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Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money

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As a seminary student with plans enter the priesthood, I found Passing the Plate valuable and helpful. The authors approach the inquiry of "Why American Christians don't give away more money" with genuine concern and interest in those who profess a faith but don't support it financially as their faith suggests they should. The tone throughout the book is measured not to criticize or accuse Christians of fault but moreso to help Christians live up to their faith and to fund the causes in which they believe. I appreciated their motives, processes, honesty and suggestions.

The authors present themselves as sociologists rather than theologians or Christian leaders. Their endeavor is to research and study Christian giving that they might determine the thoughts, attitudes, emotions and resources behind Christian giving or lack of it.

They study and analyze a plethora of data on giving and givers. They perform their own surveys and interviews of Christian leaders and parishoners to get to the core of the issue. The data results of their studies are eye opening to say the least, and most of their statistics are clear and tell a revealing story of who gives, how much they give and why they give or don't give.

The authors offer and test hypotheses of why American Christians don't give more money--at least closer to the 10% tithe prescribed by most Christian organizations. They discuss their findings in relation to these hypotheses.

After discussing their findings, they present suggestions for Christian leaders to implement in their congregations to increase giving in conformity with their faith. These are coherent, practical applications that are not manipulative or conniving but what I think are really helpful suggestions that readers can consider.

I think this book is one that pastors and Christian leaders will find valuable and instructional. I think it will also ease discomfort and anxiety that leaders may have when it comes to discussing money and teaching about finances within their churches.

Craig Stephans, author of Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays

Emerson and Smith provide an excellent sociological overview of religious and charitable giving habits of American Christians, with particular insight as to why we don't give more. If you can remember that that's what this book is, it is both informative and helpful. But don't expect it to be more than it is.

Most Christian denominations in the U.S. give lip service to tithing as a celebration of God's good gifts. And not just in an effort to break even, either: tithing pays for the gospel outreach of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. So why do many congregations struggle just to keep the lights on and the mortgage paid?

Emerson and Smith, helped in one chapter by Patricia Snell, mix original research with over two decades of collated data to figure this out. The conclusions they reach, though tentative, are not simple magic bullets. They reach into the heart of American Christian culture and challenge us on ideas we take for granted.

Early chapters rely heavily on dense statistics, and are laced with laypersons' guides to actuarial concepts. These chapters are heavy on charts and graphs, and copiously end-noted. They can be kind of tough sledding. Later chapters build on these stats in an accessible, plain-English way. The second half of the book is much more user-friendly than the first half.

Some parts of the book, particularly Chapter Four and the Conclusion, offer pointers intended to help churches stimulate giving. These portions are somewhat heavy-handed and prescriptive, without recourse to scripture. The authors also admit these pointers aren't based on experience or experiment. Thankfully, the book comes bound with a postcard to let readers receive updates as the authors' research advances.

Reading this book may instill a healthy sense of "holy guilt" (why aren't I giving to my full extent?), but it is definitely not a book of theology. They scarcely quote scripture, and only mention God when it contributes to their reasoning. This is a sociological study, and if readers treat it that way, it will be both useful and enlightening.

For most pastors, the most frustrating part of the job is trying to raise money. The overwhelming majority of priests and ministers will tell you that they are uncomfortable talking about finances with their congregations and are puzzled by the apparent lack of genorosity of a large percentage of their parishioners. The old adage that "20% of parishioners contribute 80% of the funds" still appears to be true today. Why is the average Christian so reluctant to give more of their hard earned money to the churches they attend? Authors Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson attempt to get to the bottom of this conundrum in their important new book "Passing The Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money". It seems that the issues in play here are more complex than the authors had ever imagined.

For those who serve as pastors, administrators or members of parish finance committees, the issues that are presented and disected in "Passing The Plate" certainly come as no surprise. While most of us can agree that raising money should not be the primary focus of any congregation it is indeed an important and necessary aspect of parish life. The statistics offered by Smith and Emerson are stunning. Did you know that 22.1% of Christians give absolutely nothing to charity in any given year? Would it trouble you to learn that most church going Christians donate only 2-3% of income to the church they attend and to other charities each year? Equally disturbing is that a mere 9.4% of Christians give 10% or more of income. Throughout the pages of "Passing The Plate" the authors strive to explain the sociological reasons for these trends.

Not surprisingly, what the authors discovered is that many churches do a very poor job in making the case for increased giving. Pastors are reluctant to talk about these matters and many parishioners simply do not want to hear it. A rather large percentage of parishioners will argue that they simply cannot afford to increase their contributions. Smith and Emerson offer convincing data that suggests otherwise. Other Christian Americans will not give more generously because they distrust that the money will be wasted by administrators. Finally, I think it is readily apparent that most Christians in this nation are rarely if ever confronted with the moral and theological teachings of their faith that demand generous giving. As a result of these and other factors discussed in the book a large percentage of churches in our country struggle to merely survive. It has always amazed me how many individuals seem quite content to drop a dollar or some change into the basket or plate each Sunday. And it seems to me that the problem has gotten even worse over the past several years.

While Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson spend considerable time enumerating these problems, they also offer numerous concrete suggestions for addressing many of them. Perhaps the most prominent of these ideas is to gradually shift the congregation from a "Pay The Bills" mentality to a more vibrant "Live-The-Vision" approach. Such a transition takes considerable time and is not without risk but the authors sure do make a compelling case for this philosophy. The opening chapter of "Passing The Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money" is entitled "Giving To Change The World". In it the authors discuss what could happen if every committed American Christian opted to give 10% of their after-tax income to charity. Suddenly an additional $46 billion (that's billion with a "b") dollars per year would be available to fund a whole host of needs from global missions to feeding the hungry to repairing crumbling church buildings. There would be money available for youth ministers and and new schools and you could quadruple the budget for Habitat for Humanity.

The possibilities are virtually endless. I found "Passing The Plate" to be at once a very scholarly work and an extremely enjoyable read. Even though the book is packed with charts and data the authors managed to hold my interest from cover-to cover. Whether you are someone who encounters these issues as part of your job or vocation or a person who is merely interested in exploring this topic than I am more than happy to recommend this fine book to you.

As a teenaged pastor's kid suffering from "drug" abuse (my parents "drug" me to church all the time), I always wanted to get out as quickly as possible, so my father's annual budget presentation was an extra pain in the neck. I sat bored through several slides comparing the previous year's budget, actual income and expenditures, and the next year's.

After I grew up, left home, and attended several other churches (including one that my boyfriend and I quit after they moved to a Brobdingnagian new building and the senior pastor started begging for money), I began to understand why it was so important to show people where their money was going - transparency is critical if Christians are to trust their pastor to be a faithful steward of the money they hand to God.

"Passing the Plate" opens with a stunning vision: what we could do to change the world if only REGULAR American church attenders gave 10% of their income to religious and secular humanitarian causes. (Throughout the book, when "giving" is mentioned, the authors include all charitable giving, not just tithes to churches.) Billions more dollars would go into missions, food and medical aid, evangelism, education, and basic ministry. The fact that very little of this has happened yet is a stunning condemnation of Americans' stinginess.

American Christians certainly do better than non-religious Americans and people from other developed countries like in Western Europe. However, they do badly compared to Americans of other religions. Anyway, this is in the nature of comparing pots to kettles, since a very tiny minority actually gives away the full 10% or more.

After that, they present nine hypotheses as to why Christians don't give more - e.g. ignorance of social problems, ignorance of doctrines on giving, distrust of administrators, not wanting to be left "holding the baby" by other shirkers, etc. The hypotheses (obviously, not mutually exclusive) are tested against numerical data on giving and demographics from several different sources. As a science student, I'm comfortable with graphs and appreciate the analyses, but some readers may start snoozing from chart overload =)

One interesting thing they found was that the percentage of income given away goes down as net income goes up. This goes back to the gospel story of the widow's penny - and personally, was rather gratifying in an evil way since I don't like rich people. =D

The next part is a more in-depth look at attitudes toward giving on the personal level, based on interviews that Smith, Emerson, and their coauthor Snell did with 26 pastors and 51 parishioners across the country. This section is extremely interesting and revealing of a huge range of perceptions and issues.

Based on the interview, the authors identify two broad types of churches' perceptions toward giving. Pay-the-Bills pastors regard asking for money as something embarrassing and try to emphasize the concrete, mundane needs of the church. (The book frequently reminds us that personal finance is a sacred cow in the USA). Live-the-Vision pastors try to energize their congregation with ideas of what their giving _could_ do, similar to the laundry list that the authors present in the first chapter.

Chapter 5 asks an interesting question: what would you do if your church _required_ members to give 10%? (Again, this would include giving to both religious and secular charities outside your specific church.) The answers are overwhelmingly hostile even from regular church attenders. Analyses are presented showing how income, denomination, race, gender, geography, and other demographic factors influence people's responses. Survey respondents were also asked about the reasons behind negative answers.

Naturally, the book closes with suggestions on how churches can increase giving: again by presenting visions of how ordinary Christians could change the world; by being more transparent about where their money goes; and by helping them to make generosity a routine part of their lives.

Appendix A and B contain, respectively, the doctrines of various church denominations on giving, and details on the databases that were used in chapters 2 and 3. Appendix C is lots and lots of multivariate statistics, so stay away unless you're a huge nerd.

Overall it's a story of the tug-of-war of God versus Mammon. One of the big issues regarding personal accountability in giving is the incredibly high priority set on keeping one's finances private in American culture. Another issue the authors identify that holds people back is that Americans tend to make commitments to long-term debt such as car payments and mortgages (credit card debt is not as big a problem), which makes them feel like they have less to offer others.

This is a timely book, coming out when a lot of people are losing faith in money: investments are evaporating and the cost of living going up.

I'm going to recommend this book to my pastor here and bring my copy home to Malaysia for my father. As another country with a large middle class (no, we don't live in trees; and yes, we make all your computers), I suspect that similar attitudes and patterns of charitable giving exist among Malaysian Christians. Theories about "Asian culture" being more community-oriented can go fly a kite, in my experience.

As the pastor of an evangelical church, I regularly talk to missionaries, charity workers, and street people who despearately need money. Sometimes I am able to help them. Other times I am not. On the whole, my church is very generous, although we could probably give more. And I have the sneaking suspicion that other churches could do the same.

"Passing the Plate" by Christian Smith and Michael Emerson is a sociological study of "Why Americans Don't Give Away More Money," in the words of the subtitle. Sociologists of religion, which Smith and Emerson are, will find this a useful read for what it says about American Christian giving habits. But I enthusiastically recommend this book to Christian pastors, denominational leaders, and charitable organizations. It reveals both why American Christians don't give, and what can be done to encourage them to give more.

Smith and Emerson begin by noting how much money would be available on an annual basis if American Christians gave regular tithes (10% of their income) and occasional free-will offerings (over and above the tithe). Doing so would add an additional $133.4 billion to what American Christians already give. Again, that's on an annual basis. In addition to evangelism, church planting, Bible schools, and other traditional church activities, this money would adequately fund humanitarian causes such as eradicating malaria and polio, providing money for micro-enterprise loans, providing clean water, etc. Using similar statistics, Ron Sider has argued that if American Christians just tithed, they could fund the completion of the UN's Millennium Goals with private dollars.

Unfortunately, American Christians don't tithe. Twenty percent of American Christians give nothing at all. The mean average of pre-tax income given by American Christian households is 2.9%. The median gift, however, was about $200 or 0.62% of pre-tax income. This paltry giving comes in spite of the fact that American Christians generally have the resources to tithe, if they decide to, and in spite of the fact that most Christian traditions teach tithing.

Why, then, don't American Christians give more generously? Smith and Emerson advance a complex explanation based on five factors: (1) American Christians "have not seriously confronted and grappled with the theological and moral teachings of their traditions to give generously." (2) "Their churches settle for low expectations of financial giving." (3) They "lack a complete confidence in the trustworthiness of the churches and charitable organizations to which they do or would give money." (4) "There are few or no real consequences or costs to stingy, intermittent, or no giving." (5) They give "on an occasional and situational basis, not as a disciplined, structured, routine practice."

Smith and Emerson are practicing Christians, in addition to being sociologists of religion, so they offer a few tips for Christian leaders to increase generous giving. (1) Teach tithing. Tithing is already part of most Christian traditions in America, but it is not taught consistently. (2) "Live the Vision" rather than "Pay the Bills." Smith and Emerson strongly recommend laying out a holistic understanding of how money could be used to accomplish all the good things a church should be doing, from evangelism to humanitarian relief. Unfortunately, too many pastors are so concerned about paying the bills from week to week that they don't instill in their parishioners this larger vision of what could be done with more money.

So, to pastors, denominational leaders, and Christian charitable organizations, I say, "Read this book!" And to pastors I say, "Develop a sermon series, Bible study, or small group using biblical principles about money and the statistics provided by this book." Teach your people to give, and then use that money to do good both in American and around the world.

I've always been fascinated by the Gospels report, of what Jesus said of a poor widow who put a mite (very small sum of money), into the synagogue's poor box. Jesus said that "Others give from their plentitude, but this woman gave from her great poverty. Therefore, she has given the most." Almost 2000 years later, this book, thru many interviews with pastors, priests, parishoners, and TONS of sociological reports, has maintained the same truth. Its the poorest members of a church, who are giving the most money. Its certainly true, that they are giving the greatest percentage of their income, even tho they can least afford it. WHY? If you can ask "WHY?" also, you should get into this book. Why does 80% of all charity for a church, come from only 20% of the parishoners? Why do the rich give so very little? What are the reasons people give, for not giving what most of us are expected to give, that is, about 10% of our income? The book begins very dry, and academic. The first chapter outlines the problem of giving, in terminology that is part economic theory, sociological theory, psychology, and non-denominational christian doctrine. The author wrote long lists, showing what could be accomplished, from a 10% tithing. From there, Chapter two comes up with 6 facts, which are irrefutablely true, concerning monetary donations. The facts seemed a bit obvious, for the most part. "We are not generous enough", or "priests tend to be uncomfortable about asking for donations". By the way, PASSING THE PLATE makes no judgements, nor states which denomination has it right, or anything of the sort. The book just examines the PROCESS of donations in american churches. The third chapter has 9 hypothesis, that MIGHT account for stingy giving. Then, I came to the heart of the book, the 4TH CHAPTER. The scientific information, and the analytical perspectives, were nessacary to defuse the "emotionalism" surrounding what is actually a hot button topic in churches. Is today's church good stewards of the money they collect from the congregations? Americans are very jaded people, when it comes to trusting ANYONE, even their church, with their money. This is the largest chapter, and by far, the most readable, and comprehensible. A large group of priests and church members, from many denominations, talk at lenght, about donations. Several methods of collecting donations are discussed, and their effectiveness assertained. All interviews blaimed non giving on GREED. However, one of the great buried pearls in this book, is what one priest had to say. To paraphrase, he said that greed is a disease, and charity the cure. So in many ways, for a spiritual director of a church to aid their congregation, they need to TEACH charity. You can beg, plead, cry, intimidate all you want, however, nothing works except teaching CHARITY. After this, we come back to the statistics again, in the fifth chapter, which goes further in depth with the "tithing experiment" that was discussed in Chapter three. The conclussion of the book, has many, many recommendations to increase giving, based on the sociological, statistical parts of the book, merged with the frank, open interviews from the middle of the book. Natually, the effectiveness of each approach, will vary with the demographics of your church, your denomination, and the expendable income of the individual. The book ends with a HUGE appendix, filled with statistics, and sociological study results. There are literally 50 pages of this, while the body of the book is only 200 pages long. Lots of science in the appendix, should mean the scientific basis of the book can not be undermined.
Now, who is going to want to read this book? Obviously, anyone who has EVER been in a posistion to gather money for their church, can benefit greatly from the book. Anyone into fundraising connected with a church, might want to check the book out, because of the indepth scientific studies pertaining to percentage of income given, broken down by church denomination. If you are spiritually struggling with how much you are giving to your church, this book might give you a fresh perspective. Maybe all christians need to think about how much we need to give. If our economy collapses, and "entitlement programs" in the USA, like SSI, disability, medicare, welfare, and other social programs cease, then it will be the role of the church to step in, and at least ATTEMPT to provide some of those services to their communities, or at minimum, their congregations. IF this is in our future, we need to get ready to give more, and understand HOW to get others to understand the NEED TO GIVE. We can not afford "PASSING THE PLATE" any longer. This is not an easy book to read, because it forces us to stop the excuses examined over and over, for lack of generousity and charity, its a sure thing, that greed makes the mind come up with all kinds of excuses. If we COULD ONLY fight this un-giving together, as a RELIGION, then i'm sure that the church could once again be the center of help for the poor, the sick, the homeless, the jailed, the addicts, and the outcasts. After all, isnt this the church that JESUS founded? Such an unassuming book, yet it upturns so many tables of the moneychangers before the temple. I was very impressed overall.

As a minister, the bane of my existence is the budget committee meeting. We meet and begin to draft a budget. We identify needs we can meet in the community and guesstimate the costs. WE identify fixed costs. We prepare a tentative budget and immediately realize even if we move in faith we have to cut 20% because the giving won't meet the need. Then I walk into the parking lot and see eight or ten cars whose value exceeds my total church budget. Fact is every pastor I know is aware that if our church members gave 3-5% of their income we would have to look for new ways to minister because we would have too much money to do what we've planned for.

This book identifies some of the problems. Trust issues regarding where money is spent and church priorities, fear of waste, the pastors failure to ask for support are all (accurately) identified as core issues. The authors try to be thorough and fair. They succeed.

I still have hope that one day we as church will wake up to the fact that we aren't giving to meet budgets, but to be faithful to God and to meet the most basic human needs. This book reminds me of how far we have to go

This new book by academics Christian Smith (Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame) and Michael O. Emerson (Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University), with Patricia Snell (Programs and Research Specialist at the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Notre Dame) is primarily a recap of relatively comprehensive sociological research accomplished with regard to the giving practices of American Christians. As an academic treatise, the book is sometimes quasi-dry and replete with pedalogical punch-pulling and related caveats, and the "further study needed" syndrome is invoked liberally. Plenty of rather mind-numbing (for the average reader) statistical evidence is provided to demonstrate the reality of rather ungenerous American Christian pecuniary largess.

Nonetheless, the book is interesting in that it does a reasonably thorough job of documenting the church giving practices of American Christians, a group which the authors estimate could give in the phenomenal range of 10 percent of approximately $2 trillion in annual earnings if they consistently tithed.

In addition to numerical/statistical data, the authors offer a range of anecdotal/supplemental findings gleaned from in-depth interviews conducted with 26 pastors and 51 parishioners in seven different states.

The authors' explanations for the low rate of giving by American Christians convincingly revealed by the evidentiary data (there are, of course, some exceptions), which are not necessarily moral or theological, go considerably beyond mere individual selfishness/avarice to focus on social-psychological and institutional/cultural factors (e.g. - materialism) and the like. Further, and perhaps most interesting to pragmatic readers (who could be ministers or church leaders interested in increasing offering levels, or even leaders/managers of other types of selected not-for-profit entities), at the end of their narrative and prior to several rather voluminous appendices, the authors give a series of relatively practical and accessible suggestions for enhancing church fundraising. Partly because of this, this book appears to represent a real step forward regarding the subject of the giving of American Christians, as previous studies (which the authors mention early on) have primarily sought to simply establish statistical correlations between low rates of giving and demographic items such as age, income, church attendance, and so on, without really seeking to explain much of anything beyond the various technical aspects of mere stochastic analyses.

In their new book, Smith and Emerson with Snell advance nine possible hypotheses with possible explanatory power. Generally, the authors appear to place much emphasis on certain conditions that they conclude would help maximize the odds for more giving by American Christians: local congregational cultures making generous giving more normative and theologically informed; more structure and routinization in giving practices; and, additional transparency, communication, and accountability. Overall, the authors note that consumerism and pervasive compelling advertising/marketing in our capitalistic culture have created a sense of permanent discontent among American Christians, which markedly affects priorities for expenditures and consequently makes them feel that they cannot afford to give.

A possible limit of the sociological research described in this book involves the use of questionable data sets. The authors acknowledge as much, but claim that relying on a blend of surveys, church records, tax records, and census information such as household finance data for cross-reference purposes has helped to mitigate any difficulties.

Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative research methods, Smith and Emerson help explain "the riddle of stingy Christian giving" in a manner accessible to both scholars and church practitioners.

One of the book's many strengths is the authors' use of numerous extant data sources instead of relying on a single measure. Equally impressive is the Tithing Experiment Survey Smith and Emerson fielded in 2006, which explores what might happen if churches were to make tithing a requirement. Their findings are definitely worth reading for yourself.

Especially helpful is the authors' distinction between two congregational cultures: "pay the bills" and "live the vision." The latter is deemed more conducive to religious giving because "rather than being driven by the necessities of the budget, this approach was primarily driven by a view of generous financial giving as a fundamental part of the Christian worship experience and life of faith" (132). Interviews with 77 pastors and parishioners who embody each culture of giving help unpack this distinction.

As scholars and church leaders begin to consider the effects of the current economic crisis on religious giving, this book offers timely insights. I highly recommend it.

It's a slow read because of the amount of data presented, but wow is it informative! Densely packed in a way that will make the number-and-table-phobic anxious, but offers a fairly definitive picture of the state of giving in the United States.

Worth reading for any church leader - actually, it's not just "worth reading", I think it should be considered essential.

So much has changed in the last generation in terms of the Boomers and pre-Boomers attitudes versus the post-Boomers' attitudes in organizational identification and institutional giving. This book demarcates and shows that divide and change very well, and offers a LOT of stuff for current church leaders (and, I'd say, any non-profit) to read and digest.

My only complaint with the book is that it sometimes uses surveys and data from long ago. Some are decades long studies that went, for example, from 1985-2005, which is wonderful - that's still pretty current. But some studies that are reported and used here are ones done in the 80s that ended back then. I really think that the data from those studies is no longer relevant and would have been better left out of the book. But, on the other hand, some of those studies that are included were asking questions that have not been asked in recent years, so the data is somewhat relevant because of that.

Beyond that, though, this book really has its thumbs on the pulse of current day America in relation to giving to the church, and should be read by anyone dealing with stewardship and giving.

Quite excellent.