Monday Morning Millennial Star Question, #1

Today we christen a new feature: the Monday Morning Millennial Star Question. Rather than purport to resolve burning gospel questions, each Monday morning I’ll pose a question for readers to ponder and respond to. Hopefully your collective experience and wisdom will yield insights that help everyone to better understand the gospel.

Question: “Is tithing a smart financial investment, or do tithe-payers have less money than they otherwise would?”

27 thoughts on “Monday Morning Millennial Star Question, #1

  1. Promised blessings aside, I think that one consequence of paying tithing for me, a person with relatively little disposable income, is that I pay closer attention to how I spend the my non-tithing money. I may not have more money because I pay tithing, but I use the money I have more wisely.

  2. It’s an investment, but not a financial one. Sometimes you may get a financial “return” on your tithing, but there’s no guarantee. Since reading James R. Rasband’s BYU Studies article Singular and Plural Address in the Scriptures, I have viewed the promises associated with the law of tithing as applying collectively, rather than individually. So in a sense, it’s an investment in a community rather than in oneself, with “non-tangible benefits”, as my tax statement from the Church says.

  3. I’m not sure that we have any doctrine about this question. The doctrine suggests that we will be blessed, and some of the scriptures (a la Malachi) suggest that those blessings can be in the form of tangible, physical blessings. All well and good. But I don’t think we can then infer that we are always more physically wealthy (even including all wealth, not just actual money) for having paid tithing. The promise seems to be that the Lord will watch over us, and with particular attention to our physical needs, and never leave us wanting in absolute necessities.

    So no, I don’t think tithing is a smart financial investment. Maybe someone should do some empirical research on it. If the study showed the tithepayers end up with more money, do you think financial advisors everywhere would start advising their clients to send 10% of their income to the Mormon church? Now that would be fun!

  4. Ryan, what would be the contours of such a study? It seems to me that the question we’re trying to answer is a counterfactual: How would a tithepayer have fared if she had not paid tithing (or a non-tithepayer if she had)?

  5. I always thought that paying tithing soas to reap financial blessings (seeing it as a financial investment) defeats one of the purposes of it, namely to test our attachment to our finances. I consider paying it to be a blessing in and of itself in that I get to contribute to building up the kingdom. While it could still be considered a test of faith if we do it for the finances, it’s still a test of faith if we do it for other reasons as well.

    Those verses in Malachi were not necessarily written for anybody and everybody that pays tithing. It was a specific promise to a specific people in specific circumstances. While we can apply the scripture to us the best we can, maybe we should seek more pure motives than personal financial gain.

  6. Christopher, I’m thinking of some large study in which one group of 1,000 randomly selected people did not pay tithing for three months (a year? 10 years?) and another group did. Can you tell that I’ve invested a great deal of thought in this study design? Seriously though, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a few measures of wealth that would track changes over the short or long term. Maybe Frank or Brayden King can offer some suggestions? I’m mostly interested in this just because I love imagining an financial advertisement where some wealthy New York Jew or Catholic walks into his the office of his PaineWebber consultant and the advisor asks him “Have you considered paying tithing to the LDS Church?” Then some authoritative voiceover about how PaineWebber is on the cutting-edge of new smart ways to invest, and out. This is a very good ad.

  7. Jeffrey, I think we have more than enough authority for likening Malachi’s promises to our current situation as tithepayers. Not including a general prescription to liken the scriptures, this scripture has been applied in innumerable discussions of tithing by the highest authorities of the church (one also recalls its use in the now-defunct missionary discussions). There’s no question in my mind that those promises now apply to us, no matter their original context.

  8. From a strictly financial POV, tithing isn’t a smart investment at all. While I don’t have any anectdotal or empirical evidence to support this statement, I simply cannot fathom how 1000 – 100 > 1000, especially given the time value of money. Bryce’s comment seems typical, but isn’t that the same as saying, “I spend my money more carefully because the government takes such a large amount as taxes.” IMO, the key is financial discipline regardless of the demands for your funds. Given that, I certainly can earn more for myself by putting $100 into an investment than I can by giving it to someone else to invest for their own profit.

  9. Ryan, I know that everybody applies the scripture quite liberally to us, I only question whether they should. The promise quite often doesn’t come true, and when this happens what are those tithe payers supposed to think? I think it might be safer, and accord better with human experience, if maybe we didn’t read our individual names into those verses. I know that the basic idea is “The Lord will provide,” but for one, the verses go well beyond that, and two, sometimes He doesn’t.

  10. This sounds suspiciously like a trick question. To me, it’s obvious tithepayers have less money than they otherwise would. That’s why it’s a sacrifice. As I see it, the LDS habit of portraying tithing as an “investment” misuses language and distorts doctrine.

  11. And yet, who was it that spoke in conference about how the Lord uses tithing as a way to bless us? This is obviously true, but it ends up becoming the only emphasis in one’s approach to tithing. I actually think there are many in the church who pay as a security for blessings related to physical needs. The other reasons for paying tithing often take a back seat compared to that.

  12. Though I personally feel that considering the payment of tithing a blessing in and of itself is the best road, I can see how many will find this too safe. I can respect your last comment Ryan.

  13. Bryce,

    That’s a formulation that I’ve heard before. But it’s never been one that I’m particularly comfortable with.

    Let me ask a few follow ups:

    1. Why not give an additional 10% to the Red Cross as well, causing you to manage your money even better?

    2. Imagine that your boss calls you in and says “Bryce, you’re doing good work, we’re going to raise your salary by 10%.” (Actually, to keep the numbers even, we’ll say it’s a raise of 11.1%).

    At which point, do you respond “sorry, boss, but that raise will cause me to manage my money less effectively, so please don’t give it to me”??

    If you don’t respond that way — i.e., if you accept the raise — then how do you distinguish that set of facts — offered $30,000, choosing to receive $27,000 instead, because this will enhance your fiscal discipline — from the identical numbers and reasoning of tithing?

  14. Kaimi —

    I’m not sure what you’re driving at. I’m not claiming that I pay tithing for the express purpose of decreasing my net income. I’m saying that given that it does do that, I pay closer attention to my spending than I would otherwise. Any other large recurring expense would do the same. My comment was directed at the effects of paying tithing, not the reasons I do so. Believe me, I’d love to pay more tithing than I do now.

    To answer your first point directly, I think that I am more likely to make non-tithing charitable donations because I pay tithing. Since I have relatively little disposable income compared to the lawyer types in the bloggernacle (and correspondingly relatively low fixed expenses), I imagine that I would feel like I couldn’t afford to give much if I didn’t pay tithing (10% increase in gross income notwithstanding). However, since I do pay tithing, and I know that I can make ends meet doing so, giving on top of that becomes somewhat easier (although I don’t give anywhere close to another 10%).

  15. We all know the question “Wherein have we robbed thee?” The follow up question is an interesting one: “What have we spoken so much against thee?”

  16. Looking up the thread, I see that Scott Wilkinson has explained my position well.

  17. Tithing is cheaper than a smoking and drinking habit in probably any income bracket. So, I’m better off financially paying tithing.

  18. I remember a talk in sacrement meeting when I was a child. Usually you hear how a family has to choose between tithing and some other important expense and how they are blessed. This person gave the example of the family that had to choose between tithing and paying the rent. They paid the rent. They were evicted.
    Wonderful lesson, I think. To obey a commandment even when it means you don’t get divine intervention to fix the consequences. Sometimes obeying the Lord means we get to be those-3-guys-whose-names-I-can’t-spell-so-I-won’t-attempt-to who are save from the fire. Sometimes we get to be Abinadi.
    I’ve always paid my tithing. Even after hearing what many must have felt was an awkward sacrament meeting talk with a story with a sad ending.

  19. I think that what we are missing here is that tithing is not an investment of any kind. We are not paying so that we might receive something in return. Tithing is a payment of debt. We are already behind on our payments and we are not even able to pay the smallest percentage of what we owe, but our benevolent creditor accepts our measly offering and continues to bless us even more. If we pay tithing and receive no additional blessings in return, we already owe so much that we have no room to complain.

    Mosiah 2:20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another–

    Mosiah 2:21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another–I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

    1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

    1 Corinthians 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

  20. I’ve found that tithing is one of the easiest principles to get used to. Maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe it’s the impact of cognitive dissidence. Whatever the reason, I feel like I’ve gained much more from paying tithing than I would have from the extra cash.

    Bet let’s be perfectly clear: the 10% is pre-tax income. That means that, in real terms, it’s more like 6.7% if you’re pay 33% overall in taxes–provided you don’t run afoul of the alternative minimum tax.

  21. Arturo,
    Do you mean 10% after tax?

    Wow, 33%? I’m not sure it would be possible for us to get up to 33% tax overall–no matter how much we made. We have 3 kids. We’re in a no income tax state.

  22. Oh, I see. For those who itemize and their other deductions are above the standard deduction, the amount paid in tithing isn’t taxed.
    That is one way to look at it. It would make our tithing 9% since our tax savings would only be 10% (our tax bracket thanks to all our deductions) of what we pay in tithing.
    I know some people who it bothers to deduct tithing or even donations to the DI. Like they shouldn’t get the tax break because it nullifies their good deed.
    I personally feel like I get all the blessings of having children and feel like I sacrifice and work hard to raise them, even if the government gives me a $1000 tax credit plus a $3100 deduction ($310 tax break). Does that $1310 make me less of a parent? Neither does the tithing tax break make me less of a tithing payer.
    So, if I consider the government’s financial tax break as a completely separate from the decision to raise children, but appreciated financial blessing, I can consider that I pay tithing and I separately get a financial blessing of a tax break.
    But, definitely one financial “return” of tithing to be considered in cases where it applies.

  23. It’s not about tithing, but Jeff Holland had a wonderful tale of unrecompensed financial sacrifice five years ago in conference. He told of Peter Nielson, who had saved up $600 in gold coin to add on to his house and gave it all up to pay for the windows of the St. George tabernacle. The story ends with Brother Nielson returning “back to a small two-room adobe house that remained just two rooms for the rest of his life.” I found and find that story terribly moving, much more than if it had ended with some unforeseen windfall.

  24. To look at tithing as an investment is to be focused on the wrong end of the telescope. It is, as was posted above, an offering of gratitude unto the Lord, and a fulfillment of commandment.

    To be looking merely at a quid pro quo may satisfy us, but it is doing the “right thing for the wrong reasons”. There is a higher level, at which we give freely because we love the Lord, trusting in His blessings, which will come by means pecuniary or otherwise.

    But (in my opinion) there is a way in which the payment of tithing does provide financial returns. For those of us who live in developed economies, most of our income is discretionary (I am generalizing here, and am aware there are exceptions). Yes, even those who live in the ghetto have material possessions such as TV, CD players, boom boxes, Nike sneakers, brand name blue jeans, etc.

    I believe the payment of tithing reduces our desire for, and dependence upon, material things as a source of personal satisfaction. The reduction of that desire is one of the great quid pro quos that come from the payment of tithing.

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