$600,000 Found in Church Bathroom Wall

Source:

I would like to find $600,000 in my bathroom wall. That would be a really great day for me. Well, it would also be perplexing. For one thing, why am I randomly opening up my bathroom wall looking for treasure in this scenario?

There are a lot of things I don’t understand. Wow. I could stop writing there since it pretty much sums everything up. However, the thing I don’t understand that I was thinking about today is megachurches. I was reading the news story, which you may have seen: a plumber found cheques and cash walled up in the bathroom tiles of Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church megachurch in Houston, Texas. It is thought that this money is the $600,000 that went missing in 2014. I have questions. So many questions.

What is a Megachurch?

First, I learned today that a megachurch is a church with over 2000 congregants, and that the Lakewood Church has 40,000 plus all their television friends in 100 countries. That’s a lot. Apparently, the $600,000 that went missing in 2014 (which was, apparently, fully insured) was the proceeds from just one non-holiday weekend at the church. That seems amazing to me.

As some of you know by now, I am an atheist. I remember my friend Richard questioning me on whether you can be both an atheist and a good person. Well, if not, I guess I am not a good person, but I do my best. I didn’t become an atheist as a matter of some kind of rebellion. Rather, I was raised as an atheist, and I find it hard to fully understand religion. I mean, I see the value in it – I can appreciate that it is, in many cases, beneficial for both mental and physical health. I just find myself frequently baffled. (Please understand that when I say “atheist,” I do not mean that I am against religion, but rather that I do not follow one. That is an error that some people have made – and I have had at least one person get quite angry and offended about it. I don’t say I am right or wrong. I simply am being up front with you about my own beliefs.)

There is, naturally, no shortage of people willing to “explain” religion to me. However, it is usually not the type of explanation that is useful unfortunately.

What baffles me?

Well, for starters, I don’t understand how or why a religion such as Christianity, which does not ostensibly worship wealth – I mean, I have not read the entire Bible although I think I have read more of it than many people have, but there is nothing in the parts I have read about how “poverty is evil” or “the wealthy are holy” or anything like that. Actually, if anything, it’s the opposite. So, my point is that I watch these televangelism programs and they ask for money as though that is a normal part of religion, and it has always seemed hypocritical to me.

On the one hand, I see that money is needed to run a church and any associated charitable ventures. However, what I see with these televangelists is a gaudy glorification of their church. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think the majority of the funds are going to help improve people’s lives. I suspect that they are lining the pockets of the people high up in the church, or, at the very least, purchasing them the material comforts of life. Do pastors deserve material comforts? In my opinion they do, but Osteen reportedly has millions of dollars, which is probably beyond.

Hypocrisy is Bad, M’Kay?

Then again, who am I to judge? If we look at this like a religious organization, it is rife with hypocrisy and it is quite ridiculous. However, if we look at is as a business, it is a very clever business model. Taxes on a church are… do churches even pay taxes? Also, if people feel good after listening to him preach and want to send him their money so that he can add to his Gucci wallet, why not?

I don’t understand why people would want to do that. I don’t have a lot of money, and I cannot afford much in terms of charity, but when I do give charitably, I tend to choose causes that, umm… well, you know, where the people need money? That’s a big part of what puzzles me. I am confused by why so many people think it is a really good idea to give money to someone who clearly has plenty of it already. I understand people who give money to a homeless shelter or the humane society. I even understand people who give money to people asking for spare change, as ill-advised as that usually is.

Building a Mystery

The thing that is really a mystery to everyone right now is who stole this money and why did they steal it? It seems ridiculous to think that Joel Osteen himself stole the money. He already has so much money, for one thing. If he wanted another $600,000, all he had to do is simply wait a week, right? That is assuming that it was not a particularly good week for him. The funds were insured, so there was some profit in it. However, since only $200,000 was cash and the rest was credit cards and cheques (none of which would still be valid), it is really hard to understand who might have stolen this and why they would wall it up in the bathroom for seven years!

It's such a long period of time that it makes me wonder if the person who did it passed away in the interim. Also, how did no one notice that the bathroom got tiled? I suppose they might have removed just a small portion of the tiles and stuffed all the envelopes in. Maybe whoever did it felt very guilty and tried to forget about it and move on with their lives. However, that would not be smart. If you committed a crime like that and you felt guilty about it, the thing to do would be to gather up all the evidence and either destroy it or donate it to some charity or something. Why? Because it must have fingerprints and such on it, so you wouldn’t want to leave it in the bathroom wall.

This makes me think that the person or people who did it are either deceased, ill, incarcerated or incredibly foolish. Alternately, they were waiting for the right time. How patient would you have to be to wait seven years, though?

Conclusion and Why am I Obsessed with This?

The thing I really don’t understand is why this is taking up so much of my mental energy. I am very curious about it. It is like a whodunnit. Obviously, there is a very weird little story here, and we may never know what the story is, but it sure would be interesting. In fact it’s probably more crazy and interesting than anything we can think up. The expression “truth is stranger than fiction” is nearly always valid.

I am intrigued by the world of megachurches and the inherent hypocrisy in them. The point of a church, so I thought, was to turn away from worldly and material matters, but a megachurch is extremely worldly and material! This news story fascinates me because a robbery of $600,000 from a church shouldn’t even really be possible, but it happened, and it was never solved. Now, we find out that the money never actually left the premises. How does such a thing happen? Someone must have known or suspected who did it and yet it doesn’t look like anyone was charged. It’s very curious. I wonder whether they will ever get to the bottom of it.