ensure that they are encouraged and given a full opportunity (insofar as is possible or within the congregation's power) to serve God, the congregation, and even people in general in a manner that recognizes their talents and abilities, and allows them to use and be appropriately compensated for them. This will then permit those individuals to improve their social mobility through both the reputation and the resources that they will acquire through their performance. 

However, it is not the congregation's role (in my opinion) to corporately take upon itself primary responsibility for economically redressing or compensating individual members just for the existence of social or systemic inequities that they have experienced or are experiencing. The congregation's function in that regard should be to work to correct (where possible) the general societal conditions that contributed to the problems or inequities that the individual experienced or is experiencing.

April 16 2016 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report