RE: I might be getting obsessed with poverty/social justice/economic issues...

I just went to one of my favorite websites for interesting comparative data -- statemaster.com -- and saw that Louisiana and Mississippi are the top two states in terms of percentage of Christians and the top two states in terms of percentage of population below the poverty line.  I'm not suggesting anything from that other than to be careful trying to correlate church and economics.  Sure, you can parse the data in a lot of ways.  You can distinguish religious identification from church attendance and point out that the ones who attend are better off financially.  But you could defend organized crime in the same way (e.g. areas with high mob identification have higher rates of poverty, but if you look at the people who are actively involved in the mob, they're much better off).  

If I were an objective, fair-minded, person (which I'm not), just looking at the data I've seen so far, I'd be inclined to view church as largely superfluous.  Education has a stronger correlation with economic well-being and, last I heard, with rates of getting and staying married (which probably reinforces the economic well-being aspect).  Plus, I bet participating in the world of trade and commerce (with the prospect of earning money, getting fired, or going to prison for fraud) tends to moderate one's behavior more than church services.   Add to that the idea that helping the poor through the church is at best a huge waste of time and at worst affirmatively damaging, and I can't help but thank you for liberating me from my ongoing church obligations.  With my Sundays freed up, I can now justify buying a boat, which will make my wife happy, which will increase the odds we'll stay married.  Dave, you've changed my life.  

Thanks, brother.