A study performed by a Christian research organization out of Champlain, IL. has found that the average US congregation member’s contribution to his church has dropped for the fourth consecutive year to only 2.56 percent of personal income. As a result, the charitable giving outside a local church is also dropping. The study concludes that most of the money that congregation members give to their churches are going for buildings and staff salaries.The study’s authors, Sylvia and John Ronsvalle also conclude in the study titled “The State of Church Giving Through 2004: Will We Will?” that if US Christians gave the full 10 percent tithe to their churches, then the resulting evangelizing of the world could eliminate the “daily deaths of 29,000 children younger than 5 worldwide, provide elementary education across the globe and tackle domestic poverty — and have $150 billion left over annually.” Read more at the link provided in the title to this post.Peter Nuhn
Champaign, Ill.
Giving 10% of your income can help cure all those ills??? I thought that was what prayer was for!!!!
I’ll bet that many still claim 10% to charities on their 1040 schedule A.
As justme said. If you pray hard enough, you don’t have to donate all that money, and instead you can spend it on your gambling habit and your new 56″ plasma screen television. God will take care of the starving children– after all, he is merciful.
I mean, God WOULD really want us to live comfortably– he WANTS us to keep all our money.
Maybe they’re getting it. At least maybe they’re realizing the church part of religion is a scam, even if they aren’t seeing the big picture yet.
My deal with god is the following: I throw my all my money in the air, he can catch what he wants to keep.
Wow, only 10%??? Guess my hypocrite ex-husband should think about changing religions just so he can realize a savings of 15% since his Catholic sham requests 25% from their sheep…Then again, the man lives like there is no tomorrow so what does he care?
BTW, here’s a good Catholic joke I just found:
“Feel the hot burn of hell!”
Have you seen the hottest new Catholic porn flick? It’s 10 minutes of sex and 50 minutes of guilt!
Heathen [n] person who does not believe your God exists; see also “Freethinker,” “Heretic,” and “Infidel.”
sword
Now THAT’S a good deal! LMAO !
I just leave checks under my pillow. I suspect the tooth fairy has been lifting them before God has been able to get to them.
Imagine if everyone gave 10% of their income to medical research charities! Now that would surely change the world.
karen, I love it too
DVanWechel, God only accepts cash and Money order. (he’s hiding from the IRS)
DVan
I wouldn’t put it past the Tooth Fairy to steal a check. You should write”For deposit only” above the endorsement sig line! We want gawd to get his due, after all.
Actually, if you wrote a check out to “God” and put it in the Sunday collection plate, who could legally endorse and cash it?
You shouldn’t try that one with Jesus, though. There’s quite a few of Him walking around, though I’ve never met one.
I’ts a different culture. I could never see naming a kid Jesus.
DD Dropout, I’ve met a few of them. It’s very popular in Ha?ti it seems.
Why do you think W et. al. have been so keen on this ‘faith based’ stuff? Lets the Christobots use more of there own money to create Jesus Theme Parks (e.g. The Creation “Museum”) and still be “charitable” using the taxpayer’s money.
Karen, Sword_strike,
Both good points. I’ll be adjusting my payments as directed.
Kind of reminds me of the Barbara Bush charity plan.
Step 1) Donate Money
Step 2) Require donated money to be spent on goods sold by a company your child owns.
Step 3) Deduct on your tax return
Step 4) Mom profits
Step 5) Son profits
Seems OK to me. Barbara gets her deduction. Barbara’s child gets more business. We get screwed.
And before the bomb catcher comes in and reminds me that they gave so much more to charity, and that this happened and that happened and blah blah blah, I do realize that the Bushes gave more than this donation. They gave a hell of a lot more than I could. That’s a good thing. After all, as Babs said, they are better off now.
This donation just seemed so calculated and so well thought out and so….intelligently designed.
You guys reminded me of this joke:
Deductions
A little boy who wanted $100.00 very badly prayed and prayed for two weeks but nothing happened. Then he decided to write a letter to God requesting the $100.00.
When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to “God, USA,” they decided to send it to the President. The President was so impressed, touched and amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill. The President thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy.
The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 and, immediately, sat down to write a thank you note to God which read: “Dear God, thank you for sending me the money. However, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Washington D.C. and, as usual, those bastards deducted $95.00.”
“Obey, dammit!”
Darwin–
You are becoming our “quotemeister” and “jokemeister”! You’re keeping me in stitches!
VERY interesting to me to see how church donations and attendance are down (only about 1/3 of Americans attend on a regular basis!)
And yet, the xians seem SO intent on forcing their religion on us! If they are so sure of their beliefs, why don’t they support their churches? And NOW churches are trying to get the gov’t to pay for rennovations – sometimes they try to get churches declared “historical buildings.”
Pixel:
Being the clown is gawd’s gift to me…
“No one lives forever.”
With figures like this all I can hope for is that Gawd continues to provide, out of his infinite abundance, for the lack of outside programs such as evangelism.
This really is funny since one of the oft cited reasons why Christianity is so good is nice things they do for other people. Evidently Christianity isn’t as nice as it used to be.
And here are some more of my reactions to the article.
Translation: there’s less money available to bother people with proselytizing or trying to turn the US into a theocracy.
The guilt? Geez Louise, having spent 40 years as a Tithe and Offering paying Seventh Day Adventist I know all about feeling guilty for not giving “enough”. I remember being a kid with a paper route and giving my 10% tithe of the around $10 I earned every week. Place this against a background of all the hellfire and brimstone brainwashing I was subjected to, I can say I’m happy that the donations to churches is decreasing. Guilt, damn, I’m sick of it.
Yes, they definitely could do a lot more good. They could start off by admitting they’re ripping off their members and lying about the truth of their beliefs.
Geez, what a bunch of skinflints. For most of my career as an Adventist I gave 10% in tithe and 5%-8% in offering, before taxes. And now I wished I’d never been so stupid for so long to do that.
Ah yes, I’m sure we can trust Empty Tomb Inc. to know what we should be doing.
I just found source material for a nightmare tonight. Maybe there are some good side effects to the materialism of Americans: they’re buying big screen TVs instead of bothering people to come to church.
My favorite “Churches” dont have tax exempt status. The ACLU,Citizens against government waste(CAGW) and The southern poverty law center. I fell I just gotta do something. Every once in a while I re-consider the united way.
i question the accuracy of this poll.
it does not seem to match what i see with my own eyes.new houses of worship and not just christian the money is coming from somewhere.
if anything says christians are less christian it is the breaking of the rules of whatever church they belong to.somebody is buying alot of porn, lotto tickets etc.
maybe we should call only those who practice what they preach christian the others we simply call hypocrites.
this would send a clear message we respect integrity.
If this keeps up,the churches will fold and others can buy them up.This reminds me of a chuch in Pittsburgh that was converted into a dance club. It was on a heavy commercial strip.
Ren
So That’s why I don’t care for gin!
RELIGION~OGLE NOIR
“OGLE NOIR”
Oops. Too many “o”s. Nemmind.
*skulks off to hide in the corner*