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Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

SocietyJuly 29, 2018

Sunday morning stickup: How tithing exploits the poor

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

When struggling families are being forced to take out loans to survive, they shouldn’t also be pressured to give money to their church, writes Aaron Hendry.

Last week Manukau Ward Councillor Efeso Collins horrified us with stories of impoverished families who were being forced to take out loans in order to make ends meet, as a result of giving tithes to their church communities. He spoke of families being publicly shamed for not giving enough, and highlighted the reality that there are some church communities who still demand a tithe even when they know their families cannot afford to give. There is no doubt that this abhorrent practice has to stop.

Collins said we need to have a discussion on this. He’s right. And it should be the Christian community who leads it.

The teachings of Jesus are clear. The church is to be first and foremost concerned with care for the vulnerable and the weak. If a church is aware that their whānau are struggling to make ends meet, yet continues to pressure its members to give, with no concern for how this is contributing to the poverty and debt they are trapped in, then that church has betrayed Jesus.

Jesus stands for the poor. In fact, I would go as far as to say that he stands with them. And in this case, I believe Jesus would be saying, “enough is enough.” Instead of asking those in need for a handout, the church’s role is to be the answer to that need. The church should be standing up and challenging the systems which create poverty, not being one of those systems.

To give, to love, to serve, to provide support where there is none, to be a voice for the voiceless, to speak a message of hope, when hope seems out of reach, this is the work and role of the church. For the Christian, Jesus is the ultimate example of how human beings should live. And Jesus was a man who lived his life in a way which showed care and concern for the most vulnerable. This was the guy who challenged the dehumanizing systems of oppression which kept people trapped in poverty. The dude who, when he saw crowds of hungry people, had compassion on them, and fed them rather then turn them away. He revealed what it meant for all people to live lives which expressed the fullness of our humanity.

Love God, Love others. This is at the very heart of his teaching. Everything else is noise. But how is it loving when you take money from a family who need it? When you line your coffers with money that should really be used to feed the children?

The rhetoric is that if you give, then God will bless you. The idea is that if you give what you have to the church, then God will return it to you with even more than you had before. I wonder how well this is working for the majority of our whānau trapped in cycles of poverty?

No, this sort of preaching and teaching has no place in our country. It is a message which oppresses and traps people by leading them deeper into debt and poverty. Any church that uses this theology in order to exploit vulnerable people has forgotten its mission, and in doing so it has placed itself in opposition to Jesus.

Those who have taught this idea have brought pain and heartache into our communities. They have shown little to no concern for our most vulnerable whānau, and they have benefited from the suffering of those who have placed their trust in them.

It is time the Christian community raised their voice and said: enough is enough. It is time Christians become angry about things that matter. It is time we all followed the example of Jesus, and chose the way of love, and began speaking up for the poor and the vulnerable.

The Salvation Army and Vision West are two great examples of church communities faithfully serving their communities and asking nothing in return. There are many others like them, quietly doing the mahi in the background. But, this is one of those times where their voices need to be heard. Where the combined voice of the Church, needs to reach across to those in its community who are exploiting the vulnerable.

Efeso Collins has laid down the challenge. Those who teach this misguided idea must be challenged.  In love, and with concern for those who are being exploited, church leaders must speak up about this issue. The message that God will bless you in proportion to what you give is one that leads to oppression and entrenches vulnerable people in cycles of poverty.

We cannot allow it to continue.

The Church shouldn’t wait for government to take note of this issue. Nor should they wait for council to begin this discussion. Christians should lead the charge in calling it out for what it is. A horrendous distortion of the Gospel. A tool which has been used to exploit vulnerable people. A twisting of Jesus’ message, and a rejection of the Good News Jesus preached.

Jesus’ message was one of freedom to the poor and the oppressed. When church communities part ways with this sort of theology, they no longer stand with God. They oppose Him.

Many church communities already reject this distortion of Christianity. But simply rejecting this doctrine is not enough. The church must also raise Her voice in support of those families who are suffering because of it.

Collins has highlighted the damage this is doing in our communities. If the church is to stay true to the teachings of Jesus, they must send a message to those in our community who would use His name to exploit the vulnerable amongst us.

It is time for a change.

It is time for exploitative tithing practices to end.

It is time we put a stop to it.


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Keep going!
Hayden renting quiz feature

SocietyJuly 28, 2018

Do tenants deserve decent homes? Take our quiz!

Hayden renting quiz feature

Being a tenant in New Zealand is often a difficult and disempowering experience. Hayden Donnell looks into what’s broken in our rental housing market.

The bad news is many of you will probably never own a home. Average property prices are 10 times the median household income of $92,843 in Auckland, while in New Zealand that figure is 6 times. Unfortunately, you likely don’t earn the median household income. For you to buy a house, incomes would have to rise drastically or house prices would have to fall, both of which are unlikely while New Zealand is ruled by a huge voting bloc of aging property owners who don’t want changes to a status quo that’s made them on-paper, and often real-life, millionnaires.

The other bad news is that your only option, other than stealing a house from a well-off couple while they’re on holiday, is renting, and rental conditions are still unconscionably awful in New Zealand. The condition of our rental housing stock is still deeply substandard – damp, stubbornly uninsulated, filled with weird variations on mould – and there are few ways for tenants to improve their lot.

THIS IS GROWING IN THE BEDROOM OF A SPINOFF EMPLOYEE. WHAT IS IT?

Mangere Budgeting Services chief executive Darryl Evans said many of his clients endure terrible conditions. He cited the example of one man on kidney dialysis who was living in a converted garage without a toilet. “He uses a bucket,” Evans said. Another client was moving into a new flat and found human faeces under the sink. Many others are living in cold caravans, garages, and poorly constructed houses.

“I’m at pains to say there are good landlords but at the same time the houses are getting shoddier,” Evans said. “Most of the houses we see are cold, damp and miserable and they’re paying 65% of their income to the landlords.”

The government has made attempts to fix the situation. National’s Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Act made insulation (in most but not all cases) and smoke alarms mandatory in 2016. Labour is promising to abolish letting fees and no-cause evictions, as well as limit rent increases to once per year.

But those solutions still don’t truly address one of the fundamental problems with renting: the power imbalance between tenants and landlords, particularly during an intractable and ongoing housing crisis. With house deposits in Auckland at roughly $8 million, and home ownership rates dropping to near-record lows, renting has never been more commonplace. With demand so high, landlords can rent even the most substandard houses to desperate tenants. Most people think complaining is too risky in that environment, particularly when they have little protection under New Zealand law against eviction, Evans said. “Too many of our families are being used and abused. They don’t know their rights. They don’t want to upset the landlord because they’re afraid they’ll get evicted.

“And they also know for the most part where they are is better than nowhere. If they move out, they know there’s 30 families behind them waiting for the same place.”

Making matters worse, one of the main avenues for tenants to address their concerns doesn’t seem to be working properly. Kate Newton looked at the Tenancy Tribunal for The Wireless and found only 1 in 10 cases put to the body are from tenants. Many renters don’t know what issues they can take to the tribunal, and don’t have easy access to advocates who will help them put together a case. Others are concerned that the tribunal’s practice of naming tenants on judgements will put them at risk of being blacklisted by future potential landlords. And still more don’t want to report even the worst landlords because they feel their tenancy will be at risk.

Evans said that’s the situation facing many of his clients. “Most of the families that come to us for housing advocacy tell us they want things to be better but they’re scared their landlord will persecute them and eventually evict them.”

Labour’s promise to put an end to no-cause evictions may help. But Evans said in some situations, landlords claim they need to get tenants out because “family” are moving in, even if that’s not really the case.

Advocacy organisation Renters United has put together a plan for giving tenants better security and more liveable homes. Their proposals include making indefinite tenancies the norm, installing a Rental Housing Quality Grade system similar to food hygiene grades for restaurants, and reshaping the Tenancy Tribunal so disputes are investigated fully and tenants’ names are anonymised in judgements.

Those ideas have raised the ire of Property Investors Federation boss Andrew King, who has said the claim rental houses are cold and damp is a “gross exaggeration” because it’s “not true of all rentals”. He told me he was opposed to installing a grading system for rental accommodation because he worried it would make it easy for governments to add extra, unnecessary standards in future – which felt similar to anti-gay marriage activists saying gay marriage (good) would lead to people marrying their dogs (bad). When asked how he would address the issue of mouldy, damp homes, he said landlords already had to adhere to the standards of the Building Act and the Residential Tenancies Act, and even without those restrictions, they still had every incentive to fix their own homes. “We don’t want mould in the properties . As a property owner you don’t want to have mould in your property because it ruins the paintwork and it costs money in the end.”

That seemed reasonable, but there was something strange about his argument. The focus was sort of warped, like we were talking about creating fair laws for how best to administer an asset, rather than how to provide human families with the dignity and enjoyment of a home. I designed this quiz to help landlords recentre their thoughts and opinions when it comes to tenant rights:

  1. Does the tenant display typically human characteristics ie. bipedal, opposable thumbs, advanced communication skills? Y/N
  2. Does the tenant appear to show evidence of consciousness ie. sadness, anger, joy? Y/N
  3. Is the tenant a unit of currency or another form of inanimate object? Y/N

If the answers to these questions are yes, yes, and no, then your tenant deserves a dry home that won’t make them develop bronchiectasis every time there’s a southerly wind. They deserve access to a disputes system that won’t result in them being blacklisted by potential landlords who aren’t neglectfully making them inhale black mould. They deserve better than being treated as simply a reliable source of income.


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