There is an element of this in a large proportion of churches who belong to the evangelical, new church, vaguely non denominational churches I’ve visited. I detest the message as it is wholly a money making ploy.
As a quick aside; I’m not really a Christian, I’m agnostic with many Christian friends, and I’m also in reasonably high demand as a musician in many churches. I’m quite good at the whole teary eyed response making improvisational style common in contemporary church worship. It might sound a bit two faced of me, but I’m not only there to help and see old friends, I consider myself there to study why they believe what they believe.
In my opinion what you give to god should be between you and god. Money isn’t everything and is not the only form of giving. There is nothing wrong, in theory, of giving money to an organisation who you believe will do some good with it. If you are a Christian and accept that god exists and does what the Bible says he does, then it’s quite likely you’ll see the logic in god ‘blessing you’ for giving to him.
Jesus didn’t seem to be too hot on money in the church, but he also taught that you should give, both to the poor and to the church. There was that whole episode with the old woman giving what little she had, in comparison to the rich person giving little of what he had.
The letters of Paul though, are considered pretty much on par with what Jesus said. In fact, it’s not unlikely to be in a Bible study and hear “Paul says this,” and “Paul says that,” and “Paul teachers that we should behave this way.” Since he is viewed as the Ulimate Evangelist and Ambassador of Jesus Himself of the time, it puts a lot of weight into what he wrote. And he wrote a lot about tithes and offerings.
The distinction between the two is made quite clear in most Churches - you should be tithing (giving 10% of your income) AND giving offerings. Tithes don’t get you blessed, they’re silently mandatory (You’ll never be forced, but will be taught that you should be doing this) and offerings are where the real blessing lies.
Different churches and preachers will disagree or agree there, but that seems to be the most common form.
So it’s difficult to argue that the Bible doesn’t teach you to give, and it’s difficult to argue that the Bible doesn’t teach you that when you sacrifice to god he blesses you. It’s the way it is taught that disgusts me most, and how it is often rammed down your throat every Sunday morning. It’s the fact that it can become the sole emphasis of entire ministries. That churches invite preachers who specialise in teaching about giving money. One church I once visited had one man from America (I am from the UK) who would travel across our country teaching the exact same message. He would come to this church every year, apparently. And every year he’d tell them to give more than they did the last. This was completely separate to tithes and offerings, this was a teaching called ‘first fruits’. I honestly can’t say how much of it is really supported strongly in the Bible, but regardless, it was quite sickening to watch.
I also think that giving specifically to be given back to is gloriously missing the point.
There are a lot of vulnerable people out there who are being taken advantage of by this. When they don’t get any kind of return, they’re told that god has blessed them in other ways. “But god gave you a new son. How can you put a price on a life? God gave you something worth more than anything in the universe.” I heard those exact words once, spoken to a couple who were struggling and did not want to have a child yet, but since they were taught that abortions are wrong (because we are fearfully and wonderfully made, strung together in our mothers womb etc etc) they couldn’t avoid having an addition to the family. The child would be a drain on their resources, taking even more away from them.
I think there is likely different tiers of understanding what is going on here. By hanging round in the right places, I have overheard quite scary conversations between visiting preachers, who seem to be unnervingly aware that they are on a mission of exploitation rather than exaltation.*
But they’re rather secretive about that. Then there are pastors of small struggling churches who seem to believe what these preachers, or perhaps follow the teaching because it has proved to have ‘worked’. I continue to see larger and larger church buildings being constructed, which have no doubt being funded by this kind of ministry (stories of anonymous donors have been greatly exaggerated).
There is little transparency when it comes to church funds.
