American Tithing

While Western Christians have been brain washed into the ideology of tithing most seem to simply do it out of an act of charity, or maybe there's an element of guilt to it. Though, I'm sure the church would never guilt innocent parishioners into giving up their money. There's always plenty of foolish people that give up their money without the consideration of who that money goes to and what you are unknowingly supporting.

Originally, there was a temple and those attending temple would give to it as a means of communal and spiritual responsibility. The priests of the temple were the ones to receive a portion of the monetary tithes and were given a tithe of the harvest that was given to the priest's family. This was mandatory under Jewish law, so the majority of scriptures you'll hear pushing it come from Old Testament scriptures. Keeping that in mind, when sacrifices were made at the temple of the animal variety, it would be divided up amongst the priests and they would in turn give it to their family for food. They got meat, fruit, and grain offerings that were daily shared. 

The problem with this system is that it fell into corruption and abuses due to the high priestly elites and other wealthy influences. Jesus didn't whip the money changers and throw tables in some form of conniption. There was evil afoot, and he was all about cutting out the rot. If you look at how they handled the tithes, it's very clear that this system was used back in the day specifically for those who were Judean, not gentile. The offerings were broken down into the priests and their family (if married), the Levites, festivals and meals, and the last group was a specific tithe for the poor, widows and orphans. The Levites were servants chosen by God who were involved in temple duties and so for their service they got rewarded, but they didn't get the same portions as would the priests and their families. 

Meanwhile, you got American churches giving to those who call themselves "evangelistic outreach" yet these people frequently do not attend that specific church, sometimes do not even speak the same language of the church therefore the white Christians shelling out money don't actually know what's taking place. It's all under the guise of "having faith" and "blind trust". The tithe laws were based on agriculture, so crops, livestock and produce were what was referred to. The Levites and priests were not allowed to own land under laws so where else would they have gotten food for their families? Tithe was about giving back to the community with which you lived in.

So, how did it evolve into the monetary habit of today? It's rather simple, as the Judeans moved away from an agricultural society, they started earning wages through trade, business and skilled labor which wasn't practical for those trades. Judean leaders at the time saw it as less practical to ask for tithe when so many individuals were moving away from farming. In fact, you won't find this practice in the Torah but rather the Talmud. It was expected that the wealthy Judeans were to extend 10% of their income to the poor and community causes. 

So, why do Christians do it? My honest guess is that they have been brainwashed and simply bred into the idea of giving the church money. The New Testament does not command tithing, but rather it's focus is on giving being voluntary (therefore not coerced through guilt or indulgences) and based on financial capabilities of the giver, yet we see no 10% rule anywhere. In the early church, we see them sharing resources that were available, supporting the poor, and supporting missionaries within their country or nearby towns.

Diving deeper we see that the Catholic Church went full steam ahead into monetary tithing thanks to the "conversion" of Rome over to Christianity during the 4th - 6th centuries. The roman church grew quite large and at a fast pace, so they needed more money to build their great cathedrals. Mind you, the bible didn't actually say to use the money to build great cathedrals nor shore up empires. The claim is that the money was used to care for the poor and support clergy but a fair amount of it went into building expensive structures.

In the 8th-9th century, it evolves into no longer becoming what The Early Church used tithing for but now the governments in Rome took 10% from everyone because laws were passed to make sure everyone gave up their portion no matter how poor you were, they wanted it all. It evolved from the rich of land being responsible to see to the needs of the priests and the less unfortunate to abusing those suffering the most indignities. 

Now today, we have pastors who live in McMansions, wear suits and jewelry worth thousands, who have personal jets and darn near get away with murder. We have churches that sit on huge chunks of land, yet the vast majority could be turned into elderly care facilities, Christian orphanages or mental health care facilities for veterans. You could even house the spouses and children of the pastoral and deacon members in a large building divided into apartments. I can't tell you that tithing is wrong, but I can tell you that it made way more sense to do it before the Roman Catholics and American Christians were abusing the act of tithing. 

Tithing became a tax unto the poor, and it still exploits them today. All you have to do is ask yourself why we still have child trafficking, homelessness, and families who barely have enough food to survive the week, but we got personal jets, cathedrals that reach into the sky and celebrity pastors. I've been personally in the church for over 15 years, and I've heard my fair share of sermons where people are guilted using all sorts of biblical text to squeeze every cent from the populace. It's no wonder the churches have pastors failing left and right, succumbing to sin when they have strayed so far.