This is a rant from May of 2003.
The problem is not cookies so much as "cookie abuse".
Cookies are a means of tracking web activity.
While they have value, they pose a security risk.
They are annoying at least and potentially invasive.
A web browser "cookie" is a bit of information stored by your web browser at the request of the web server when you visit a particular web site. That information can be recalled later (by name). The up-side is that the web server will "recognize you", which is good. The down-side is that other sites can look for the same bit of information by its name, thus tracking your movement around the internet.
Most of us loathe junk mail. (And we're not even talking about junk e-mail.) Junk mail is a manifestation of marketing gone mad, or as some call it, "marketeering". Cookies are so heavily abused by marketeers that their positive value is nullified. There is no effective way to allow cookies and yet prevent the bad guys from using them. So don't use them and don't allow them. We don't require them.
For most web activity which requires state,
cookies are only a cheap alternative to more robust methods.
The real value of cookies for web administrators and web site owners
is for tracking people.
This web site administrator
has no wish to track you.
Christians should not employ cookies.
A painful revelation was that my own church's web site
employs cookies.
Hoping for the best,
I imagine at this time that the church
hired someone to develope the site,
someone who may not be a Christian
or in any case is not doing web site development for ministry
but for business.
(Even for business, it is arguable that cookies are
un-needed and promote bad PR.)
Any site not trying to sell you something should not require cookies.