Money, Money, Tithing, Prosperity
Posted on August 26th, 2008 by Belteshazzar into the Tithe, Why We Blog, About Us, Prosperity Doctrine categoryGreetings, fellow Netizens! It is I, Belteshazzar, your newest and latest contributor to all things tithing here at City Business Church. I've been a long-time reader and commenter here and the Mortons have kindly asked me to lend a hand in creating new content. I've been commenting under the name Former Inner Circle Member (FICM), which was a rather vain moniker I'll humbly admit. I've decided to change my alias for a couple of reasons, mainly to get rid of the old awkward one, and also I was jealous of the other bloggers for having such cool super-hero sounding names. In the end, I chose "Belteshazzar" because it's a pretty good hint as to my true identity without giving it away completely. I have good reasons for remaining semi-anonymous, so I will neither confirm nor deny any guesses. If you think you know who I am, look me up on Facebook or email, I'm not hard to find. If you don't know who I am, well, it's probably not important.
I was a part of Bible Temple/City Bible Church for over 10 years. I went to a Christian High School and aspired to be in full-time ministry so I promptly went to Portland Bible College. That worked so well, after my first year I quit to spend the next year working off my tuition debt and figuring out what the heck I was going to do next. But I was still drinking the kool-aid and spent the next decade working my boney butt off trying to please God and the leaders of the church. Man, I did it all, youth ministry, music, mission trips, outreaches, small group leader, started a student group on my college campus, and spent 3 services on Sunday and 2 nights a week in meetings, on top of working at a Christian company and going to a real college. I did everything but actually take a paid staff position at the church. I say all that so that when people have reason to question me or the legitmacy of my complaints at CBC and MFI, or as they call it my "lack of unity", I want people to know that I'm not making this stuff up because I was offended by some off-hand remark or don't understand how things really work there under the big bubbles. I tried it all, and despite all the normal dysfunction of being in a church being run by imperfect people there is one "doctrine" they still teach that I am unable to forgive. I've forgiven all the other petty things done to me or said about, heck, I really don't care what they think of me. But I can't help but feel righteous rage that they still teach and promote tithing and prosperity over the Gospel of Christ. It's something I won't back down on, and I'm not about to apologize to them or anyone else for criticizing, mocking, or satirizing the teaching of tithing=wealth.
So, in the spirit of that, I'll leave you with something I hope you will think is funny or at least though provoking. There was an episode of South Park a few years back where the kids discovered that the Underpants Gnomes were stealing…well, underpants . When confronted, said gnomes gladly shared their business plan:
1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit
With a little rearranging, we get…
1. Tithe
2. ?
3. Prosperity
For all the Bible quoting they do about how God will bless you if you give, phase 2 seems to be remarkably absent from this business plan. Next post, I discuss how tithing could actually be costing the church money in the long run.
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August 26th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Ahhh, welcome aboard my friend. I have enjoyed your comments for many months, and glad to see you are apart of the gang. Now lets go get the guns and do some prosperity hunting (he he).
August 26th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I totally feel the same way. I’m not upset with them anymore, but it bugs me that they think they can get away with preaching this crap called the “prosperity gospel”. It’s primarly what motivates me to write this blog. Anyway, welcome aboard bud.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
It’s good to have you blogging. Catalyst has started to put quite a team together.
Good times.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:31 am
hey ficm now known as belteshazzar,
thanks for telling your story. wow. i am impressed by the fierceness of people like you who are unwilling to quietly slink out the back door of the prosperity gospel driven corners of Christendom. I look forward to more of your insights in this forum.
So hey, Morton Bros, I bumped into your mom today at, of all places, Cash n Carry, over at Delta Park. I have not bumped into her for a long time, several years in fact. We enjoyed small talk and then I told her, “Hey, I like your boys’ blog. I get it. You’ve done a good job raising them.” And she beamed with motherly pride.
I hope my own son (and daughter) become adults who cannot tolerate bs dressed up as virtue. I hope they become critical thinkers, and willing voices of dissent, when the powers that be in their lives are effin’ up. Thanks for inspiring me! (now go call your mom and let her know how rad she is !)
August 28th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Thanks, Pam. It’s nice for our mom to hear compliments about us, it helps keep her off balance.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Hi FICM and any other alias–we have so enjoyed your comments along the way!
One thing we don’t understand -why haven’t you put it together
yet. Prosperity is just one symptom of the total underlying problem with MFI related churches. It is their theology that is the problem –truth or rather a lack of it. If you concentrate on just one symptom you miss the overall!
What theology or doctrine has these same beliefs along with prosperity–
Eliteism, Annointing -belief that crosses into a desparation for signs and wonders? End time revelations that are different than what is spoken about in Revelations. Congregations are created to be so wildly loyal to their leaders they are treated as celebrities.
We’ve done and are in the process of doing research on this. What do all these groups have in common? Yes the prosperity doctrine is an obvious misnomer and we know where that has gotten us. Take that away though and you are still left with these other odd factors. Their beliefs have produced many people running down to Lakeland or wherever to ck out the latest guru.
Believers taught never to study their Bibles for themselves, and individuals who can’t make it out the door without reading the Elijah list.
Now bloggers what belief system produced all these great results? We’re making you put your thinking caps on and think or search the internet like
we did. Its a belief system and no its not real Christianity.
Go on now think because until you get it you are just tilling at windmills.
Prosperity isn’t the problem –its just a symptom!
August 30th, 2008 at 11:06 am
The problem is not the tithe, which is an ancient Old Testament way of giving honor to one greater than yourself. Abraham gave a tithe of his loot to the priest Melchisedek. The tithe therefore even predates the Law by about 400 years.
The problem is the tithe being used today as a commandment of men, and some of them are not worthy of receiving it. Levites and priests, under the Law had no inheritance of land nor means of support without the tithe. It would follow then that the tithe of today ought to be given to those who minister the Word so that they may keep doing it. Many principles apply to New Testament giving, one of which is that it should not be “grudgingly or under compulsion, but freely as each man has purposed in his own mind to give.” (2 Cor. 9:7)
Similarly the problem is not “prosperity” but greed. Or you could say greed masquerading under the guise of prosperity. The Lord warned against greed, saying a man’s worth is not in the sum of his possessions. The kingdom of heaven is inaccessable to the the rich man, since he is concerned with wordly things. Even the greed for converts and church growth shows a wordliness where there ought to be trust in the Lord’s providence. It is the Pharisees who “scoured the earth to make one proselyte…”
True prosperity is of course God’s will–that we would be like trees planted beside still waters, flourishing even in times of drought.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Nick. I like that.
Also, no one here is against generosity. I have been reminded of that many time trying to make similar points.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I do have to agree with Pam on this point. Is CBC made up of imperfect people? Of course. Is there a perfect church? No way! However, I too think CBC is way worse then just preaching prosperity. In fact when I was there, I didn’t feel like the pushed prosperity as much as they pushed control (although that was 10 years ago, and I know they have gotten a lot worse over the years). What bothered me most about CBC was the backwards thinking that they had the right to control everybody. They wanted to and often did run members lives, from who they dated/married, to what college they went to, to what job they took, to who they hung out with, to how to dressed and looked. It was awful. “Upper management” was complete power hungry, egotistical maniacs (I won’t say any names, but pretty sure we all know who they are) who seemed to think that God gave them the ultimate authority to tell anyone and everyone how to live. Throw in the prosperity, legalism, racism and false doctrines and you had the makings of a nasty place to be. One that required de-tox when you left.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
detox church group offered that insight. but thanks just the same.
(and i also agree with it…)
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:36 am
I’ve been thinking about how to address this comment, because frankly I want to agree with you. However, being able to identify or quantify the root of the problem is easier said than done. I spent a lot of time getting healed and rethinking everything after leaving CBC and MFI. There are lots of things that I’ve changed my mind about, and it seems that there are still things I have questions about (like Pam’s topic on Hell for instance) where I just don’t know, and others where I simply disagree but it’s not a pressing issue (like speaking in tongues). Saying that “X” is the reason for all the woes of MFI churches is a rather tall order, and I’m not sure that anyone but God Himself is up to that task.
That being said, what I can do is identify those dogmas and teachings that do seem clear cut and attack them with a vengeance. I can make a clear case for why tithing doesn’t apply to Christians today and how MFI churches are abusing this teaching to rob the people of God and the Church and keep them in financial bondage.