A Guide to Selected Resources about Christian Styles of Giving

A Guide to Selected Resources about Christian Styles of Giving
Dr. Robert Wood Lynn
Address to the 12th Annual NAEPC Conference October, 1996

The purpose of this guide is to encourage you to take a fresh look at your own style of giving as well as the ways of others around you. By "styles of giving," I mean our beliefs about giving and our habits in embodying those beliefs. Our characteristic convictions usually include answers to the questions about why, how much and to what do we give. Our habits also provide tale-tell clues about our style. Do we practice tithing or proportionate giving? Are we "impulse" givers? With whom do we talk over our giving? Who helps us avoid foolish giving? Or do we never talk to anyone else about so "private" a matter? How do we deal with the sticky problem of self-interest in giving?

One way into this maze of questions is to retrace our experiences as givers. What influences have shaped your understanding of giving?

Sometimes our most formative experiences come in our early years. Do you remember anything about the family rituals that surrounded the practices of giving? Did your parents suggest how much you should give to the Sunday school collection? Were your parents tithers or steady proportionate givers? Did they ever talk and why and how much they gave to different institutions and causes?

Occasionally the beliefs and practices of congregations have proven decisive. Perhaps somewhere in your life in the church, a person said something that helped change your attitude toward giving. Or maybe you can recall the example of an individual whose generosity inspired admiration and even emulation.

It would also help if you could talk with others and compare notes about your respective approaches to giving. Unfortunately, however, that is not likely to happen in most congregations. As you know, money is a very tender subject in American Protestantism.

In a recent national survey Professor Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University discovered that religion "raises our anxieties about money and discourages us from talking openly about them." His further comment is sobering: "When those who attended religious services every week were asked how often they discussed their personal finances with various kinds of people . . ., a surprising pattern emerged. The least likely group with whom conversations about personalfinances had taken place were fellow church or synagogue members." [Robert Wuthnow, God and Mammon in America (New York: The Free Press, 1994), p. 140.]

So, in the absence of likely conversations with other Christians, we can turn toward understanding the perspectives of earlier generations of American Protestants. Over the last two centuries our predecessors worked out various styles of giving. I have identified four historic ways of thinking and acting about giving, though doubtless there are many other approaches embedded in our common history.

In the following paragraphs you will encounter a brief sketch of these four approaches to giving, along with the titles of illustrative documents from the last 140 years. If these sketches stir your curiosity, I stand ready to send the documents to you. I will include a brief introduction to each document. But the conversation need not end there. If those documents prove sufficiently intriguing, then you can write me and ask for further leads. I will be glad to help you become better acquainted with this part of our past.

These four styles first became visible on the American scene between the 1850s and 1910s. This excursion into the past will raise all sorts of questions. For instance, what happened in those seventy years that prompted some Protestants to be so creative in creating new styles of giving? Why hasn't more creativity been evident in the last seventy years? And do any of these styles fit the circumstances of our time?

This kind of movement between past and present will also give you a chance to raise questions about your own approach to giving. What are the strengths and limits of your style? How does it look when compared to one or more of the historic styles? Does this sort of retrospective glance at the past suggest the need for new styles that are not yet visible on the American scene? How do we become free from the invisible tyranny of the past? (Surely these past formulations are not our only choices, either now or in the future.)

Since each of these four styles reflected a distinctive reading of the Scriptures, the point of departure in this series of resources will be several works that deal such Biblical themes as idolatry, greed mammon, stewardship and the phrase about the "love of money" as "the root of all evil." Some of you at our meeting in Chicago asked for leads on good books that deal with these motifs.

After this preface, I will then introduce the four styles of Protestant giving. My conclusion offers some further questions about understanding our past and present styles of giving.

Biblical Themes

1. Idolatry

The notion of idolatry looms large in past Protestant thinking about giving. Various Biblical scholars have re-interpreted this theme so that present-day Christians can understand its potent impact on the way we think and feel about money. The best single book along these lines is Luke T. Johnson, Sharing Possessions: Mandate and Symbol of Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981). Here is one typical sentence out of this powerful book. " The inability to respond to God’s call confronts all those who cling to possessions, whether stocks and bonds, reputation, ideas or moral self-perception." And if we "cling" ever so tightly to one or more of these possessions, we are in danger of idolatry, an old and yet ever new possibility in human life.

2. Greed

Once again Luke T. Johnson's book is very helpful. Although many current observers talk about the prevalence of greed in recent times, few of them help us understand why and how this sickness can become such a pervasive and devastating blight in our own lives. Johnson's account makes sense.

3. Mammon

This mysterious Biblical term comes to life when one reads such works as John C. Haughey, The Holy Use of Money: Personal Finance in the Light of Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1989), especially Chapter One which deals with "mammon illness." Another excellent resource is Jouette Bassler, God and Mammon in the New Testament: Asking for Money in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991). You might also consult Jacques Ellul, Money and Power (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984).

4. Stewardship

This familiar theme has figured prominently in twentieth century American thought. Often the Protestant versions of stewardship have departed rather sharply from the original meaning of this concept in the Scriptures. See John Reumann, Stewardship and the Economy of God (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992) for a scholarly and often surprising view of this notion and its various meanings throughout history. Robert Wuthnow in his book, God and Mammon in America , describes the widespread confusion in American society about the meaning of the word, "stewardship." See p.141 f..

5. The "love of money" as "the root of all evil."

Luke T. Johnson deals with this phrase as does John C. Haughey. In addition, you might look at an intriguing book written by Jacob Needleman, a popular college teacher in the Bay Area andalso a student of modern religions. His book, Money and the Meaning of Life ( New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc., 1991) includes some striking observations about the "love of money" in contemporary society.

Historic Styles of Giving

1. The Inner-directed Giver

Since the 1850s, some Protestants have insisted that the fundamental question facing every giver is -- "What is my fair share?" Or, in the language of II Corinthians 8: 13-14, "it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need" (NRSV). This approach calls for commitment to proportionate giving. The proportion can vary, according to the "abundance" of the giver and the "need" of the neighbor. Each of us should give according to our ability. There is no warrant for assuming that God has fixed that proportion once and for all time. Therefore, the proponents of inner-directed giving criticize the tithing enthusiasts for insisting that God had chosen ten per cent as a fixed, divine standard.

How do we decide about that "fair balance?" By examining our conscience, searching the Scripture and engaging in solitary prayer. Each of should keep a record of our gifts, lest we succumb to the powers of self-deception. Otherwise we are tempted to exaggerate our virtue as generous givers.

The characteristic verse of Scripture cited in this approach in the nineteenth century was Paul's injunction in I Corinthians 16:2 -- "Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come" (KJV).

If you want to know more about early versions of this style, you can write and ask me for a computer floppy diskette version of an essay written in 1850 by Samuel Harris, a Congregational minister. Harris was a brilliant pastor deeply concerned about habits of his male parishioners in a small Massachusetts town. All too often he found them "full of forethought and anxious calculation to realize the utmost of worldly acquisition; deliberate and far-sighted in planning, cautious in executing, lynx-eyed to discern an opportunity to gain, exact to the last fraction in their accounts, but heedless and planless in all they do for charity."

And so Harris advocated a plan of "systematic benevolence." This document is a fascinating introduction to the style of the "inner-directed" giver. Harris's forgotten essay will also provoke you to think anew about idolatry and the powers of mammon in our midst.

The document's length (including the introduction) on the disk is equal to 26 double-space pages; it takes about an hour to read carefully. Document #1 is entitled "Antidote of Covetousness."

2. The Movement Giver

One of the powerful dynamics in American Protestant life is the movement. Anyone who reads the letters of Protestant leaders living in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will immediately notice how often these folk sprinkled their letters with reference to movements of one kind or another. For example, I grew up in a household where it felt natural to talk about "the temperance movement," "the Sunday school movement" and, of course, "the missionary movement."

The most strenuous and demanding of these movements were associated with the mission cause, both at home and abroad. For instance, the women foreign missionary movement from the 1870s to the 1910s generated a potent sense of mission. The army of the Lord seemed to be on the move. One of the most popular slogans among Protestant in America during 1890s and the 1900s was "the evangelization of the world in this generation." Any momentary act of self- denial seemed trivial when compared to the prospect of that turn of events.

But that bright future would not happen apart from the sacrificial giving of Christians in this country. Time was everything. The coming triumph appeared to be so close that now -- not tomorrow or next year -- was the moment in which Christians were being called to give everything for the cause. The imperious needs of the movement required a total gift, or at the very least, something far beyond the limits of the usual contribution. Proportional giving was not enough. These were not the usual times, and so they demanded heroic givers. The message was clear: forget those rational calculations by which we carefully measure the sum we will give. Give all that you have.

That message helped shaped several generations of movement givers. And those generations, in turn, developed a distinctive style of giving. Movement givers were quick to respond to "crisis" appeals, to hold each other accountable for maintaining high standards of generosity, to contribute "time" and "talent" as well as "treasure" and to talk freely about money. While the "inner-directed givers" remained staunchly individualistic, these foot soldiers in the army of the Lord enjoyed a sense of camaraderie that bound them together as givers. They could also be intensely moralistic, judgmental and coercive in all matters related to fund-raising and giving. But then so could other Protestants who were not nearly so willing to engage in sacrificial giving.

Those qualities are evident in the study document which you can receive if you want to know more about this style of giving. I have chosen an excerpt from a "best-seller" from the last century. In the early 1880s the American Home Missionary Society asked its representative in Ohio, Josiah Strong, to "lay before the intelligent Christian people of our country facts and arguments showing the imperative need of Home Missionary work for the evangelization of the land." Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis was published in 1885 and eventually became a conversational piece among white American Protestants.

The study document, "Money and the Kingdom," was the climatic chapter of Our Country. It came after Strong had delineated the seven "perils" facing America -- i.e. the "cities, "Mormonism, "intemperance" and the like. But these plagues presented no insurmountable problems if there were sufficient funds to recruit, feed and support an army of modern missionaries to America. That big "if" brought him to his last chapter and the biggest challenge of all -- the development of a Protestant style of giving adequate to this crisis.

Josiah Strong makes all of that clear in Document #2, "Money and the Kingdom." It is equivalent to fifteen double-spaced pages. You can read it in about 30 minutes. Let me know if you want to receive it.

3. The Tither

In the last 125 years, tithing has become the most popular image of giving in our society. This approach to giving appeals to all sorts of folk, within and without the churches. The clarity and simplicity of the ancient symbol makes this style easy to teach and to remember. Anybody with ten fingers can figure what ten per cent means. Furthermore, the tither can avoid the difficult moral calibrations involved in calculating -- as the "inner-directed" giver must -- what is the "fair balance" between " our present abundance and their need."

Yet tithing is not without its critics. It has long been a subject of fierce controversy. A fair number of well-known church leaders in the last 250 years -- for instance, John Wesley and Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ denomination -- have dismissed it as sub- Christian.

Most twentieth century Scriptural scholars raise serious questions about its status as a simple, straight-forward Biblical command. In the recent words of one contemporary scholar: "The picture of the tithe presented in the Hebrew Bible is a confusing one. Clearly there were several different sorts of tithes practiced at different periods of Israel's history. One cannot draw every mention of tithing together into a single unified picture." [Richard D. Nelson, "Biblical Perspective of Stewardship and the Gospel," Lutheran Theological Seminary Bulletin (Gettysburg, Fall, 1990), p. 8] Ever since the early 1900s, Biblical scholars have been making that same sort of argument.

But these objections have never dented the enthusiasm of the tithing movement For the last 125 years some clergy and laity in every generation have celebrated the rewards and excitement of this practice. Faithful tithers, so this movement has often proclaimed, can rely upon the promise inherent in Malachi 3:10 -- "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing" (NRSV).

That single verse of Scripture meant much to the tithing movement, especially in its heyday from the 1880s through the 1920. In those four decades a core of leaders gathered stories abouttithers and the "overwhelming blessings" that were showered upon them after their conversion to this style of giving.

These testimonies spoke of dramatic changes in the lives of both the tithers and their churches. Floundering congregations found new life. Generous givers often discovered that the more money they gave away, the more income they seemed to receive. And so giving can be a happy, miracle-filled experience, not just a duty and a grim necessity.

If you want to know more about this style of giving, you can ask me for the study document #3 entitled "Testimonies." In 1911, just at the crest of the tithing fervor, Gems of Thought on Tithing, a book written by "Ministers and Laymen of All Denominations," appeared in America. The "gems" came from tithers across North America and England. I have chose one chapter to illustrate this style of giving. It will require about 30 minutes of reading time.

4. God's Manager

One of the most popular words in the Protestant vocabulary -- along with "faith" and "fellowship" -- is "stewardship." This plastic and malleable notion has come to mean many different things. Here I will concentrate on the definition most familiar to the likely readers of this Guide.

Usually active church-going Protestants identify stewardship with raising money. So many of us have become accustomed to talk about the "stewardship committee," the "stewardship campaign" with its "every member canvass" and the "stewardship sermon."

All of these phrases are largely the invention of a small band of denominational leaders in the 1900s and 1910s. These reformers used "stewardship" as a symbol for a new style of giving. It would be different from the previously described styles in at least three ways.

First, they encouraged their contemporaries to reach for new goals. (Three quarters of a century later, we are well acquainted with those goals, though whether we attain them is another matter.) Every church member, they declared, should make an annual pledge and pay that pledge in weekly installments. Those annual pledges should increase each year and eventually climb well beyond the tither's standard of ten per cent.

Second, financial support was only one dimension of stewardship. In the phrases of the time- worn alliterative slogan, the "good" steward would contribute not only "treasure" but also "time" and "talent." A steadily increasing pledge was an integral part of a larger life style of being a responsible church member.

Third and perhaps most important, stewardship was not a matter of giving. In their view, Christians don't "give" to God that which is God's in the first place. All belongs to God. "To have is to owe, not own," wrote Harvey Reeves Calkins, a leading thinker about stewardship inthe early twentieth century. As Calkins went on to say, "the stewardship is not administering for himself, but for Another." [ Harvey Reeves Calkins, A Man and His Money (New York: the Methodist Book Concern, 1914), p.271.]

The good steward is, in effect, God's representative or manager. Stewardship and trusteeship are somewhat similar, although Calkins found trusteeship a "cold," legal concept. "The steward, "he wrote, "knows nothing of legal requirements. He is a personal representative of a living Master."[p.273] Fidelity, constancy, honor and a sense of obligation and duty -- these are the essential virtues of the steward.

This rigorous version of stewardship did not become widely known in the Protestant churches. Nevertheless, it does present another challenge, another way of testing our own styles of giving. If you want to know more Calkins's views, you can request study document #4 entitled, "The Meaning of Stewardship." The document will take about 35 minutes to read.

A Harvest of Questions

As you study these styles of giving, you should reap a harvest of provocative questions. If your experience resembles mine, you will find it easy to criticize the four styles and their relevance for our time. At first glance, they may seem far removed from the present scene. But keep at it. Eventually these voices out of the past will pose important questions for us. Here are a few illustrations of that two-way conversation between past and present.

(1) The "inner-directed giver:" This style reflects the spirit of individualism that has held sway over American life for centuries. Inner-directed givers will presumably arrive at a "fair balance" between their "present abundance" and the "need" by consulting their own individual consciences and engaging in solitary prayer. But which one of us can fully trust the verdicts of our consciences without also hearing the corrective insights of others? Who among us, by ourselves, can truly fathom our own greed or the extent of our unconscious captivity to "Mammon?"

Therein lies a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the writing of Samuel Harris, American Protestantism's ablest interpreter of the "inner-directed" style of giving. While Harris wrote eloquently about the god-like power of money in American society, he never mentioned our need for communal support in combating this form of idolatry.

Despite that deficiency, Harris's work poses important questions for anyone who will study it carefully. Don't we need a systematic "plan," a carefully developed discipline that will free us from the vagaries of impulse giving? How can we deal with the powers of self-deception about our generosity? Is it right for us to assume that the total amount of our giving should remain at a fixed percentage of our income, now matter how our income or expenses vary? If it is true that we are called to "give according to our ability," how do accurately estimate that "ability?" Doesn't that question inevitably lead to the larger issue of our rate of consumption? And how can we talk about that issue in our congregations?

(2) The "movement giver:" It may be hard for us even to connect with this style. Many mainstream Protestants have no current experience of a movement. Nothing has come along to take the place of the mission movement as a centripetal force in unifying and renewing congregational life. Most contemporary movements -- whether on the political and cultural "right" or "left" -- have a centrifugal impact upon the mainstream churches. For the time being, anyway, no new generation of movements appear to be coming over the horizon.

Even so, the presence of "movement giving" in our common past prompts several potent questions. First, what would move us to "sacrificial giving?" Is there any cause, any imperative need worthy of our sacrifice? Or is this phrase simply a polite code word in high pressure fundraising campaigns for a slightly larger pledge than one would ordinarily think of making? Does this kind of talk belong to a receding era when women and men thought about -- and sometimes engaged in -- "sacrificial giving?" If it belongs irrevocably to the past, what does that say about our present?

Second, movement givers usually gave out of anticipation of a better future. Their hopes became a stimulus to generosity. The stronger the hope, the larger the gift. What vision of a common future informs our giving? How does the power of hope shape our style of giving?

Finally, movement givers often talked candidly with each other about their respective levels of giving. While this practice could lead to various abuses, it also freed these folk to share their convictions about giving and to sustain each other in reaching for higher goals. Where does that sort of candor prevail in contemporary church life? Is it likely in your congregation? It doesn't happen in my church, nor in many other congregations of my acquaintance. Why all the secrecy about pledging in our churches? Do we have anything to learn here from the movement givers?

(3) The tither: Unlike the "movement giver" or maybe even the "inner-directed giver," the tither is a familiar fixture on the current scene of mainstream Protestantism. Almost every one reading this "Guide" will know of at least one tither. Indeed you may count yourself a tither. Yet no matter how common tithing is, a study of this practice can unearth surprising questions that will help all of us think about our own style of giving. For instance, the American versions of tithing usually emphasize that tithers can expect rewards. Giving is a transaction in which we receive as well as give. The more we give, some say, the more we receive. If that is the case, then what is it that we gain? God's love of the "cheerful giver?" (2 Cor. 9:7) The inner satisfaction that we have done the right thing? The deepening freedom to give even more?

Another reward is constantly mentioned in some American Protestant tracts about tithing. The more money we give, somehow the more money we get. Has that been your experience? Do we have any right to hope for that outcome? Is it a proper test of faith? Some of us are willing to accept that wager, while others reject it as an invitation to magic and manipulation. This sharp divergence in expectations reminds us once again that styles of giving among Christians vary enormously. Where do you stand on this contested matter?

(4) "God's manager:" A second look at the most familiar of all Protestant concepts about giving -- "stewardship" -- will also suggest a host of questions for you to consider in the days ahead. In the confines of this Guide, I will mention just one cluster of questions, all of which center upon the issue of motives for giving. Why do we give?

If you study document #4 , "The Meaning of Stewardship.," you will quickly discover that Harvey Reeves Calkins had much to say about the proper motives for giving. He invoked a must-filled language of duty and obligation, of debts and debtors. We are perennial debtors, he said in countless different ways. Oughtness is a way of life, not an occasional human response. Our destiny is to owe. Never do we own what we possess. Therefore, as I indicated earlier, Calkins was even restless with the notion that we "give" anything to God. Our pledges are fulfillments of God's "law," not expressions of generosity -- or even of gratitude. Indeed, the theme of gratitude is missing from his writing. In that respect Calkins is not different from other stewardship advocates in his generation.

Now recall, if you will, the language used on the pledge card in your congregation or in other nearby mainstream Protestant churches. I will guess that the usual current pledge statement includes such phrases as the following: "In gratitude to God, I/we . . ." or some similar sentiment involving the theme of gratefulness or thanksgiving. In short, the motif of gratitude has taken the place of duty and obligation.

What accounts for this shift? Here are at least two possible explanations. First, I suspect that the language of duty and obligation has became increasingly hollow and empty in mainstream Protestantism over the stretch of the twentieth century. A sense of oughtness and guilt no longer move us toward generosity, if indeed it ever did . Meanwhile some Protestant theologians, prompted in part by their interest in contemporary psychology, have worried about the debilitating effects of guilt.

Out of this response came a new emphasis upon the importance of forgiveness or in the psychological lingo of mid-century America, "acceptance." And so gratitude and a general sentiment of thankfulness now suffuse our teachings about giving.

My brief sketch of this shift from obligation to gratitude can not possibly do justice to an enormously complex transition in our recent history. Yet it does point to some tantalizing and tough questions about styles of giving.

Is there such a thing as healthy guilt about failing to give money? How important should a sense of duty and obligation be in our style of giving? What is the role of "law" in contemporary Christian giving? Are there still laws -- i.e. the tithe -- or only personal disciplines which we adopt voluntarily? Is there any necessary connection between a state offorgiveness and generosity? Do the Scriptures or church tradition shed any light upon these issues? Does anyone within our congregation or our circle of friends have the right and responsibility to help us think about what we ought to give?

If those questions strike you as intriguing and important enough to pursue, then you can count on my encouragement and support.

Robert Wood Lynn
22 Carroll Street
Portland, ME 04102