In Reply to: Excellent commentary on Maria's new tithing letter posted by Reposter on November 17, 2003 at 16:47:02:
For most people, once out of the Family, the topic would probably have been of little interest. To me, it was, and always will continue to be an issue of importance. And so, here I find myself expatiating my thoughts for any others who might also find the subject worth the time it takes to read this article: Family finances and tithing.
Generally speaking, I don’t watch the news--the fact that we don’t have TV in our house sort of helps. It seems to me that you can drop off the face of the planet, resurface two years later, turn on the television and nothing has changed. The faces, dates, times & events are new, but the facts are pretty much the same: turmoil in the Middle East, a war or conflict somewhere on the globe that is in the daily news, some major natural disaster, the latest health discovery that either contradicts or confirms a zillion previous studies, and some major factor concerning the environment. If anything unusual happens, someone is bound to tell you about it.
On an infinitesimally smaller scale of both importance and interest, it’s much the same way with The Family. Drop out of membership and forget about them, then get your hands on a few mailings two years later, and nothing much has changed: A new revelation from Jesus, The Family is still tops in God’s eyes, the Endtime is right around the corner and there is a new list of things you must do to receive God’s highest blessing. And if something unusual happens, someone is bound to tell you about it.
Which is pretty much how I managed to find myself, last Saturday evening, sitting through a two-hour stretch of “Word time”. It was, I must admit, the most enjoyable “Word time” I’ve had in two and a half decades simply for the fact that I was free to criticize the content and to welcome Mr. & Mrs. Doubt & all their little Doubtlets to come and drink tea with me while we discussed the issues at hand.
For most people, once out of the Family, the topic would probably have been of little interest. To me, it was, and always will continue to be an issue of importance. And so, here I find myself expatiating my thoughts for any others who might also find the subject worth the time it takes to read this article: Family finances and tithing.
GN 1046 is a Letter titled, “Are You Robbing God”, and it takes all of about one neuron to figure out from the title that the content is 24 pages of Maria and Peter telling the Family why they need to give, give & give again. Does this mean I’m dense for sitting through two whole hours of what one nanosecond of logic could have told me? Probably. But in a form of self-torture and morbid curiosity spawning from a knowledge of the way the Family publications are written, I wanted to see what the other 22 pages that were not quoting scripture on tithing actually going to be about.
Basically, here’s what the GN had to say:
1. The Family is not doing well financially: (Maria: I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that a lot of Homes are struggling financially, WS income is down greatly, and overall in the Family we could be doing a lot more if we had more money – Par. 1)
What I don’t understand is why it’s taken them this long to notice. In 2001 the Conviction vs. Compromise series came out telling everyone to quit their moneymaking activities and be missionaries and that God will take care of them, and now there is no money. Isn’t this a no-brainer?
(From Conviction Vs. Compromise): 153. The God factor means that I have opened to you the riches of the universe, I have put before you a great reservoir of supply, and it’s yours for the asking, yours for the taking. The God factor means that if you will put your trust fully in Me, you will lack nothing. It means that if you preach the Gospel, you will live of the Gospel. It means that all things are possible to you. It means if you are trusting Me and doing what I tell you to do, I will never fail to support you, even if it means I have to drop the support out of the sky. It means good witnessing always pays. It means if you are obeying Me, I will take care of your needs…. 154. Practically speaking, it means if the Family will put their trust in Me, if they will claim My promises, if they will obey what I tell them to do, I will supply all their needs according to My riches in glory (GN 959 – Be Ye Separate)
Personally, I don’t give any credence to prophecy published in a GN. But I know that there are some of us that still do – if only out of fear or “what if”. First of all, if this prophecy is true, why is the Family STILL having trouble financially, and second of all, after all of the, “if you do this, if you do that” hoop jumping, “Jesus” says, “I will supply all their needs according to My riches in glory”. From a Biblical perspective, the verse that promises supply has nothing to do with “if”, nor, for that matter, does it have anything to do with the Family. It is a statement from Paul to the church that had been the only one supporting him in his time of need, “My God shall supply all your need….”
2. If you didn’t know before that it was a big no-no to question Maria and Peter and their financial modus operandi, you’d better know it now: (Maria: …it’s dangerous for you spiritually if you haven’t researched the Word and yet you debate the validity and effectiveness of the Family’s economic system, which is based on tithing. And it’s even more dangerous if you have partaken of the current debates on the ex-member sites, which are trying to undermine the Family’s faith in tithing and the credibility of those who manage the Family’s WS money. This uneducated discussion about the tithe is a growing trend in some areas, so Peter and I feel the need to answer some of these questions….” – Par. 4&5)
Hmmm. Last I heard, Family members were “discouraged” from visiting ex-member sites. Actually, they’ve been repeatedly warned, urged, cajoled & pleaded with to avoid the ex-member sites. So how the purpose of the debates on these sites could be structured to undermine the Family’s faith, if Family members are not even supposed to be visiting them, is beyond me. If debates on the ex-member sites, which are not even allowable reading material to Family members, are able to undermine the credibility of those who manage the Family’s WS money enough that WS has to publish a GN about it to do damage control, one HAS to wonder: what credibility?
Interestingly enough, if someone DOES research “the Word”, they would have even more reason to call into question the validity of the Family’s tithe based economic system than those that don’t research “the Word”. Could it be that Maria and Peter have themselves not researched “the Word” & don’t really know what they’re going on about?
Several months ago, while talking with one of our neighbors who is an adherent of the Jewish faith, I discovered (big surprise to me, having learned everything I know about tithing while in the Family) that in Judaism as it is known today, there is no “tithe” – no giving of a set percentage of ones’ income. In fact, the person I was speaking with really didn’t have any idea at all of what I was talking about.
Not wanting to take one person’s word for it, and assuming that perhaps this person wasn’t “religious enough” to know what I was asking about, I spent a month or more researching the topic in depth – both through my own study of the Old Testament, comparing the translated versions against the original Hebrew, as well as in further discussions with others from the Jewish faith.
The long and short of it is, that as far as I’ve been able to gather, the only precedent for tithing in the Bible as far as commandments or law were concerned, was a 10% gift to the priests on the increase of things that grew & animals that were raised – a land and animal tax, if you will. The only discussion of giving of anything other than the above foods & animals was in the New Testament when Peter pulled coins out of a fish’s mouth to pay taxes to the tax collectors. If Maria and Peter wanted to use that tax example to base their argument for tithing on, they might actually have a smidgen of a point. But I don’t think they’d take kindly to the reference of “rendering unto Caesar…” being about them.
The whole concept of giving 10% of your income has nothing to do with Biblical scripture or precedent. There are a few examples in the Old Testament of tithing (as in Abraham tithing 10% of his war spoils—which he was not even planning to keep anyway—to Melchizedek), but nothing actually written so far as commandments go. Granted, I am not a Hebrew scholar and I have not spent years studying and cross-referencing every word of the Torah. I’m willing to be told by a Rabbi that I am wrong. But until the Family can come up with an argument more convincing than the one presented in this GN, their whole guilt-trip inducing “you’d better tithe so God can bless you” explanation is nothing but smoke and mirrors and has nothing to do with the Bible.
3. The benevolent master syndrome begins with: (Peter: … “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that what they get is a gazillion times more than the church people get for their tithe or offering….show me any church that gives each home of their parishioners any money at all for emergencies, let alone the $2,000 HER that goes to CM Homes…. – Par 18.)
What about the HER fund? Where did this money originally come from? I’ve tried to track down the letter where this all originated and I don’t have it, so I’m working from memory. As I recall sometime in 1992 or 93, in the ultimate recreation of Acts 2: 44 & 45, WS required all Family members to turn in all of their PERSONAL flee funds and any money the Homes may have had on hand for a rainy day including gold coins or foreign currency reserves (they clarified we didn’t have to sell our jewelry and turn that in too -- how kind). Once all of this was collected, WS redistributed it to each Home in, what I seem to remember an amount of $8,000 per home. This was later reduced to $2,000 per home when the number of homes started growing.
The money started out as belonging to the individuals in the Family, now it belongs to WS. This $2,000 is not GIVEN to the Homes; it is left with them for safekeeping. If you use it for any reason that is not an emergency, you are excommunicated, and no matter what the emergency, if you use more than $1,000 without CRO approval you get excommunicated.
Basically what happened is the Family leadership took the money away, gave it back to the Homes to hold on to, only to be used under specified conditions, and are now saying, “see how generous we are, we gave you this money.”
Taking into consideration the possibility that WS has put more money into the HER fund since its inception, the concept is still the same. The money originated from the Family members & it has not been GIVEN back to them. They are only holding the money & the funds must relinquish it if required by WS to do so.
4. The benevolent master syndrome is expounded upon: (Peter: … “we give you publications for every age group of the Family. On top of that, we provide tools for you to do the job, to raise income, to both preach the Gospel and support yourself. Show me any church that does one-tenth of that giving back to the members who are giving their tithe. Those churches don’t exist. – Par 19.)
And I’m thinking: Show me a church that pretty much bans contraceptives for the first 25 years of its existence, then requires its members to home school the children and then uses the children as serf labor, requires its members to raise money using some of the least lucrative methods known to mankind (with the exception of FFing, which is its own whole can of worms not worth getting into here), and on top of this spend 20% of their time on church imposed activities (get-out, praise time, word time, witnessing hours, home meetings, etc.) and give 14% of their income straight off the top. Those churches don’t exist & what similar groups do exist are usually referred to as cults.
5. The benevolent master syndrome is expounded upon even further: (Peter: “The Family’s tithe, extra 4% and gifts also provide them with music CDs, books and booklets, administrational services, the board structure, Service Homes and local services (such as LIMs or Lit-Pics, ABMs, FED resource centers, reporting offices, and some of the local websites, production centers and audio studios), the tool fund, as well as help in financing meetings, VS trips and more!” – Par. 24)
It’s interesting to note, that now the official required giving is 14%. It used to be 10% to WS, 1% to the FAF & then each area would vote every six months as to whether or not they would continue giving 3% to the Common Pot. But now it’s been made official and there is no longer any vote on the 3%. As a Family member I would be jumping for joy over this news -- NOT. While still in the Family in Africa, our Home paid our 3% every month and never saw a single bit for that money. We got NO services. Even our ABM was unreliable and we used our own methods for getting email to where it needed to go. Half the time we never got the Family tapes and CDs because mail couldn’t get into our country & we didn’t even get paper mailings. We couldn’t get “tools” in the local language. Basically we were totally on our own. But we, without running water or electricity, with little food & intolerable living conditions were subsidizing Teen and YA meetings in Western Europe. Wow, whoopee!
6. Peter starts up with the scary stuff on why people had better give. (Peter: ... “but let me tell you, that ten percent that you’d be saving isn’t going to give you money for emergencies… If you didn’t send in your tithe you’d spend that money on something, or you might save a little on the side for a rainy day, but it’s not going to do you any good compared to the wonderful good it does if you give to God. Because when you do, God gives back to you – money, for one thing – but on top of that, God gives you back so many spiritual blessings through the Word, through the government of the Family, and through the peace and security of knowing that, “Wow, if I have an emergency I can get some help.” And, “Wow, I really want to go pioneer, and I can get an extra boost of a thousand dollars.” All of those things are God’s blessings. Your ten percent would never give you all of that if you kept it, or if you decided you were going to donate your ten percent to the local church. You’re getting a big bang for your buck, in my opinion, and you need to realize it. It’s just pretty good practical business sense to tithe, because it’s going to keep you afloat as opposed to your keeping that little bit of money and then going under. It just makes sense! – Pars. 25-27 & 55)
This is one of the most convoluted trains of logic I have read in a long time. (Peter: That ten percent that you’d be saving isn’t going to give you money for emergencies…) Are they really THAT dense? Have they never heard of insurance? Ten percent of my income buys my family some damn fine emergency coverage, thank you very much.
A thousand dollars to go “pioneer”--only $500 of that is actually in cash—the rest is in “tools” which do you absolutely no good if you can’t haul them to your new “field” & if you can’t sell them because you can’t get them in the correct language for where you’re going. Oh wow, yippee, I’m so excited. Five hundred dollars might buy half of a plane ticket. That is such a good deal, after 15 years of tithing, and having turned in, oh, I’d say maybe about $40-50,000, that $500 looks awfully good, thank you so so much. (Sarcasm intended).
(Peter: If you [don’t] send in your tithe…it’s not going to do you any good compared to the wonderful good it does if you give to God.) Since when is giving to God the equivalent of tithing to WS? There are millions, if not billions of people on this planet who give their money to their “God(s)”, but they are not giving to WS.
(Peter: It’s just pretty good practical business sense to tithe because it’s going to keep you afloat) . No, it’s not good practical business sense to tithe because it keeps you afloat. It is good practical religious sense to tithe if you believe in it. Tithing in and of itself is not going to keep anyone financially afloat. And what’s with this, “keeping that little bit of money and going under”? That kind of manipulation & preying on people’s fears is just absolutely criminal.
For a good example of tithing vs. not tithing, look at The Family. They’ve been tithing for what? 30 years? Many people in the Family have given above and beyond their tithe, some having given to WS hundreds of thousands from inheritances. Is their way of life, standard of living &/or health substantially better today than it was 30 years ago? Are they happier, more fulfilled & content in their service for the Lord than they were 30 years ago? What about the people who have left the Family and no longer tithe? Are they better off in any physical way than they were while they were in the Family? I know that for me personally, I’m doing MUCH better financially than when I was in the Family, not to mention the fact that I’m happier, healthier & generally have a much greater zest for life. I’ve been wonderfully “blessed by the Lord” & I haven’t done a damn thing to earn the blessings.
I do not tithe. I do give. I give because I want to not because I am afraid of losing the blessings of God. I give to causes &/or people I believe in, in amounts that feel right to me when the urge strikes. I will never again, so long as I live, tithe my money to any entity or religious body – particularly so to an organization like the Family that provides no actual accounting of numbers to its membership.
In fact, right after going through this GN the first time, and writing down my initial thoughts & having decided to not only “deliberately disobey” the “council from the Lord” but to rebut it & point out several issues with “God’s prophets” & their lack of money management skills, I woke up the next morning to find a nice fat unexpected windfall in my bank account. (No doubt, according to the Family, the Devil was rewarding me for allowing the Vandari to work through me.)
In case there is any misunderstanding here, I am not knocking giving or tithing – both of which have a healthy place in the lives of those to whom these concepts have meaning. Many of today’s greatest financial geniuses advise, as one’s social responsibility, to give back to the communities from which the money is initially earned. Giving is not a bad thing. Convoluted logic is a bad thing – especially when used to badger people into your way of thinking.
7. There is another grand announcement of how frugal David Berg was, and Peter & Maria now are: (Peter: So Dad was economical, let me tell you!.. we hope you also see that we’re not just sitting around on our rear ends in the lap of luxury. We are working…you’d be pretty surprised to see how frugally we live, and how our other WS Homes live too. So we’re not squandering your money, we’re managing it….please realize that we, to the best of our ability, are managing the money in a way that is benefiting the Lord’s work….” – Pars 11, 38 & 48)
Throughout the letters Berg continually harped on how economical, frugal and saving he was. Peter and Maria repeatedly bring up how Berg was saving & how they are frugal. Starting with the belief that they are truthfully frugal: Frugality does not automatically equate that the person actually knows how to handle money. Some of the poorest people in the world are frugal as can be. In researching this particular topic, I went back through 30 years of letters to get an idea of what Berg had to say about frugality and tithing & read one particular quote that pulled it all into a one thought compilation.
“I WOULDN'T EVEN CLIMB ON SOMETIMES WHEN WE WERE STANDING OUT IN FREEZING COLD WEATHER, and it happened a lot of times. We would be standing there shivering and the green bus would come by whose fare was 15 pence, but I was too chintzy to waste three pence to climb on the green bus, I insisted on waiting another half an hour or 45 minutes in the cold for the 12 pence red one!” – Par. 33 "THE TITHE!"--Malachi 3:10.--A Financial Crisis. MO 6/78 DO No.702
Berg did go on to say that he later realized it was a bad idea to do that. But that’s not the point. This is a man who had a 10-cent price tag on the value of one hour of his time. I don’t have the time to get into the pages it would take to explain how fundamentally backwards that is to the very heart of financial proficiency. This mentality may impress those Family members who don’t know any better, but it’s surely not going to assure people that know how to handle money that those at the head of the Family actually know what they’re doing so far as finances are concerned.
But for one brief spell in his life when Berg was working two jobs, he never had money. When he was living with his mother, they lived off of donations. When he had his own family, they were always struggling. Until the Family’s tithes started rolling in, Berg may have been as frugal as hell, but he never had the experience of handling large sums of money & learning how to make that money work for him rather than him working for it.