Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

Recovering Christian Stewardship from Secular Fundraising 3
State relationship. This abolition (not necessarily to say prohibition) of
a Church-State relationship necessitated a reconsideration of how
the Church and its charitable works would be financed, leading to
the first real review of fundraising and stewardship practices since
the Apostolic era. In many ways, we are recovering stewardship not
from a secularism dating to the age of Enlightenment, but from
State influence and secularism dating back to the reign of
Constantine the Great in the fourth Century.
For these reasons, and given the variations in the theological
language of our several ecclesial communities, it is exceedingly
difficult to speak about stewardship using a common lexicon. The
“scandal of division” to which His Holiness, Pope John XXIII
referred rests not only upon theological foundations, but upon
practice, tradition and language. It is my hope that we can move
beyond our confessional differences and focus on the first principles
of stewardship which, while described uniquely in each
confession’s catechetical and governing documents, still hold an
amazing fidelity to the orthodoxy of our apostolic ancestors.
Therefore, I believe it prudent to clarify the following
conventions. Whenever I speak of “parish” I mean it to be
interchangeable with congregation, gathering, or other like terms
used to describe a particular community of faith. Further, references
to a “diocese” or “presbytery” may be understood to encompass any
overarching confessional judicatory authority. Likewise, for the
purposes of this book, wherever the term “priest” is used, it can
equally be understood that I speak of minister, leader or other
person entrusted with the clerical leadership of a faith community.
Indeed, since I write primarily for the historic mainline Churches,
yet still for all ecclesial communities, it is my sincere hope that
readers will readily infer these conventions and that any
overstepping or ignorance of sensitivities will be forgiven.
A book of this type inevitably attracts detractors who argue
with the source of statistics cited, the methodology by which they have