Vineyard National Leaders' Conference (UK) 2003

I had a great week. It was great to hook up with some peeps in similar circumstances. I really met with God and was challenged on loads of things...

Stuart Murray Williams
Stuart talked on the "death of Christendom" which was interesting. He asked what this death means to those who are doing church here and now. It was very interesting, if mildly pessimistic. I didn't really feel that I had experienced a lot of what he talked about. I've never, ever contemplated Church being at the centre of society, having always been surrounded by those who don't know about Jesus.

His thesis on tithing is that we have lifted it from the Old Testament out of context. Originally it appeared at the time of Jubilee and was just one of the things that people gave away (out of 40%). He argued that when Constantine introduced tithing as a kind of 'tax', giving in the Church became about "charity" rather than redistribution of resources. His argument ran that we should 'call off' tithing for 6 months and then re-examine the Biblical references and see what we come up with. It's oppressive to those living in poverty and allows the wealthy to give little.

I spoke to a number of people with different reactions to the whole thing. Some were horrified with what he said, perhaps seeing it as a threat to their 'full time ministry,' while others were saying that they agreed with everything he said. I heard examples in the first group who said that people in their church had read SMW's book and had stopped giving altogether saying "we are actually supposed to be giving far more" and yet are not giving anything.

I'm somewhere in the middle, though undecided. I don't think that just dropping tithing would help us all that much...in fact I don't think we ever really took it up in any formal way. We've never expressed it in an oppressive manner and have always spoken about "giving" rather than "tithing." The key issue seems to be "are we making followers of Jesus" or just "Christians"?

If, by cancelling tithing, someone reacts "now I have more money for me," the problem clearly isn't that they are oppressed by tithing, but that they are so self-absorbed that they do not automatically try and give as much as they can. In a church full of disciples, the cancelling of tithing could only really lead to more giving (if there was any change at all) as the people who were once ‘confined’ by tithing are released to discover for themselves how much they should give.

I suppose my argument is that SMW's self-confessed bee in his bonnet is about a secondary issue. The question is not “is tithing wrong?” but “are we communities of disciples” or just religious theatre goers? If we are just theatre goers, why not pay a tenth of our incomes to sit back and enjoy the show!

Finally, for those who struggle with issues of generosity with finances, giving the first ten percent of their income can be a kind of spiritual discipline (i.e. learning to give) and can help a great deal with budgeting.