Busting the Myth That Christians Are More Generous Than Non-Believers [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/belief/busting-myth-christians-are-more-generous-non-believers




The story has gone viral: A group got together at Applebees. When the tab came the minister wrote on the ticket, “I give God 10 percent, why should I give you 18?” She scratched through the automatic large-group tip and substituted a fat zero and signed it with the word “Pastor” in front of her name. The waitress posted an image on Reddit. The pastor called to complain. The waitress got fired. The internet went wild. Last I saw, one story had 80,000 comments and counting.

In reality, the pastor simply exposed something that is all too common to Christian thinking: the sense that giving to the church and to religious charities is the be-all and end all of generosity. As indignant reactions to the Applebee’s incident show, service workers sometimes pay the price:

“I worked at the Outback Steakhouse for 3 years and we ALL dreaded Sundays.”

“The Sunday after church crowd were allways the worst tippers. I found another line of work.”