Housing for God or housing for the homeless?

When Los Angeles was originally founded, the United Methodist Church was planted.  Over the years the church, now located in downtown Los Angeles, became extremely valuable property.

In the 1980s, the gap between the rich and the poor widened and homelessness increased in Los Angeles.  What was the United Methodist church to do?  The L.A. church, in a bold and unprecedented move, sold its church and used the considerable proceeds in justice ministries geared primarily to the homeless.  The congregation continued to worship in a rather modest multi-purpose room near by.  The congregation did keep the church parking lot.

In 2017, the pastor decided to worship in a tent out in the parking lot.  Prior to moving to the parking lot, few poor and homeless were in the congregation.  After the parking lot church was started, the congregation was made up primarily poor Filipino women and the homeless.

Cathedrals are magnificent monuments for worship, but they consume scarce church resources that could have and should have been used to provide decent housing for the poor.  In this sense, beautiful church buildings are monuments of injustice.

John 3:16 is a Bible verse about a justification by faith gospel.  Luke 4:18-19 is a passage with a justice emphasis.  So also, 1 John 3:16.

Acts 8:12 blends both justice and justification by faith.  The reference to the kingdom of God is a reference to justice that releases the oppressed; the reference to Jesus Christ refers to the cross and resurrection; a justification by faith emphasis.

The Protestant Reformation highlighted the justification gospel, but in the process, left out the justice component or, in other words, it was a spirituality without justice.