Nicole and I have left Chesapeake Community Church, and some of our friends have asked why. Considering the circumstances surrounding our leaving (and the confusion some friends have expressed regarding it) I’ve decided to address the matter here.

You see, I’ve been in discussions with the pastors (regarding tithing) since our pre-membership interview with Jason Reyes (soon to be the new senior pastor of Covenant of Grace Church in Akron, OH). Sadly, they didn’t bother to even try to answer my questions until they found out that I had posted my thoughts on the tithe here at my blog. Even then, I was met with a general unwillingness to discuss my questions and concerns; rather, the conversation was continually focused on challenging my lack of trust in and respect for them. They couldn’t understand how my trust was largely dependent on their actions and approaches to my questions. You see, I did trust them when I joined Chesapeake in November of 2005. It was only after months of evading and ignoring my questions that I began to get exasperated with them. In the meantime, other things appeared on the radar that only added to my unease and distrust:

• The pastors paid themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2006 (according to their own financial statement), while giving roughly $18,000 as “benevolence.” When asked about this, their response was that the issued Statement was not an accurate reflection of their financial activity.
• The pastors refused to support from the general fund–or even to collect a “special offering” for–a family in the congregation with known serious financial needs. Meanwhile, they collected a special offering to cover moving expenses for two pastors.
• Jim Cannon (the senior pastor) personally told me in front of Jason Reyes and a Care Group leader that his preference was for my membership status to be reevaluated should I choose not to tithe to him. Later, to illustrate his rationale for this, he drew parallels with a wife not trusting her husband to handle their money. But when I pointed out that I wouldn’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t Biblically divorce my wife over such a matter, his response was that a church membership wasn’t like a marriage.
• Jim also told me that in his study of the tithe, he had considered no extra-biblical writings on the subject of tithing penned before the Protestant Reformation. Thus, all early “Church Fathers” epistles, the Didache, Josephus’ writings, and any other works which could have shed first-hand light on how the early church viewed tithing… were ignored.
• Jim’s response was to call me a “freeloader” and claim that I had “integrity issues” when I told the pastors that not giving to Chesapeake was a matter of conscience: they had collected over $850,000 last year with, as I said before, only $18,000 (2.5%) going to those in need. (I took the money I would have given them, and instead gave it to organizations like Compassion International and Blood:Water Mission.)

And in the midst of all this, the pastors tried to shut down an evangelistic effort from a Godly man in the congregation—to spend time with some other Christian men in a pub, where they could interact with people on “neutral territory” and begin to develop relationships with them. The pastors also forbade this man to pass out copies of a Mark Driscoll book to his Christian friends until Jim had approved it, and they almost banned the men in our Care Group from going on a camping trip they were organizing. Why? Because they wouldn’t get back in time for the Sunday morning service.

From what I’ve seen, Sovereign Grace Church in Joppa, MD (their new name, as of September 12th) isn’t a local church. It really bears far more resemblance to a cult:

• The leaders are domineering and in some areas tyrannical;
• they have tried in numerous ways to psychologically manipulate the congregation;
• they demand trust rather than desiring to show themselves worthy of it;
• they are frightened of “their” people being exposed to “non-approved” books and ideas.

So that’s why I left. I tried to reason with them for nearly two years, but it has proven fruitless. The pastors are content to continue as they have, and it’s just become too heavy a burden. It’s kind of depressing, because I love the people I know at Chesapeake, but with the mindset that many people seem to have (that “we must attend the same church or else we can’t be friends”) it seems it’ll be extremely difficult to maintain our relationships.

So where is the Seitler family headed? I don’t know, but I’m definitely scarred from (and scared of) this overbearing leadership, and so we’re probably looking more toward a house church than toward any other “model.” In the meantime, we’ve actually enjoyed greater fellowship with other believers in the past few weeks than we had when we were in “the club”–and it was mostly due to opportunities that wouldn’t have been available to us if we were attending Sunday morning meetings and Wednesday night meetings and…

UPDATE #2: The post I linked “moving expenses” to (on a blog written by Jason Reyes’ wife Laurie) has been removed since my post appeared here this morning. Just to show you there really *was* a post there (and to let you still read it), here’s a screenshot of Laurie’s Delete Post from within Google Reader. It was the only place with a copy still available.

And here’s larger versions of the six pictures from that post (including the last one, which Jason’s actually in): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I guess this is just another example of their tendency to cover things up instead of dealing with them.

UPDATE #2: Laurie now has a video on YouTube showing the house.

UPDATE #3: What do I mean by “cult”? Find out here.

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That’s a question I’ve been asking over the past year. I basically grew up with a “10% of all gross income goes in the offering plate” understanding of Christian giving… but that changed about a year ago, when I began to study the topic in earnest.

For instance, one thing that constantly trips up modern-day Christians is that we fail to remember that the Law given to Moses did not merely outline a religious system… it was a constitution establishing a nation’s government. Thus, we need not only to discern which laws were sacrificial in nature (as Christians, we hold that Jesus Christ is our atonement and makes all other sacrifices—and thus all laws requiring sacrifices—moot), but also whether certain laws were governmental or sacramental in nature. While this may be a simple process with the laws of a “secular” nation, it can get difficult when you’re dealing with a theocracy.

My studies keep drawing me to the same conclusion: God’s eternal Law of Love compels us to serve the poor, but the tithe laws were a form of taxation, and served as the welfare system for Ancient Israel. Thus, these laws only apply to those under the Old Covenant living in geographical Israel.

Deuteronomy 15:7-11 (which I wrote about recently) provides the framework for all God-glorifying giving, and serves as the “spirit of the law” regarding money, possessions and neighbors:

If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye [be evil toward] your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be [evil] when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

The tithes, while a sacrifice to the LORD, were arranged in such a way as to serve as the particular fulfillment of this command with regards to the Levites (as God forbade them from owning land, cf. Deut. 18:1-8), as well as other poor in the Israelites’ midst (Deut. 14:22-29). Additionally, not only here but also in Nehemiah’s time (after two months of working daily with wood, stone, etc. to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem), the reinstated tithe consisted solely of agricultural produce (Neh. 10:35-39).

Now when you begin to question the tithe, the knee-jerk response you often get is a quote from The Most Overused Tithe Verse In The Bible: “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.” Congratulations, you have now been labeled a God-robber! However, this is neither faithful exegesis nor Biblical correction. It’s simply propaganda and browbeating. To show you that this is the case, let me share the entire passage with you, and pay attention to what I emphasize:

Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 3:8-12, ESV)

Let me make it perfectly clear: the tithes were never about collecting money for the Temple. Tithing was the means by which a food bank was kept for the poor and needy in Israel.

There is only one passage in all of Scripture which speaks of money in relation to the tithe: Deuteronomy 14:22-29. However, the money is never actually given to the Levite. Rather, it is used only as a convenient form of transport for those who must travel a long distance. Once the tither arrives at Jerusalem, he is commanded to convert the money back into food, strong drink (beer), etc. and to consume these items with the Levite, sojourner, fatherless and widow (that is, those without such provision). And you know what? Jesus mentioned something much like this in Luke’s gospel:

[Jesus] said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14, ESV)

Never, all in Scripture, is a tithe used to pay building and maintenance expenses for a meeting-house or clergy. The tithe is food, and it’s used to feed people—period. Freewill offerings (and/or perhaps a modern-day equivalent to Nehemiah’s “temple tax”) are the only Biblically-approved source of income from which such things as Equipment Upgrades, Insurance, Janitorial Services, Payroll Expenses, Repairs and Maintenance, Utilities, Mortgages, etc. are to be paid.

In contrast to the Old Covenant system, Paul set aside any pastoral “right” to live off the ministry and instead worked additional jobs to provide for his own expenses. He reasoned that he stood to gain no heavenly reward from “simply” preaching the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:15) and must go out of his way to make it a completely free gift if he were to receive anything from the Father because of his work. However, if Paul were simply a “New Covenant priest” he would have been leading the churches into sin by causing them to break God’s Law which required a community to feed its Levites (again, Deut. 18:1-8). Thus, we can infer that Paul did not believe these laws were binding for ministers of the Gospel.

That being the case, a Christian pastor ought not presume to live off of the tithes of his people. If a tithe is requested of the congregation, then Biblically it needs to be food, and it needs to be distributed to people who need food. (Which is to say, faithful application of the tithe laws requires the establishment of a congregational food bank.) Beyond that, there is no Biblical requirement to “lay [any] money at the [pastors'] feet.” (It is certainly encouraged as the decent thing to do for a chap who has given his whole lives to serving you and yours spiritually… but it’s not required.) In and 4, the money laid at the apostles’ feet was “distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:32-35). Likewise, the money collected on Paul’s behalf from the Church in Macedonia, Achaia, and Corinth was going directly to feed the Christians in Jerusalem who were suffering through a famine—not to line his personal “chariot fund.” And of course a meeting-house is nice, but depleting a collected tithe to fund it—or even to keep it lit and climate-controlled—is unbiblical.

So if I don’t think the tithe applies to us today, does that mean I can get away with not giving anything? God forbid! On the contrary, I believe Christians are to “sell [their] possessions, and give to the needy” (Luke 12:33), but are not bound by a 10-33% annual tithe to modern-day Levites per se. The sacrificial system is no longer binding, but I am still bound by the perfect Law of Love: specifically, to “love [my] neighbor as [myself],” (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 19:19, etc.) and thus to “remember the poor” (Gal. 2:10), “open wide [my] hand to [my] brother, to the needy and to the poor, in [my] land” (Deut. 15:11), “bear with the failings of the weak, and not… please [myself]“ (Rom. 15:1-3, cf. vv. 25-27), and to “contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Rom. 12:13) “that there may be fairness” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15). Sometimes fairness means giving 1%, sometimes 99%.

But the most ironic thing about my tithe law studies is that some of those who are being commanded to “tithe” (give 10% of your gross income) to “the church” (really meaning “the pastors”) are actually poor enough that the pastors are required by God’s Word to be tithing to them.

So in conclusion: Christians are commanded to give to the poor and needy in our midst, but we are not bound by tithe laws. However, even if one were convinced that Christians must tithe, a faithful reading of Scripture insists the tithe be used to feed the poor. It is wholly foreign to the Word of God to use a tithe on buildings, utilities, vacations, insurance or even clothing.

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