Michaela and I watched this the other day- a small American group that have decided to do something simple and rather profound with 10% of their income.

I have always had a bit of a strange relationship with tithing- by which I mean the Evangelical Christian use of the word- giving your ten per cent to the great Agent in the sky (via your local church of course.) Laying down a ‘seed offering’ so that you might get so much more in return.

Giving money to the church to enable redistribution and support for people who are working with the poor- I can get that, but tithing has of course a whole different lot of baggage that goes with it- usually associated with those who need this to be a Biblical instruction so that the machinery of their institution might be oiled- salaries paid, roofs mended.

Churches do need to be funded, but if all our resources go into buildings and hierarchical salary structures then what might be left to use for things outside the establishment?

There are all sorts of potential problems of doing the things that this group have done- but I think it is really interesting…

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