Part one,
And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den” (Matthew 21:13).
One of the great benefits of being an Italian is the pride of being affiliated with a cultural group that has so effectively impacted the Western World. Though not every act that is attributed to Italians is positive, yet for a country of only 60 million citizens and about another 40 million scattered around the world, there is not much western civilization enjoys today that was not influenced by an Italian. In my more provocative days, I used to say, the world is divided into two groups of people, Italians, and those who wish they were Italian.
There are many achievements that afford Italians great pride: Art, Architecture, Fashion, Music, Automobiles, Agriculture, Weapons, Aviation, Artisan goods and of course Cuisine. For many, Nationalistic pride is rooted in the centuries of architectural and engineering accomplishments. Besides the roads, aqueducts, sewers and various mega structures. There is hardly a city within Italy, no matter how small, that does not have a cathedral, basilica, parish, or chapel that one does not stop and marvel in its artisanry craftsmanship.
And if we pause for a minute and reflect on the resources that afforded much of the beauty Italians are most proud of, we recognize that it was actually achieved, by leveraging Salvation. That is, that the majority of the cost for the religious opulence we bear witness to, was not the result of free will offerings or slave labor, but Christians seeking to alleviate temporal punishment for either themselves or for a loved one.
Not every cathedral was built with indulgence money, of course, nor was every contribution extracted from a frightened sinner. But medieval Christianity developed an extraordinary financial apparatus around sin, penance, temporal punishment, purgatory, and indulgences. At its worst, the distinction between supporting the Church and improving one's eternal circumstances became remarkably difficult for the ordinary Christian to discern.
The Roman Catholic Church successfully introduced several precepts that afforded a financial measure to assuring Salvation. One was Purgatory where a soul sojourns awaiting purification. This process is considered unpleasant at best and efforts to expedite the purification process are highly desirable. Of the measures available, presenting a financial offering on behalf of a deceased loved one, who is presumed to be stationed in purgatory, could hasten their purification and transfer them to Heaven.
The second precept was the capacity to purchase a clemency in advance of the impending iniquity. These waivers of transgression were known as Indulgences. The sale of indulgences was most prevalent during the 15th and 16th centuries and arguably helped financed the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Italy. A true marvel in human achievement.
It was the very practice of the sale of Indulgences that led Martin Luther, a Catholic Priest, to launch the protestant reformation. That and his objection to the Papal authority, led to proclaiming his protest via the famous Ninety-five Theses. His core objection was the implication that salvation or purification could be purchased. That the transfer of money could expedite a soul’s interval in Purgatory and place it in Good Standing in the Book of Life.
Luther’s answer was Sola Fide—salvation by faith rather than by purchased merit, religious performance, or institutional transaction.
Though the Reformation did not solely focus on the monetizing of salvation, it was a significant triggering issue. And it would be convenient to leave the monetizing of salvation buried beneath the marble floors of medieval Rome. But religious institutions rarely surrender useful machinery; they simply modernize it. The currency may change, the theology may soften, and the transaction may become less obvious, but whenever financial conformity begins to imply spiritual fidelity, the old indulgence booth has merely been given a new coat of paint.
The question we should ask, do present-day denominational tithe positions parallel those centuries-old attempts to link the act of giving with the central desire of every Christian—salvation?
Tithe
Clearly, the SDA organizational message to circle the wagons on tithe has gone out. In the last few months, I have seen more articles and heard more sermons on tithe than in my previous 59 years combined. Predictably, those whose income is sustained by tithe, along with ministries dependent upon SDA corporate endorsement, have largely presented a united front.
The corporate talking points are familiar:
God instructs us to return our tithe to the Storehouse.
The Conference Treasury is the Storehouse.
If there is a problem within the Church, God will correct it. Our responsibility is simply to return the tithe.
Much of these arguments are built upon two familiar Ellen White statements:
If the Conference business is not managed according to the order of the Lord, that is the sin of the erring ones. The Lord will not hold you responsible for it, if you do what you can to correct the evil. But do not commit sin yourselves by withholding from God His own property. (PaM 260.2)
The portion that God has reserved for Himself is not to be diverted to any other purpose than that which He has specified. Let none feel at liberty to retain their tithe, to use according to their own judgment. (9T 247.1)
For the vast majority of my life, I accepted and reiterated those same positions. So, what changed? A lot. Let me count the ways.
First was a study into Old Testament tithe versus what we call tithe today. Tithe in the Old Testament was imposed upon the productive increase of land and livestock. It was not imposed on wages. And its purpose did not terminate at the sanctuary door. It sustained the Levite and Israel’s religious service, but in specified circumstances it also reached beyond the ministry to the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.
“When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied” (Deut. 26:12).
That picture matters. The same sacred portion that fed the Levite also fed the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. Biblical tithe was prescribed, but it was not one-dimensional. Ministry was within its purpose; so was benevolence.
Freewill offerings entered much of the same landscape, but without the prescription. They arose from willingness rather than a fixed proportion and could consist of animals, produce, money, materials, or other possessions devoted to God’s work. They supplemented worship, ministry, construction, and benevolence according to the need and the willingness of the giver. The tabernacle provides perhaps the most vivid example: the people gave with such abundance that Moses eventually had to tell them to stop (Exodus 25:1–8; 35:21–29; 36:3–7).
Tithe and freewill offerings were therefore not competing instruments, nor were their purposes neatly divided. Their paths frequently crossed. Tithe carried a prescribed obligation with more than one purpose; offerings carried no prescribed proportion and supplemented the work wherever willing hearts met need.
From the New Testament
The New Testament does not carry the Mosaic tithe forward in the same form. Christ acknowledged the practice, while rebuking the Pharisees for meticulously tithing mint, dill, and cumin while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matt. 23:23). Yet the apostles never recreate the Mosaic framework by prescribing a universal ten-percent tithe upon Christian wages or increase.
What they do preserve is the obligation to materially sustain gospel ministry. Paul writes that “those who proclaim the gospel should get their living from the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:13–14), while Christian giving is described as proportional, willing, generous, and responsive to need. At times believers gave considerably more than ten percent, even selling possessions to meet the needs of others.
The distinction is important. The obligation to support God’s work survives unmistakably. The formula later used to administer that obligation does not appear with the same clarity.
As Christianity became increasingly institutional, that formula reintroduced. The Western church progressively extended the Old Testament tithe from agricultural increase into trades, labor, and personal earnings, eventually making tithe an enforceable ecclesiastical obligation. Protestantism rejected much of Rome’s theology, but various Protestant traditions nevertheless inherited and adapted its expanded tithe structure. Seventh-day Adventism eventually did likewise, moving from Systematic Benevolence to the familiar ten percent of income.
Conclusion: the sacred obligation and the administrative formula should not be casually treated as synonymous. One rests directly upon the principle of supporting God’s work; the other carries an institutional pedigree.
Present Day
Today, tithing is a voluntary religious practice that many Christians, including Seventh-day Adventists, accept as a spiritual obligation and as a means of sustaining the intended mission and ministry of the church. As previously state, the modern practice of returning ten percent of wages or earnings is not expressly prescribed in the New Testament in the same manner as the Mosaic tithe, it is reasonably rooted in important biblical principles: God is the source of our blessings and increase; returning a portion to God is an act of worship, gratitude, and recognition of His ownership; and the resources returned provide materially for those engaged in carrying forward the work of God.
EGW consistently taught that tithe is God’s reserved portion, not a discretionary donation, and that it should be faithfully returned for the support of gospel work. She warned against withholding tithe because of dissatisfaction with church leadership and against diverting it to purposes of one’s own choosing. At the same time, her own practice shows that she did not treat denominational channels as absolutely exclusive when genuine gospel workers were neglected; she sometimes helped direct tithe to ministers and Bible workers outside the ordinary lines. Her emphasis was therefore both on the sacred purpose of tithe and on the faithfulness of the giver.
That distinction matters. If the obligation of tithe is divine, but its present administrative construct developed over time, then faithfulness cannot be measured merely by conformity to the construct. The question must ultimately return to purpose: is God’s portion faithfully advancing God’s work?
Why Does the Debate Matter
The core of the Tithe debate seeks to define EGW’s statement of: If the Conference business is not managed according to the order of the Lord… do not commit sin yourselves by withholding from God His own property. (PaM 260.2)
For denominational leadership, that is a get out of jail free card—compelling the returner, no matter what occurs, to donate unquestioningly, for God will correct the Church… if necessary. Yet, as EGW clearly did not militantly apply her own statement to every circumstance, what might we surmise she meant given the events surrounding the 1890 declaration? Was the Church in a state of Apostasy, Corruption, or simple Incompetence?
The historical record is not particularly kind to late-nineteenth-century Adventist administration. The Church was growing rapidly, the world was getting larger, and Battle Creek apparently responded by making the decision-making table smaller. Authority became increasingly concentrated in a handful of strong personalities while an expanding international denomination attempted to funnel an astonishing amount of its business through Michigan. The eventual result was the substantial decentralizing reorganization of 1901.
George I. Butler provides an excellent place to begin. Butler served as General Conference president for most of 1871–1888 and became associated with what Adventist historians now politely call the “Leadership Controversy.” His philosophy favored strong centralized leadership, approaching what has been characterized as the model of a benevolent monarch. Benevolent or otherwise, a monarch is still a monarch, and eventually even James White—hardly an enemy of strong church organization—concluded that concentrating ecclesiastical authority in one man had gone too far. In 1877 the General Conference formally rescinded its earlier endorsement of Butler’s centralized leadership theory.
Then came Minneapolis
Butler and Uriah Smith were central figures in the resistance to A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner surrounding the 1888 General Conference. Theology, personality, institutional authority, and established positions became sufficiently tangled that separating one from another is difficult even today. Both Butler and Smith would later acknowledge error in their response to the controversy. Apparently, having the correct organizational structure did not guarantee that those occupying it would always recognize truth when it arrived without an appointment.
Nor did Butler’s departure cure the underlying disease. The Church continued growing internationally while administrative authority remained heavily concentrated in Battle Creek. Matters that could reasonably have been settled in the field traveled to headquarters, where an increasingly small collection of men attempted to supervise an increasingly large work.
Ellen White was not Subtle
In Manuscript 17 (1896), she complained that “altogether too much responsibility” had been placed upon a few men in Battle Creek. Conference presidents had become accustomed to sending their problems to headquarters rather than exercising the judgment appropriate to their own fields. Her concern was not merely that Battle Creek occasionally made bad decisions; the system itself was training local leaders not to make decisions and to defer to Battle Creek.
By 1897, even the General Conference formally acknowledged the problem of concentrating so many responsibilities in Battle Creek and referring matters from widely separated fields to a few men. When the institution itself adopts a resolution acknowledging excessive centralization, one can safely conclude that Ellen White was not imagining things.
By 1901 she had abandoned diplomatic understatement altogether. In Manuscript 43 she rejected the idea that the judgment of one man—or a few men—should control the work and condemned the exercise of what she called “kingly power.” Her prescription was not another committee studying centralization in Battle Creek. It was reorganization.
A. G. Daniells and others subsequently helped accomplish exactly that. The 1901 General Conference Session created union conferences and transferred substantial authority away from the General Conference to regional bodies. In other words, the solution to excessive centralization was not to assure everyone that God would eventually fix headquarters while leaving headquarters exactly as it was. They changed the structure.
So, what was happening around the period of Ellen White’s 1890 tithe counsel?
Apostasy? Serious spiritual resistance was certainly present, most dramatically exposed at Minneapolis in 1888. Ellen White regarded righteousness by faith as integral to the third angel’s message, yet she did not conclude that the Adventist movement had ceased to carry a divinely appointed mission.
Corruption? There were unworthy ministers, moral failures, poor administration, and serious spiritual deficiencies. But to describe the denomination generally as institutionally or financially corrupt would outrun the evidence.
Incompetence and dysfunctional governance? Here the footing is firmer. Centralized authority, powerful personalities, administrative dependency, and a structure increasingly unable to manage a rapidly expanding worldwide church were acknowledged problems. Ellen White condemned them, denominational leaders recognized them, and ultimately the Church reorganized because of them.
Stay tuned for part 2 . . .
Daniel Bacchiocchi is an architect and builder. Today he operates an architectural and construction business in Michigan as well as a non-profit building mission organization, Master’s Builders, Inc., supporting SDA efforts in financially depressed communities around the world. Daniel is also on the board of Advent Mission Institute, a startup ministry in Michigan focused on leadership training and outreach.
