Hi everyone,
The guy who wrote this article calls church titheing as 'Sunday morning stick-up'.
http://us.cnn.com/2015/06/14/us/sunday-stickup/index.html***********************************************************************
David Lee had just opened his wallet for two successive offerings at a church one Sunday morning when a pastor walked onto the pulpit to pass on a request.
"You all going to think I'm crazy, but God says give again," the pastor said.
The congregation rose from their seats to march to the front as the church organist played a soothing melody. As they dropped off their offerings at the altar, the pastor urged them on with, "God says give everything; don't hold nothing back."
The organist then picked up the tempo, and the pastor shouted, "God says run!" The offering ended with people surging toward the altar like music fans rushing a concert stage.
"It was pandemonium. They weren't just giving money, but shoes, watches and diamond rings," Lee says. "There were people dropping alligator shoes on the altar."
Were these people cheerful or gullible givers? For Lee, a church elder who spent 30 years marketing and selling church products, they were victims of the "Sunday morning stickup" -- his term for manipulative tactics pastors and churches use to get your money.
People widely condemned an Atlanta megachurch pastor who asked his church to buy him a $65 million private jet. Yet there is no condemnation for countless church leaders across America who have turned the Sunday morning offering into a form of spiritual abuse, Lee and other church leader says
These rituals, they say, violate New Testament teachings about how and why people should give.
.....when the cash gets tight, some go into Sunday stickup mode by deploying three tactics.
No. 1: The myth of the mandatory tithe
No. 2: Elevating the biggest givers
No. 3: Distorting two popular scriptures
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Do you agree...or is he hyping it up the wrong way needlessly?
Sriram
