Resources for Preachers and Other Strugglers
Issue #76, August 11, 2003
| Resources for Preachers and Other Strugglers Issue #76, August 11, 2003 |
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In this issue
Two-thirds of U.S. immigrants are ChristianNearly two-thirds of new immigrants to the United States are Christian, fueled mostly by Catholics coming from Latin America, according to research sponsored by several government agencies. Forty-two percent of immigrants are Catholic, 19% are Protestant and 4% are Eastern Orthodox, according to a study of almost 1,000 adult immigrants in 1996. Eight percent are Muslim, 4% are Buddhist, 3% are Jewish and 3% are Hindu. An additional 15% or so claimed no religion, and 1% named other religions. The percentages of Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus in the immigrant population are all higher than their share of the current U.S. population. -- LA Times, 6/7/2003 In search of substance"There are all kinds of empty churches that tried to attract people to attend for nonreligious reasons," says Rodney Stark, University of Washington sociologist of religion. "People go to a church for religion, and if it's not religion that's being offered, they go to other places." -- quoted in Los Angeles Times, 8/9/2003 Number of tithers declinesAcross the country churches report that the number of members who tithe has gone down. According to Barna Research Group only three percent of American adults consistently give a tenth of gross income to the church. In 2001 eight percent of adults surveyed said that they tithed. Among self-proclaimed born-again Christians (38% of U.S. population) only six percent tithed last year, compared to 14% in 2001. Evangelicals (defined as those who believe they have a personal responsibility to share Christ with others) do a little better: nine percent of them tithed last year. Reasons for the drop (according to Barna):
"We are losing many of the people who have a habit of tithing," he said, "while the proportion of homes headed by younger adults, who have never tithed and don't plan to, is growing." According to Barna's survey, people older than 55 are far more likely to tithe than younger people. Nevertheless, many people persist in the practice, even or especially among those of meager means. Maria Leon, a Mexican immigrant who cleans homes and offices to support her family, bucks that trend. Though she earns $10 an hour, she gives one day's wage to her church every Sunday. Five years ago, when she wasn't working on Wednesdays, she prayed that God would fill that day with gainful employment, she said. When she found work, she promised to turn over the day's earnings to God. She has kept the vow. "I am so happy" to be able to tithe, said Leon, a member of the Iglesia de Dios, a Pentecostal church in Boyle Heights. "I don't have much money, but I am rich because God is my father," she said. For Jeff Traintime, a Universal Music Sales Division executive, working up to tithing was a 10-year process. "I was the kind of a person who thought that it was a big deal if I dropped $5 on the plate at church on Sunday," said Traintime. But in the 1980s, when he returned to the church after a 20-year hiatus, he began to think differently. After he and his wife, Jana Loner, talked it over, they pledged 2%. When that worked out, they upped it to 3% the following year, until they finally reached 10%, a decade later. "It was a step-by-step process of learning that we could do it, and we would be taken care of even though we didn't have that money in our pockets anymore," Traintime said. He still has no human explanation for what happened to him within three months after making the pledge. "This may seem a little too spooky for a newspaper, but I suddenly got the biggest raise I'd ever had," he recalled. The bonus exceeded the sum he had committed. "I've never quite gotten over the astonishment of that." -- K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer, May 31, 2003 more on page two | |
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