November 16, 2020
The worship team played as the offering baskets were passed around. When it reached my lap, I dropped in a check written for the exact amount of $26.74.
The month before, it had been $32.38.
And before that, $29.90.
It was always ten percent of my monthly salary as directed by the Bible and my church. You don’t have to do difficult math to figure my average monthly salary at the time.
It was 2006 and I was 18 years old and a broke student, but I was bound and determined to tithe. The church taught that if I gave ten percent of my money back to God, then he would bless me, whether financially or otherwise. At the time, I was praying for financially.
In my strong opinion, one of the most overlooked damaging aspects of fundamentalist religion is the negative impact on your financial life.
This is often overlooked because the Church doesn’t directly cause you to have less money. It doesn’t outright steal from you; all tithes and donations were given at your own volition (even though you were likely heavily pressured to do it).
So how does the Church keep you in a bad financial position? Here are 3 common ways:
1. You are taught negative things about money.
“The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) is one of the most popular (if overly simplistic) sayings lifted from the Bible. When you take something like this to heart, it warps some key distinctions in your mind.
You—as a person living in the real world—need money. Money is what you trade for all the necessities of life. So of course you’re going to love money. It’s in your nature to do so.
But since the Bible says you’re evil if you love money, you try very hard to not love the very tool that is required for you to live your life in a financially responsible way.
If you were anything like I was, then you may have worked very hard at trying to develop a life that required very little financial overhead. This was a huge mistake that I made during my time in the Church. I should have been actively trying to grow my wealth, but I thought that doing so made me evil.
A more minimalistic lifestyle isn’t bad in and of itself, but there are other ramifications of living this way:
- With very little money, you are vulnerable to emergency expenses.
- With very little money, you aren’t able to easily save and invest for the future when you’re older and can no longer (or no longer want to) work.
- With very little money, it’s harder to learn about money. The only financial digits you become familiar with are the meager ones in your checking account just before they disappear to pay your bills and tithes. Things like savings, investments, and compounding interest are topics that aren’t overly necessary for someone who doesn’t have more than the bare minimum.
This is not an optimal way to live life, in my opinion. If the points above describe you, then you’re not as secure as you could be. And money is definitely a form of security.
But fundamentalists don’t often view money as a means of security because…
2. You are taught that God will provide.
To counter the natural human aversion to giving away money, the Church has established a convenient little doctrine, one that says if you tithe then your gifts will bring you blessings.
Some churches heavily steeped in the Prosperity Gospel teach this quite literally; give your money to them and follow God’s commandments and he’ll make you wealthy on earth.
Other, more moderate churches generally make it clear that God will bless your tithes, but not necessarily financially.
In either case, the Church promises that God will provide.
This, again, is a very dangerous way to live life. When a burning need arises and you can’t afford it, then all you can do is desperately hope that God manifests your needs somehow. What happens if (when) he doesn’t?
I’ve known people personally who take this to heart so strongly that they’ve kind of turned it into a little game for themselves. They have a desperate need but can’t afford it, so they make a big show (usually on social media) about how they can’t afford what they need but are faithful that God will provide it.
If this guy obtains what he needs, he proclaims the glory of God. When he doesn’t, then he keeps quiet and rationalizes that God knew better than him what he actually needed all along.
3. You are taught that rich people are greedy and selfish.
In my book, I discuss at length how the Church dislikes rich people. It’s too easy for them to paint them as greedy sociopaths whose love of money will keep them out of heaven.
This is overly simplistic and very damaging.
I said it in my book and I’ll say it again here: if you have provided a lot of honest value to people and did good work and continue to do so, then you deserve all the money that you made, even if you made enough to be considered “rich.”
So when someone absorbs anti-wealth teachings from his church, he subconsciously avoids earning more money, mistakenly believing that the cash in his wallet is evil and that God will provide in its absence.
In reality, he may not be providing the amount of honest value to people of which he’s actually capable. In other words, he’s not living up to his true potential because he thinks the financial reward is bad.
Fundamentalist religion and money is a very tempestuous topic for me and I have a lot more to say about it, and will in future articles.
What about you? How did your time spent in religion damage your financial life or understanding of money? Let me know in the comments below!