Non orthodox people see things differently.
Apparently not, since in this thread we have two examples of low church Protestants who do not put the collection plates on the altar.
Also, you do realize I am a Congregationalist minister? I list myself as a generic Orthodox Christian because of my commitment to the faith of the early Church, the Nicene Creed, the sacred liturgy, and the doctrines of the Ecumenical Councils. In this respect I am following in the high church, evangelical Catholic footsteps of the King’s Weigh House in London, which was, prior to the population shift away from the Square Mile of the City of London in the wake of the Blitz*, the largest Congregational church in Great Britain.
Where I went this morning, (Baptist, not that it matters) the offering was devoted to the work of the kingdom of God. Money itself is a non-issue. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil.
That still doesn’t mean we should put it on the altar. Seriously, the altar is for Holy Communion, just as the Font is for Baptism. There are plenty of other places in even the smallest churches where the minister
*The City of London, which is roughly speaking the square mile around St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the oldest part of greater London, historically the walled Roman city of Londinium, is now nearly all commercial, with a mere 9,500 or so residents, compared to over 250,000 in the adjacent City of Westminster. The City, as it is called, has an unusual government largely independent from the Greater London Council, and is the only place I know of where businesses are enfranchised (receiving a number of votes proportionate to how many workers they employ in the City). The City also has its own police force separate from the Met (the Metropolitan Police, also known as Scotland Yard), identifiable by a different crest on the traditional British police helmet, bronze buttons instead of the usual silver, a red and white checkered pattern vs the black and white of the Met, or the blue and white of the British Transport Police. who patrol the many railway stations in greater London, and whose uniforms look much more like those of the Met.
The City is also home to a collection of several of the world’s most beautiful churches. In addition to St. Paul’s, it features various exquisite gothic and neo-classical churches, many by Christopher Wren, including St. Stephen Walbrook, St. Botolph’s, St. Magnus the Martyr, St. Sepulcher, St. Mary Le Bow, and the Temple Church, among many others; due to the population shift, many of these churches are underutilized and survive by providing short weekday services for office workers and hosting tourists and concerts. The churches in the Square Mile of the City of London represent, in my opinion, the finest collection of Anglican churches in the world, and they are on a par with the collections of churches in Rome, Munich, Sienna, Moscow, Kiev, Old Cairo, Mount Athos, and certain smaller islands in Sweden and Denmark, where there are some stunning medieval churches with beautiful frescoes.
