I just came from the Orthodox Swefieh Church in Amman. I had to attend a nice wedding ceremony for a long time school friend.

It has been quite sometime since I last went to church as I haven’t been much of a religious person recently. I was a bit happy entering the church after such time because it always helped giving me this sacred holy feeling that I miss from time to time.

I arrived 10 minutes before the ceremony began. I chose a place to the right front so that I can see the ceremony from a near distance. There was no much crowd yet, so instead of checking people, I started checking the walls of the church with all the art of Saints drawings that portrays europiean middle ages art.

What really disturbed me is all those names of local people and families under the drawings of the Saints. For instance under Saint Paul’s drawing there is some text telling that this drawing is for the soul of the father of xxx Tanous, another drawing for Virgin Mary holding child Jesus with some text telling that this is for the soul of the parents of xxx Shami, a this one for the soul of xxx Haddad and so on!

The idea of selling the Church walls to place people’s names is appailling! It looked to me like a newspaper or street billboard. If people can pay money to place their names on the walls of a church, then why dont we have Coca cola or Pepsi ads for the souls of their inventors! Or maybe Fastlink or Omnia subscribtion ads! They can make those ads with a spiritual sense where people would feel more comfortable with it and at the same time Church can generate more money. Maybe they can instead of painting the walls, place posters that can be changed easily so that they would charge people based on time intervals rather than one time fee!

While I am not much of a religious person, I still feel so much injustice, and a slap to the faces of the all the other christians in Amman. Jesus came to spread his word to all people. He didn’t differenciate between poor and rich, from people who can pay money to the church and those who can’t. When he found some people trading goods in church, he throught their goods and called them children of snakes!

If anyone wants to make a donation to the church he can make it in secret. His left hand shouldn’t know what his right hand does. Isn’t that what Jesus taught us? He warned us of those hypocrites who claim their high moral infront of other people to get high regards from other people instead of high regards from God.

Now that some people have their names written on the wall of churches, how does it cost for me to place my parents names when they pass away?? Do I have to save some money to give my parents their justice as of those names written on the walls? I don’t think that my mother or father is any less of a christian than those.

It is sad to loose the spirit of christianity for some cash! Is this legal?