The ‘Corinth Syndrome’

The fact that the man speaking was supposedly a gospel preacher made his words that much more incredible. His solution to dwindling attendance and a seemingly unpopular preacher in a small-town congregation near his home was to build a really nice (expensive) new church building there and hire him to be the new preacher. All he needed was several area churches to fund the new building and his salary, and he could almost guarantee immediate church growth. He got the idea from a large denomination. He was not the first brother to think that spiritual problems can be cured by material means. Paul tried to open the eyes of the church at Corinth, saying, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ… For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and…