of the United Society of Christian Endeavor as a Christian whose
practice it is to give God the tithe, and send me the Certificate of
Membership.[A]
Another result is that while this is a Giving Age as never before
in the history of the world, the Church is not getting her share.
Christians are giving largely, but not to Church objects nor through
Church channels. There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of
thousands, of Tithe Payers but their Tithes are not brought into the
modern storehouse, the Church, but are directed into numberless other
channels. Habits of giving to objects of benevolence outside the Church
are being formed, especially by the young, which will last for life.
The result is and will continue that taking into account the increase
in wealth and increase in Giving in other lines, the Church is not only
not making advance but relatively retrograding.
A further word about the results of this teaching. The Supreme message
of Christ was unselfishness. Judging by what we professing Christians
give to spread His Name and Kingdom outside of our own churches, which
means Home and Foreign Missions, could anything appear more intensely
selfish than modern Christianity in rich America? Boiled down, it
certainly appears to mean to the world at least, and I fear to God,
get converted, confess Christ before men, join the church, attend
church and prayer meetings, do as little as you can and be respectable
among your neighbors towards the support of your church and pastor,
and then give less than $2.00 each per member to Home and Foreign
Missions. Yes--taking out the amounts contributed by, say, 20 per cent
of generous givers--mark I do not say large givers, it is less than
50 cents each, or to be liberal less than 5 cents each per month for
the conversion of the world at home and abroad, and all this in free,
rich America. In most other countries Christians have some excuse for
not paying the Tithe to God. In most of them there is a State Church,
and the State claims the right to enforce payment of the Tithe for
the support of that Church. Not so with us. We have no State Church,
and are accountable to God only for the payment of the Tenth. As Mr.
Stewart explains in the following pages, the Tithe is God’s law for
the race, yet the payment--in American churches at least--is entirely
voluntary. In this respect it does not differ from the law of the
Sabbath, or any other of God’s laws. We may refuse to obey any or all
of them. Our obedience is voluntary, but our refusal to obey does not
abrogate or repeal the laws.
I was rejoiced when I learned that Mr. Stewart, the author of the
following pages had been studying this subject for years. I urged him
to prosecute the work, and publish the results of his investigations
and conclusions. I had the pleasure of reading the manuscript before
publication. I regard his work as excellent from every standpoint,
and the best for “plain people” I have ever seen. It will be both my
pleasure and duty to give it the widest possible circulation, and I
bespeak for it careful and prayerful reading, more especially on the
part of my brother laymen who are seeking to know and do their duty in
this the most important practical subject connected with our Christian
life under Twentieth Century conditions.
_As to the remedy._ There is no immediate remedy in sight. It is
simply a question of more light, but light never enters into purposely
darkened rooms.
In so far as Mr. Stewart’s little volume comes into willing
hands it will help take down the shutters and let the light into
hitherto darkened rooms. I hope and believe it will also cause many
putters-up-of-shutters to hesitate and at least be neutral rather than
continue their thus far darkening work.
When the teachings of this little volume, and others yet to be
published in the light of recent investigations and discoveries have
had time to permeate and leaven the thinking Christian public he will
be not only a brave, but a rash, professor, or teacher or editor who
will at once advertise his ignorance and offend a large proportion of
his pupils, or readers, by proclaiming the doctrine that the Tithe is
not God’s law for the human race and as enduring as its author. He will
not have the courage to teach that it was a Mosaic institution, that
it was abolished by Christ, and that Christ intended to substitute in
its place as a system of church finance the earnest plea of one of
his followers 30 or 40 years later for a generous free-will offering
from the churches in Corinth to relieve the needs of suffering fellow
Christians in another city.
A natural question would be--“Do you expect that the character of the
teaching of a large majority of the Theological Professors and writing
by editors of the religious newspapers, most of them past middle life,
will be changed by the change in Christian public opinion on this
subject, and that they will become active teachers of the binding
obligation of the Tithe?”
I have no such hope, but I do hope and expect that they will be
neutral and refrain from opposing. My belief is that active opposition
and indifference can and will be stayed; but my hope is in the next
generation of professors, teachers and preachers, and as a result a
generation of laymen and lay-women who will teach and practice that
the Tithe is--not was--God’s law for the human race, and that the
obligation to pay it is as binding now as it ever was.
LAYMAN,
310 Ashland Boulevard.
Chicago, July 29, 1903.