steeple-houses and churches
The NY Times has reported on several Catholic parishes that are holding long-term (multiple years in some cases) vigils in the church buildings that the church leadership would like to close and sell off. In at least one case, the church was thriving and self-supporting financially, but was sitting on a piece of coastal land worth a large chunk of money.
These people have basically staged round-the-clock sit-ins so that the buildings couldn't be put on the market and sold off. They are angry at church leadership for deciding to throw them out of their churches and essentially dissolving their congregations and telling them to go to another church somewhere else.
I can definitely see why they are angry, but the story seemed also a bit surreal to me, because I've been reading George Fox's autobiography (conveniently published online in its entirety here). Fox was one of the early founders of the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. He used to call churches "steeple-houses" most emphatically, because a church is people, believers and followers of Christ, not the building.
He also preached against the Anglican Church (and would have preached against the Catholic Church if they had been available in 18th century England) because the concept of paid clergy is against the teachings of Jesus, who told his followers to preach the Gospel freely, not for pay.
