Church Economics: Why Tithes May Not Be Enough Anymore In Christian Denomination in Cameroon

Every organization, be it the state or the Church, needs money to be able to operate. While the state raises revenue through the imposition of taxes on the citizens, the Church does it through collection of tithes and other offerings from her members. Among other collections, tithe constitutes a major source of revenue to the modern Church. This work thus sets out to determine the factors influencing tithes compliance by members of some selected Christian Denominations in Bamenda. Specifically, it investigates the effect of: (a) demographic characteristics; (b) perceived benefits derived from tithing and (c) management approach on tithe compliance. Data was collected from Christians of selected church denominations in Bamenda, Mezam Division in the North West Region of Cameroon using the stratified random sampling technique. The data was obtained from 351 questionnaires, 193 of which were issued to Presbyterian Christians, while 67 were issued to Roman Catholics, 47 to Full Gospel and 44 to Apostolic Christians respectively. Descriptive statistics, correlative research design and inferential econometric approach base on the binary logistic regression were employed. Results show that payment of tithe statistically depends on gender as women were more likely than men to pay tithe. The occupation of the Christians, their marital status and denomination also significantly influenced their compliance to tithe. As the index for perceived benefits from tithe increased, the more likely were the Christian to pay tithe. Christians who perceived that tithes were not well managed were significantly more likely not to have paid tithe in the past three months. We thus recommend that Christians be taught to pay tithe as their Christian duty, not due to benefits previewed and strict management principles be applied to tithe to increase the adherence rate of tithe payments.