Don’t forget this awesome video:
Not all denominations are evil money grubbing institutions. Seriously. In most protestant churches, yes, tithing is taught, but most people don’t. And they aren’t kicked out. Certainly, your local church needs people to give because that’s where they get the money to pay the mortgage and utilities, as well as (in our church) take up money to help people in need. But you can attend, be a member, be active, and not give a penny.
There’s a huge difference between churches that ask for voluntary donations and a religion that says “OK, you’ve paid $5000 and made it to level IV, now you have to give $10,000 to get to level V” and it is REQUIRED that you keep going up the pyramid. I’m not saying there aren’t issues in other religions and denominations, but Scientology is in a category all its own.
Tithing is a legal requirement in some European countries. There are generally ways around it, eg by renouncing your faith or changing denomination, but the default is you are required to pay.
Wish the Baptist/Evangelical/prosperity gospel scam churches would get as much bad press as the scientologists.
You’d think they’d have gotten over this around, oh, the time of the Thirty Years War.
Tell me more. Never heard of this.
I’m in a moderately conservative protestant church and our pastor has spoken out pretty forcefully against the prosperity scam preachers. Heck I was in a Baptist Church that did the same. I think they are pretty universally reviled by anyone who isn’t in their web.
Or they’re just upset that the money isn’t going to them!
Yes, just being snarky.
Living in the UK I don’t have much direct experience of this, unless you count the fact that when I bought my flat I had to take out insurance against a mediaeval law that meant the church could in theory charge me to repair the local church. But here’s the Wikipedia entry.It’s a big thing in Germany and Nordic countries particularly.