Do you ever wonder if churches are doing any good in this world? There is so much cynicism these days, even in the God-blogosphere.

So take a moment to read this article from the New Yorker written by Malcolm Gladwell. The article is about Rick Warren, and is an interesting read, but this paragraph really caught my eye:

Ram Cnaan, a professor of social work at the University of Pennsylvania, recently estimated the replacement value of the charitable work done by the average American church–that is, the amount of money it would take to equal the time, money, and resources donated to the community by a typical congregation–and found that it came to about a hundred and forty thousand dollars a year. In the city of Philadelphia, for example, that works out to an annual total of two hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of community “good”; on a national scale, the contribution of religious groups to the public welfare is, as Cnaan puts it, “staggering.” In the past twenty years, as the enthusiasm for publicly supported welfare has waned, churches have quietly and steadily stepped in to fill the gaps.

This is not something you hear every day.

The Bride is beautiful.

[hat tip: Theology of the Body]