Those explosive questions figured prominently in Josiah Strong’s best-selling book, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, published in the 1880s. Strong was sure of one answer. A tithe was not enough. It did not match the severity of the “present crisis” and the “world’s emergency;” nor did it do justice to America’s “possible future.” “Proportionate giving” was better perhaps but probably still not enough. “But when this proportion has been given – be it a tenth, or fifth, or half – it does not follow necessarily that duty has been fully done.” Read Resource 4.10 - Josiah Strong, “Vision and Money” and follow Strong’s struggle with those questions.

A contemporary response to the questions about “all” can be found in Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1997). Read Chapter 9: “Toward a Simpler Lifestyle: The Graduated Tithe and Other Modest Proposals,” pp. 189 – 208. “An age of hunger and poverty,” Sider writes, “summons affluent people to a lower standard of living. But vague assent to this truth will not protect us from the daily seductions of Madison Avenue. Each of us needs a specific plan. The graduated tithe and communal living are two other possibilities. There are many more.” (P. 208) A word of warning: Sider’s proposals may not strike you as “modest” but they are surely provocative.

A classic text about giving all is John Wesley, “The Use of Money.” (Forthcoming) Here is one of the most enduring interpretations of giving in popular American culture over the last two centuries. John Wesley composed this sermon-essay in the 1740s. American preachers have frequently “borrowed” from Mr. Wesley, though without always giving him credit. Sometimes they don’t even know the origins of the famous three points — “gain all you can,” “save all you can” and “give all you can.”

Wesley's three "oughts" have melted into the conventional wisdom of American culture. And so, many of us will assume that we know what Wesley says before we read the text.

Read the text. It may surprise you. For instance, Wesley's plea to “save all you can” turns out to be a powerful plea for “voluntary simplicity.” This powerful and carefully reasoned interpretation of economic responsibility for working class folk in eighteenth century England could also stir us to “civic reflection” in the twenty-first century.

Another reading of a quite different sort is O. Henry, “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentleman (The Perfect Gift), pp. 42-46. Is this what it means to give “all”?