Many critics tend to bellyache over the Latter-day Saint practice of tithing. Consider the following thread from Simon Southerton (“Simon in Oz”) et al., “Tithing: Blind obedience or mindless irresponsibility?” (they are moaning about the article by Nancy Kay Smith, “Could Tithing Ease My Worries?” which appeared in the July 2009 Ensign). On the other side of these (mainly secular) critics are Evangelical Protestants who claim that tithing is, at most, optional, and that it being a commandment within “Mormonism” is evidence of the “unbiblical” nature of Latter-day Saint practices.
In light of such criticisms, it was refreshing
to see the following from R.T. Kendall, himself a Calvinist
(and no friend to LDS theology!) write the following about tithing which
sounded very “Mormon”:
Some Christians do
not tithe because they refuse to do so. Some are convinced, others don’t want
to be convinced; but at bottom is a refusal to part with what we regard as ‘ours’
. . . I know what it is to be in a temporary state of indifference to the matter
of tithing. I know what it Is to be a non-tithing Christian. I know what it is
to be so deep in debt that tithing seemed an utter impossibility. Shortly after
my wife and I married we found ourselves plunged deep into debt. The reader
would find it hard to believe how much money we owed during the first year of
our marriage. I blush when I think about it. Some of the bills could not be
helped, others were the consequence of imprudence on my part. At any rate,
tithing was not on the agenda. I was enraged in secular work, for I was in no
financial position to allow a Church to call me as a minister.
I came in one day
from work very, very discouraged. I fell to my knees in a sense of desperation,
hoping that God would give me a way of light that He would help me through. I
walked into our dining room and there lay on the table a large white Bible my
grandmother had given me. I picked it up and opened it. I didn’t like what I
found. Not a bit. ‘Will a man rob God?’ (Mal. 3:8). I just closed the Bible and
sat down to watch the TV (which I still owed for).
But I was perfectly
miserable. I knew that eventually I would have to go back to tithing. But I
postponed this for a while longer. In the meantime things went from bad to
worse. Although my wife and I were both working it seemed that paying our bills
was like dipping a cup into the ocean of debt. One day I made the turn. I
started tithing—despite my debts. Here is how we did it. We took 10% of our gross
income right off the top—making tithing the Number One Priority. (If you don’t
pay your tithes that way, you will never do it!) I paid the bills with the remaining
90%. We were not out of debt in weeks but we were complexly out of debt in less
than two years, and those days became among the happiest we have known.
I had not been
tithing because I did not want to do so. One of my deacons in a former church
used to say, ’If you don’t tithe, God will get it anyway.’ Not that God will
get is for His work but He most certainly has a way of keeping us from enjoying
the entire 100%.
I fear that many do
not want to be convinced. They haven’t really thought it through, nor do they
want to think it through. They retreat into blissful ignorance. But they are
not enriched. They are impoverished. (R.T. Kendall, Tithing: A Call to
Serious, Biblical Giving [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982], 22-23)
What if one cannot
tithe? The answer is, we cannot afford not to tithe. Who can afford to rob
God? Those who rob God are impoverished and they perpetuate the melancholy
state of the Church in the world today. J. Wilbur Chapman cited the only case
he know of in which a regular tither felt cheated in the end. A woman shared
publicly with her church in a prayer meeting that God had failed her: ‘Tomorrow
I am to be discharged from the job I have held for many years. I do not have money
saved up. I do not know what will become of me. For many years I have given to
the Lord’s cause; now, when I am old and not able to work, I face direct
poverty and the shameful support of public charity. I feel that when I am laid
off my job permanently tomorrow, I must tell God that He has not cared for me as
He promised.’
Dr Chapman was invited
to lunch the next day by a Christian businessman. This man told Dr Chapman how
thrilled he was that his company was installing a pension plan for employees. ‘Today
we put this pension plan into effect, and the first person to go on retirement
pay is a member of your church, Dr Chapman.’ The church member was the woman
who had complained the night before. (Ibid., 82)
It is not a sin to
tithe when you are in debt? Shouldn’t we pay our honest debts first, then begin
tithing? No, to both questions. It is a sin, a high crime, not to pay your ‘debt’
to God—the tithe. It is His. On the second question, how much money do you
really think God would end up getting if every Christian waited until he or she
was out of debt before they began tithing? Most Christians I know are in debt,
and many are likely to be paying for a house or a car or a TV or whatever for a
long time.
My own experience (as
I related earlier) was that I was going deeper and deeper into debt until my wife
and I started tithing. At that stage the 90% began to go so much further (don’t
ask me to explain it—I can’t) toward paying my debts than I had been able to do
with the entire 100% at the start.
By the way, notice
that I said ‘my wife and I’. Carl Bates once said: ‘My wife and I are
Storehouse Tithers.’ It is a wonderful thing when both husband and wife feel
the same way about this matter. It draws them closer to each other, they even
work as a team. (Ibid., 84)