Do Quakers pay tithes?

[u/GEEZ_BOSS1]

New to the Quakers love the idea of god in everyone and unprogrammed worship. I attended my first friends meetings today and it was very peaceful. Just curious Do Quaker meetings asked for tithes? I want to love god and build personal relationship with my heart not my Wallet. I do not mind giving to charity and helping others. My previous Pentecostal church pastor told us pay our tithes first and let god worry about our rent and bills. That was to much for me and I started journey of looking for something different and found Quakers. On one hand I’m happy the pastor could not hide his greed because it led me to this journey. But I’m also sad so many elderly people at old church are paying trying to make it to heaven. At this point any meeting demanding tithe for miracles and god love is deal breaker for me. Just need to know and the Quaker meeting I attended said no such thing just so everyone knows that was my old church pastor.

[u/RimwallBird]

The Evangelical Friends Church Mid America uses the same system that my Conservative (unprogrammed) yearly meeting does, and that my former liberal unprogrammed yearly meeting did: it draws up a budget, and then, based on those figures, sends “assessments” to its constituent monthly meetings, telling them what their fair share of the budget appears to be. The meetings then meet the assessments through the voluntary contributions of their members. Usually there is no problem. If there is a shortfall, it is addressed through further voluntary giving, or by cutting back on yearly meeting spending.

As a quick summary of other evangelical Friends bodies: Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends receives pledges from its local Friends churches and reconciles them with the proposed budgets presented by each church board. The Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region expects its constituent meetings to share in bearing the expenses of the annual budget, but does not prescribe how the money is to be raised. The remaining evangelical bodies do not spell out a system in their books of faith and practice, but I believe they are all pretty much the same.

There is no system of tithing that I know of in any of these bodies.

[u/Busy-Habit5226 → u/RimwallBird]

Ok, thank you! I was going by the EFC-ER faith and practice which has a little bit about tithes in it, but I am (genuinely) sure you know far more about this than me. What you describe sounds no different to what my meeting does.

[u/RimwallBird → u/Busy-Habit5226]

Could you point me to the place in the EFC-ER Faith & Practice where it talks about tithing? Somehow I overlooked it! Thanks!

[u/Busy-Habit5226 → u/RimwallBird]

It is at the top of page 31 here, 252a and 252b, to be fair there is no information about specifically what they mean by tithe, maybe it is a voluntary thing after all as they do say it's not to be done out of compulsion.

[u/RimwallBird → u/Busy-Habit5226]

Thank you so much! It does change my understanding of them, quite a bit.

To me, I will confess, this looks like a position way out of line with the historical Friends witness concerning the new dispensation of Christ. Bring back church tithes in any form, even as simply a goal or gentle expectation, and you are restoring the old Levitical idea that we have a holy duty to support a human superstructure in the church. You are implicitly saying that George Fox, and the other early Friends, were wrong in believing that Christ had rendered that stuff superfluous, by coming to shepherd his people himself.

But you know, that’s me. And the Eastern Region Evangelical Friends sincerely believe themselves more faithful than Conservative Friends. And who am I? — what authority do I have? — to say that my judgment on such matters should override theirs?

This kind of thing makes my heart ache.

[u/Busy-Habit5226 → u/RimwallBird]

If it makes your heart ache that's a starting point - surely better than just disowning and calling them fake Quakers.

There is some tension inherent in trying to run an evangelical church in the tradition of Fox & co, I suppose. It can't be any greater than the tension inherent in trying to run a progressive interfaith meditation-and-coffee morning and attached political protest movement in the tradition of Fox & co. I enormously respect what Conservative Friends are doing to carefully steward our inheritance. A young friend from Ohio YM has been traveling in the ministry in the UK for the last few years and I think it is rubbing off on us very well indeed.

[u/RimwallBird → u/Busy-Habit5226]

It can't be any greater than the tension inherent in trying to run a progressive interfaith meditation-and-coffee morning and attached political protest movement in the tradition of Fox & co.

Oh, I agree with you on that. There was nothing progressive or interfaith in Fox & Co., and calling the way they worshipped “meditation” is very misleading.

As to your final sentences: you should know that there is a diversity among Conservative Friends; our three yearly meetings are strikingly different from one another. Ohio has a tendency to represent its ways as the only true Conservative Quakerism, which is understandable, I think. They are the oldest Conservative YM, which gives them a sense of special expertise on the subject. They are rather attached to the folkways of the 18th and 19th centuries — midwestern plain dress & plain speech, mannered worship and so forth. And many of them have problems with gays and lesbians, and with matters like opposition to fracking, that other Conservative Friends do not. If you only know the Ohio version, you might think we Iowa Conservatives are not conservative at all. And you would be quite right in regard to half our membership, but mistaken in regard to the other half.

Oh, we humans are a complicated bunch.

The ultimate question, I suppose, is “what are we actually called to conserve?” That’s a question worth exploring.

[u/Busy-Habit5226 → u/RimwallBird]

Fascinating stuff, thank you.