Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Two things here:
First: the posters' understanding of the financial realities facing churches thus far seems to be pretty exclusively based on modern Christian churches. A friend of mine who recently decided to explore her Jewish heritage was surprised to discover that the synagogues she attended charged a membership fee that was structured like a progressive income tax scale (ie: the more money you make, the bigger percentage you had to donate). And, since it was a membership fee, unlike most Christian churches where donation is voluntary, you had to pay it if you wanted services. As a student, she was able to get a discounted student membership in the synagogue, but she still had to pay. And then, people would still have to pay the various functionaries for services like bar mitzvahs, etc.
Similarly, people have suggested that 10% form the minimum level of donation. That is a common expectation among modern Protestant Christians (and, judging from the books of the law, among ancient Jews) but doesn't appear to be a common element of world religions. Islam, for instance, dictates that its adherents give 2% of their income to charity--not 10%--and as far as I can tell does not have any definitive expected contribution towards the maintenance of a mosque. Medieval Catholicism adhered to the idea of a tithe (10%) but set that tithe based on 10% of a typical income in one given year and would often remain set at that level for decades or centuries. Thus, after a period of economic expansion, when people would attempt to reassess the tithe based on 10% of the new income, there was much resistance to the perceived increase of the tithe. (That there was resistance demonstrates that it was perceived as a set sum rather than a set proportion). I don't know enough about Hinduism, Bhuddism, and the various animist belief systems to give specific information, but I would be willing to bet that they all had different systems for providing for the financial needs of their religion. (For that matter, they had different financial needs as well--many tribal religions do not maintain permanent places of worship).
Second: thus far, everyone seems to have been operating off of the assumption that the priests operate as a part of the community and share normal perspectives upon money. That is not necessarily accurate.
One of the more interesting role-playing experiences I've had recently was in a Living Arcanis module. We were seeking out a priest of Yarris (the god of the sea) who was said to dwell underneath the docks. So, at low tide, we climbed down and walked into his cave, expecting to find a priest with some well-pressed vestments who would ask for money and then give his services. Instead, we find a nearly naked man dressed in rags with seaweed stuck in his hair and beard sitting in a tide cave filled with detritus washed up by the waves. Amid the detritus was all sorts of wealth that had clearly been washed into this cave by the waves. He largely ignored us, only asking that we give the sea-god his due. When we had cast an offering into the waves, he pointed down a long passage which we found led to our destination.
As soon as we met the priest of Yarris, it was pretty obvious that we were not going to be able to persuade him to help us out for free through the use of rational arguments. If he shared our perspective on what was rational, he would have had an ornate temple above the docks and in the temple district. In order to get anything out of him, we needed to conform to his paradigm, not the other way around.
To a lesser degree, that may explain portions of the more common phenomenon. Erik the bold has to pay his 150gp for a remove disease after he gets bitten by an Otyugh in the sewers. The common visualization of this is that the priest goes to a cash register and says "show me the money." (And that probably works just fine for priests of Zilchus). But, what if the priest instead asks for an offering to Yarris and Erik casts the shields of a dozen foes into the waves as an offering to the sea-god. Or, he buys a bull to sacrifice to Zeus. Or offers sweet incense at the temple of the merchant god. Or spends his time with the temple prostitutes of Venus.
First: the posters' understanding of the financial realities facing churches thus far seems to be pretty exclusively based on modern Christian churches. A friend of mine who recently decided to explore her Jewish heritage was surprised to discover that the synagogues she attended charged a membership fee that was structured like a progressive income tax scale (ie: the more money you make, the bigger percentage you had to donate). And, since it was a membership fee, unlike most Christian churches where donation is voluntary, you had to pay it if you wanted services. As a student, she was able to get a discounted student membership in the synagogue, but she still had to pay. And then, people would still have to pay the various functionaries for services like bar mitzvahs, etc.
Similarly, people have suggested that 10% form the minimum level of donation. That is a common expectation among modern Protestant Christians (and, judging from the books of the law, among ancient Jews) but doesn't appear to be a common element of world religions. Islam, for instance, dictates that its adherents give 2% of their income to charity--not 10%--and as far as I can tell does not have any definitive expected contribution towards the maintenance of a mosque. Medieval Catholicism adhered to the idea of a tithe (10%) but set that tithe based on 10% of a typical income in one given year and would often remain set at that level for decades or centuries. Thus, after a period of economic expansion, when people would attempt to reassess the tithe based on 10% of the new income, there was much resistance to the perceived increase of the tithe. (That there was resistance demonstrates that it was perceived as a set sum rather than a set proportion). I don't know enough about Hinduism, Bhuddism, and the various animist belief systems to give specific information, but I would be willing to bet that they all had different systems for providing for the financial needs of their religion. (For that matter, they had different financial needs as well--many tribal religions do not maintain permanent places of worship).
Second: thus far, everyone seems to have been operating off of the assumption that the priests operate as a part of the community and share normal perspectives upon money. That is not necessarily accurate.
One of the more interesting role-playing experiences I've had recently was in a Living Arcanis module. We were seeking out a priest of Yarris (the god of the sea) who was said to dwell underneath the docks. So, at low tide, we climbed down and walked into his cave, expecting to find a priest with some well-pressed vestments who would ask for money and then give his services. Instead, we find a nearly naked man dressed in rags with seaweed stuck in his hair and beard sitting in a tide cave filled with detritus washed up by the waves. Amid the detritus was all sorts of wealth that had clearly been washed into this cave by the waves. He largely ignored us, only asking that we give the sea-god his due. When we had cast an offering into the waves, he pointed down a long passage which we found led to our destination.
As soon as we met the priest of Yarris, it was pretty obvious that we were not going to be able to persuade him to help us out for free through the use of rational arguments. If he shared our perspective on what was rational, he would have had an ornate temple above the docks and in the temple district. In order to get anything out of him, we needed to conform to his paradigm, not the other way around.
To a lesser degree, that may explain portions of the more common phenomenon. Erik the bold has to pay his 150gp for a remove disease after he gets bitten by an Otyugh in the sewers. The common visualization of this is that the priest goes to a cash register and says "show me the money." (And that probably works just fine for priests of Zilchus). But, what if the priest instead asks for an offering to Yarris and Erik casts the shields of a dozen foes into the waves as an offering to the sea-god. Or, he buys a bull to sacrifice to Zeus. Or offers sweet incense at the temple of the merchant god. Or spends his time with the temple prostitutes of Venus.
If you don't trust the guys who are going to save the world for you, you got big problems.
