“Because gambling is based on human greed, it replaces God with an avaricious desire to get rich quick.”
– Bishop Charles Crutchfield, Arkansas
“I cannot understand how government can even begin to sponsor or tolerate practices or programs that feed on human weakness,” Bishop Crutchfield wrote in his column, “An Occasional Word” (Arkansas United Methodist,. Aug. 1).
The bishop said he was responding to a question, “Why is your church so opposed to the lottery?”
Other observations by the bishop:
Gambling is morally and ethically bankrupt.
The lottery is a cruel joke that masquerades as a civic necessity and a public service, all the while preying on those least able to tolerate the loss of money that must inevitably come from gambling.
Gambling is morally and ethically bankrupt.
If you do the math, most of the money spent on so-called “educational” lotteries goes not to education but to prizes and administration and profits for some company.
[The lottery] makes no financial sense.
Gambling also preys on the neighbor, even if you don’t place a bet or buy a ticket yourself.
There is no impulse to “love your neighbor as yourself” when you encourage or allow systems of regressive taxation and practices that are demeaning and destructive to the fabric of life and to the fabric of the community.
The bishop closed his column saying that he had a prayer:
My prayer is that each one of you will act to defeat the allowance of a practice that is demeaning, regressive, antithetical to our faith, irresponsible in good government, and damaging to the human spirit and the human community.
