195 - Beware The Tithing Team

Beware The Tithing Team
By Eileen P. Flynn

I recently listened to the pastor and four laymen speak at Mass from the pulpit in my church about "Tithing: God's plan for giving." This letter represents my effort to encourage discernment regarding the "pitch" of tithing teams before such teams are invited to the parishes. I recount my experience aware that it may be an isolated case but fearful that a common thread may run through tithing campaigns in general.

It is important to recognize the fact that members of the Catholic Church are responsible, as Catholics, to contribute to the support of the church, and, as human persons, to reach out through service and financial support to meet the needs of the least of the brethren. While contemporary Catholics have witnessed twenty years of change in the church, the two traditional principles that were always stressed in the past regarding church support still seem valid today: Give according to your means, and let your conscience be your guide. Although this sober approach may not produce dramatic results, the reason probably lies in churchgoers' lack of commitment to the parish rather than in bad will.

The men to whom I listened on two "tithing Sundays" presented a fundamentalistic, proof-text biblicalism and said that as the Hebrews gave the first ten percent of their crops to God a few thousand years ago, so should Catholics today give the first ten percent of their gross income (no attempt was made to explain why the contribution should be from gross rather than net earnings or why a literal reading of the Bible in this case is warranted).

Two speakers alluded to semi-miraculous physical cures that God had granted in order to reward their tithing. The other two speakers stressed how their families had been providentially blessed because of the fact that God was given a rightful share. One of the speakers mentioned that after he had decided to tithe, some of his bills went unpaid but, in the long run, everything worked out.

I was alarmed by the tithing appeal I heard because God was presented as a puppeteer who pulls strings to reward generosity (and,

Sometimes the Letters-to-the-Editor department can be more exciting than the feature articles. A case in point comes from America, the well known Jesuit weekly. In response to an article by the Rev. Joseph M. Champlin, "Tithing Toward Parish Growth," in which extravagant claims were made for a tithing program, Eileen P. Flynn of Ridgewood, N.J., replied with a letter-to-the-editor (Nov. 6, 1982, p. 262). With the permission of America and thanks to the writer of the letter, we reprint this item in THEOLOGY TODAY, thinking that the points in the letter are well taken, and that Catholics by no means have a monopoly on this matter. Eileen P. Flynn is a doctoral graduate of Fordham University and an Instructor in Theology at St. Peter's College, Englewood Cliffs, N.J

196 - Beware The Tithing Team

implicitly, punish stinginess), the Scripture was misused, the large questions of parish financial decision-making and economic social justice were ignored, and the most vulnerable members of the congregation (the sick, anxious, superstitious, and ignorant) were exploited. Beware of the theology of the tithing team which wants to present its message from your pulpit.