Tithing and Debt

There's been an interesting conversation going on at Need to Be Debt Free regarding tithing and debt. I confess to being one of the early commenters on the generous amount that JW was budgeting for tithing at the same time he was concerned about meeting other expenses and getting out of debt. I asked why he couldn't consider reducing his tithe, even temporarily, while he paid off debt since he was certainly reducing or entirely cutting his expenses in every other category. Others pointed out that volunteering time could be substituted for tithing.

I tried to be gentle in the wording of my comment (something others have been much less so in more recent comments) but to be honest the subject of tithing is something that really gets my blood pressure up. When I was a kid we went through some very rough financial times when my parents broke up and when my mom went to our pastor to explain why she couldn't afford to tithe at the present time, his response was, "Bring your money to me and I'll show you how to give to God first and still have enough left over to pay for everything else." These words came from a priest who was personally rather wealthy and who had no idea what it cost to pay a mortgage or clothe and feed kids. He was being well taken care of by a generous parish, which would never have missed the amount my mother could have tithed. The callousness of those words and the lack of understanding over what our family was going through emotionally and financially have never left me. This experience is not the only reason why I have chosen as an adult to not be part of any organized religion, but it was certainly a major contributing factor in the decision.

The rest of my family, however, continues to be active in their various religious communities, and over the years I've heard them talk about being pressured to give for various parish funds in addition to their tithing. I've known that in one of their parishes the priests built themselves a million-dollar rectory (this was quite a few years ago when a million dollars went a lot further and it was not in a pricey area) while my family members struggled financially even though they continued to tithe. I've known that after his death, that same pastor who was so unsympathetic with my mother was shown to have siphoned off church funds for his personal use and actually had built himself a significant personal estate. And still my family keeps on tithing.

I'm all for charitable giving, and of course, churches are not the only charitable institutions to be reckless or dishonest with the funds they raise. We should all be careful about choosing charities that are responsible and transparent. The problem I have with tithing, however, is that it so easily becomes not a gift of the heart, but a social debt. People are often pressured into tithing even when they cannot afford to. More consideration is often given to parishioners who give more generously, which leads to a kind of religious version of keeping up with the Joneses. People may feel that their tithe is a measurement of their faith, that God won't love them if they don't give. Those who argue in favor of tithing often say that God will provide. That kind of thinking makes me wonder why anyone should pay their bills at all.

While having these thoughts much in my head over the last few days, I came across this article at Time about churches installing ATMs so that people can use credit and debit cards to make their tithing payments and contributions. The argument is that the IRS is cracking down on documentation of church donations so the ATMs will provide a paper trail. But there is real concern that using credit cards in particular will lead to problems:

When the evangelical website MondayMorningInsights.com — which boasts more than 12,000 pastors as readers — reported on the phenomenon, the story received 4,300 hits and generated highly emotional responses. "How would you feel if someone in your church was giving and giving on credit and you later find they have to declare bankruptcy," said one from Eric. "I guess it wouldn't matter because you're not your brother's keeper — huh?" To deal with that problem, many churches now accept only debit cards.

I was glad to see that at least one person is considering the very real possibility that tithing is contributing to some people's debt load--and potentially their financial downfall.