There's this church called Sagebrush Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
and they figured out a way to
get people to give money to the church that is
kind of brilliant and kind of evil, depending on how you want to look at it.
And it all goes back to tithing.
They basically have this offer for people who haven't tithed in the last six months.
They said: "If you give our church 10% of your income
for the next 90 days,
we promise you that God will reward you."
"And if he doesn't and you're not satisfied, we'll
give you your money back."
They're calling it like a 90-day tithing challenge
which, by the way, if you actually read the Bible
there are a number of verses that say, "Don't put God to the test."
But, you know, silly me looking into the Bible.
But this church, I mean,
here I have so many questions about how they get this thing to work, like
if you have to give 10% of your income,
is that like your take-home pay or is that without all the taxes taken out?
Because that makes a big difference.
And the church never specified.
Here's another question:
How do you-- Who gets to decide whether God rewarded you or not?
If I'm giving my part of my check to the church every week,
at the end of 90 days, what if--?
My friend Fred Clark, who blogs Slacktivist, put it this way:
Let's say you wanted your kids to get into like an Ivy League college,
and they ended up only getting into their safety school.
Does that count as God rewarding you,
or did God not live up to that promise? I mean, I'm sure if you're a church pastor,
you could spin it all in the direction you want to spin it.
So, who gets to decide whether or not you were rewarded?
And one interesting thing was the church said
you may request a refund at the end of the 90 days.
They didn't flat out say, "We're going to give you your money back if you're not satisfied,"
like Amazon has better customer service than what this church is doing.
So, I wonder if there are people who may request the money
and then not get it back. The church wasn't very clear on that.
And then we're wondering: who has the-- Who has the guts
to say-- If you're a devout Christian,
and you actually believe God exists and God may reward you,
if you give your money to this church,
and you don't think God has rewarded you,
are you really going to be the person
who goes to the church leaders and says:
"God didn't do anything for me."
"I want my money back."
Because you know people are going to be looking at you
the rest of the time you're in that church.
And they're going to give you a nasty eye the whole time.
So, do you really want to become the social pariah
and be the person who request their money back?
So, it's kind of brilliantly evil that this church has said, "Give us your money,
and if you want to, we'll give it back to you."
When the easy thing to do is just cut out the middleman.
Don't give the church your money and you're right back to where you started.
I would be way more impressed, though,
if the church said,
you know, "Give us 10% of your money
and after 90 days, if you're not satisfied,
we'll give you double your money back."
Now, that would be a challenge that I would be very interested in.
That to me seems like something a lot of people would want to take them up on.
Like, "Hey, I'm an atheist, but let's put God to the test. Let's see if he rewards me."
Or, better yet, what if the church says, you know, "We're going to buy lottery tickets for everybody,
and if you win something,
give it back to us. That--
That too. Let's put God's-- If you're putting God to the test, why not do that
and then, you know, someone might actually win something and be happy.
But this idea that they're just trying to coerce you into giving money
by saying, "Look we are going to give you a money-back guarantee,"
but basically it's a win-win situation for the church, because they will get people to give them money
that they don't necessarily have to give you back.
And what do you get out of it?
If you're a devout Christian and you're already prone to thinking that anything good that happens in your life
is a reward from God,
then, I mean, why did you need to take part in the challenge in the first place? You could have just given the church money.
And if you don't believe any of this stuff, then
why would you even give the church that option of taking your money. It's just ridiculous.
Though, I will say:
None of this is as bad as Pastor Ed Young,
who's a pastor in Texas.
A couple of years ago, he flied out -- I mean there's video of this online. I posted it on my site. You can find the link below --
He told his congregation
that they should just hand the church leaders
their banking account number and their bank routing number,
so that they can just, like,
undirect deposited money from your account
and just put it right into the church's coffers.
Now, like that's pretty brazen.
At least this church,
the Sagebrush Church, is giving you a money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied.
My name is Hemant Mehta and I write for FriendlyAtheist.com
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