Tithing And Responsibility
A court has ruled that paying back taxes is a higher priority than paying tithing – for one LDS businessman. I expect, for many, this will be viewed as an outrageous breach in the fabric of religious freedom. However, when does paying tithing become irresponsible?
If the choice is taxes or tithing?
consumer/student loan debt or tithing?
child support or tithing?
medical bills or tithing?
If you’re receiving Church assistance to make ends meet should you also be paying 10%?
Of course, many will say that tithing is a privilege and that taking it away from people (as an institutional rule) would be depriving them of blessings. The problem I see, is we know the blessings of tithing do not always come in the form of money. Maybe the greater blessing for you at this moment is to get yourself right financially.
Actually, as to your last point, I have often heard counsel that people who have income should be encouraged to pay tithing, even if their income is not sufficient to meet all their needs and they are receiving church assistance.
Comment by Mark B. — March 19, 2013 @ 12:04 pm
Tithing was not intended to be a hard choice. Either give the Lord money or starve to death. That’s not what the Lord had in mind. Income, increase, THAT’S what should be tithed. Income isn’t money received for labor. Income is money KEPT after expenses. So you make $5000 a month, it isn’t the $5000 that should be tithed. It should be the $1000 you keep extra after expenses. THAT’S your income.
Comment by Dan — March 19, 2013 @ 12:05 pm
Mark, I’ve heard that counsel as well. I guess the faith-promoting explanation is – it gives them the opportunity to exercise faith in the law. But it seems sort of redundant to me.
Dan, I’ve heard that is how the CoC counsels their members to tithe. So, if you’re in debt, pay that off first. I have to admit, it makes more sense to me.
Comment by CJ Douglass — March 19, 2013 @ 12:26 pm
I’m interested what others think here. I’m struggling with tithing. I hear stories from the pulpit that go something like this: “We didn’t have enough money to feed our children, but we paid our tithes and it all worked out.” Morally, isn’t our primary responsibility to feed our children? Or purchase medicines, or pay the rent, or… Should we really give to a fabulously wealthy church first before we feed our children? Would the Lord truly have our children go hungry (or not have a roof over our head)?
Comment by Lulubelle — March 19, 2013 @ 1:14 pm
Mark B. is correct. The counsel of church leaders that I have always heard is to pay tithing first, regardless of other commitments or issues. This is contrary of course to what Dan is suggesting, and it does sometimes require hard choices, but it also shows faith, and in my experience, that faith is rewarded.
Ultimately, however, everyone has to make their own decision on this issue, and no one should look down on anyone else’s decisions on how they pay their tithing.
Comment by MCQ — March 19, 2013 @ 8:08 pm
BTW, I think the court ruling was correct, in that the businessman was under a court order to pay back taxes and could only deduct “necessary” expenses before doing so. The court didn’t rule that the businessman couldn’t pay tithing, it just ruled that he couldn’t deduct tithing as a “necessary” expense before paying his court ordered tax payments.
I think most people would not agree with the opposite result: that tithing is a “necessary expense” rather than a voluntary contribuion. Of course it’s voluntary, and the court was correct to characterize it that way. The businessman’s attempt to argue that it was necessary was his attempt to make sure his tithing was paid prior to his tax obligation, which is fine, but if the court had agreed with him it would have been a strange result and a bad precedent.
Comment by MCQ — March 19, 2013 @ 8:15 pm
Tithing-first proponents do abound, of course, but that’s to be expected; representatives of the IRS would no doubt encourage everyone to pay their tax liability first, the bank would appreciate first dibs on your wages for that mortgage payment and so on.
I side with Dan in that I don’t believe tithing was ever intended to be the Abrahamic sacrifice some make it out to be. If this were the case, then clearly the wealthy and those that live within their means are getting the short end of the stick by never having to decide between dinner and tithing.
Comment by Peter LLC — March 20, 2013 @ 5:32 am
I agree with you guys, common sense should prevail. When I was younger, I drove myself nuts trying to obey this law perfectly.
Now, I believe the spirit is more important than the letter of the law of tithing and, while I still pay a full tithing, it’s not as big a deal as it used to be if I mess up. Or it gets paid next payday.
What really bothers me is how young families are beating the heck out of themselves over tithing. They’ll consider themselves mortal sinners if they choose to buy milk or pay their rent instead of paying their tithing. I SO don’t believe God is happy with that.
But I think God is a laid back kind of guy, who smiles more than He frowns and is ALWAYS on our side (I’m always on my kids’ side, too, but sometimes I have to ask “what the hell were you thinkin’”). Boy, does it torque a lot of hides when I say that in Sunday School. The “works over faith” crowd start yelling all at once.
Comment by annegb — March 22, 2013 @ 11:00 am
Forme, paying tithing first “just works”. It is a matter of faith. I have prepaid tithing when I did not have enough money to pay a debt and received a check in the mail the next week ten times the amount I paid tithing on which allowed me to pay the debt.
Glenn
Comment by Glenn Thigpen — March 25, 2013 @ 8:01 pm
Glenn, that has been my experience too. I don’t always have the faith to pay tithing first, but when I do, it is rewarded.
Comment by MCQ — March 25, 2013 @ 10:25 pm
Greg, MCQ,
Your personal experiences are important. I’ve heard many others that are similar. I have little doubt that God may decide to take care of us in those ways.
But, I worry about making that the official teaching on the topic of tithing. There’s already a “prosperity gospel” problem in the Church and when we attach financial benefits to gospel principles (even financial laws)it can be a dangerous mix.
Comment by CJ Douglass — March 26, 2013 @ 10:34 am
CJ, don’t kid yourself. It is the official teaching. But you’re wrong to put it the way you do. There’s a spiritual benefit to gospel principles that is way more important than any financial incentive you could ever come up with, but there’s no way to read Malachi without seeing a temporal promise:
That’s not the only scripture on that point, but it’s the most famous. We have been given promises, CJ. And the Lord does deliver on those promises. Not always in the way you want or expect, but he does deliver. And we can’t just read those promises out of the scriptures just because we worry about how they might be misinterpreted.
Comment by MCQ — March 26, 2013 @ 2:41 pm
M, I’m specifically referring to the belief that the blessings of tithing are always financial. And if that is the official position of the Church, then I have no problem saying that its misguided and even false. But I don’t think that’s the Church’s position, nor is it the message I hear when I take the whole of scripture into account.
Specifically, we have to deal with accounts like in Habakkuk that present a picture of financial devastation where God is still fulfilling his promise to care for us:
We also have to deal with many other narratives throughout scripture (John the Baptist, Abinadi, Moroni, Joseph Smith)where following God appears to have worked out terribly wrong if we only take into account the temporal world. And then of course we have to deal with Jesus – who teaches repeatedly that financial gain is a liability to us spiritually.
So, I believe in a God that keeps promises and covenants, but I don’t claim to know exactly what that will look like for each of us.
Comment by CJ Douglass — March 27, 2013 @ 7:09 am
I don’t think we’re told that all financial gain is a liability, just that being wealthy is.
And I think your examples are inapplicable to the principle we are discussing. We don’t know much about Abinadi’s life, for example, outside of the specific story about his death. There is no evidence that he didn’t have a perfectly wonderful temporal existence until he was called to testify to the king which resulted in his death.
Similar things could be said of the others you mention, and I think they would be the first to testify that they were blessed and preserved temporally as well as spiritually, until such time as they were asked to seal their testimonies with their blood. But those are rare occasions, and you can’t use those to extrapolate a lesson that applies to people generally.
There’s no question that we will be tested sometimes, and that sometimes those tests will be financial or temporal setbacks. We are not promised ease and wealth. But we are promised that the Lord will bring us through such challenges as we are given and we will be blessed for enduring them well.
Comment by MCQ — March 27, 2013 @ 11:33 am
I don’t think we’re told that all financial gain is a liability, just that being wealthy is.
So, what does that say to American Mormons – a little less than half of the membership and in the top 1% of the world’s income bracket? (hint hint: we are wealthy) Especially when we consider that 10% of an American income is much much less of a faith test and sacrifice than much of the rest of the world, who are asked to pay .10 of their daily dollar.
I’m guessing we could meet in the middle somewhere on this. I’m just not comfortable with rhetoric that paints financial gain as having anything to do with personal righteousness.
Comment by CJ Douglass — March 28, 2013 @ 8:28 am
Then you don’t believe the scriptures, because that promise is there. Repeatedly
Look, I understand your discomfort. But I don’t think the problem is in the promises God has made, it’s in the way we look at them. He doesn’t promise wealth to anyone necessarily. Wealth is the result of a lot of hard work and a lot of luck and sometimes just plain old being born in the right family.
The problem comes when we try to draw conclusions about ourselves or other people based on financial situations. That’s not our place and it results in a lot of mistaken conclusions.
Comment by MCQ — March 28, 2013 @ 11:46 am
Common ground – achieved.
Comment by CJ Douglass — March 28, 2013 @ 12:46 pm
BTW, my discomfort is not a result of bleeding heart liberalism – it comes from my reading of the 4 gospels and my personal interaction with some extremely poor individuals who possessed a godliness that I had never encountered in my cooshy suburban upbringing. Not to mention my time as an unemployed father of 2 , when I felt closer to God than I ever had before or since. (maybe TMI)
So ya, I think the scriptures are much more complicated than – follow God and prosper in the land.
Comment by CJ Douglass — March 28, 2013 @ 1:07 pm
I’m with you CJ, on all counts.
Comment by MCQ — March 28, 2013 @ 3:39 pm
I love the stories about paying tithing and getting just the amount you needed in the mail, miraculously. I don’t doubt those stories, but for everyone of them, I’ll bet there are 10 stories where the person paid the tithing, and continued to watch their debts increase. I paid tithing faithfully for 8 straight years during my college years, when I was just married and having kids. We lived in a too-small apartment the whole time. The kids missed out on activities that required money. NEVER a family vacation. At the end of those 8 years, we were close to 10,000 grand in credit card debt, which was mostly racked up with medical expenses and the need to buy groceries and get vehicles fixed from time to time. I worked my butt off with a full-time job, and growing family WHILE I was a full-time grad student. I paid tithing on the gross! At the end, 10,000 in the red. Where was MY miracle money?
But, things are better now. Finally. It almost tore my marriage apart (the living conditions, not the tithe-paying). And we still pay tithing. Yep. We still pay it.
Pay it because God says so, not because you think you’ll find miracle money.
Comment by john — April 5, 2013 @ 1:27 pm
Per my comment above, I meant 10 grand…not 10,000 grand. It wasn’t THAT bad.
Comment by john — April 5, 2013 @ 1:29 pm
John, the promise is not that we’ll be rich or the Lord will pay off our debts. Where does it say that? The promise is essentially that the Lord will provide opportunites so that we won’t starve. I think you answered your own question when you said “things are better now.” How do you think that happened? Was it all just you? I know a lot of people for whom things didn’t get better, but none of those were paying tithing.
Comment by MCQ — April 5, 2013 @ 2:56 pm