I don't know which disgusts me more, the priest or the woman in this story.
Churches are ostensibly charitable organizations. If someone walks in with a cheque for money, few congregations will turn it down, no matter the amount.
This pastor could easily be the prize-winning salesman for Guilt Trips Inc. My god - what manipulative line of crap he spewed. He knew, somehow, that she had come into a significant chunk of money, and decided he wanted a bigger chunk of her winnings. So like the inevitable obscure relative that crops up when someone wins a big chunk of money, he tries to guilt her into handing over 5% of it to the church.
The fact he succeeded only speaks to the woman's gullibility, in my opinion. Charity is just that - charity - it's what people feel they can give up. Depending on her prior economic circumstances, that $5000 cheque might have been a lot of money in her mind.
More cynically, I think the priest saw dollar signs, and decided that he would play on the woman's emotional insecurities to guilt her into donating more money.
Greed is amongst the basest of human emotions, and I'd hazard a guess that in this case, the priest succumbed to it himself. I have no idea where the 5% rule he came up with derived from, and frankly I don't much care - basically he accused her of the sin of greed and put a price on atonement.
His actions were calculated, manipulative and offensive. Yes, he got his $80,000 - but would the woman have felt any the worse for donating $5,000 had he not played the guilt trip card?
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The total amount donated by the lady was 160,000 dollars (80,000 to the church and another 80,000 to a community program) this totals 10% of her winnings. The 10% is a common tithe within the church and references to this are found within the bible.
SB
Yes, but consider this - the priest was working from a priori knowledge of what she had won, and it is that which I take exception to.
That's no different than the priest walking up to me, asking what I earn and then demanding 5% or 10% of it. At the very least it is presumptuous, and I'd go a step or two further in this case, and argue that in fact the priest himself was acting under the motive of greed himself.
(Greed, and power, are the underlying motives which drove the Church to do many awful things in the darker chapters of its past, it's a sad statement today that its clergy still seems to cling to those same damaging philosophies)
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