Christians have been engaged in a massive debate in the past few days, sparked by a pastor’s remark that tithe (10 per cent of earnings or produce given to church as an offering to God) should include loans taken.
Rev Lydia Kahiga, an outspoken Presbyterian Church of East Africa pastor, preached against the notion that one can’t give 10 per cent of a loan taken in a now-viral sermon.
“Go look for 10 per cent of the debts and bring them to the altar, you understand? Go bring all your debts, and don’t joke or take it lightly,” she said.
“You sit and relax there, telling yourself that a loan cannot be tithed. Go and count all your debts that you have. Count all of it. If it reaches Sh152,000, go out there and ask God to bless you with Sh15,200 only, then bring it immediately to the altar,” she added.
Her remarks have drawn reactions from far and wide. One school of thought argues that a loan is a liability and thus not a plus on one’s income. The other agrees with Rev Kahiga.
To get a deeper perspective, we reached out to Rev Dr Humphrey Mwangi Waweru, an Anglican preacher who heads the St Mark’s Anglican church opposite Kamiti Maximum Prison in Kiambu County and is also a lecturer at Kenyatta University. A theologian and scholar, Dr Waweru’s expertise is in African theology, contextual biblical interpretation, among other areas.
His views on the topic are as controversial as they are eye-opening. His perspective is entrenched in the words of Apostle Paul in the Corinthians epistle.
“The Bible is clear: The Lord loves a cheerful giver, not how much [the person gives]. You know you can give even a million and you are not cheerful. So, it means [giving] with a clean heart,” he said.
He gave a scenario where someone takes a loan of Sh5 million to buy a house, then spends Sh4.8 million on the actual purchase. After other expenses on the Sh200,000, he said, the person can have some amount left to give as an offering.
“You may find that I have nothing even to tithe by the end of the day,” said Dr Waweru.
“Does God need money anyway? He doesn’t need money. He is not sitting somewhere waiting for my salary for him to receive money. Where will He take it? He doesn’t eat money. The Lord eats a holy praise. What the Lord requires from me is what David says, ‘How will I approach my Lord? I will lift my cup of salvation, and I will go and give him a good worship?’ Not about money. David said, ‘Do I get a thousand lambs? Do I get a hundred cows? No. I will get my cup of salvation.’ So, the Lord commanded people to give 10 per cent, not of the salary they are getting, but of their cheerfulness of heart,” said Rev Waweru.
Side-by-side with the debate on tithe on loans is the issue of whether, for those who earn salaries and wages, the 10 per cent to be given to the church is based on the payment before deductions (gross pay) or after taxes and other charges (net pay).
While in the more traditional churches, an offering is marked with farm produce, in the latter versions of the teaching the practice is tethered on financial income.
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Dr Waweru had an easy answer: “I don’t want even people to take 10 per cent from the net. No, I want them to do their obligation. In Acts chapter 13, verse 36, when David served God’s purpose in life, he rested. Everybody has a purpose. The purpose is not paying tithe. The purpose is worshipping the Lord, helping the poor, visiting the sick, and all these things. That is also tithing.”
“Because they love money, they will say tithing is money. But they don’t see tithing as time, yet time could also be part of tithing. Ten per cent is not necessarily of a salary. It is even my time,” he said.
“Don’t tithe even from the net, tithe from the heart,” added the preacher-cum-scholar who has published various journals on faith, including religious radicalism.
When we ran a poll on an online Christian grouping, the responders had contrasting views.
Grace Njeri said that on tithing on loan, one should follow God’s instructions.
“I supported my husband’s ministry with the tithe of a loan I took from Co-operative Bank. He built the church hall. I feel happy,” she said.
On whether the tithe should be on net or gross pay, she said, “I tithe on salary before deduction. It reflects honour to God.”
In the same discussion, one Prophet Karen Beamish said Christians should, in fact, not talk about tithes because those were under the Old Testament (before the birth and ministry of Christ).
“Offerings are what we do without compulsion. We give cheerfully and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Tithing in the Old Testament was based on agricultural principles and helped feed the Levitical priests, who] were dedicated to the duties of the temple, not working the land daily,” she said.
And what are the views outside Kenya? Through the Qwoted journalists’ tool, we connected with two Americans who also had diverse views.
Justin McLane, a lead pastor of a church in eastern Tennessee, said that loans aren’t considered income.
“Scripture does talk about loans, repaying them and such. Tithing is based on incomes, not just monetary. So, the short answer is no; you don’t tithe for a loan. But if you grow crops, you should tithe 10 per cent of the value of the crops, or the crops themselves,” said Mc Lane, the chief operations officer at America’s Black Robe Regiment.
The other American, Paul DeMott who is a Pentecostal Christian from the Midwest region of the United States, said that from the preachings of his pastor, tithes should be based on gross income.
“The reason for this is that the tithe is the first 10 per cent of all that you make, before you factor out government deductions and expenses. My pastor told me that if you pay the government first, you are putting the government over God and the purpose of the tithe is to acknowledge that all you have comes from a higher source. This is why our church bases all our budget calculations on expected gross income tithe from the congregation,” said Mr DeMott, the Chief Technology Officer at Helium SEO.
“As far as tithing from a loan, my pastor takes a very clear stand in which he bases his position on financial logic. A loan is a temporary liability, as opposed to an income, because it is contractually required that you repay your loan with interest. It is debt, not true revenue. This is why you should never tithe from a loan since it is not a true representation of your income and it is not a sustainable financial practice,” he added.
But in Rev Kahiga’s world, it is good to tithe on a loan because you never know where it came from.
“It could have come from a shylock who [worships] the devil,” she argued in her viral video.
Rev Waweru, however, views this through the lens of religion being the opium of the masses.
“It will always depend on how much religion you have smoked. If you over-smoke religion, there will not be a difference between you and a bhang smoker. And that is why Shakahola could take place,” he said.
“I will cheerfully give what I can afford, because even if I give 10 per cent of Sh100,000, I [might be] giving an arrogant pastor who will in the evening have a girlfriend and use the same money in a brothel, yet I’m left with a debt. That is why I’ve said it depends on how much religion you have smoked,” added Rev Waweru.
