It's interesting that J9 brings up the question of what citizenship we as Christians truly hold, because it seems to beg the question of our attitude towards nations and nationality.
On the comments to the first entry there was quite an interesting discussion about compulsory giving, which I like. Mainly because if others didn't make me do good things, I wouldn't do them. And I like the idea of a tax (I'm an economist, obviously not from Chicago).
However, why should the government be the only institution strong enough to tax? Why do we give it more allegiance than we do the church? Think of what happens when you commit treason vs. what happens when you commit blasphemy, as happens quite often on Sunday morning (how many of us go to churches with an American flag in the front?). It still seems to me the place for giving - and all of Christian life - is the church.
Which leads us to the obvious question: How about a church tax? Everyone who is a member of a church gets taxed on their income, by that church. This money is then sent to help the poor who are our neighbors and abroad. In fact, we can follow Jesus' example by making this tax 100% of your monthly income (eg. luke 14;33). This completely avoids the Left-Right divide, because as Christians we wouldn't have ANY money to give the government after we're done following Jesus.
The church hasn't always been so weak that it couldn't tax its members - why not now?
12 comments:
One issue is that people don't trust their churches. Do you trust your church? If they did fully trust them, people might give everything to the churches. As it is, the average church giving is probably around %0.5-%5 of income. I for one think I can make better use of money than my church back home that just built a $30,000,000 building. For example, $30,000,000 could build 6000 home churches in India right now. These 6000 home churches could reach both spiritually and economically tens of thousands of souls and bodies.
I agree that churches can extort money as well as anyone else. But, why would you trust yourself more than you would trust the Body of Christ? That's pride.
Why should we who hope in salvation from this world set up a parallel worldly government?
We already have a government system in this country. We already have infrastructure for taxation. Why not make use of it?
Why are some inclined toward voluntary charity more than rethinking why they make so much more money than they need?
"Why should we who hope in salvation from this world set up a parallel worldly government?"
Because this government is considered by some to be inherently broken.
"But, why would you trust yourself more than you would trust the Body of Christ? That's pride."
The "Body of Christ" is infallable? I am incapable of being right when it is wrong?
I don't like the idea that the government, or a local church, are either "inherently broken" or completely exalted. They are as glorifying to God as we strive to make them. Why don't we dedicate ourselves to ensuring that they strive to glorify the Lord? Why do we give up so easily?
Why do we expect that we as individuals are actually better judges of how to distribute and collect resources than bodies of people?
And rather than this banter, Mr./Ms. Anonymous, I encourage you to put together a full blog entry of your own so we can discuss that in the full respect it deserves. Meanwhile, let's give jcuff's question the full respect it deserves as well.
While not the discussion that I intended for this post, the issue of a church's proper appropriation of funds is interesting. For a great article on this topic, read Ray Mayhew, "Embezzlement: The Corporate Sin of Contemporary Christianity" (http://www.relationaltithe.com/EmbezzlementPaper.PDF). In it he argues that the early church collected money primarily not for the functioning of that church (a bigger building, better sound system), but to give to the poor.
However, is our proper response to cut and run (i.e. give individually), or attempt to call the church back to its purpose? Should we not remind the church of its "right" to tax us, and of the proper use of such funds? And refusing to give to an "inefficient" cause cannot be a consideration.
But let's consider Janine's question now: why should the church be involved when we already have the structure of the government already set up?
Sorry, the URL got cut off. Maybe this will work:
http://www.relationaltithe.com/EmbezzlementPaper.PDF
If I can, I'd like to alter your question a bit, to fit (what I think is) a more realistic scenario:
The government currently considers giving to a church to be a charitable contribution that can lower your tax bracket. At my company, there are several such deductions that come directly from my paycheck. Two examples include 401k money and "health expense accounts" (I forget the actual name, but basically I can pay money into an account and that money can only be spent on medical expenses - but it is all tax-free).
Why don't we set it up such that I can file a form with my work and have 10% (or whatever) of my paycheck given directly to the church (or other non-profit) of my choice? Then I only have to make the decision once (like when I choose how much to put in my 401k) and it serves the same purpose - except letting me choose the amount (based on conscience, personal financial needs, church edicts, etc.). With this system, I could even change who the money goes to if I change churches or whatever.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this already exists in some places. I don't recall any specifics, but this sounds very familiar to me.
I believe I've heard of churches set up to accept direct deposits. Actually, I'm sure most churches would give you their bank account's routing and account numbers for you to put on your direct deposit form at work -- nobody objects to deposits.
I'm sure jcuff is aware of the Church Giving research done in our area and is possibly alluding to it... if every church member in the US actually gave 10% it would be enough to blow away a lot of social problems.
It's easy to point out areas in other people's lifestyles where that 10% comes from ... housing costs larger than needed, entertainment costs larger than needed... consumer debt.
As far as trusting or not trusting your church, I'm pretty far on the trusting end of the scale. If I didn't trust a church with my^h^h God's money, I don't think I'd go there. And what's wrong with getting involved?
I don't think giving 10% to the church answers the question of whether we need both the church and the government to take care of the poor.
What do you think? If we pay taxes do we also need to tithe to the church? Many people argue that the tithe gave to governments the concept of taxes. Now that we pay taxes, we don't have to tithe. Or, now that we tithe, we don't have to pay too much money in taxes. Do they really serve the same purpose?
I think they do not serve the same purpose. The purpose of government is to serve and protect the common interests of all the people. We would not have so much poverty if we used government for this purpose.
Meanwhile, I think the purpose of the church is to provide a launching pad for redemptive work in the world outside of the church. Tithing supports the work of those who engage in this redemptive work "full time." It provides their salaries and their resources.
I see the government acting NOT to serve and protect the common interests. Instead, it serves and protects the interests of the few (companies, rich people, etc) at the expense of the many (unskilled laborers, non-citizens, etc). We have more poverty than we should have because we have an unfair government. So, we have to use our church to help compensate for this injustice. But, helping the poor is not the primary calling of the church. Helping the poor and oppressed and disfranchised is only one aspect of our mandate to redeem Creation.
Thank you, Janine, for questioning the 10% tithe. It's something we (I) stick to because we (I) aren't (am not) willing to give more. Why don't we follow other Old Testament commands as well? Or, why don't we follow Jesus who didn't give us a percentage, but everything?
On a different topic that Janine brought up, though, I want to ask a question that will perhaps label me as cold-hearted. But is our purpose in giving to the poor really to eliminate poverty? Would we not then eliminate the very people whom Jesus calls "Blessed", and through whom the kingdom of God will come? Is caring for the poor (and the "least of these") not simply what we are called to do?
There's nothing wrong with using the government to care for the poor, but let's not call this the elimination of poverty. And let's not use this as a substitute for what the church is supposed to do. Because, as Janine pointed out, what if the government is not quite so altruistic? We can't use that as an excuse for not doing anything.
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