ON A BREAD HUNT

      I honestly thought this blog post would be a quick look at five tricky Bible verses that might baffle readers even when translated into perfectly understandable English.

     Five?  As my grandma would have said, I had los ojos más grandes que el estómago – eyes bigger than my stomach.  Five were too many, so I’m tackling just one.  Maybe I’ll double up monthly posts to squeeze more in.  For now, though, come on this single, short journey with me.

 

The Verse:

Ecclesiastes 11:1 – Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. (KJV)

 

     Huh?  If I cast bread on water, won’t it get soggy and dissolve?  Am I casting with a fishing pole, or just tossing it willy-nilly?  Is it my goal to find it again?  If so, why toss it in the first place?  And how many days are we talking?

     Before you say, “Stop being silly, Yolanda, it’s a verse about giving so that you’ll receive,” bear with me for a bit.  If you’ve read my posts before, you’ll know I’m a language geek who likes to play with the words on a deeper level.  It’s my weakness.  Well, one of them.

 

RESOURCE ONE: My husband

     Mr. Yolanda (full disclosure: not his real name) is usually my first stop when I have ideas bouncing around my head.  He’s patient.  He almost never rolls his eyes at me.  I appreciate that.  I asked him how he’d interpret this verse and, to keep things in context, gave him the follow-up verse with it:

Cast thy bread upon the water: for thou shalt find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.

     “It’s about responsible investing,” he told me later that day.  “The bread is your worldly goods.  You cast them out, maybe internationally since it’s over waters.  You’ll diversify the portfolio, portioning it out safely to seven, maybe eight types of risk levels, since you don’t know whether one or two might yield negative outcomes, the 'evil'.  Be patient in the bear markets.  You won’t get stable returns until many days have passed.”

     Not bad.  Maybe not the exegesis you’d dig out of your Scofield notes, but solid nonetheless, given his point of view as a funds professional.

     Me, though, I’m in education.  In my mind, the “bread” is the knowledge I dole out to students.  I’m scattering seeds, not loaves.  Do the students listen to me?  Yes.  And no.  There are many of them – seven, eight, two dozen, a whole sea of faces, and I toss out my knowledge and, I hope, my wisdom, never sure which portion will be a benefit to the many who need it.  Will they come back one day to tell me they’ve benefited from what I tossed them?  No idea.  But I believe.

     So, my husband was wrong.  It’s not a finance metaphor about personal gain.  It’s a teaching metaphor about giving of yourself.  I mean, right?

     Or did we each bring our own bias to the verses?  Sometimes we humans can read our own pre-existing ideas into Bible texts, “finding what we sought” rather than seeking until we find.  Maybe I needed to look closer.

 

RESOURCE TWO: Into the Weeds

     My inner linguist steps up.  She wants to know why there’s bread being tossed on water in the first place.  She knows that words don’t always have just one meaning (which is why she’d never pound on her puppy for eating seven pounds of British pounds, but would instead send the puppy to the pound). So, let’s pick through the words a little.

     Lechem is a transliteration of the Hebrew term shown in this verse as “bread.”  A little earlier in Ecclesiastes, the same term is translated as “meal.”  The KJV also renders it “seeds” or “loaves” or “food” or “provisions” in Isaiah, Job, Psalms, and (literally) thousands of other places in the Hebrew text.  From seeds to full meals is a wide range of translation options.

     Mayim is the waters.  All waters.  We’re talking big or small here, from the skins of refreshing H₂O carried in Hebrew camps, to the rising and receding overflow of the Jordon River, all the way up to the vast, primordial seas of creation found in Genesis.

     And salach is the action word – “cast,” for sure, but with dozens of other translations from the KJV team, even translated as “divorce” in a couple spots.  All these English renderings have a sense of sending something away from yourself.

     Great.  I’ve got my imperative-mood verb, my direct object, and my indirect object all aligned, but the possible literal renderings are many.  Exactly what kind of lechem am I salach-ing into those mayim?  If I’m “shipping away provisions overseas for a return,” then my husband’s trading-foodstuffs interpretation is winning.  But if I’m “scattering seeds upon the soil of receding river banks,” then my talents-sharing interpretation may have more backing.

     Too many word-by-word options – lobbing loaves into lagoons, pitching pitas into ponds, chucking ciabattas into channels, whipping Wonder bread into wadis (yeah, wadis are a thing, look it up).  Perhaps I’m just spinning my wheels here.  I need to go deeper on this.

 

RESOURCE THREE: Hitting the Histories

     Moving past my semantics approach means it’s time to tackle the sociolinguistics of the verse.  Put simply, I need to ask: Did any other society use “casting bread upon waters” as a metaphor?

     Eureka!  It turns out (my books tell me) that ancient Greeks had the phrase σπείρειν ἐπὶ πόντῳ, “to sow on the sea,” which was apparently used to indicate a useless, meaningless act of labor.  We’d say something along the lines of “just spinning my wheels here” (you knew I wasn’t mixing metaphors up there just for giggles, right?)  Casting seeds on the water meant a task was thankless, profitless.

     The Greek poet Theognis of Megara uses the saying just that way when he writes: “He who does good to the lowly gets little thanks.  He might as well sow seed on the salty waters.  You’d no more get any benefit back by doing good to the lowly than you’d get full-grown grain from throwing seeds on the water.”

     If that sounds familiar, it certainly should.  It’s the exact opposite of what the Ecclesiastes writer Qoheleth says about casting lechem, bread or seeds, upon the waters.

     Despite his own pessimism in other parts of Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth turns this cynical Greek saying on its head.  Our verses, the opening to chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes, read like an argument crafted directly and specifically against the very words of Theognis quoted above.  “You’re wrong, Theognis” Qoheleth seems to say.  “Given enough time, your seeds will bear fruit, even if landing among the good and evil alike.  So, give what you’ve got to seven, eight, to more, whether they're good or evil.  Then wait a while.  You’ll see that good can come.”

 

SO, YOUR HUSBAND WAS WRONG?

     Nope.  I realize my husband and I experienced the words differently, but many Bible scholars agree with him (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown and Midrash commentaries among them) that the verse applies to wise overseas investment.  Other commentators agree with me (Ellicott, Benson, and more) that the bread is “seed” and the seed is any good thing or act given to the needy.  Still more commentators take slightly different angles.

     Remember what I said earlier about “finding what I sought” vs. “seeking in order to find”?  It may be a misguided bias of mine to expect that a verse of Scripture means something, some THING, one thing and one thing only.  Who am I to say that the All-Powerful God who inspires Scripture can’t layer it to reveal multiple experiences to multiple people?  Would that be too hard an approach for the Creator of a whole universe?

     My husband, ever prudent, thoughtful, and generous in his financial and charitable activities, experienced the verse within the context of his own Christian journey.  Lechem is provisions crossing oceans, and his philanthropy flows from that.

     I, always striving and praying to be a source of knowledge and wisdom for my students, experienced the verses in my own walk’s context.  Lechem is seeds cast on wet, ready soil, filling hungy minds.

     Ours aren’t personal interpretations of Scripture.  Instead, they are personal affirmations crafted by the Spirit for individual children of God.

     And you?

     Seed or slice or loaf or meal, your life’s lechem is for you to discern.  When you find it, child of God, you’ll see you have plenty of lechem to go around.  Don’t be afraid to toss it out there.

 

Marana Tha,

 

Cosmic Parx (a.k.a. YoYo Rez)

JESUS AT THE BORDER

  Setting: Just outside the gates of a mighty, ancient city.

GUARD:        Identity scrolls, please.

JESUS:         I’m sorry, what?

GUARD:        Identity scrolls.  To let you inside Jerusalem, we’ve got to confirm your citizenship.

JESUS:          Oh!  We’ve never had to do that before.

GUARD:        New policy.  Border security crisis.  A lot of riffraff getting in.  Sicarii.  Zealots.  MS-13.  You know the types.

JESUS:          I’m afraid we didn’t know we’d need identity scrolls.

GUARD:        Undocumented, then.  (writes that down) You're seeking asylum, I assume?

JESUS:          Actually, I’ve come to take away the sins of the world.

GUARD:         Uh huh.  Purpose of trip?  Business?  Pleasure?

JESUS:          (puzzled) It’s ... it’s Passover.  We’re here for Passover.  Just like the thousand other people behind us in line.

GUARD:         Pilgrimage, then.  (writes that down)  Name?

JESUS:          Jesus of Nazareth.

GUARD:         Place of birth?

JESUS:          Bethlehem.

GUARD:         (suspiciously) You just said Nazareth.

JESUS:         The family moved around a lot.  Bethlehem.  Egypt.  Up to Galilee.

GUARD:        (muttering) Migrant workers.  (louder) Number of people in your party?

JESUS:          Well, there’s Simon called Peter, and Thomas called the Twin, James called the Lesser, Levi called Matthew –

GUARD:         Whoa, whoa, whoa!  ALL your friends have gang names?

JESUS:         (exasperated) We’re not a gang!  Anyway, there’s Simon called the Zeal—  You know what?  There's twelve of them, that’s all you asked.

PETER:        (pokes head in) Twelve, but seventy more who follow close behind.

JAMES:        (also pokes head in) And a lot of women, too.

JOHN:          (joins in) Wait, don’t we count the women among the Seventy?

ANDREW:    (intrudes) Oh, and He has sheep not of this fold, in another flock!

JESUS:          Really NOT being helpful, guys.

GUARD:        All right, then.  We’ll call you a "growing caravan trying to cross our border."  Now, have you got anything to declare?

PETER:         (excitedly) That He is the Christ, the Son of the living of God!

GUARD:         Okay. (writes that down) Anything else?

JESUS:         This donkey.  I’m hoping to ride it in.  You know, once we clear the gates.

GUARD:        Uh oh.  That might be an issue.  We’re worried about disease crossing the border.  Animals and migrants like you tend to be unclean.  You haven't been near any lepers or demon-possessed people lately, have you? 

(Foot shuffling and inaudible murmurs among the group.)

GUARD:        Look, mostly we’re worried about violence.  Can I get your word that you’re not going to whip anyone up into civil disobedience or irritate the priests and elders in any way?

PETER:         Hey, we call this guy the Prince of Peace.  You sound like you expect Him to start kicking over tables right in the temple.

JESUS:            ... again, NOT helping ...

GUARD:        I’ve gotta be honest with you.  A group of outsiders, a bunch of gang names, no documentation, possibility of disease coming over the city border ....  Your prospects for getting in don’t look great unless we can work something out.

JESUS:           Huh?  What do you mean?

GUARD:        You know.  Work something out.  A little something.  To work it out.

JUDAS:        (cutting in)  Yo, Jesus, I got this.  (to the guard) Maybe a little silver will hurry things along?  What do you say to ... thirty pieces?

GUARD:        I say, Welcome to Jerusalem, blessed pilgrims!  Please pass through the eternal Wall guarding our city!

JESUS:         (muttering as He passes)  Eternal my eye.  I tell you, not one temple stone will remain atop another when—

JUDAS:        NOT helping.  (pause)  You know, I’ll be needing that money back eventually.

King James Onlyism

 

"ONLYISM"?

       As a Christian, you’ve probably wondered at some point about which Bible translation is the “best” one.  There’s also a chance you’ve met at least one person who insists that the Authorized Version, also called the King James Version, is not just the best but the only translation an English-speaking Christian should use.

      “King James Onlyism” – I promise, I didn’t make that term up – is a small but vocal subset of fundamentalist evangelicalism.  Its adherents are often members of independent Baptist churches, although they can also be found among Oneness Pentecostals, Holiness congregations, and, occasionally, more conversative Mormons.

      As the word “Onlyism” suggests, adherents don’t simply prefer the KJV text because of its beautiful Elizabethan prose.  Their view is that the 1611 Authorized Version of Scripture is the only sacred text inspired by God, based on the only legitimate ancient manuscripts.  Other English translations, they believe, are based on corrupt manuscripts.  Some KJV Onlyists believe that there’s a conspiracy among ungodly Bible translators to pull people away from the true God by altering Scriptural truths and pushing corrupt translations on the unsuspecting masses.

      There’s more.  Extreme King James Onlyists sometimes claim that the King James Version can be used to correct the ancient manuscripts from which it was created.  If a New Testament verse in KJV English doesn’t match the Greek of the Textus Receptus (that’s “received text” for us civilians), then it’s the ancient manuscript that’s wrong.  The inspired English of the 1611 KJV corrects mistakes in ancient versions.

 

CAN ANYTHING BE TRANSLATED PERFECTLY?

      Let's take a step back, though.  Is KJV the best?  In fact, is any English translation “best”?

      “Traduttore, traditore,” is an old Italian proverb.  It means, “The translator is a traitor.”  The proverb isn’t claiming that translators are dodgy tricksters.  It means that it’s impossible for any translation to be absolutely true to the original language on which it’s based.

      If you’re of a literalist mindset, you may reason that if you use a Bible version that’s a literal translation, you’ll be accessing the best version of sacred text.  Not so.  Consider a simple example from a modern language, Spanish:

¡Buenos días!  ¿Qué pasa?

      A literal translation of these words to English would be “Good[s] days!  What passes?”  That misses the mark.  The actual meaning of the utterance is, “Good morning!  What’s up?”  No one cares what’s passing, and no one instinctively knows that days are usually used for mornings in Spanish.  ¿Qué pasa? causes further issues when you alter its context or tone.  Among friends, it’s a casual “Wassup?”  But if it’s said by a police officer approaching your fender bender, ¿Qué pasa? is better rendered, “What’s wrong?”

      That’s a tiny phrase ported between two modern languages.  Consider the added challenges of translating the Bible, a tome of more than 700,000 ancient words written over a thousand-year period in various cultures and languages.  Calling such a task “monumental” is an understatement.

      That’s part of the reason we see such variety among translations of the same Bible verse.  Consider, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:30 below:

“I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” (King James Version)

“I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” (New American Standard Bible)

“Every day do I die, by the glorying of you that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Young’s Literal Translation)

“For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily. This is as certain as my pride in what Christ Jesus our Lord has done in you.” (New Living Translation)

 

      The New Living Translation above is the least literal rendering of that text.  Arguably, it may be the most accurate if what you’re looking for is meaning rather than near-literal rendering.

 

THE APPEAL OF KING JAMES ONLYISM

      So why are some believers so attracted to King James Onlyism?  I’m no sociologist, but I suspect it has a great deal to do with taking refuge against the constant change and upheaval of modern living.  When the world seems tossed about in chaos, and when even the Bible can appear in such varied renderings as the four samples above, there’s an understandable impulse to cling to something surer and more solid.  The Apostle Paul’s assurance that we now only know things partially, "seeing through a glass darkly," does little to comfort some of us.  We want surety.  We want exactitude.  Forget the glass darkly and give us the microscope precisely.

      It’s become a common quip to joke that you want the words of Jesus in the exact King James English He spoke them.  But consider, more seriously, the tenets required to believe the KJV to be the only authoritative Word of God available in His kingdom on Earth.  You need:

• A belief in the divine inspiration of the original authors of each distinct text in Scripture
• A belief in the divine inspiration of those who gathered the texts into collections
• A belief in the divine inspiration of those who over the centuries inserted and removed different sections of that collected bundle as canon lists shifted and evolved
• A belief in the divine inspiration of the Holy Roman Catholic Church theologians who declared the “final” canon based on the Septuagint manuscripts used by Jesus and the Apostles
• A belief in the divine inspiration of the Protestant Reformers who further finalized the final version, booting Hebrew Scripture selections found only in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Masoretic texts
• A belief that the English-language Geneva Version of 1599 was semi-inspired divinely, since the KJV translators report using it extensively to guide their own translations; and, finally,
• A belief that 47 Church of England scholars and theologians were divinely inspired over seven years to produce the 1611 Authorized Version as an English translation that corrected problems with earlier mistakes in ancient manuscripts.

 

      If that sounds tedious, it’s because I meant it to be.

      But I’m not done.

      KJV-Onlyists you encounter online do extensive deep-dives into details of original manuscripts.  I’ll oversimplify the discussion for you: they accept the Masoretic Hebrew and the Textus Receptus Greek texts used to create the King James Version.  They reject the Septuagint text regularly quoted (without doubt and without controversy) by Jesus and His Apostles.

      So the next required leap of faith is believing that God got over His acceptance of the Scripture version used by Jesus and implemented better versions of the Hebrew Scriptures for definitive use a millennium and a half later.

      Frankly, that’s a lot of revision work on God’s part.  Why was the Septuagint good enough for Jesus but not good enough for James?  (Yes, in my head I sang that last line to the tune of “Gimme that Ol’ Time Religion.”)  Don’t get me wrong – God has all the power, and He certainly could have crafted a winding, seventeen century-long path of Bible-tweaking inspiration complex enough to make even Rube Goldberg envious.  My question is, would He?  That question is particularly pressing for the biblical literalists among us: Would God leave Christians without a perfect text for that long a time, using a pathway of that much confusion?  Is that the kind of Author he is?

 

SO WHAT’S THE BEST BIBLE TRANSLATION?

      I can’t give an answer to that question.  I’ll be bold, though, and turn to a source I trust: the very scholars and theologians who spent their time translating the 1611 Authorized Version.  They make their opinions of Bible translations very clear in their introduction to that celebrated text.  I’ll quote them with their original spelling, since I wish to be true to their words (and because, hey, it looks so darn cool):

 

Therfore as S. Augustine saith, that varietie of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures: so diversitie of signification and sense in the margine, where the text is not so cleare, must needes doe good, yea is necessary, as we are perswaded.

 

      There you have it.  A variety of translations helps you make sense of Scripture.  Footnotes and margin notes help you out even more.  When the text isn’t clear, look to another translation and see if the ideas come across better in that one.

      For you see, the 1611 translators felt that the Word of God was retained, still preserved, even in less-than-perfect translations.  Of the Septuagint itself – the text they chose not to use – they have many good things to say, assuring readers that it contained the Word of God, since the Apostles and the Lord themselves saw fit to use it.

      That’s the final hurdle for the followers of the King James Onlyist movement.  To hold to their convictions, they must reject the guidance of the very translators they say were divinely inspired to create the one true version of the Bible.  They must look these 1611 scholars right in the eyes, right in the Introduction, and tell them, “You’re wrong, divinely inspired translators.  We know more about the inspiration of your work than you do.  Consult other versions, you say?  Clearly, you’re trying to corrupt the unsuspecting masses.”

 

It’s good to be back writing, and …

Marana Tha!

YoYo Rez, a.k.a. Cosmic Parx

21st Century Parable: The Good Mohammedan

by verse:

25 On one occasion a celebrity pastor with six books and a televised worship service stood up to test Jesus. "O my personal Lord and Savior," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

26 "What is written in the Law?" Jesus replied. "How do you read it?"

27 The celebrity pastor answered, "The Law? Why aren't you talking about salvation by grace through faith? But fine -- 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Those are in the Law."

28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

29 But he wanted to justify himself to his Justifier, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor? You don't mean Democrats, do you? Liberals? Socialists?"

30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Joliet to Jacksonville, when he was attacked by robbers."

"Were they Black Lives Matter protesters?" the man asked.

"Pay attention," Jesus said. "So, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

31 A progressive minister from a liberal church happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side, frightened for his life.

32 So, too, a fundamentalist minister, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side, disgusted by the man's condition.

33 But a Muslim gentleman, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, and then called 911. When the ambulance was delayed, the Muslim put the man in his own car, brought him to an ER, and asked to admit him. Since this was a state that had refused Medicaid expansion funds, the ER demanded up-front financial coverage of the man, and the Muslim paid the expense with one of his major credit cards, saying,

35 'Look after him, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

36 Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37 The celebrity pastor replied, "You're joking, right?"

"No," Jesus told him.

"That story's not even believable," the pastor said. "A Muslim?"

38 "Simply state which one was his neighbor," Jesus said.

"Never would have happened!" the pastor said in anger. "You made it all up! Besides, all this 'good works' stuff sounds suspiciously Roman Catholic to me, you know? I'm out of here! Plus I'm blocking you on Facebook and un-following all your groups, you phony."

39 And with great love and sadness, Jesus watched him leave.

40 Later, as the man continued on his way, furious over what had been spoken, he was set upon by robbers ...

The Incredible Edible Tithe

“We recognize the duty of tithing and urge all our people to pay tithes to God ...
It is true there is no direct commandment in the New Testament saying ‘You must tithe to God one-tenth of your income’; but there is also no statement declaring the Old Testament plan as no longer valid.”  

                                                       - Assemblies of God belief statement on tithing

             

STRAIGHT TALK TO GIVERS

At the August 6, 2015 Republican presidential debate, candidate Ben Carson said he would reform the U.S. taxation system to match the tithing expected by God in the Hebrew Scriptures.   A flat tax of 10%, he claimed, would eliminate all loopholes and complex deductions, since “God is a pretty fair guy.”

Carson seems uninformed about just how complex the tithing system was in ancient Israel (e.g., the distinctions between Biccurim natural first fruits and Terumoth processed first fruits, as well as Levitical “tithes of tithes” and Sabbath-year cycle exclusions from tithing requirements).

Of more interest to me, though, is just how uninformed churches themselves are about tithes – particularly those churches that require or expect formal tithing from their congregants.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m all for generous giving to Christian congregations.  This blog post is not about holding back on donations and offerings.

It’s about preachers using the Old Covenant concept of tithing to coerce and compel New Covenant giving.

I’m not going to dive into the pro-tithe vs. anti-tithe debate.  If your church pushes you to tithe, that’s your business and your church’s business.  But I will contribute to the debate with the following consideration: Just as the Hebrew Scriptures had rules for tithe giving, they had rules for tithe getting.

Is your preacher delivering on his end of the tithing laws he promotes?

STRAIGHT TALK TO THE GETTERS

To those preachers, I propose this:

If you demand that your congregants follow Old Covenant tithing regulations as a matter of Scriptural Law, then it is only fair that they in turn demand you follow Old Covenant tithing regulations as well.  What’s good for the giver is good for the getter, since God is no respecter of persons.

TITHE-GETTING RULE #1 – You can’t accept money.

Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures is tithing ever, ever connected with donating money.  Not once.  So if you are a preacher who tells his congregants God expects them to provide literal tithes, you for your part must only accept tithes in the following literal forms: herbs, grain, wine, oil, cattle, honey, sheep, dough, and other “tithes of the soil,” as Nehemiah 10:37 calls them.  This practice wasn’t due to the ancient Hebrews having no money system.  They certainly did, and many edicts of Scripture from Mosaic times mention shekel amounts for fines and payments.  Money existed.  But all Biblical tithes were edible.

TITHE-GETTING RULE #2 – You can’t sell tithed goods FOR money.

Just in case you tithe-demanding preachers think you can work your way around the cashless tithe system of Scripture by using Craig’s List to sell the tithed goods you receive, Hebrew Scripture covers that as well.  Deuteronomy 14:23-28 allows you to convert your “tithestock” into cash temporarily, but only for the purposes of travel convenience over long distances.  Once you reach your destination, you must convert the money back into edibles.  Biblical tithing remains a cashless system.  So preacher, if you were hoping for cold, hard bucks, remember that every tithe comes with the divine label: “Not redeemable for cash.”

TITHE-GETTING RULE #3 – You can’t own land.

The entire rationale behind tithing was the support it provided the Levites.  Unlike the other tribes of Israel, Levites were given no land, no home to call their own.  Instead, they needed to live among the other tribes, performing religious services in exchange for the generosity and hospitality of the landowners.  The Bible states directly (Numbers 18:21-28 and Deuteronomy 26:12-18) that the only reason tithing even exists is to feed the landless Levites.  So preacher, if you own private property while demanding tithes from your congregants, you are not following Scripture’s rules of tithes.

TITHE-GETTING RULE #4 – You only get grain & veggie tithes 5 out of 7 years.

In every seven-year cycle of ancient Hebrew farming, there is a Sabbath rest from planting.  Leviticus 25:1-7 makes that clear.  Because tithing was performed on the increase of crops, there could be no tithe for that season.  Goods from the sixth year of every cycle were storehoused and made to last through a subsequent year of no planting.  The no-planting year was followed by a second year of planting and waiting for the crops to grow again before being harvested and tithed – which is to say, those receiving the tithes went for two years living off the stores.  Any modern preacher demanding tithing must also live for two years off the grain and vegetables donated before the Sabbath rest year, and must not accept donations again until the third year arrives.  Until then, it's an all-Keto diet with just livestock.

TITHE-GETTING RULE #5 – Your tithes must be tithed to your higher ups.

Congregants weren’t the only ones to tithe in Israel.  Levites, too, were required to provide a “tithe of the tithe” to the priests of Aaron (Nehemiah 10:38), a contribution to the temple’s storehouse.  What does this mean for our modern preacher?  In effect, he must immediately pass along 10% of his gains to his church’s central authority.  If his church has no higher central authority (for example, if he runs an independent nondenom church with no ties and no accountability), then tithing isn’t allowed.  Biblical tithing is designed to sustain a formal religious system of clergy.  Where there is no system, there is no tithe.

TITHE-GETTING RULE #6 – Givers must divvy the tithe they pay among you, immigrants, orphans, and widows.

Deuteronomy 26:12-18 gives direction on who gets cuts of a congregant’s “tithestock.”  It turns out, dear modern preacher, that your take is just a portion of what’s split to benefit those in need of social welfare.  It’s not clear from Scripture what the percentages of the split are.  My rough count puts modern U.S. proportions at 1 ordained clergy member for every 46 immigrants, orphans, and widows (yes, I really cranked the numbers, I just didn’t want to bore you with the details).  To keep the tithes division as reasonable as possible, let’s estimate conservatively and let the clergy keep a very generous quarter of that four-category split.  I realize that isn’t proportionate, but we don’t want to knock them all the way down to 1/46^th.

ADDING IT ALL UP

When you crunch all those numbers, a tithe turns into 1.6% of a tithing household’s grain and livestock winding up in the preacher’s hands.  Given average US household sizes and salaries, that’s each member of a U.S. congregation giving the landless, cashless preacher the equivalent of 85 cents in food a day.  The bigger the congregation, the better shot a preacher has at a healthy, balanced diet for himself and his own family.  Call it a performance incentive. 

None of which, obviously, is my point here.

My point is twofold:

FIRST: If you belong to a church that coerces and makes you feel guilty for not shoveling over a full 10% of your gross yearly income to its pastors, ask yourself why they hold you to that Old Covenant standard but do not hold themselves to the cashless, landless rules surrounding it.  Why do they expect you, but not themselves, to be literal about tithing?

In fact, don’t ask yourself those questions.  Ask them.

SECOND: If Ben Carson really wishes to use ancient Hebrew Scripture as the basis of modern U.S. flat tax reform, we’re going to need to use all of Montana to store the food and livestock for our Sabbath years.  It’s big enough to see us through the storage times and it’s nicknamed “The Treasure State,” so we’ll be all set with our new financial system.

I just hope our Chinese creditors accept chickens.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx

Tax-free Churches vs. the 1st Amendment

As I post this article, we’re right in the middle of the 2015 U.S. tax season.  S-Corp filings by businesses were due two weeks ago.  Individual filings by the rest of us mere mortals are due two weeks hence.  In addition, we’ve also taken our first step into the 2016 Presidential season.  Senator Ted Cruz has launched his campaign, announcing from day one that he intends to utterly abolish the IRS.

So what better time than now to reflect on the tax-free status of U.S. churches?

Dueling First Amendment Rights

The first amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees citizens both the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech.  But what happens when those two rights collide?

Keep your eyes open over the next few months for this event:

• Many, many politicians will announce their candidacy for presidency of the United States.
• As campaigning heats up, some U.S. pastors, ministers, rabbis, or imams will use their positions to tell members of their faith the correct candidate to support.
• The IRS will send warning letters informing the religious leader that the organization’s tax-exempt status can be removed if they continue lobbying for particular candidates.
• The religious leader will then tell his or her local press, “I am being censored by the government!”

This comes up in every election cycle.  The point missed by the religious leader (as well as by the thousands of Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr users who’ll spout their indignation in Whiney McNuggets of text) is that the government isn’t removing the religious leader’s freedom of speech.  The government is removing the tax subsidy that the congregation has been pocketing for years, even decades.

When a religion files for what’s called a 501(c)(3) exemption from taxation, they make an agreement with the government that they will not endorse specific candidates or parties for political office.  The religion may speak out endlessly on political issues with religious implications – choice vs. right to life, marriage equality vs. traditional marriage, Coke vs. Pepsi, Which-Would-Jesus-Drink? – but they may not act, even briefly, as a lobbying organization for specific candidates.

Some religious organizations object that this singles them out and violates the free practice of their religion.  They are mistaken, however.  No organizations that choose to become 501(c)(3) entities are allowed to endorse candidates.  Those aren’t just churches.  Exempt organizations include nonprofit charitable, educational, literary, scientific, and amateur sports organizations as well.  These entities, like churches, mosques, and synagogues, are expected to refrain from endorsing specific candidates or parties.  It’s the agreement they make when they accept the tax deferral they enjoy.

As individual citizens, the leaders of these organizations don’t sacrifice the right to make personal endorsements in their private lives.  They do agree, however, not to use their tax-free organization as a vehicle for candidate endorsement.

That’s what it takes to pocket the taxes.  Such is the price of Mammon.

Is It Time for Churches to Pay Taxes?

Any church that feels it’s a religious obligation to endorse specific candidates can do so simply by deciding to drop their 501(c)(3) tax write-off status.  Allow me to state it in Biblical terms: While it’s very generous of Caesar to allow you to skip paying Caesar what belongs to Caesar, there’s no law that says your church is required to enjoy the tax breaks offered.

The issue is deeper than that, though.  Consider: When our society allows religious organizations to file for tax-exempt status, we’re giving our government the explicit power to declare which groups are “real” religions and which are not.  The very act of accepting or denying a 501(c)(3) application is a declaration of legitimacy by our federal and state government personnel.

Government abuse.  Such power can be abused.  That isn’t just a theory.  In 2004, Texas Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton (aka Carole Keeton Strayhorn after she started using the name of her third husband) revoked the tax exemption status of a Unitarian Church, declaring that they were too wishy-washy on their definition of a Supreme Being, and therefore did not qualify as a religion in Texas.  It took public outcry and the reversal of her decision by her own staff to allow Unitarianism (the faith of John Adams) again to be deemed a real faith in Texas.  Keeton remained nonplussed by the pushback.  It took a Texas Supreme Court decision to return exemption status to spiritual Ethical Societies in Texas, another group whose God didn’t fit Keeton’s standards.

By participating in 501(c)(3) exemption, churches are giving government permission to say whose religion is "real" and whose is not.

Church abuse.  Government officials aren’t the only ones who can play fast and loose with 501(c)(3) status.  Churches have a special privilege that other U.S. nonprofits don’t enjoy.  All 501(c)(3) organizations must make their income notices, reports, and returns available to public inspection ... except for religious organizations.  What other groups must do in the light, churches may do in darkness.

Imagine two charitable food shelves, one secular and one religious in nature.  People donate to the food shelves in similar ways.  The food shelves deliver identical services.  Each, we’ll imagine, provides a car to their managing director, considered part of the salary package.  And suppose, for this scenario, that each of the managing directors selects a fully loaded 2015 Audi S8 (manufacturer suggested retail price $120,000 U.S.) as an appropriate vehicle.  As part of a secular organization, the director of the first food shelf is immediately questioned by his donors, thanks to the requirement of public disclosure.  The manager of the second food shelf, however, simply ignores any questions about how his charity could afford to give him such a nice car.  He isn’t accountable.  His charity has been declared religious by the government.  He works for God, and doesn’t have to answer to anyone else, even his own donors.

Maybe you find that scenario unlikely.  If so, you’ve missed the last 30 years of a burgeoning televangelism and Health & Wealth gospel industry engendering headlines like these:

• Pastor asking for donations for private jet, already has one (Fox 5 Atlanta, March 2015)
• Private Jets, 13 mansions, $100,000 mobile home just for dogs: Televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch (Daily Mail, March 2012)
• Can a television network be a church?  IRS says yes (NPR, April 2014)
• Best paid pastors make hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars annually (Huffington Post, January 2012)

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t begrudge any pastor his salary and benefits.  I’ve had several pastors in my lifetime who deserved millions and more for the sacrifices they’ve made for their congregations.

Here’s my concern.  I’ll speak solely from a Christian perspective, since that is my faith.  In the past, when U.S. churches received exempt status from the government, they weren’t particularly known as wealth-generating organizations (all the gold chalices at Catholic churches notwithstanding).  Preachers were in pulpits, hucksters were in carnivals, and the two had limited overlap.  Elmer Gantry was the exception, not the rule.

That has changed.  The advent of radio and television extended the reach of fund raising by preachers, and more recently the birth of the Internet Church is providing pathways for tendrils into hundreds of millions of homes.  Many are legitimate ministries.  But many are the snake-oil salesmen known throughout the history of the faith.  It’s only a matter of time before the first Kickstarter for Christ or Protestant Patreon campaign declares itself an organization worthy of a 501(c)(3) exemption as well.  And they’ll need your love offerings for support.

The farther fundraising receipts move from funding sources, the less accountability we see in the system.  In my earlier food shelf example, there was at least the possibility that a local donor, seeing the Audi S8 driven by the shelf’s managing director, could call shenanigans on fund use.  But digital reality has given us ministries of wide distribution paired with low accountability.  If a donation-collecting online ministry were using their 501(c)(3) status to launder money from other for-profit businesses the “pastor” owns, or funneling donations to pay for the entertainment activities of its own leadership, donors would have no way of knowing.  Abuse need not be calculable in the millions of dollars; abuse in the thousands and in the hundreds of dollars is abuse just the same.

Is this the sort of system that should be favored by believers who claim to eschew the darkness, who live in the light?  Should our churches demand privacy in their financial dealings when all other charitable organizations bring to light everything that’s done with their money?  If so, what is the Scriptural basis for keeping Caesar in the dark about the money-handling practices of the people of God?

Solutions

Churches committed to practicing their faith in the daylight have a few solutions to the issues raised here.

• Solution 1: Give up tax-exempt status.  By simply walking away from 501(c)(3) exemptions, a religious organization can shake off all doubt about the honesty of their financial stewardship.  In addition, they’d get to endorse Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton as often and as loudly as they’d like.
• Solution 2: Adjust tax-exempt status.  By breaking out the charitable portions of their ministry from the religious portions, a faith could move into the realm inhabited by all other 501(c)(3) groups, disclosing financial information about their charity arm while keeping other church information, the taxed part like housing and property, private.
• Solution 3: Disclose voluntarily.  By posting and publishing all financial information to donors and on their Web sites, religious organizations can operate with free consciences, enjoying the benefits the government currently allows while openly disclosing all financial activities to those who make it possible – which includes donors and taxpayers, since the religious tax exemptions are de facto subsidies from the general public.

A final note on the IRS

Love it or hate it, the IRS is a reality for churches and individual citizens alike.  Even Ted Cruz's promise of “abolishing” it is simply rhetoric.  He began by saying that everyone should be able to mail in their taxes on a postcard that just listed their salary.  Then he added that we could list and deduct our charitable contributions as well.  Later he mentioned we could also list the deduction for the interest on our mortgages.  In time, someone will mention to him that his simple campaign quip doesn’t keep churches exempt from taxes, and he’ll need to add that in as well.

Then he’ll realize he needs people to receive those (really big) postcards, to check up on those flat-rate taxes, to catch the cheaters, and to decide which places are churches and which are just claiming to be churches.  They'll also need to determine which charities we give to should be deemed true charities, and which ones are shams.  Call that new group “Ted’s Patriot Payment Brigade” or whatever, it is still a group providing services related to the revenue being generated internally by the United States.  A rose by any other name.

But back to my main point.  Am I saying it’s wrong for our churches ... which, we need to acknowledge, means us, ourselves ... is it wrong for us to take advantage of perfectly legal tax exemptions for our religious organizations?  Or to shield ourselves behind walls of privacy allowed by current law?  No, it is not wrong.  Those things are permitted for us.

Kudos to those whose minds just jumped to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:23: “You say, All things are permitted me.  But not all things are helpful  You say, All things are lawful for me.  But not all things build up.”

Christians remain under the direction and wisdom of Scripture – that they should pay their taxes even to despotic emperors (Mark 12:17), and that they should submit to the government authority God saw fit to place over them (Romans 13:1-3).  That’s the baseline, the least of expectations.  But we are called to be salt of the Earth and a light on a hill, and simply doing the minimum expected of us does little to glorify God and to set us apart as a people under His hand.

We have the option to show unbelievers that we are not greedy, clinging to every cent lawfully ours.

We have the option to be completely open about every penny we spend in our ministries.

And, yes, we also have the option to do neither of those things.

What should our choice be?

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez