God and mammon
news item: COURT SAYS TITHING NOT AN OPTION FOR THE BANKRUPTwell, this is one i can see both sides of, although the law, the way it's written is certainly flawed. to cut to the chase, in 2005 congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. part of this law states that if a person or family makes more than their state's median income, that person or family cannot include their tithe (or any charitable giving) as part of their living expenses, which must be reported to the banruptcy court. the 1998 law, which the new law replaces, allowed tithing and charitable giving in all bankruptcy cases. a more detailed explanation of how the new law affects filers can be found here.
i couldnt find any statistics to reflect who files and why, but basically you have 2 categories of bankruptcy filers:
1) honest hard-working people that either fall on hard times (laid off, injured, etc) or, due to the actions of others who have failed to pay them what they owe, are unable to pay their own creditors. having been a paint contractor for almost 10 years, i've seen a number of self-employed tradesmen lose their business, and pretty much everything else they have, because someone they did work for wouldnt (or couldnt) pay them for their services. they in turn, are unable to pay for materials or labor, and are often forced into bankruptcy.
2)unscrupulous or irresponsible people who run up an impossible mountain of debt, and skip out on it by filing bankruptcy.
the law obviously needs fixing. even the authors of the bankruptcy protection act (sen. orrin hatch, sen. chuck grassley, sen. jeff sessions) were caught off guard by the way the law was interpreted by the judge in new york. i would hope part of the fix would include a way to distinguish between those who were forced into bankruptcy by circumstances beyond their control, and those who irresponsibly run up needlees debt and then walk away. also, that whole median income thing is something that needs to be scrapped altogether. what in the world that has to do with anything is beyond me. if you make $10,000 and have $100,000 in debts you can't pay, or if you make $100,000 and have $10,000,000 in debts you can't pay seems immaterial to me. the circumstances under which a person has filed for bankruptcy should carry more weight than whether or not their income is above or below the median income of the state in which they live.
it is indeed a poor witness for a Christian to fail to honor their obligations, and i can certainly see the point of a creditor who would have a problem with someone continuing to tithe to their local church while they -the creditor - have been left holding the (empty) bag. at the same time, i see no place in the bible where God make exceptions for His people not to give back to Him what is His to begin with.
so, to borrow a phrase from bill o'reilly... what say you??
posted by dean at 7:52 AM
2 Comments:
Never been in that situation myself, and I hope I never will be. Two points to make here:
1) I believe God requires that we should tithe whether we can get tax breaks or help in bankruptcy court for it or not. We have to realize that the first 10 percent of our income does not belong to us. and it's not a payment like bills, taxes, house payment, etc. Take a write-off if the government allows it - it's bad stewardship to pay more taxes than required.
2) I feel that consumer credit obligations, such as credit card payments, house payments, car payments, store credit, etc. are second in importance (behind tithes). God has dealt with me in my own life here. If I go to Sears, have Sears Credit pay for a new TV, and promise to pay the bank back for that TV, I'm a thief if I keep the TV and not pay it back. I might as well go into Sears, take the TV off the shelf and run to my car with it. I have no business giving $100 (not talking about God's tithe here) in a revival meeting if I have not met my monthly credit payment obligation. I can't allow a giving attitude cause me to sin by stealing. Sounds a little harsh, however, if Christians would look at it this way, we would see less Christians going bankrupt due to bad stewardship with consumer credit (talking about the ones making bad financial decisions - not those who genuinely run into hard times or those who are involved in a bad business deal like a you mentioned).
tj...
i fully agree with you that God does indeed REQUIRE us to tithe.. and he EXPECTS us to do even more. and if He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, i believe He owns the hills too. so not just the first 10th belongs to Him... it ALL belongs to Him.
this is nothing to do with tax breaks or getting help in a bankruptcy case. a person in bankruptcy doesnt list his tithe in his monthly expenses for the purpose of getting any kind of break, he lists it because he believes its a non-negotiable (at least the moral person does). however, the law now states that the tithe and other charitable giving is not a legitimate "living expense" and cannot be listed as such. i know the law is not taking into account God's mandate on our lives to be tithers, so what does a person do?
way too many folks, Christian and otherwise, have gotten into the rut of one-upping the joneses, and personal debt is out of control across the country. terrible TERRIBLE stewardship! and that kind of lifestyle i believe (without any hard data to back this statement up) is far and away the leading cause of bankruptcy filings in this country. probably a very small percentage is due to circumstances beyond peoples' control. Christians have their priorities all screwed up, and that often times goes as much for the church as it does for individuals. i believe you've addressed this in your posting about the proposed community center, where you talked about churches that build bigger buildings just to build bigger buildings whether they need them or can afford them or not.
i can still see the point of creditors (since for the most part they're coming from a secular point of view) raising a ruckus when they arent going to get any of the money they've lent (or just pennies on the dollar), but the debtor continues to tithe. what is their opinion of Christianity going to be at that point?
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