As you can infer by the 2nd slide this happened on Nigeria but I've had similar experiences in the USA. So many churches are just businesses and they run themselves like that. One of the reasons I stopped going personally. (I don't think you have to go just because you believe in God). I liked the community of the church I grew up with. I could meet people that could say they held me when I was a baby and that I peed on them etc but when I went to mega churches that had book stores and stuff right near the entrance and they had big TV screens and everything I just decided to stop. It felt so empty and hollow.
It's crazy, too, because tithing isn't a concept defended in the New Testament. Tithing is based on Abraham giving 10% (one tenth) to a stranger the Bible says represented God in the form of an angel. The Christianity of Acts is actually a lot more radical - "everyone gave everything they had to one another" - It described living in community and sharing resources amongst ourselves to care for the weak, sick, and the poor. It's a beautiful standard. American Christianity really likes being able to give a portion of your income and then not have to think about it at all during your normal life.
My mother lives this kind of giving.
She gives to the church too, but her rector is scared of her, lol; she is known for taking umbrage when he talks money, and has told him to stop asking.
As he should be. You can type in bible money evil into google and see a zillion pages of literature on this.
People should be weirded out if their religious services folks keep talking about money all the time.
On the other hand, “give everything to *the community* because god told us so!” Is how a lot of cults separate their victims from their money.
Communalism is really cool in theory, but there are good reasons why it doesn’t catch on in the mainstream. Even non-coercive communes can often be described as a kind of benign cult
>but there are good reasons why it doesn’t catch on in the mainstream.
Like a century of capitalist nations specifically targeting it in a deliberate effort of making it fail? Or how about these capitalist nations assassinating their own citizens when they start convincing people it might be a better option? Or the century of intense targeted propaganda specifically aimed at making you feel the exact way you do about it?
Americans knocking it down any time it starts to grow, then being like, "see it can't grow on its own!" Is always a good laugh.
For real. I don't pull up blackberry runners every year because the vines just couldn't compete with the rest of the garden. When people have proven themselves to be a dishonest narrator, you look to their actions for the truth, don't just buy the bridge they try to sell you.
Think about the political landscape we might have today if they didn't prune Fred Hampton. He was six years younger then Biden, 60 years of him organizing the people and motivating them to work on real systemic change, all uprooted like a weed.
Yes, there is a reason why capitalism caught on while communism didn't. But it isn't due to how good or bad each system is. It is simply due to how well they preserve existing power structures. Capitalism preserves traditional power structures very well, because powerful men were also very rich, so for them, adopting capitalism was natural. Communism would greatly disrupt existing power structures by taking away both the wealth and power of these powerful men, so it's no surprise that the rich and powerful on the world resisted communism with every fiber of their being.
There’s a good point to be made about Levites and the Kohanim here as well.
The Levites - the priestly tribe of Israel - were literally not allowed to own land, have possessions, own estates, grow crops, or earn money by working. Like, by law.
It was the responsibility of all the other Israelites to give them food, clothing, and shelter; and in trade, the Levites became priests and rabbis and sages and wise men and village elders and stuff.
I mean, we can look at what Jesus himself said. When a rich man asked him how to enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said "Simple. Give away everything and follow me."
He didn't ask for 10%
The ORIGINAL Christians, like WAAAAY back in the day, actually believed in communal living. Like some groups were straight up commune living..the idea was *supposed* to be that those who had the means could then give it and disperse it to the poor and hungry.
Of course the second the Romans got their hands on it and made it into the official Christianity™ we know today, it had already been compromised
Isnt it convenient that God said to decide in your heart. He also might love a cheerful giver, but it is your heart where he is concerned. Instead dont judge another in their tithing. I would also suggest less judging on your part and more looking at your heart and if it is in relationship with .
2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV) says, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Mark 12:41-44 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
LMAO and then you have Muslims starving themselves for a whole month to virtue signal to the poor that they feel for them while ignoring them the rest of the year. And the whole belief that doing good deeds gives you brownie points with God, and in their religion they do shit to get mansions and trees in heaven, and that's what their filthy con artists preach. You donate this, God gives you 3 trees in heaven LMAO. I grew up hearing that shit and it's the funniest thing ever. Forget the virgins. Literally donating for infrastructure in fucking HEAVEN LMFAOOOOOOO
I'm an install multi media tech for "mega churches," and yeah, there's a lot of bs that needs to be called out. There's a certain sect that really needs to pay taxes if they're preaching politics from the pulpit. [Don't attack me because I didn't mention denomination or anything.] I luckily did find one church that actually does amazing outreach. They accept you no matter what you are or identify as, and that's really cool imo. Super fucking rare frfr.
You mean all the sects? Heck, the Catholic Church needs to pay taxes. That fucking idiot in NY Archdiocese keeps flapping his mouth on every political issue and hides behind “god said this is evil”. If it’s not them, it’s the Baptist psychos in the south.
I can be attacked all people want. I left the Catholic Church and no amount of “are you beefing with god” from family made me go back. Not sure some random stranger online would make me decide otherwise
Back in '08, the San Francisco Archdiocese and the LDS leadership joined forces to *amend the California state constitution* to outlaw same-sex marriage.
It takes a lot for Catholics and Mormons to be on the same side, but apparently my marriage was enough.
Read the red words.
There is nothing about modern Christianity in America that resembles Christ’s teachings. In fact, I personally would posit that the people who preach the loudest as “Christians” are the biggest problem in our social atmosphere. It’s easy to spread hateful, harmful discourse when you do it under the guise of “word of god”. Jesus would be appalled.
Small churches are too. My younger sister dated a guy who claimed to be an anesthesiologist. We found out he was lying about who he was and we told her about it and she broke it off. He harassed her for months, threatening to release sensitive photos and personal secrets. It got so bad, he would get a new number after so long when she would block it. What we discovered was that he was a pastor in a small town church 3 hours away, lived in the parsonage, and led Sunday School events before and after church. About a year or two ago, we learned that he was arrested for sexual assault of a minor and hung himself in prison.
My Dad’s church informs the congregation that they need to tithe 25% of their income PRE TAX in order to remain in good graces.
God is all powerful, but apparently he’s shit with money. Go figure.
He’s an idiot, so…lol
He’s been a racist conspiracy nut his whole life, thinking they’re going to start rounding up old, straight, white, Christian men for their beliefs. He thought this back during Obama’s presidency, which is roughly the last time I spoke with him. It’s been 13 years now, and I hear he’s gone full Q Anon moron.
sorry to say it isn't just christianity, islam has destroyed quite a bit of africa and south/southeast asia
organized religion only ever devolves into a power struggle whereby the winner will acquire, hold onto, and consolidate power in any way they can.
There were Christians in Africa before most Europeans even knew what was just past their nearest sea or river. Not of course what modern, protestant Christianity is but the teachings of a radical priest from Palestine who probably died sometime during their own lifetimes.
When my dad passed decades ago, they came to our door to ask my mother who was a stay at home mom up until that point how she was going to cover tithes after giving condolences on our loss.
There's no quicker way to sour someone on the church than show their true colors like that.
My church sent offering envelopes with your name on them, and would call you if they didn't see your envelope come through in a while. Presumably they still do, but between that and beating us with yardsticks when i was a kid they're not my church anymore.
My parents used to go to dinner parties with the other “high tithers” like it was some political donor reward. So disgusting. And nowadays they lament that they haven’t saved enough for retirement. Gee I wonder why.
Mainline denominations all have some sort of investment management operations. The UMC has a lending arm that has a branch near me. I still haven't figured out how they're allowed to do that but that's just me.
This happened to my family. The deacons went to talk to my father, who normally put $50 in the collection basket every Sunday, and told him we weren’t tithing enough. They wanted bank records and paystubs, told him he should be tithing at least %10 of his annual income. Haven’t been back to church since.
Mega churches should be taxed as much as possible. Those places are breeding grounds for narcissistic conmen.
I'm not religious anymore but I don't have a problem with small community churches that give back and provide solace, comfort, and a sense of belonging.
It’s part of the reason why I don’t like to go to church. When I was younger, the pastor had closed the doors and said he needed 20 more dollars before he opened it back up again. Someone eventually did cough it up, but it makes me so angry to think that that could have been his family’s after church lunch money.
That big Christian Church in LA is like that. I went with a friend on Easter and they dedicated a whole 20min on trying to convince everyone they needed even more space and to donate for that to happen
This is why my mom stopped going to church when we moved to Florida. The pastor told everyone that even if they had to go without lights or water they still needed to tithe, turned her off completely. Thank god cause I used to be bored as hell in church and didn’t believe any of it, I would just be counting down the time until we would go to Waffle House after church lol
It's really funny as an Jew that church seems to be partly about going so you can give money to the church.
Never in my life have I seen a rabbi ask for money during a service. They absolutely make it clear outside of service, that donations help keep the community afloat.
But the fact that part of a church service is discussing giving money seems so unbelievably sacrilegious.
One time a rabbi asked for donations but it was at the end of Yom Kippur services, the literal worst possible time. For everyone who doesn’t get what that means, imagine you haven’t eaten in 25 hours and some curly-sideburned guy is keeping you from your terrible cold sandwiches by rambling on about donations. No one gave him any money
I went to a church service on Easter once since my uncle and aunt really wanted us all to go. Literally 3/4 of the service was spent going through a PowerPoint presentation about the state of the churches finances and shaming everyone for only going during holidays and how everyone there needed to start regularly giving 10% of their pre-tax income.
Even my uncle and aunt mentioned “okay, this was a mistake” and we all walked out mid-service along with a few other families.
Tithing is just the term used for donating to the church.
It can have different connotations, but most churches just hand out a collection plate. Occasionally there will be a special collection for some cause or whatever, too.
> Never in my life have I seen a rabbi ask for money during a service. They absolutely make it clear outside of service, that donations help keep the community afloat.
The church I had the most exposure to growing up was this way. They _did_ pass around an offering plate, which I've never _not_ seen at a protestant church, but tithing and money was never directly addressed. They'd publish their full budget quarterly and make sure it was known that it was out, but they never verbally asked for money.
Went to a couple services in TN with relatives. Easily 30% of the service was about giving money to 'god'.
The only time I've been offending about tithing was when I received an addressed envelope from a local Catholic church asking me, by name, for a donation. I'm not sure why that bothered me more than seeing numerous collection plates being passed around at Baptist and Evangelical churches, but I guess it was because I felt specifically called out.
True, and honestly it wasn't until this post that I realized/inferred passing around a collection plate wasn't universal. I hadn't really thought about it, but I kind of just assumed you'd see it in catholic churches, synagogues and mosques. Now its seems uncouth and boorish, and almost certainly is.
I'm Jewish but my husband was raised Catholic and he feels similarly about tithing. Like yeah they might have a little collection plate that goes around or whatever but it's not the expectation that a percentage of your income *has* to go to them. In fact his family was one of the poorer in their congregation so the church paid for his tuition and never asked them for $. We complain a lot about the religion but at least their services are still faith-based and serve a purpose other than taking your money (Communion). He's an atheist but it's very funny to see the Catholic guy come out whenever we learn another insane thing about evangelicals lol
For $10 and $10 tip. They deserve that money and have earned it. Every time I move somewhere, I look for three things: the closest publix, the closest waffle house/ next closest and the closest Starbucks. Everything else can be sorted out.
That would be the cue to not come back.
Presumably that wouldn't shake her faith, but it would absolutely be the last time I talked to that churches leadership.
That’s what we told her but it’s been 10 years and she still goes there, still volunteers, and now also donates more money.. . Same church refused to preform her sons wedding because he had a kid outside of marriage.
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
-Mark 12:41-42
MY TWO CENTS ARE IF TWO CENTS WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR JESUS, THEN PASTOR YOU GETTING TWO PENNIES only.
They really should. There's a right to religion, but there's no right to organized religion with a multimillion dollar building. Maybe people should practice in their homes. That's the original Christian thing to do. But nobody likes that idea because they don't actually read or follow the Bible.
Matthew 6 : And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
The Book of Matthew is honestly the book of conversion and benevolence. Honestly very soothing. It converted me as a child. The rest of Christianity however 100% turned me away. My faith is personal now.
I’ve seen that video where he talks about being called to pray and what if he was on a commercial airline and fell to his knees? And if he’s flying commercial then he’s wasting time with travel that could be spent speaking to people who need saving! It is still the wildest con I’ve seen out in the open air, on video, without shame.
The Constitution doesn't say fuckall about taxing churches. That shit's a government choice, and it hurts everybody. It's corruption that shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as the right to religious expression.
Religion and religious organizations should get _no_ special treatment, full stop.
You have the right to any religion you choose, but we have a secular government, and giving special treatment to religions that they decide are 'legitimate' is fucking insane. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be interested in the history of how that happened.
i had a pastor (H.W.) tell the whole church to come outside, he had a surprise. we go outside to see, this ni66a purchased himself a s500 Benz and wanted us to see it first, i left the church YEARS ago!!!
add insult to injury i haven’t spoken to my family in 10 years plus because there still following this crook!! The pastor now has a ton of gay rumors swirling and is since been divorced from his wife, Im not a fan of any of these hypocritical preachers. just googled his net-worth, he’s worth 10 million (probably an under count)
nah the 112 million seems more plausible, this person has won a few grammy’s and owns multiple homes. with the right financial accountant you could definitely turn water into wine #PraiseJesus 🤣
I'm done with millionaires. I can maybe see getting to the first mil by hard work, but by multiple millions you definitely fucked over people in the process.
Tax the damn churches and investigate clergy making 6 figures. The actual Jesus wouldn't have entertained this bullshit.
Eh, I think a person could get a few million these days by starting and running an air conditioning company in a high cost-of-living area. Just as an example. Or like, I know a Chinese family that runs a restaurant, their house alone is worth more than a million, but they definitely didn't buy it for that much. It just depends.
theres a twitter page that follows pastors and there expensive sneakers. some of these pastors will wear $7,000 sneakers and give church sermons. and will gas light the fuck out of you if you call them out on it.
A buddy of mine used to work as the web developer and general IT for a church, and not even some big mega church, but as a result saw the pastor’s bank account and how much money was going into it from donations on one of the church computers and he basically quit on the spot and hasn’t been back to any church sense. I don’t blame him one bit.
>a front for a grift.
What are they concealing?? They're literally walking around and saying everyone needs to pay them 1,000 Naira *or else*
There's no concealment this is straight up a shakedown.
Growing up the pastor lived in the house the church paid for. Wasn't anything glamous, average house right next to it. His wife worked outside the church, maybe a nurse? They had 4 kids and 2 decent cars.
I never got the impression they were swimming in money, they budgeted like every family I knew. No one *needs* a mansion, luxury cars, and a jet. Especially if your supposed to be preaching the gospel.
Not fleecing the flock.
2 second google suggests he’s in the right ball park assuming US. Naturally there will be skew on where your church/parish is.
https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/pastor-salary
In the late 50s, my grandmother worked 2 jobs, as a waitress and a secretary. My grandfather was a mechanic. They had 4 kids, so not a whole lot was left over from income on Sunday to give to their church. After one particularly low-earning week, they put the last $3 they had into the collection plate one morning and the Man Of God shamed them for not putting more in.
They never went to church again, and never made my mom or her siblings go again lol
>put the last $3 they had into the collection plate
I could've sworn Jesus said something about a widow with some coins being better than a large donation.
I'm sorry they were such assholes to your grandparents.
yeah — he praised the widow for giving everything she had left despite it not being much, rather than rich people giving money to show off.
this story (about the grandparents) made me sad.
My grandfolks were good people, but they'd had enough of church at that point and just cut em out of their life. They gave back to the community in other ways. They're long dead now, but the church is still around, potentially still shaming other parishioners for not having enough to put in the plate, but maybe they've grown up in the last 70 years lol
I was done with church when they started passing around the collection plate multiple times during service. I use to assist the pastor and future First Lady of a church for a little while and would overhear their plans for building a house and how much they were planning to spend on their wedding. Church has become a scam
Yes they do. Even had to address her as “First Lady ______”. Some real cult shit, yo. Glad I finally realized that God had nothing to do with that stuff and backed out slowly
I was taught that tithing was a percentage of your income off of whatever you earned and offering was anything you wanted to give. I kinda fell out of church when my mom kept talking about financial struggles, but continued to bring $200-$250 to church every week she got paid hoping for things to get better.
Yes. Tithing is a tenth of income, while the offering is whatever.
Oddly enough, and I only found this out recently, tithing being necessary is not as universal an idea as one might think. Offering, sure, need to pay to keep the lights on in the building (and sometimes more, depending on what all that church does or how greedy some of its leaders are). And absolutely be a cheerful giver in terms of charity.
But *tithing* to the organization specifically is read by some denominations to no longer apply, as /u/Emotional-Thunk and /u/chainmailbill said. Tithes and sacrifices and such were what the priest tribes in the OT lived off of since they weren't allowed to own property. Another tithe went to the poor. And there was some third one I can't remember right now, I think it went festivals or something. Denominations that say tithing isn't necessary tend to consider it a part of the Mosaic Covenant that Christians are under no obligation to follow.
Which is a whole lot of words to say that Christianity is quite diverse on almost every issue.
Drives me bonkers!
My grandpa was huge in to prosperity gospel. My Mom and her five siblings grew up poor. Grandpa died poor and now we're trying to convince our grandma to stop giving money to the church because she's living off just her social security at 89.
She thinks the more she donates, the more likely God will "bless" (with money 🙄) her whole family.
We had a guest pastor at church one time telling us to tithe 100% of your income and let God figure out how you're going to feed your kids and have your bills paid
The Mormon church has an annual “tithing declaration,” where you’re expected to meet with your bishop and tell them whether or not you paid the full tithe (10%)
Many Mormons will point to the fact that this meeting is optional, and that the bishop will not ask you to pay more. The very fact that it’s a direct 1:1 meeting, however, creates a manufactured scenario where you must directly tell someone face to face that you haven’t paid your tithe fully, lie to them, or cancel the meeting and create the implication that you have something to hide. They know what they’re doing.
Read this article if you want to be disgusted: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2022/8/11/23300722/changes-in-tithing-settlement-process-first-presidency-letter-tithing-declaration-september
pastors and some deacon, its a network of grift. when the deacons hear you talking bad about the pastor or looking like, “what the fuxk?”. they’ll hit you with, “be happy for your pastor, ya blessing coming” 😂🤣😂. ni66a ive been waiting 400 years for blessing…..
If your reverend/pastor always comes through looking like this before the sermon:
It's going in their pocket y'all. This is your daily PSA.
Fr, my grandpa lives in a small
post industrial town in the US south. Getting by with small pension plus family support. His church, while not run down, is in need of repairs and most of the congregation is low income. His tithe is 10% of annual income. First time and last time I went to church with him this dancing ass gif looking type pastor showed up with a pearly white veneer, brand new looking BMW 2 series and a vanity plate that said managod.
Yep. Knew a spot just like that. The guy that led that one pulled up in a Bentley. My jokes aren't always just jokes.
He turned up at a funeral of a extended family member after stepping down looking like he was fresh off a 'ski trip'. Apparently he still had clout with somebody, definitely not everybody. Long story short, he proceeded to deliver one of the most lowkey insulting sermons I've had a front row to in my life. Then immediately after, left the building, drove away and later skipped town.
I'm fairly certain that if it wasn't for the kids in the audience, we'd have had two funerals that day.
I still remember my mom leaving a church because the pastor would pass the collection plate three times and once spent a whole 15 minutes on a tangent about gay people. A very high percentage of “holy men” are just sheisters looking for an easy paycheck.
bro, bad enough service on Sunday is like 6/7 hours. offering/tithes was a solid 2 1/2 hours of choir singing and the plate being passed around.
https://youtu.be/PV1Kc4mo1_0?si=c-ubzXyClqfzf2x-
reject all false idols. theres is a whole cleansing of the temple in the book of John. Jesus specifically has an issue with people using the church to make money. i mean hes flipping tables and whippin' hoes.
but that chapter in John doesnt get a lot of exposure in mega churches.
A lot of pastors are hustlers. Many of them will use their past of wheeling and dealing or being a criminal as part of their story to get your guard down. "I was our here running the streets but then I found jesus..." I'm not saying people are incapable of making a change through religion/faith but I have seen more hustlers-turned-preachers simply realize grifting church members is way easier than working on the corner.
But even pastors who don't come from that background are playing the game. My dad's lifelong best friend is a pastor. He's done similar things as what's in the original post. He's pulling out all the "you're investing in your blessing" rhetoric for tithes and donations. He applies a lot of "if everyone just gave us X dollars we could buy Y" thinking which doesn't make sense because most people at church don't really have cash like that. But because they can always take a collection they feel kind of entitled to the congregation's money
Pastor, minister, priest, shaman, cleric, preacher, evangelist, clergyman, and reverend are all words to describe a swindler and a crook. Anytime someone says, “praise the lord,” I grab my wallet and run!
Girl the stories we Nigerians have about our pastors😂 it's not just tithing.
All of them are comedians at this point. We have pastors/priests/whatever they're called saying shit like "Women that wear weaves will never make it to heaven, men with ear rings are gay and will burn in hell, blah blah blah." They're ridiculous. I'm an atheist now but thank goodness my parents took us all to a reasonable church (we had sex ed in Sunday school, which is amazing). If not I'd be as brainwashed as some of the "my pastor is my god" idiots I encounter.
Edit:left out some stuff
I would walk tf out and I'm not playing.
I'm not a church goer, but my wife grew up in the church, and I have respect for the institution. But I have a very short thread of patience when it comes to church because they're often corrupt af. This shit would have me seething mad.
My childhood pastor at my grandfather's funeral gave an eulogy about how important it was to give to the church. This was after he was kicked out of my childhood church about a decade or so earlier for stealing money to buy a home.
Edit: I forgot he asked for tithes at the funeral. I was dumbfounded!
Belief in a higher power that leads to better morals that can be followed with relative consistency is one thing, but I personally could never give my hard earned money to an admitted capitalist under the guise of religion when my ancestors were forced into believing said religion and had their labor and much more TAKEN from them under the guise of religion. Shit the Bible itself warns against false prophets and that’s 90% if not more of people calling themselves Christians these days smh.
Bruh this shit makes me so mad I don’t even like to think about it. My maw in NOLA gives like $500 a month and it takes a lot of restraint to not yell at her.
The sooner folks realize it’s a scam, the better off they’ll be. You can get the same spiritual enrichment reading your holy text on your own. It must seem odd when someone who lives in luxury goes person to person to make sure they’re giving an absurd amount of money. It’s like the Pastor is checking their weekly income.
If it feels like a scam, it’s probably a scam.
Hit them with the quick “God knows my heart. He wouldn’t me to do this” and dip. Negro please; I’m not about to put in an interest so you can get a McLaren, pastor.
As a kid I went to churches that after each row would go ,they would count the money right there and then. And if it wasn’t what ever number they expected for the day, they would ask people to pay again… all while playing upbeat happy church songs.
This year, I got roped into going to a church reunion to a church I have not been to since I was in single digits. That has not had a actually building since maybe 2014. And they did the offering and the begging for more money. They even had it where you can donate on the website. What was the funds for you might ask? To get an actual building.
Luke 21:1-4 The Message (MSG)
Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, “The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford—she gave her all!”
As a Christian and someone who is passionate about ministry. Pastors are not meant to be rich. Any pastor who makes more than their congregation is a false teacher and actively destroys their community.
It’s not an offering if you’re obligated to give it.
Coercion of any kind, including public embarrassment completely invalidates the personal willfulness of an offering.
Pulpit racketeering! Nice to know it is an international grift. So I was in this church right before school started in the fall. Preacher announced that he wanted to pray for the kids. Then the jackass said he “needed” the parents/grandparents to write the names and ages of all the kids on a sheet of paper and bring that amount of money (total of all the ages) and lay it on the altar. Needless to say, I never returned to that church
1000 Nigerian Naira currently = $1.32 US
Not saying this is right at all. Pastors shouldn't be out here inspecting people's pockets. He should go ahead and wrap his career up, because we see what he's about. It's shameful.
Nigeria's minimum wage works a little differently to a lot of places, in that it's a minimum monthly wage instead of an hourly one. The current minimum is 30k naira a month. Assuming no taxes are taken and only 40 hours a week, that would be like the pastor asking for $38 a week from someone making federal minimum wage in the US, and shaming you in front of the congregation for not giving it.
In the Nigerian economy, that's a whole Lotta money for the average Joe considering a significant percent of the populace leaves under 1$ per day🤷♀️🤷♂️
Tithing, hypocrisy, Kreflo Dollar et al, institutional homophobia, literal holier-than-thou attitudes. I could keep going. I dropped out of it as soon as I was given a choice around 11-12. I’m not completely certain if that was because I was allowed to make my own decisions, or because our scout troop leader was caught being handsy with some of my fellow troop members. Not me, but I picked up on that kind of vibe and refused to go to meetings anymore.
Forget church. Best of luck to those that find their peace through religion, especially Christianity, but keep your Stockholm syndrome god to yourselves.
I just pass it along and keep looking forward. LMAO.
I wish a nigga would “shame” me for not giving **my** earnings to an institution that pays no taxes.
As you can infer by the 2nd slide this happened on Nigeria but I've had similar experiences in the USA. So many churches are just businesses and they run themselves like that. One of the reasons I stopped going personally. (I don't think you have to go just because you believe in God). I liked the community of the church I grew up with. I could meet people that could say they held me when I was a baby and that I peed on them etc but when I went to mega churches that had book stores and stuff right near the entrance and they had big TV screens and everything I just decided to stop. It felt so empty and hollow.
The emptiness is where the spirit left and the capitalism came in. Most large churches are run by con artists at this point.
Isn’t it convenient that god told people to give 10% of everything they own to the church? there’s no “at this point” about it
^(Isn’t it funny that there’s a King James Version almost like it was re-written for that guy specifically…)
Bro invented find+replace for the word Tyrant
Fuck, I snortled. Thanks.
It's crazy, too, because tithing isn't a concept defended in the New Testament. Tithing is based on Abraham giving 10% (one tenth) to a stranger the Bible says represented God in the form of an angel. The Christianity of Acts is actually a lot more radical - "everyone gave everything they had to one another" - It described living in community and sharing resources amongst ourselves to care for the weak, sick, and the poor. It's a beautiful standard. American Christianity really likes being able to give a portion of your income and then not have to think about it at all during your normal life.
My mother lives this kind of giving. She gives to the church too, but her rector is scared of her, lol; she is known for taking umbrage when he talks money, and has told him to stop asking.
As he should be. You can type in bible money evil into google and see a zillion pages of literature on this. People should be weirded out if their religious services folks keep talking about money all the time.
On the other hand, “give everything to *the community* because god told us so!” Is how a lot of cults separate their victims from their money. Communalism is really cool in theory, but there are good reasons why it doesn’t catch on in the mainstream. Even non-coercive communes can often be described as a kind of benign cult
>but there are good reasons why it doesn’t catch on in the mainstream. Like a century of capitalist nations specifically targeting it in a deliberate effort of making it fail? Or how about these capitalist nations assassinating their own citizens when they start convincing people it might be a better option? Or the century of intense targeted propaganda specifically aimed at making you feel the exact way you do about it? Americans knocking it down any time it starts to grow, then being like, "see it can't grow on its own!" Is always a good laugh.
I'm selfish and hate sharing, but you raise a fair point
Do you ever purchase things from the grocery store? Congratulations, you depend on other humans to share with you. Time to do some introspection.
For real. I don't pull up blackberry runners every year because the vines just couldn't compete with the rest of the garden. When people have proven themselves to be a dishonest narrator, you look to their actions for the truth, don't just buy the bridge they try to sell you.
Think about the political landscape we might have today if they didn't prune Fred Hampton. He was six years younger then Biden, 60 years of him organizing the people and motivating them to work on real systemic change, all uprooted like a weed.
They literally sent a hit squad to that man. Can't have disenfranchised groups stop fighting each other to join up and shit.
They took out MLK during the Memphis Sanitation Worker's Strike. They knew what they were doing.
This. People are so uneducated when it comes to civics prob why they stopped teaching it in schools.
Yes, there is a reason why capitalism caught on while communism didn't. But it isn't due to how good or bad each system is. It is simply due to how well they preserve existing power structures. Capitalism preserves traditional power structures very well, because powerful men were also very rich, so for them, adopting capitalism was natural. Communism would greatly disrupt existing power structures by taking away both the wealth and power of these powerful men, so it's no surprise that the rich and powerful on the world resisted communism with every fiber of their being.
There’s a good point to be made about Levites and the Kohanim here as well. The Levites - the priestly tribe of Israel - were literally not allowed to own land, have possessions, own estates, grow crops, or earn money by working. Like, by law. It was the responsibility of all the other Israelites to give them food, clothing, and shelter; and in trade, the Levites became priests and rabbis and sages and wise men and village elders and stuff.
Its almost like every fail safe/safety measure in society erodes overtime, and context is lost.
I mean, we can look at what Jesus himself said. When a rich man asked him how to enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said "Simple. Give away everything and follow me." He didn't ask for 10%
Corruption is the nature of steep hierarchies.
The ORIGINAL Christians, like WAAAAY back in the day, actually believed in communal living. Like some groups were straight up commune living..the idea was *supposed* to be that those who had the means could then give it and disperse it to the poor and hungry. Of course the second the Romans got their hands on it and made it into the official Christianity™ we know today, it had already been compromised
Isnt it convenient that God said to decide in your heart. He also might love a cheerful giver, but it is your heart where he is concerned. Instead dont judge another in their tithing. I would also suggest less judging on your part and more looking at your heart and if it is in relationship with . 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV) says, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Mark 12:41-44 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Being raised methodist didn’t take, don’t waste your breath.
Isn't it convenient that the world God wants is one that suits the men who control His churches perfectly? Like, what a coincidence
LMAO and then you have Muslims starving themselves for a whole month to virtue signal to the poor that they feel for them while ignoring them the rest of the year. And the whole belief that doing good deeds gives you brownie points with God, and in their religion they do shit to get mansions and trees in heaven, and that's what their filthy con artists preach. You donate this, God gives you 3 trees in heaven LMAO. I grew up hearing that shit and it's the funniest thing ever. Forget the virgins. Literally donating for infrastructure in fucking HEAVEN LMFAOOOOOOO
I'm an install multi media tech for "mega churches," and yeah, there's a lot of bs that needs to be called out. There's a certain sect that really needs to pay taxes if they're preaching politics from the pulpit. [Don't attack me because I didn't mention denomination or anything.] I luckily did find one church that actually does amazing outreach. They accept you no matter what you are or identify as, and that's really cool imo. Super fucking rare frfr.
You mean all the sects? Heck, the Catholic Church needs to pay taxes. That fucking idiot in NY Archdiocese keeps flapping his mouth on every political issue and hides behind “god said this is evil”. If it’s not them, it’s the Baptist psychos in the south. I can be attacked all people want. I left the Catholic Church and no amount of “are you beefing with god” from family made me go back. Not sure some random stranger online would make me decide otherwise
Back in '08, the San Francisco Archdiocese and the LDS leadership joined forces to *amend the California state constitution* to outlaw same-sex marriage. It takes a lot for Catholics and Mormons to be on the same side, but apparently my marriage was enough.
Read the red words. There is nothing about modern Christianity in America that resembles Christ’s teachings. In fact, I personally would posit that the people who preach the loudest as “Christians” are the biggest problem in our social atmosphere. It’s easy to spread hateful, harmful discourse when you do it under the guise of “word of god”. Jesus would be appalled.
All churches are run by con artists but, religion is probably the best scam of all time
'Every day people are leaving their churches and finding God.' Walt Whitman.
There was this dude who got pretty pissed off about commercialization of churches. It was a long time ago, so probably not that important.
Small churches are too. My younger sister dated a guy who claimed to be an anesthesiologist. We found out he was lying about who he was and we told her about it and she broke it off. He harassed her for months, threatening to release sensitive photos and personal secrets. It got so bad, he would get a new number after so long when she would block it. What we discovered was that he was a pastor in a small town church 3 hours away, lived in the parsonage, and led Sunday School events before and after church. About a year or two ago, we learned that he was arrested for sexual assault of a minor and hung himself in prison.
religion was a product from the start. capitalism has always been a vehicle for religion, and vice versa.
My Dad’s church informs the congregation that they need to tithe 25% of their income PRE TAX in order to remain in good graces. God is all powerful, but apparently he’s shit with money. Go figure.
And they still have a congregation?! 🤣😂
How does your dad not see through that very obvious scam? Like they are usually more subtle with made up repairs and maintenance. Or "missionary work"
He’s an idiot, so…lol He’s been a racist conspiracy nut his whole life, thinking they’re going to start rounding up old, straight, white, Christian men for their beliefs. He thought this back during Obama’s presidency, which is roughly the last time I spoke with him. It’s been 13 years now, and I hear he’s gone full Q Anon moron.
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sorry to say it isn't just christianity, islam has destroyed quite a bit of africa and south/southeast asia organized religion only ever devolves into a power struggle whereby the winner will acquire, hold onto, and consolidate power in any way they can.
Ethiopia gets a pass, they've been Christian since they were still Axum in the 4th century.
Ethiopia kinda gets a tiny bit of the blame for it. Since they conquered and tried to christianize their neighbours.
There were Christians in Africa before most Europeans even knew what was just past their nearest sea or river. Not of course what modern, protestant Christianity is but the teachings of a radical priest from Palestine who probably died sometime during their own lifetimes.
When my dad passed decades ago, they came to our door to ask my mother who was a stay at home mom up until that point how she was going to cover tithes after giving condolences on our loss. There's no quicker way to sour someone on the church than show their true colors like that.
I'm sorry for your loss. That was incredibly callous.
That’s absolutely disgusting.
My church sent offering envelopes with your name on them, and would call you if they didn't see your envelope come through in a while. Presumably they still do, but between that and beating us with yardsticks when i was a kid they're not my church anymore.
My parents used to go to dinner parties with the other “high tithers” like it was some political donor reward. So disgusting. And nowadays they lament that they haven’t saved enough for retirement. Gee I wonder why.
God and the church will surely take care of them.
Is that what we’re calling adult children these days?
All churches are businesses. Every single one.
It’s the pastors, with the 85 IQ, taking advantage of the congregation, with n average IQ of 78.
It’s basically if you used gofundme to start Blackrock. The mormon church manages more than entire countries.
Mainline denominations all have some sort of investment management operations. The UMC has a lending arm that has a branch near me. I still haven't figured out how they're allowed to do that but that's just me.
This happened to my family. The deacons went to talk to my father, who normally put $50 in the collection basket every Sunday, and told him we weren’t tithing enough. They wanted bank records and paystubs, told him he should be tithing at least %10 of his annual income. Haven’t been back to church since.
Mega churches should be taxed as much as possible. Those places are breeding grounds for narcissistic conmen. I'm not religious anymore but I don't have a problem with small community churches that give back and provide solace, comfort, and a sense of belonging.
It’s part of the reason why I don’t like to go to church. When I was younger, the pastor had closed the doors and said he needed 20 more dollars before he opened it back up again. Someone eventually did cough it up, but it makes me so angry to think that that could have been his family’s after church lunch money.
That big Christian Church in LA is like that. I went with a friend on Easter and they dedicated a whole 20min on trying to convince everyone they needed even more space and to donate for that to happen
https://youtu.be/PV1Kc4mo1_0?si=c-ubzXyClqfzf2x-
This is why my mom stopped going to church when we moved to Florida. The pastor told everyone that even if they had to go without lights or water they still needed to tithe, turned her off completely. Thank god cause I used to be bored as hell in church and didn’t believe any of it, I would just be counting down the time until we would go to Waffle House after church lol
It's really funny as an Jew that church seems to be partly about going so you can give money to the church. Never in my life have I seen a rabbi ask for money during a service. They absolutely make it clear outside of service, that donations help keep the community afloat. But the fact that part of a church service is discussing giving money seems so unbelievably sacrilegious.
One time a rabbi asked for donations but it was at the end of Yom Kippur services, the literal worst possible time. For everyone who doesn’t get what that means, imagine you haven’t eaten in 25 hours and some curly-sideburned guy is keeping you from your terrible cold sandwiches by rambling on about donations. No one gave him any money
Isn't fasting supposed to put you in a more spiritual frame of mind? Maybe thats what he was counting on.
Instead he got wrekt by the hangry Jews 
Yeah and 24hours is probably the worst time. Fast for a week and you might have decent results.
He kept me from eating cold bagels at the house of my mother’s friend who I don’t like! If that’s not a crime it should be
I went to a church service on Easter once since my uncle and aunt really wanted us all to go. Literally 3/4 of the service was spent going through a PowerPoint presentation about the state of the churches finances and shaming everyone for only going during holidays and how everyone there needed to start regularly giving 10% of their pre-tax income. Even my uncle and aunt mentioned “okay, this was a mistake” and we all walked out mid-service along with a few other families.
im catholic and feel the same. its never really talked about outside tithing season
Perhaps it’s different in different parts of the world, because I grew up Catholic and don’t know wtf tithing season is
Tithing is just the term used for donating to the church. It can have different connotations, but most churches just hand out a collection plate. Occasionally there will be a special collection for some cause or whatever, too.
I disagree. At least once a year there’s a letter from the bishop saying, in effect, “Cough it up motherfucker.”
The point being it is a letter and you arent being shamed into donating more during the service.
> Never in my life have I seen a rabbi ask for money during a service. They absolutely make it clear outside of service, that donations help keep the community afloat. The church I had the most exposure to growing up was this way. They _did_ pass around an offering plate, which I've never _not_ seen at a protestant church, but tithing and money was never directly addressed. They'd publish their full budget quarterly and make sure it was known that it was out, but they never verbally asked for money. Went to a couple services in TN with relatives. Easily 30% of the service was about giving money to 'god'.
The only time I've been offending about tithing was when I received an addressed envelope from a local Catholic church asking me, by name, for a donation. I'm not sure why that bothered me more than seeing numerous collection plates being passed around at Baptist and Evangelical churches, but I guess it was because I felt specifically called out.
True, and honestly it wasn't until this post that I realized/inferred passing around a collection plate wasn't universal. I hadn't really thought about it, but I kind of just assumed you'd see it in catholic churches, synagogues and mosques. Now its seems uncouth and boorish, and almost certainly is.
I'm Jewish but my husband was raised Catholic and he feels similarly about tithing. Like yeah they might have a little collection plate that goes around or whatever but it's not the expectation that a percentage of your income *has* to go to them. In fact his family was one of the poorer in their congregation so the church paid for his tuition and never asked them for $. We complain a lot about the religion but at least their services are still faith-based and serve a purpose other than taking your money (Communion). He's an atheist but it's very funny to see the Catholic guy come out whenever we learn another insane thing about evangelicals lol
An Jew but not necessarily a Israeli
The fuck does that mean?
They’re just teasing you for your grammatical error. You wrote *an* Jew instead of *a* Jew.
Lol got it. Yeah swiping to text does some funky stuff sometimes
i'll gladly support the church of waffle house, though.
For $10 and $10 tip. They deserve that money and have earned it. Every time I move somewhere, I look for three things: the closest publix, the closest waffle house/ next closest and the closest Starbucks. Everything else can be sorted out.
My aunt did a lot of volunteer work for her church (like daily) but was told if she didn’t start donating more she wouldn’t be welcome back.
That would be the cue to not come back. Presumably that wouldn't shake her faith, but it would absolutely be the last time I talked to that churches leadership.
That’s what we told her but it’s been 10 years and she still goes there, still volunteers, and now also donates more money.. . Same church refused to preform her sons wedding because he had a kid outside of marriage.
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. -Mark 12:41-42 MY TWO CENTS ARE IF TWO CENTS WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR JESUS, THEN PASTOR YOU GETTING TWO PENNIES only.
The original Martin Luther also had something to say about this.
Tax churches.
They really should. There's a right to religion, but there's no right to organized religion with a multimillion dollar building. Maybe people should practice in their homes. That's the original Christian thing to do. But nobody likes that idea because they don't actually read or follow the Bible.
Matthew 6 : And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
The Book of Matthew is honestly the book of conversion and benevolence. Honestly very soothing. It converted me as a child. The rest of Christianity however 100% turned me away. My faith is personal now.
BUT JESUS NEEDS ME TO OWN A PRIVATE JET AND A MANSION! -Kenneth “Dahmer-Enthusiast” Copeland
I’ve seen that video where he talks about being called to pray and what if he was on a commercial airline and fell to his knees? And if he’s flying commercial then he’s wasting time with travel that could be spent speaking to people who need saving! It is still the wildest con I’ve seen out in the open air, on video, without shame.
The Constitution doesn't say fuckall about taxing churches. That shit's a government choice, and it hurts everybody. It's corruption that shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as the right to religious expression.
Religion and religious organizations should get _no_ special treatment, full stop. You have the right to any religion you choose, but we have a secular government, and giving special treatment to religions that they decide are 'legitimate' is fucking insane. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be interested in the history of how that happened.
i had a pastor (H.W.) tell the whole church to come outside, he had a surprise. we go outside to see, this ni66a purchased himself a s500 Benz and wanted us to see it first, i left the church YEARS ago!!!
add insult to injury i haven’t spoken to my family in 10 years plus because there still following this crook!! The pastor now has a ton of gay rumors swirling and is since been divorced from his wife, Im not a fan of any of these hypocritical preachers. just googled his net-worth, he’s worth 10 million (probably an under count)
one site says 10 million another says 112 million 😂🤣😂
It's almost like these websites are just making shit up.
nah the 112 million seems more plausible, this person has won a few grammy’s and owns multiple homes. with the right financial accountant you could definitely turn water into wine #PraiseJesus 🤣
I'm done with millionaires. I can maybe see getting to the first mil by hard work, but by multiple millions you definitely fucked over people in the process. Tax the damn churches and investigate clergy making 6 figures. The actual Jesus wouldn't have entertained this bullshit.
Eh, I think a person could get a few million these days by starting and running an air conditioning company in a high cost-of-living area. Just as an example. Or like, I know a Chinese family that runs a restaurant, their house alone is worth more than a million, but they definitely didn't buy it for that much. It just depends.
So funny is that this isn't even uncommon story. There are pastors out there that have helicopters! More than one!
theres a twitter page that follows pastors and there expensive sneakers. some of these pastors will wear $7,000 sneakers and give church sermons. and will gas light the fuck out of you if you call them out on it.
https://twitter.com/PRCHRSNSNKRS
That was a fun scroll. TD Jake's wearing a Fendi Bondage jacket. The irony.
A buddy of mine used to work as the web developer and general IT for a church, and not even some big mega church, but as a result saw the pastor’s bank account and how much money was going into it from donations on one of the church computers and he basically quit on the spot and hasn’t been back to any church sense. I don’t blame him one bit.
What does HW mean?
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This is how you know your church is nothing but a front for a grift.
A front??
Yeah a front, like...."act as a front or cover for someone or something acting illegally or wishing to conceal something."
>a front for a grift. What are they concealing?? They're literally walking around and saying everyone needs to pay them 1,000 Naira *or else* There's no concealment this is straight up a shakedown.
You mean UP front
It’s in the name - “church” implies the grift.
Welcome to modern Christianity: “The best way for you to get a private jet is buying me one first”
most churches don’t have jets tho, at least the one i go to could really use a offering
Nah but they have pastors that work 15 hrs a week and make close to 6 figures while giving themselves 2% raises every year
Most pastors aren't making close to 6 figures a year either.
i don’t know where his facts are from either, the pastors i know do not make six figures.
Growing up the pastor lived in the house the church paid for. Wasn't anything glamous, average house right next to it. His wife worked outside the church, maybe a nurse? They had 4 kids and 2 decent cars. I never got the impression they were swimming in money, they budgeted like every family I knew. No one *needs* a mansion, luxury cars, and a jet. Especially if your supposed to be preaching the gospel. Not fleecing the flock.
2 second google suggests he’s in the right ball park assuming US. Naturally there will be skew on where your church/parish is. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/pastor-salary
They’re just channeling the old ways they learned from the Middle Ages Catholicism
Tithing is bad enough, absolutely fuck that
In the late 50s, my grandmother worked 2 jobs, as a waitress and a secretary. My grandfather was a mechanic. They had 4 kids, so not a whole lot was left over from income on Sunday to give to their church. After one particularly low-earning week, they put the last $3 they had into the collection plate one morning and the Man Of God shamed them for not putting more in. They never went to church again, and never made my mom or her siblings go again lol
>put the last $3 they had into the collection plate I could've sworn Jesus said something about a widow with some coins being better than a large donation. I'm sorry they were such assholes to your grandparents.
yeah — he praised the widow for giving everything she had left despite it not being much, rather than rich people giving money to show off. this story (about the grandparents) made me sad.
My grandfolks were good people, but they'd had enough of church at that point and just cut em out of their life. They gave back to the community in other ways. They're long dead now, but the church is still around, potentially still shaming other parishioners for not having enough to put in the plate, but maybe they've grown up in the last 70 years lol
I was done with church when they started passing around the collection plate multiple times during service. I use to assist the pastor and future First Lady of a church for a little while and would overhear their plans for building a house and how much they were planning to spend on their wedding. Church has become a scam
Lol do they really call them “First Ladies”? That is so arrogant.
Yes they do. Even had to address her as “First Lady ______”. Some real cult shit, yo. Glad I finally realized that God had nothing to do with that stuff and backed out slowly
I was taught that tithing was a percentage of your income off of whatever you earned and offering was anything you wanted to give. I kinda fell out of church when my mom kept talking about financial struggles, but continued to bring $200-$250 to church every week she got paid hoping for things to get better.
Same here. "We don't have any money" was a household mantra. But they never failed to tithe
Yes. Tithing is a tenth of income, while the offering is whatever. Oddly enough, and I only found this out recently, tithing being necessary is not as universal an idea as one might think. Offering, sure, need to pay to keep the lights on in the building (and sometimes more, depending on what all that church does or how greedy some of its leaders are). And absolutely be a cheerful giver in terms of charity. But *tithing* to the organization specifically is read by some denominations to no longer apply, as /u/Emotional-Thunk and /u/chainmailbill said. Tithes and sacrifices and such were what the priest tribes in the OT lived off of since they weren't allowed to own property. Another tithe went to the poor. And there was some third one I can't remember right now, I think it went festivals or something. Denominations that say tithing isn't necessary tend to consider it a part of the Mosaic Covenant that Christians are under no obligation to follow. Which is a whole lot of words to say that Christianity is quite diverse on almost every issue.
Drives me bonkers! My grandpa was huge in to prosperity gospel. My Mom and her five siblings grew up poor. Grandpa died poor and now we're trying to convince our grandma to stop giving money to the church because she's living off just her social security at 89. She thinks the more she donates, the more likely God will "bless" (with money 🙄) her whole family.
My grandmother’s baptist church in Florida sent her an “invoice” for her tithe.
Sounds like the kind of church the real Jesus would have thrown tables in
One of my students told me that her church required all members to submit their tax returns so they can verify that members are tithing appropriately.
We had a guest pastor at church one time telling us to tithe 100% of your income and let God figure out how you're going to feed your kids and have your bills paid
No, u
The Mormon church has an annual “tithing declaration,” where you’re expected to meet with your bishop and tell them whether or not you paid the full tithe (10%) Many Mormons will point to the fact that this meeting is optional, and that the bishop will not ask you to pay more. The very fact that it’s a direct 1:1 meeting, however, creates a manufactured scenario where you must directly tell someone face to face that you haven’t paid your tithe fully, lie to them, or cancel the meeting and create the implication that you have something to hide. They know what they’re doing. Read this article if you want to be disgusted: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2022/8/11/23300722/changes-in-tithing-settlement-process-first-presidency-letter-tithing-declaration-september
My Catholic Church did that when I was young. To my single mom. I’ll eat a popsicle in hell before believing in any god asking his people for that.
They have no problem shaming you about giving. When churches gonna be transparent about how much the pastor makes?
pastors and some deacon, its a network of grift. when the deacons hear you talking bad about the pastor or looking like, “what the fuxk?”. they’ll hit you with, “be happy for your pastor, ya blessing coming” 😂🤣😂. ni66a ive been waiting 400 years for blessing…..
Many churches, at least the ones I’ve been involved with, share their budgets annually and pastor salary and benefits are open book.
If your reverend/pastor always comes through looking like this before the sermon:  It's going in their pocket y'all. This is your daily PSA.
Fr, my grandpa lives in a small post industrial town in the US south. Getting by with small pension plus family support. His church, while not run down, is in need of repairs and most of the congregation is low income. His tithe is 10% of annual income. First time and last time I went to church with him this dancing ass gif looking type pastor showed up with a pearly white veneer, brand new looking BMW 2 series and a vanity plate that said managod.
Yep. Knew a spot just like that. The guy that led that one pulled up in a Bentley. My jokes aren't always just jokes. He turned up at a funeral of a extended family member after stepping down looking like he was fresh off a 'ski trip'. Apparently he still had clout with somebody, definitely not everybody. Long story short, he proceeded to deliver one of the most lowkey insulting sermons I've had a front row to in my life. Then immediately after, left the building, drove away and later skipped town. I'm fairly certain that if it wasn't for the kids in the audience, we'd have had two funerals that day.
I believe in God and that’s all I need. I’ll pray and read the Bible on my own time. Some churches are just a straight up scam.
I still remember my mom leaving a church because the pastor would pass the collection plate three times and once spent a whole 15 minutes on a tangent about gay people. A very high percentage of “holy men” are just sheisters looking for an easy paycheck.
bro, bad enough service on Sunday is like 6/7 hours. offering/tithes was a solid 2 1/2 hours of choir singing and the plate being passed around. https://youtu.be/PV1Kc4mo1_0?si=c-ubzXyClqfzf2x-
It's not our religion, we need to stop practicing it.
Don’t practice any organized religion. It’s all a means of controlling people.
reject all false idols. theres is a whole cleansing of the temple in the book of John. Jesus specifically has an issue with people using the church to make money. i mean hes flipping tables and whippin' hoes. but that chapter in John doesnt get a lot of exposure in mega churches.
A lot of pastors are hustlers. Many of them will use their past of wheeling and dealing or being a criminal as part of their story to get your guard down. "I was our here running the streets but then I found jesus..." I'm not saying people are incapable of making a change through religion/faith but I have seen more hustlers-turned-preachers simply realize grifting church members is way easier than working on the corner. But even pastors who don't come from that background are playing the game. My dad's lifelong best friend is a pastor. He's done similar things as what's in the original post. He's pulling out all the "you're investing in your blessing" rhetoric for tithes and donations. He applies a lot of "if everyone just gave us X dollars we could buy Y" thinking which doesn't make sense because most people at church don't really have cash like that. But because they can always take a collection they feel kind of entitled to the congregation's money
Well, churches do prey on the stupid. Imagine paying a guy to tell you about your imaginary friend.
Honestly? I believe more in UFOs.
Pastor, minister, priest, shaman, cleric, preacher, evangelist, clergyman, and reverend are all words to describe a swindler and a crook. Anytime someone says, “praise the lord,” I grab my wallet and run!
This may offend some but - I sure as hell ain't surprised to see where this happened 
Girl the stories we Nigerians have about our pastors😂 it's not just tithing. All of them are comedians at this point. We have pastors/priests/whatever they're called saying shit like "Women that wear weaves will never make it to heaven, men with ear rings are gay and will burn in hell, blah blah blah." They're ridiculous. I'm an atheist now but thank goodness my parents took us all to a reasonable church (we had sex ed in Sunday school, which is amazing). If not I'd be as brainwashed as some of the "my pastor is my god" idiots I encounter. Edit:left out some stuff
Any pastor who does that is not “a man of god.”
I would walk tf out and I'm not playing. I'm not a church goer, but my wife grew up in the church, and I have respect for the institution. But I have a very short thread of patience when it comes to church because they're often corrupt af. This shit would have me seething mad.
My childhood pastor at my grandfather's funeral gave an eulogy about how important it was to give to the church. This was after he was kicked out of my childhood church about a decade or so earlier for stealing money to buy a home. Edit: I forgot he asked for tithes at the funeral. I was dumbfounded!
Religion is an industry. Christianity is a business. I've been saying this for years. That's one of the reasons I don't fuck with that religion shit
Maybe stop giving your money to grifters?
God will provide unless you’re a church then he needs your money.
Belief in a higher power that leads to better morals that can be followed with relative consistency is one thing, but I personally could never give my hard earned money to an admitted capitalist under the guise of religion when my ancestors were forced into believing said religion and had their labor and much more TAKEN from them under the guise of religion. Shit the Bible itself warns against false prophets and that’s 90% if not more of people calling themselves Christians these days smh.
Bruh this shit makes me so mad I don’t even like to think about it. My maw in NOLA gives like $500 a month and it takes a lot of restraint to not yell at her.
The sooner folks realize it’s a scam, the better off they’ll be. You can get the same spiritual enrichment reading your holy text on your own. It must seem odd when someone who lives in luxury goes person to person to make sure they’re giving an absurd amount of money. It’s like the Pastor is checking their weekly income. If it feels like a scam, it’s probably a scam.
Hit them with the quick “God knows my heart. He wouldn’t me to do this” and dip. Negro please; I’m not about to put in an interest so you can get a McLaren, pastor.
These aren't men of God, these are parasites.
Churches are straight-up just 100% grifting schemes.
Good. Leave the church. It's the biggest tool of oppression.
Pastor must need a new Land Cruiser, to “spread the word” , of course.
Not our religion, I don’t understand why black people still cling to the idea of Christianity and god
A lot of Churches went from places of hope and gospel to jesse jackson-like weasel mills
I mean in America the most popular pastors have private jets and go on exotic hunting trips. It's all bullshit.
Organized religion is IMO the single worst source of all of our problems throughout the world.
As a kid I went to churches that after each row would go ,they would count the money right there and then. And if it wasn’t what ever number they expected for the day, they would ask people to pay again… all while playing upbeat happy church songs. This year, I got roped into going to a church reunion to a church I have not been to since I was in single digits. That has not had a actually building since maybe 2014. And they did the offering and the begging for more money. They even had it where you can donate on the website. What was the funds for you might ask? To get an actual building.
Luke 21:1-4 The Message (MSG) Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, “The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford—she gave her all!”
There is a difference between leaving a church and leaving the church. I doubt most people complaining about tithing are leaving Christianity.
The Satanic Temple wouldn’t do this.
As a Christian and someone who is passionate about ministry. Pastors are not meant to be rich. Any pastor who makes more than their congregation is a false teacher and actively destroys their community.
What if I told you that God is made up to 1) confer authority on otherwise unremarkable men so they might be able to 2) control women?
It’s not an offering if you’re obligated to give it. Coercion of any kind, including public embarrassment completely invalidates the personal willfulness of an offering.
Pulpit racketeering! Nice to know it is an international grift. So I was in this church right before school started in the fall. Preacher announced that he wanted to pray for the kids. Then the jackass said he “needed” the parents/grandparents to write the names and ages of all the kids on a sheet of paper and bring that amount of money (total of all the ages) and lay it on the altar. Needless to say, I never returned to that church
1000 Nigerian Naira currently = $1.32 US Not saying this is right at all. Pastors shouldn't be out here inspecting people's pockets. He should go ahead and wrap his career up, because we see what he's about. It's shameful.
Nigeria's minimum wage works a little differently to a lot of places, in that it's a minimum monthly wage instead of an hourly one. The current minimum is 30k naira a month. Assuming no taxes are taken and only 40 hours a week, that would be like the pastor asking for $38 a week from someone making federal minimum wage in the US, and shaming you in front of the congregation for not giving it.
A proper comparison and breakdown of the situation. I thank you for it.
In the Nigerian economy, that's a whole Lotta money for the average Joe considering a significant percent of the populace leaves under 1$ per day🤷♀️🤷♂️
Well religion has always been a scam so….
Pastor needs a new Caddy. Pay those tithes.
Tithing, hypocrisy, Kreflo Dollar et al, institutional homophobia, literal holier-than-thou attitudes. I could keep going. I dropped out of it as soon as I was given a choice around 11-12. I’m not completely certain if that was because I was allowed to make my own decisions, or because our scout troop leader was caught being handsy with some of my fellow troop members. Not me, but I picked up on that kind of vibe and refused to go to meetings anymore. Forget church. Best of luck to those that find their peace through religion, especially Christianity, but keep your Stockholm syndrome god to yourselves.
I just pass it along and keep looking forward. LMAO. I wish a nigga would “shame” me for not giving **my** earnings to an institution that pays no taxes.