As we suggested in Puzzles 1.1 - Why is Tithing So Popular as an Image of the 'Good' Giver, the tithe has became a well-known standard of good giving in America. In part, this development reflected the power of Protestantism in shaping popular culture during the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries.

Yet as the country became more religiously pluralistic in the early twentieth century, the challenge before Protestant leaders was to define tithing in ways that could reach a broader cross-section of Americans. It wasn’t enough just to cite a few lines of scripture or rely on church-bound traditions.

The story of one experimental venture along these lines is told in Resource 4.13 -  Harvey Reeves Calkins, A New Generation and Its Struggles. A Methodist leader in the renewal of the tithing movement during the 1910s, Calkins encouraged others to think of tithing as one of the “natural” laws of our world. "The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib – shall not a man with the breath of his Creator in him, though there be neither book nor parchment, recognize that God owns the world?" All of us, Calkins intimated, know deep in our being that we should tithe as recognition of God’s sovereignty.

In late twentieth century America, the most fervent believers in tithing could be found in evangelical churches. One informative survey of those loyalists and their embrace of tithing can be found in a recent work. Read “Tithing, Pledging, and Offering Churches: Case Studies” (pp.97—127). Dean R. Hoge, Charles Zech, Patrick McNamara and Michael J. Donahue, Money Matters: Personal Giving in American Churches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996).