Commentary: Despite economic worries and the LDS Church’s wealth, I pay a ‘tithe that hurts.’ Here’s why.

“What amount of money,” asked a friend, “would make you feel secure?”

In a moment of honesty, I replied that no figure would ever be enough because we live in a time of instability in a country with inadequate safety nets. At my worst, I am tempted to keep hoarding because I lack confidence that the resources I have today will be there tomorrow. I am contributing to the pride cycle unfolding in our economically stratified society because I fear that I am on my own. The Latter-day Saint gospel, however, provides a corrective to these instincts and a path out of our winner-take-all economy: tithing.

Within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tithing is understood as a commandment to donate a tenth of one’s “annual interest” to the faith, although the precise ways in which members have interpreted and practiced this teaching have varied over time. The church uses tithes for church and charitable purposes, including maintaining buildings, constructing temples, educating members, and assisting in humanitarian efforts. It also maintains billions in investment and surplus funds.

Like many, I struggle with the concept of tithing during an era of rampant inequality among members and of great wealth within the institutional church. It troubles me that tithing is akin to a regressive tax in which the poorest and wealthiest members of our church are asked to contribute the same percentage of their increase. Our tithing is not redistributed to the poor and needy in our wards as generously as I would like. I also question how much tithing needs to be held for the future rather than spent now.

On a personal level, I am acutely aware that society offers me little social safety net or compensation as a woman whose career has been disrupted by caregiving. I know that as an ordinary woman in the church, I have no decision-making authority over where my tithing goes. I am tempted to say let someone who has benefited more pay the tithing tab. But despite these legitimate concerns, I inevitably decide each year to pay an amount in tithing that hurts. I do so because this is also true: Tithing is a spiritual practice that counteracts my instincts to hoard by reminding me that I have sufficient for my needs.

To be clear, not everyone has enough. This column is not directed toward the many members who are struggling to afford basic necessities and simple pleasures. I believe there is space for people to faithfully reach the conclusion that the Lord is not asking them to pay a traditional tithe at this time. There has to be genuine agency for any spiritual practice to feel healthy and meaningful. But for members like me, who have enough for our needs even though we still worry about finances or covet trends on Instagram that we cannot afford, tithing is a reminder that our deepest security lies not in our bank accounts but in our communities, modest living and the Lord.

Scriptural warnings against economic inequality

During the 20th century, the church deemphasized its roots in economic communitarianism in favor of a focus on the nuclear family. As we became more integrated into the U.S. economy, it became easier to ignore that the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants repeatedly admonish members against hoarding and economic inequality. While I was growing up, success in the marketplace often felt to me conflated with righteous living. This was a comfortable position to embrace because it demanded little personal adjustment. I vividly recall hearing adults explain away the literalness of Christ’s teaching that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24) by refocusing the discussion on how we should sacrifice our time and talents rather than worry about the fact that we had more than others.

We are good at explaining away the plain meaning of language when it is not what we wish to hear. By the time I reached my 30s, however, I had come to believe that Christ meant what he said. By then, I had realized that the pressure to work more, have more and buy more was primarily about increasing profits or prestige while holding people captive to their anxieties about falling behind or never being enough. I knew that I could not be free to make the choices that were right for my life — including stepping back from the workplace after having a child — unless I believed that I had enough, was enough, and that the Lord would provide in the future.

Tithing is the primary method God has provided to help us cultivate freedom from the pressures of the market, the voices competing for our attention, and life’s problems. It is an act through which we are reminded that we have enough, that we have an obligation to lift those around us, and that security lies in trusting God rather than the world. It is an act of faith through which we strengthen social safety nets, choose to live with less, and cultivate spiritual reserves and community that can help us withstand ups and downs.

Leaning into faith and community

Cultivating our spiritual reserves and community is especially needed in times of instability and change. On a recent visit to historic sites in Atlanta, I found answers to how participants in the Civil Rights Movement fostered the courage to speak in an environment in which lynchings, threats, and the burning of Black homes, churches and businesses were facts of daily life. The consistent pattern was that they leaned into faith and community as forces that would carry them and their families through these challenges. Marginalized from the mainstream white economy, they understood that spiritual reserves and community could collectively carry them through catastrophes.

One of Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence particularly struck me. Nonviolence, The King Center explains, is “aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.” As I read these lines, I realized the importance of mustering an aggressive spirituality as a corrective to injustice. We find freedom over our lives and power over fear when we center the Lord and discipline ourselves so that we are not captive to wants and anxieties. I know no better way to do this than to pay a tithe that hurts. In so doing, we reject, in small part, the competitive economic structures that hold us captive as they teach us to fear and train us to hoard. We free ourselves from the world’s incentive structures and can begin the process of building something better.

When my family wrote our most recent tithing check, I felt inclined to be generous. My family had managed to meet our needs in uncertain times, and I felt deeply prompted to share with those less fortunate. Predictably, however, my feelings of gratitude and generosity were soon replaced with anger about my own exploitation as a caregiver, underpaid writer, and woman in a patriarchal church. I began to regret my decision to pay a “tithe that hurts” to an organization that sometimes pains me. Yet, I can acknowledge my frustration as legitimate and keep coming back to this point: I am exploited, but I am better off than many other people being exploited. Tithing will not solve structural injustices, but it helps me remember the latter.

Note to readers • Natalie Brown is a Latter-day Saint based in Colorado. She is writing a book on living with faith in times of crisis. She is writing in her personal capacity. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the church or her employer.