Would that not piss of Jesus? It came to me after watching the pope rap from WKUK.
If you think your church is doing good work, you give.
The church I grew up in closed for lack of funds. The preacher never lived large, they weren’t taking more than people wanted to give.
I would never give money to a mega church, but I have donated to UU churches as an adult.
The bible is long and contradictory. its a bit like palm reading, it can say whatever you want it to say.
Modern churches have nothing to do with Jesus.
If someone asks, “What would Jesus do?” Remember that flipping tables and whipping a bitch are viable options.
So was stealing horses.
And cursing fig trees for not bearing fruit out-of-season.
It to help the christian missionaries across the world, but not the neighbour sleeping on a mattress on their porch.
Its to help replace the church carpets that the pastor doesn’t like, not help the homeless community who is living under the bridge in the city.
I may be a biased, unhappy, ex-church goer, but that’s what I saw
Specifically, he flipped the tables of money lenders and people selling stuff. Donating a tithe has been a part of Abrahamic religion since the Old Testament.
It’s a question of: what are they doing with the money from the collection plate? Are they using it to maintain the church building, paying the people working for the church a (modest) salary and providing support for those in need? That’s not what Jesus had a problem with, he would be for that. Are they telling people “God only loves you if you buy X” and using the money to get rich? That’s what Jesus had a problem with. So it’s not collecting money that’s the problem, it’s how it’s done and what is done with the collected money.
I suspect that piece of the bible is carefully ignored in the greediest churches. It’s not like the faithful read the fucking thing anyway
Jesus was a dirty homeless activist with no love for the institutions of his time. Would genuinely fit in better in under any overpass than in any church. Cool dude.
I think this is pretty right in spirit. I think he did have love for the institutions of his time but did disagree with them and with the religious leaders of the time. If they could have comes to their senses he would welcome them too.
Gonna eliminate some strawmen here. For a start, in the vast majority of Christian churches, the collection plate is a modest charitable giving. It is not typically used to fund the mill/billionaire “pastors” that you see on the media all of the time. Most pastors aren’t like that. Most Churches seem to take finances seriously. The ones I have been a part of are very transparent with their finances- some publish their finances to everyone, some publish it to members. My mum is a Baptist and she says she knows how much her pastor is paid, and the congregation sets that wage in a democratic manner. In fact, voting on finances is usually what they do in members meetings. In Episcopal churches, from what I’m aware, finances are authorised for dispensation by the select vestry - who are essentially voting members in church affairs. Some churches I regularly attend do struggle for finances, as when Christianity was more culturally participated in, members would have generated enough money to maintain large beautiful buildings. Now they are aging, and churches don’t have that money to throw around.
The collection plate being passed around is actually supposed to be a method of anonymous donation. It is very much frowned upon to even look at how people handle it, most people don’t even look to take it.
Onto scripture:
Jesus said:
Matthew 6:1-4
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
So giving is encouraged, but to be done secretly.
2 Corinthians 9:7
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
I’d argue this is abolishing the 10% rule.
There is a case in the Acts of the Apostles where two people lie to the Church, and pretend to donate all of the proceeds from selling their land to the Church and drop dead. This wasn’t because they didn’t give it all, it’s because they publicly gave in front of many others as a show of holiness. After they dropped dead, the church wised up (Christians generally accept that they still went to heaven, but the act of them dying physically was to “purify” the church and to scare them out of deceit)
Acts 5:1-11
But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.
Now, let’s address the table flipping incident:
People were essentially overcharging and commercialising sacrifices. Some speculate that they weren’t letting people bring their own sacrifice, instead they had to buy it in the temple court. Essentially it was a “pay to enter” fee. Not like modern day tithing.
And finally - those megachurch millionaire/billionaires? Those “ministers” who only care about money?
Matthew 7:22-23
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
Luke 12:13-21
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
I grew up Catholic and even served as a lector. Before that, though, there was a fund raising then a construction project for the church and the parochial school. The finances for the project needs to be announced after the comunion rites and I’m lucky I never had to read that shit every mass.
Sadly, following leaderships are more aggressive with projects but not as transparent. The former was what we believe is a stereotypical soft-spoken child-loving (SFW) clergyman, while the successor turns out to be a stereotypical Ducati-riding child-molesting sinister minister.
I hope the Roman Catholic church is better now. That scandal was horrific.
Spoiler: it’s not
They weren’t priests collecting for the church.
They were loan sharks operating out of the church.
Yep. Jesus didn’t have a problem with raising funds for the church, he had an issue with the church being used as a forum for private financial business.
They had turned the church into a marketplace. So if you’re in it just for the money then yeah you’re a problem.
Jesus actually sent out the disciples to teach without any money and expected them to live on the generosity of the people they taught so that’s where the collection plate likely originates from.
And just like everything in the Bible, they take a grain of truth and turn it into a multimillion dollar pyramid scheme … or they use it as a weapon to go after people and groups they don’t like.
Personally I’m non religious, I think they’re all nuts. The origins of these religions might have started out with some noble goals that might have been for the good of humanity … but now it’s just a system of power, money and control to manipulate a gullible audience.
Not every Christian group is like that. You only notice the loud lunatics.
We only hear the loud lunatics because the quiet followers never say or do anything about them.
genuinely want to know your thoughts: what do you think we can do?
Practice your religion by yourself and speak and connect to your beliefs on your own. No one needs a public and constant display or acknowledgement of what you believe. And we don’t need to conform the entire world and everyone around to satisfy your beliefs and your religion. And a religion doesn’t need a billion dollar industry and infrastructure in order for it to exist.
If what you believe is moral, respectable, useful and beneficial to society, then there should never be a need to display your religion, your beliefs or to have the need to want to convert others by force or coercion. If what you believe is morally good for everyone, people will gravitate towards your religion … forcing it on others and onto society is a sure sign that what you believe has more to do with wanting control over others rather than in creating a belief system that would benefit people.
Okay, so, if all the quiet religious folk were just more quieter, that would stop the megachurch swindlers? How? Wouldn’t it just give them more leeway as we won’t be “forcing our religion on them”, eg, calling out their heresy?
Also, I believe that anyone outside of my religion goes to hell. So it will be neglectful and not loving to refuse to give someone the reason/cause of my belief, or to warn them of impending disaster.
I consider Jesus of Nazareth’s resurrection from the dead a historical fact. Therefore the logical implications from there are that He is God and what He says must be true. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to speak about said fact like anyone can speak about other facts and give them my reasons for believing that.
Lastly, if I weren’t practicing my religion in public, that would involve not forgiving other people. It would involve seeking revenge. It would involve being impatient. Things I might do if I weren’t a Christian.
If people were doing this, how would you know? And if other people aren’t, what do you expect the people who are to do about it? Are you hoping for a Streets of New York scene where the non-intrusive Christians duke it out with the loudmouthed Christians until only one group is left?
I’m not saying what you’re saying is wrong, it just doesnt address the question of the guy who responded to you.
Yeah, there are definitely bad people out there trying to take advantage of Christians and make money off them. I think that’s exactly what Jesus was mad about. If Jesus was born today he would probably be chasing televangelist’s phone operators away from their desks with a whip and flipping computer desks of the people trying to scam Christian grandmas.
Like any other organization if you look hard enough and if it’s what you’re looking for then you can see people doing bad things but I do not think organized Christian religion is bad as a whole.
Jesus was a cult leader. The only reason hed dislike those other cult leaders is theyre competition.
I’m Indigenous Canadian and my parents were victims of the Residential School system in Canada in the 50s, 60s … residential ‘schools’ which were literal torture centers for Indigenous children run by Christian organizations.
From my point of view … Christian religion is bad as a whole.
I’m very sorry about what happened to your parents and in turn the effects these schools had on you and your family. From everything I’ve heard the Canadian government has treated the indigenous people terribly.
Nothing in Jesus’s teachings or the New Testament says “Running torture centers is what you should do”.
There are a lot of bad people who want to claim what they’re doing is what God told them to do because it makes it easier to get away with or easier for them to stomach themselves.
At this point in history, the image of Jesus Christ is a caricature of what he is supposed to represent. He is just an image and idea that is worshipped and that is all. No one cares about his teachings or his ideas, they just care about his image, praising him and getting their free ticket to heaven.
In essence, the image of Jesus Christ has become their golden calf that people mindlessly pray to and worship without thinking or wondering about what he actually represents.
Tithing is in the old testament. It’s from a long time before Señor Christ.
Christian religions follow the teachings of Jesus so if Jesus had said something contrary to the idea of tithing it is worth noting. Likewise if he had done something to reaffirm it then that is worth noting.
Christian religions flow the teachings of Jesus who followed/was aware of/modified the teachings of Judaism, which already had centuries of tithing already established. Dude didn’t invent it.
No he did not invent tithing. Sorry if it seems that’s what I suggested. There are a few things the church does in the Old Testament that Christians specifically do NOT do so imo it’s important to point out where in Jesus’s teachings these practices are reaffirmed.
I got that impression from this part of your comment
that’s where the collection plate likely originates from.
The idea of donating in church or donating to a spiritual leader is waaaaaaaay older and recorded
Yeah, I suppose I should have clarified the Christian collection plate, but I didn’t think that was necessary because OP asked what we think Jesus would think about tithing.
Pssst…modern Christians aren’t actually Christian.
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He flipped the table basically because they were doing business out of a church.
