The National Tithe

What's better than a 59° day before the Ides of March? A 69° day before the Ides of March.

One of the interesting things about life is where, when, and how one stumbles upon new and fascinating information. Take for example my KnowledgeLake training here in St. Louis.

I expected to learn more about SharePoint and ECM/Document Management. I never in a million years expected to learn about National Tithes.

Our trainer, Mike Mora, belongs to an Evangelical Free Church here in the St. Louis area. While talking about our beliefs over lunch, he was telling me about a past mission trip to Budapest. He remarked that there were a lot of churches in Europe but not a lot of relationships with Jesus being built. As we discussed how the idea of a government-sanctioned church had something to do with that, he brought up the Austrian National Tithe. The government collects taxes for the church in Austria. He mentioned it dates back to Hitler, and there's some evidence to back that up. While checking this out, I found that this was/is common place in other European Countries. Of course, more details can be obtained by clicking on the links in this post.

Pretty wild, hey? Please feel free to comment by clicking the "comment" link below or send this or any other blog post link via e-mail.