It just can't be right.

I just read this on facebook; it was a friend's status update.

Your name is a strong and mighty tower! Your name is a shelter like no other! Your name... let the nations sing it louder, 'cause nothing has the power to save but Your name!!!

This is part of my problem with modern Christianity. This belief (and even if the friend who wrote this on facebook doesn't believe it literally, there are people who do) that it's the conversion, the worship, the praise in God and Jesus itself that matters. Not doing good or being good or trying to make the world a better place for day to day life, but the singing and praying that really counts. I once met a woman who told me, in all seriousness, that the true message of the Bible is to believe in and worship Jesus. She said this because when she told me that our boss (a Jew) and a coworker (who was Hindu) *gasp!* didn't believe in Jesus! My response was that they could still be good people and probably be rewarded for that, but she was quick to point out that it doesn't matter what or how you are, if you don't believe in Jesus you will go to Hell. In other words, a Jewish person who devotes their entire life to bettering the world will go straight to Hell while a serial killer who finds Jesus and repents in prison will walk through the Pearly Gates unhampered. Because it's the name, the worlds, that matter. I've even been told that the problem with churches these days is that some of them put more value on being a good person than on praying and worshipping and sucking up to the deity. That they do a disservice by encouraging people to do charitable works and improve the world more than to sit in a church and play mindless yes-man to God.

Just for a week

I know people who budget their tithing like I budget food, as an unavoidable indispensable expense. There are people who sometimes struggle with bills, who don't buy their kids a lot of fancy new toys, and who don't drive brand new cars with low insurance deductibles. These are ordinary people who think that giving to the church is the same as giving to charity, who believe that putting money in a collection plate will better the world. And maybe it does, but like with any charity, the middle man takes his cut.

Tithings pay for the parsonage, and they pay the pastor so he can do things like feed his family and not have to take a full time job in addition to his church duties. Tithings are a good thing in that they keep the church up and running, and the extra goes to charities and that's good. But imagine if, just for one week and maybe not all on the same week, everyone who gave at least $10 to their local church instead gave the money to save children from Malaria. How many deaths could be avoided, and really, how many churches would go bankrupt? My guess is that the pastors would still get paid, and the churches would still stay open, and all the bills would still get paid, and a LOT of insecticide-treated mosquito nets would get handed out. And isn't that precisely what Jesus would want people to do? To save actual human lives and put off replacing the hymnals?