What Evangelicals
Believe About Tithing
I’ve been
closely watching the laity the last few decades and I think I am ready to describe
what evangelicals believe about tithing.
Read it and see how much you
agree.
To evangelicals…
1. “Tithe means giving not tenth.”
A term has
little meaning in itself—it means whatever we decide it means. When we decide “gay” no longer means happy but
homosexual then it means homosexual.
When we use “worship” to describe music then worship will mean
music. Such a thing has happened to
“tithe.” While its root meaning may be
mathematical, evangelicals now use the term to mea giving, not a tenth. This is
why churches now invite members to commit to a “2% tithe, 5% tithe or 10% tithe—the
best you can do.” Tithe no longer means tenth.
It means “my charitable giving.” And, of course this may also explain why
evangelicals give just 2.3 percent of their income on average last year.
To evangelicals…
2. “Tithing is not required by the Bible but
it’s a good idea.”
In spite of
all the preaching from Malachi and being reminded their “righteousness must
exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees” evangelicals refuse to be convinced the
Bible requires tithing. They think it is a good idea. They admire “people who can pull it off.” They’ll even accept it as a goal -- “when we
can afford it” but evangelicals are not convinced tithing is a Bible command. To evangelicals the tithing command is like
the Sabbath command. They consider
Sunday-not-Saturday as the Sabbath and they figure they’ve “kept the Sabbath”
if they set aside a portion of the
day for rest and worship (about 23%?). Evangelicals accept preaching on tithing
“because it is a good plan for financing the church” but not because it is
commanded in the New Testament. In tithing
the laity follow Chuck Swindoll’s
tack—it is a great idea but not supported by the Bible’s command.
To evangelicals…
3. “The tithe should
go to the church—but the church is bigger
than the local church.”
Evangelicals
are a generous people. They’ve blessed a
thousand parachurch organizations and mission ministries. Many evangelicals count their giving to these
organizations as part of their “tithe.” Pastors say, “You ought to give your tithe to your local church and your offerings (above the tithe) to these
worthy causes. But evangelicals don’t buy it.
They consider as their “tithe” their total charitable giving spread around
“the church.” I think they do this
because they’ve been told to believe this. This is what the preachers told them,
though not directly. Evangelical
preachers say, “the church” is not the visible
collection of people before their eyes, but a world-wide invisible gathering of
born again believers. They preach that whenever there are believers gathered there
the church exists. The evangelical laity adopted this doctrine and have simply applied it to their tithing. Thus, they believe “the church” exists
whenever “two or three gather together in His name.” So if two or three Christians found a 503(c)(3) corporation for a “kayak ministry” evangelicals are
quite comfortable giving $500 of their tithe toward their nephew’s kayak trek
down the Atlantic coast. After all, (in
evangelical ecclesiology) the three Christians who formed this adventure camp
are “the church” every bit as much as the gathered local church. In fact, many who read this column won’t see
anything whatsoever wrong with this view of the church—which only goes to show
how far evangelical ecclesiology has wandered off from orthodoxy.
To evangelicals…
4. “Giving to a cause is more satisfying than
giving to a church”
Evangelicals
hate giving to “overhead.” They love a good cause.
This is why it is easier to get people to give to evangelize Kayakers along the Atlantic coast than get them to ante
up for the electric bill at your church.
Or, their pastor’s salary. Evangelicals treat such “overhead expenses”
like they were “government bureaucracy.”
They resent giving to overhead.
This is why the Gideons
have had such fabulous success in fund-raising—they can honestly say, “All our
overhead expenses are covered and every cent you give goes directly to Bibles.”
They cover their own overhead expenses
and evangelicals love this. It fits with their view of government. This is why they’d rather be inspired to buy
basketballs for the youth group than pay the heating bill for the youth center
where those basketballs are used. They’d
rather contribute to the youth trip to
To evangelicals…
5. “Whoever thanks the most gets the most giving
in the future.”
Pastors will hate
to hear this but it is the truth—the more
you thank people the more they’ll give in the future. Parachurch organizations know this. They have
to know it—or their money’d dry up. Parachurch organizations study giving
patterns and know what encourages people to give. They never scold people to give. They never take gifts for granted. They even hire people to do fund raising. (When’s the
last time you heard of a local church hiring a fund raiser?) Local churches
take your giving for granted. They act
like you owe your tithe to the church
and you’re robbing God if you don’t “pay your bills.” Yet even the tiniest parachurch organizations
hire fund raisers while giant mega churches still don’t have them. Why is this?
They know you’ve got to go about getting money professionally, and not
assume people will just give “because it’s right.” Fund raising folk know human
nature. They know you’ve got to thank
people to get money later. So, let’s say
you did send off a $500 check for your nephew’s kayak trip. BAM!—you get a personally signed note
thanking you by return mail—five days later, from the President of the ministry, and he includes your tax deductible
receipt with a scribbled note on the bottom saying, “Thanks for this—Kevin will
be a delight!” Then two days later you’ll
get a fancy little wedding-announcement-quality card from Kevin thanking you
for your generosity. Then a month later the President of Kayak ministries will
send you a really cool CD with last year’s “Kayak Choir” singing hymns. You love the CD and start to play it every
Sunday morning before attending church.
And of course the following January you’ll your year end statement from the
Kayak ministry’s President—this time he’ll write with a bright blue marker on
your letter, “Thanks once again for your generosity—I just sent an email this
week to Kevin.” This is the sort of
gratitude a parachurch organization does routinely. But what of your local church? Let’s say you gave several thousand dollars there
last year? I know what happens in most
churches. In January you’ll get a
computer-generated statement detailing your giving along with a photocopied
letter from the pastor “to the congregation.”
At the most you’ll get a quarterly statement. Right? No wonder parachurch organizations are getting
such a chunk of tithes—they understand people better. Gratitude breeds greater
giving. Sure, I know…evangelicals ought
to give without being thanked, and they do.
But in the future I bet they’ll increasingly be giving where the
gratitude comes back the most—and I suspect the local church is going to have
to face this fact about people sooner or later.
So that’s what I think evangelicals
think about tithing. At least most of
them. Or, at least the average evangelical. Or at least the future evangelical. Don’t believe me? Then here’s my dare—do the math: Take the total income from your local church then
multiply that figure by ten. Next divide
that result by the number of Christian wage earners in your church. Go ahead and do it—even roughly. What’d you
get? Is that final figure the average
salary of your people.
Is it? Or have you discovered
what most pastors discover when they do this—if every Christian (even every member) wage earner in their church
tithed a full 10% to the local church it would double the church’s income? For
many churches it would triple the
income. (For my church—five times!) I’m afraid there are few other issues
where the laity and the pastor differ more.
Most pastors say: 1) A tithe = 10%; 2) The Bible requires it; 3) It
should go to the local church; 4) it is an obligation; and 5) it
should be given without concern for being thanked. Those five views are just about opposite of
the average evangelical’s view above. Which
views are right?
So what do you think?
Keith Drury 2/19/06
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