Liberal Democrat Christian Forum

Theology of Giving

Written by Martin Turner
Sunday, 05 August 2007
Martin Turner, Chair of LDCF, takes a look at our attitudes and responsibilities in the area of giving. At the beginning of the book of Job, Job sits down and scrapes himself with a potsherd. He has lost almost everything, and he's just about to face the stern test of rial by well-wishers. But his comment to his wife is "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?", echoing his earlier comment "Naked I came from my other's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." Job, along with its companions Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, is a difficult book to interpret. Many promising theologies fall by the wayside when tested against it. The evergreen 'Prosperity Theology', for example, currently popular in parts of the Americas, but with a long history (in different guises) in Europe, comes particularly unstuck. "Do good and God will bless you with prosperity", runs the theology, or, more simply, "God wants you rich". Job is described as 'blameless and upright', and at the start of the account his is 'the greatest man among all the people of the East'. But God allows Satan to take everything away from him. Job's comforters recommend something very close to Prosperity Theology, and it gets fairly short shrift. On the other hand, Christian (or, indeed, Eastern) aescetism also struggles with Job. Job is someone who clearly enjoys his prosperity at the beginning, and, at the end of the story, he enjoys it again. Now, of course, you can argue that Job is not meant as a historic account, but is a symbolic poem. But this makes no difference to the theological issues: if Job is a poem written to make a point, the point is more than clear. The Christian attitude to possessions is spelled out in the New Testament, but runs straight through from the first pages of the Old. Everything we have is God-given. It is not ours, at least, not to keep. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden to tend it, but they did not own it. Jesus says "What does a man get if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?" Paul comments: "I have learned the secret of being content, whether with plenty or with little." Christians, of course, should not be smug about their faith. But, compared to most religions and philosophies, the Christian view on wealth and possessions is extremely balanced. It's ok to be wealthy, but it's also ok to be poor. Nobody is excluded or favoured because of the amount of their worldly goods. What's more, simply handing them over is not a guarantee of God's favour. "To obey is better than to sacrifice", Samuel tells Saul, when he withdraws his mandate to be king. And Jesus points out the example of the widow whose tiny gift is worth more than the offerings of the wealthy. With all this (and, let's face it, it's all common knowledge), you would expect Christians to have a particularly natural and easy attitude towards giving. Jesus points out that we should not worry about what we will eat, or what we will wear, because God is in control. And yet plenty of Christians are worried that if they give generously, they will end up short of money. "God loves a cheerful giver", says Paul. But look around (actually, this is considered to be rude) during the collection at (almost) any church, and cheerful is hardly the word that describes our attitude. What's more, as almost any vicar, pastor, priest or minister will tell you, despite the well-known notion that we should aim to give a tenth of our earnings, on the model of the Old Testament tithe, very few churches receive anything like a tenth of the income of their congregation. Of course, some people give less to a local church, and more to para-church organisations such as mission agencies or relief organisations. But long-term research suggests that 95% of all the money given by Christians actually does go to local churches. Where does this leave Liberal-Democrats? As party faithful, we are well-used to being cajoled into giving to the party. An endless procession of telephone appeals, tombolas, raffles, fifty-clubs, and conference appeals, not to mention membership subscriptions, is one of the means by which we are reminded that we are, after all, Liberal Democrats. This is an article about the theology of giving, not a funding appeal. But like many things in the Christian faith, there is nothing particularly complicated about our theology — it is its application which gives us trouble. Very simply, what we need is a fundamental realignment of our view on the material world. We are called neither to be aescetics nor materialists. The material world we live in is merely part of a larger and more permanent one. Like the talents of silver, wealth is entrusted to us as an investment in God's kingdom. Wealth is not an illusion, but our attachment to it is. "You cannot serve God and Mammon", Jesus points out. Will God reward us with more wealth if we diligently pass on what he has given to us? Perhaps. But we should give anyway — not with the expectation of a return, but because it is our pleasure to serve His pleasure.

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