In my over 25 years of being involved in abusive churches, one theme seems to be common in almost all of them. Regardless of doctrine, they all sound identical when it comes to money.
I attended churches where tithing was taught as mandatory for believers. We were told that the tithe came first before all things – bills, taxes, child support, mortgages, and any other expenses. Malachi 3 was drilled in our heads and we were told to never rob God of His portion. The pastors and teachers always differentiated between tithes and offerings. We GAVE offerings, and PAID tithes.
One United Pentecostal Church evangelist shared a story where a single mother who barely made ends meet asked for counsel. She asked the evangelist whether she should pay her mortgage instead of her tithe since her income didn’t afford her the means to do both. His response was loud and clear: “I would rather miss a house payment than to make God angry because He wasn’t put number one!” To this day I don’t know if that woman ever got her financial situation fixed.
As one of the faithful men, I made sure my tithe was the first thing I paid. For over 20 years all seemed to be well; my military career was pretty successful up until I retired in 2005. My first couple years working civilian jobs went the same way. Good income, tithes paid on time. Bills and other expenses were on track with funds left over. Then, disaster hit.
In late 2007 my marriage began to fall apart, and in conjunction with that my finances took a dive. I was left to clean up a nasty mess left by my wife, and it drove me to bankruptcy. I went to the UPCI pastor at the church I attended for help and guidance as my dreams of marriage and family crashed and burned. The pastor’s first question was “Brother, why did you stop tithing?” He was quicker to ask that than to offer direction in trying to save my marriage. I didn’t know what to say.
Looking back I am appalled at the pastor’s priorities. When pastors and preachers tell parishioners to choose between tithing and family, it places a believer in a no-win scenario: pay the bills and be guilty of robbing God, or pay the tithe and be guilty of not providing for one’s household. Either way the believer loses, and that’s a terrible place to be. No pastor worth his or her salt should ever spiritually extort a believer like this. In my experience I even saw a family lose their home to foreclosure despite being faithful in their tithing and giving. To the best of my knowledge, the church never offered to help this family keep their home. They ended up relocating to another state and eventually found another church.
This is one reason why I have trouble now trusting church leadership. The leaders live luxuriously like kings while congregants exist in poverty. The tithe, one meant for the Levites (nowhere is it mentioned for the New Testament church), basically pays the preacher’s salary and the “Sunday Morning Entertainment.”
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