I’ll try to keep the question kind of general although the problem is drawn from a real situation.
An elderly woman I know has been generous with her church over the years plus she always tithes 10% of her income as per the bible. I don’t know what counts as income for the church but it’s probably a combo of retirement, survivor benefits and SS. This kind old lady has recently had to move into a retirement home and they are very costly. Where she lives costs more than her monthly income so that she is having to draw from her savings to cover the difference and that is only going to last another year or so. Very soon her family is going to need to start kicking in to cover the difference and some members of the family are going to have a very hard time handing over money that just bounces start into a collection plate. In fact, some are already having a difficult time watching the leaching process with closed mouths.
Of course there are legal methods to deal with situations like this but who wants to fight a church, an old lady and probably other family members? Do churches every give a person a break on tithes, like if they can’t afford food? Has anyone every contacted a church and gotten them to voluntarily back off? Ideally, I think it would be nice if some church leader could visit and let her off the hook easily, especially since she can no longer attend. Or am I a wide-eyed fool?
Has anyone in her family talked with the minister about this? Maybe if the situation is explained to him, he would visit the woman and let her know that, no, he isn’t expecting her to continue to tithe.
Certainly some churches would. Others, it seems, would avidly claw for every penny they can get.
Explain to her that as a child she was taken care of by others. As an adult she tithed to help take care of the needy. Now as a senior, she is one of the needy and should no longer tithe. Or have her minister explain. If he won’t, fight his greedy heartless church.
I suppose you could try to have her declared legally incompetent, but I would expect you would need more evidence than “she tithes”. Because it is her money.
I don’t know what church you are talking about, or what “giving her a break” means. I am not aware of any church trying to enforce tithing as a legally enforceable contract, especially for the indigent.
This, I think, is the key question right here. To advise the OP on how/whether she can be induced to stop giving (so much), if would be helpful to know why she is doing so in the first place.
Correct, but some use psychological pressure, or kick out members who don’t give “enough.” If this gal continues to tithe while her own situation approaches bankruptcy, that suggests she is very vulnerable to the notion that she should/must give, and a greedy church would exploit that vulnerability.
I suppose that could happen, but in my experience with my church (and every other church to which I have belonged) not only do they not put pressure on members who don’t tithe - nobody knows who’s tithing except the giver and the treasurer who enters the contributions into the system. (Our current treasurer is a CPA, and is liable to civil penalty and/or loss of license if she talks about it.) Every pastor I’ve ever met (I am a Lutheran, and married to a pastor) makes it a point not to know who gives what.
I agree that this is the important question.
“Here’s how I think you should spend your retirement money” is a difficult conversation to initiate. And I don’t know if “because I don’t want to pay for your nursing home” makes it easier, or harder.
I always understood tithing was for those who had the means. An old woman in a nursing home should clearly be considered without the means, in my opinion.
I’d talk with one of her church friends, see how they feel about it. If they share your view perhaps they could talk to her, parishioner to parishioner. Failing that, feeling out the pastor would come second on my list. If that’s a dead end too, I’m not sure where I’d turn next.
The first question to ask is does the church know of her situation?, And if they can support her off of the tithings they receive as that is one of it’s purpose.
Other than that you can mention that Jesus removed (via payment in full) the penalty for not tithing, and she can ask her church what is the penalty left that Jesus did not pay in full. Jesus boldly stated that he and the sons (referring to his disciples - us) are exempt from the temple tax. And the word tithe (and it’s forms) is not mentioned in the new testament except one place which is just referring to Abraham’s practice.
What kanicbird says is basically correct (cite: Wikipedia). There may be some specific individual churches out there that have strict requirements about tithing, but as a general rule church members aren’t specifically required to “tithes 10% of her income as per the bible.” It might help if the OP could tell us what church/denomination this woman belongs to.
I’m Jewish, and we actually pay dues. I get a bill each year. But even so, there are explicit instructions about who to talk to if the dues are a financial hardship for you. I approached them once when I thought I might be laid off, and they said, “don’t pay until you know if you have a job, and then, if you need to, you can take the following steps…” I didn’t lose my job, but I didn’t think I was going to be thrown out of the congregation, either.
I’d be really surprised if a church tried to extort money from a pensioner who can’t afford it. That wouldn’t be a church I would want to affiliate with.
The same is true in my church, and no one, not even the treasurer knows how much I earn, so what I give to the church could be 10% of my income, or 100% or 0.00001%.
Suggest that the old lady switch from tithing from her current income to leaving the church a portion of her estate after she dies. If she happens to die after she exhausts her savings and has no estate to leave, then so be it.
And if she happens to die while there’s still some money left, and the relatives gripe about “leaching,” I assume she’s gotten some fellowship and comfort from her church over the years. There may even members of the church, maybe the minister, who visit her - since visiting “shut-ins” is something most churches take pretty seriously.
I can’t imagine a church enforcing tithing. It’s just not done. The churches I’ve been a member of 1) don’t know the income of their members, and 2) only the treasurers know how much is given by any particular member.
The family should talk to a minister of the church. This sort of situation comes up regularly.
My advice would be that she continue tithing. She obvious wants to, given that she continues to do so despite the financial hardship. But, the church needs to give back to her more than she tithes. It’s their duty to help those in need, members included.
We don’t know if the old lady is a Lutheran, a snake-service Baptist, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or an adherent to what’s essentially a pyramid scheme / scam using Jesus’ name for a cover story.
I put those choices in a particular order for a reason. I don’t doubt your group doesn’t push very hard. Some of the others take a much harder line. Not tithing is seen as actively sabotaging the “Church family” or some such.
As well, we don’t know whether the OP’s person lives in a metropolis or in a town of 200 people. Social pressures are very different in a world where everyone does know everything about everyone. And where conformity is raised to the highest virtue.
You may well be right. Or not. We need some more info from the OP to know which.
I really don’t think this has much to do with what the church expects nearly as much as what the old lady has always done. I very much doubt their position will matter to her.