No agencies, committees, congregations, or entities of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago shall raise funds by any form of gambling.
“An Outline of the Faith: commonly called the Catechism,” in the 1979 Book of Common Prayers says: “The duty of all Christians is to follow Christ; to come together week by week for corporate worship and to work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God” (p. 856). Our giving should be a generous heart response to the gift of God in Christ. Our giving helps to spread the good news of God in Christ around the world. Four aspects of gambling make it inconsistent with Christian stewardship.
- Gambling is created for gain without service. The gambler always hopes to get something for nothing.
- Gambling creates an artificial risk which is not at all similar to the unavoidable risks of life.
- Gambling is done at the total cost of the loser. The winner cannot win save at the expense of another.
- The outcome of gambling depends upon the turn of chance.
“Gambling challenges that view of life that the Christian Church exists to uphold and extend. Its glorification of mere chance is a denial of the divine order of nature…. [Gambling] disregards the insistence of the Church of every age that possessions are a trust and that we must account for their use. The persistent appeal to covetousness is fundamentally opposed to the unselfishness which was taught by Jesus Christ and by the New Testament as a whole.” --Archbishop William Temple
