What if your tithe belongs to the poor instead of the church?
Tuesday, 27 June 2006
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We all know about tithes--giving away a portion of your income, often to the church in the form of an offering. There are certain debates about whether it's still a biblical requirement to give 10%, whether it applies to pre-tax or post-tax earnings, whether those questions are legalistic, etc. But how often do you hear people question what the church does with that money? Last year I found an article with a very interesting thesis in this regard and bookmarked it for later. You can get a sense of the direction it goes by the title: EMBEZZLEMENT: THE CORPORATE SIN OF CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIANITY? An Examination of How Local Congregations in the Early Church Spent Their Money and the Implications for Us Today.
Here are a few quotes from the document and then one from the "Relational tithe" site that was built around it.
From the document (by Ray Mayhew):
While reading some patristic documents recently I was startled to discover that the Church Fathers are univocal in their insistence that the bulk of the revenue collected by a local church belonged by right to the poor. There was no expectation among them that alarge percentage of what was collected by a local congregation would be used for its own maintenance and ministry. In fact, to do so would have been viewed by them as a misappropriation of funds.
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To give just one example, from the 75 million dollars in annual income received by some of the Protestant churches in Chicago, it is estimated that less than 6 million dollarswas spent outside the local congregations where the money was raised.1 Such current priorities are difficult to justify in a world where 17 million die unnecessarily every year from infectious diseases and inadequate nutrition. Biblically,all of them are our neighbors—and many of them areour brothers and sisters. Our commitment to alleviate their suffering is of highest priority if we are toeffectively incarnate the message we are called to proclaim. In the face of this, a re-examination of how we spend our money in the light of the Scriptures and the practice of the early church is long overdue.
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The general rule, for both individuals and churches, was, according to Augustine, that “not to give to the needy what issuperfluous is akin to fraud” and “when you possess the superfluous you possess what isnot your own.”
Giving in this way was not seen as generosity, it was viewed as an act of restitution.It belonged to the poor by right. Augustine instructed his own church to set aside at least a tenth of all their possessions and income for the poor (not the church). This was actually a concession to what he saw as greed because his congregation was not prepared to give upeverything that was “superfluous”!
Quotations similar to those above abound in the early literature available to us.Sadly, our contemporary approach has been very different. We usually calculate howmuch it costs to run the church, and then decide how much we can give away to missions and the poor. However, this is not usually done out of selfishness or lack of concern for thepoor. It is the direct result of our theology of stewardship which appears to be quite different from that of the early church.
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The recent resurgence of interest among evangelicals in patristics is very heartening. However, we are in danger of embracing their doctrine while ignoring their ethics; of admiring their orthodoxy, but failing to imitate their lifestyle. Tradition has been defined as “the living faith of the dead,” but traditionalism as the “dead faith of the living.” It is imperative that we, as those responsible for the finances of the contemporary church,abandon our traditionalism which has been content to do so little for the global poor. We need to rediscover the Great Tradition of radical commitment to redistributional justice that was expressed so beautifully in the lives and theology of the church fathers.
It is not surprising that, after immersing himself for a lifetime in the patristic writings, John Wesley wrote his now famous lines that, “any Christian who takes for himself anything more than the plain necessities of life lives in anopen, habitual denial of the Lord.” As we know, he practiced what he preached by giving most of his income away, wearing inexpensive clothes and eating only simple food. “If I leave behind me ten pounds,” he wrote, “you and all mankind bear witness against me that I lived and died a thief and a robber.” [More]
From Relational Tithe:
Welcome to Relational Tithe. We're a global community attempting to live out God's economy of abundance and generosity in the midst of an assumed economy of scarcity and fear. ...
We believe that our Creator has created an economy of abundance and intends for no one to be in need. To borrow the words from a Wendell Berry poem, "what we need is here." We see everyone who inhabits this planet as our neighbor with whom we seek to connect. So there must be alternative economic structures within our world to ensure that the poor are among us (and not simply objectified) and are cared for (and not merely dismissed with cash).
In starting this relational network, we simply seek to do collectively what we are only able to do in-part individually... to build genuine relationships that cross socio-economic boundaries and make giving not only possible, but personal. A tragedy of many local faith communities is not that people do not care about the poor and those in need, but that in the normal rhythm of people's lives, people rarely ever encounter them. [More]
Thank you for speaking real biblical truth on this matter. There are so many good articles about freewill giving VS tithing. This issue is urgent and it effects many other areas of the body. First, it denies grace and promotes legalism. It hurts the poor, The promotion of this misinterprestation also gives laypeople a certain sense of false satisfaction with their sacrifice and earning of God acceptance (if that could be done). The need to use and abuse this old covenant concept also stems from a LACK of faith. It is also often done as a form of control (as is church membership).
However it seems that most people (especially my Baptist friends) don't want the truth, they want easy believism. They don't want to rock the boat, they want to worship Christian rock star leaders and their man made rules rather than God and his truth. Let us seek wisdom, continued grace and purpose.
..and please grant us the power to change and bring about change Thanks
i been raking my brain about this issue. but i always come back to this which in my heart i thoroughly believe. i have a duty to fullfill towards god and my fellow people.i believe in giving wholeheartedly and not to expect anything in return.yess i need to give as much as i can give and help as much as i am able. but i think that to a large part of why people dont want to tithe is;the way the big church leaders set the example. i dont know about you, but it turns me off to give to a church where the leaders tell you that you need to give what you cant even afford unless you let your own kids go hungry or without education, while they live in sprawling homes and wear rolexes. go sell your rolex. and besides jesus didnt need a building made with expensive marble and gold to get his message across to us. yes give as much as you can .and help as much as you can. god loves a cheerful giver. he is a loving god and not a threatening god. god is love and by giving too the ones that need it the most, you love god and do his will.after all his gratest commandment is love.
I too, have seen the tremendous coersive effect of tithing preaching. I know a single, unemployed man with two children being guilted into tithing, while his house was being forclosed on. At the same time, my (former) church took in about a million dollars a year in ?tithes and offerings?, however they distributed only 1/2 of 1% to help the needy. The leadership didn?t think twice, though, about spending thousands on LCD TV?s for the foyer, 120,000 on a sound system, or 20K+ for a CD music recording. It is deplorable!
After much soul-searching and prayer, the solution was to break ties with the church and meet with other believers in our homes. It has been such a blessing. Our spiritual needs are met, and we are encouraged to live out our faith. In addition, my giving (still 10%+) is going almost exclusively to feed the poor and help the needy. Isn?t THAT what Christianity is about?
We all know about tithes--giving away a portion of your income, often to the church in the form of an offering. There are certain debates about whether it's still a biblical requirement to give 10%, whether it applies to pre-tax or post-tax earnings, whether those questions are legalistic, etc. But how often do you hear people question what the church does with that money? Last year I found an article with a very interesting thesis in this regard and bookmarked it for later. You can get a sense of the direction it goes by the title: EMBEZZLEMENT: THE CORPORATE SIN OF CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIANITY? An Examination of How Local Congregations in the Early Church Spent Their Money and the Implications for Us Today.
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