The General Conference, the United Nations, and the Tithe Crisis
There is a serious contradiction developing within Adventism that cannot simply be brushed aside with appeals to loyalty, organization, or tithe. The question is bigger than money. The real question is whether God’s people are obligated to financially support a religious organization while that organization is joined in an unlawful relationship with the kings of the earth.
The Bible has a name for such a relationship: harlotry.
God said concerning His professed people, “Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours” (Ezekiel 16:26). Again, concerning Israel’s political alliances, “She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours” and “with all their idols she defiled herself” (Ezekiel 23:7, 12). Revelation uses the same imagery concerning the great harlot, “With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication” (Revelation 17:2).
Biblical harlotry is therefore not merely sexual immorality. In prophecy, it describes an unfaithful religious body entering forbidden relationships with earthly powers rather than remaining faithful to God. That makes the present controversy over tithe far more serious than many seem willing to admit.
THE REAL ISSUE IS NOT TITHE — IT IS HARLOTRY
Conrad Vine has publicly challenged the present financial relationship between the church and government and has advocated redirecting tithe. Whatever disagreements people may have with every detail of his proposed solution, he has forced Adventists to confront an underlying question: What happens when the organization demanding God’s tithe is itself financially entangled with the powers of this world?
Many ministers immediately focus upon the money: “Don’t withhold the tithe. Don’t redirect the tithe. The tithe belongs to God.”
Yes, the tithe belongs to God. And that is precisely why this question matters.
Malachi does not say, “Bring ye all the tithes into the General Conference treasury.” It says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house” (Malachi 3:10). Leviticus likewise declares, “All the tithe of the land… is the LORD’S: it is holy unto the LORD” (Leviticus 27:30).
If the tithe belongs to God, then men have no right to assume that giving money to the Conference and giving money to God are automatically the same thing. The question cannot merely be, “Are you paying tithe?” We must also ask, “Where is God’s tithe going, and what are we supporting with that which God has declared holy?”
CAN WE FINANCE A HARLOT?
This is where the argument becomes uncomfortable. If a church enters an adulterous relationship with the kings of the earth, Scripture identifies the principle as harlotry. Therefore, if the General Conference is maintaining such an unlawful church-state relationship, the problem cannot be solved merely by telling the membership, “Keep sending us your money.”
That is not reformation. That is asking God’s people to finance the harlotry.
There is a remarkable statement in Ezekiel 16. In describing Israel’s spiritual adultery, God says, “Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee” (Ezekiel 16:17).
Notice whose gold and silver it was: “MY gold and MY silver.”
That principle has direct relevance to the tithe question. The tithe is God’s. Therefore, what happens when God’s resources are placed into the hands of an organization that is maintaining relationships God condemns? God does not teach that because the money belongs to Him, we should hand it to religious leaders regardless of what those leaders are doing with it. Stewardship applies not only to receiving money, but also to what is done with it.
THE CONFERENCE HAS CREATED ITS OWN DILEMMA
Here is the uncomfortable position Conference leadership has created for itself. If the institution has become financially dependent upon government funding, partnerships, grants, or other state-connected streams of revenue, then severing those relationships may have enormous financial consequences. Programs could disappear, institutions could struggle, employees could be lost, and budgets could collapse.
So when money becomes involved, there appears to be two very different standards.
When it is the people’s money, suddenly the standard is absolute: “The tithe belongs to God. You cannot withhold it. You cannot redirect it. You must follow the biblical order.”
But when it is the institution’s money, received through compromising relationships with the State, suddenly the standard becomes flexible. Where are the same urgent warnings? Where are the sermons demanding separation? Where are the declarations that God’s church must not depend upon the kings of the earth?
If we are going to appeal to principle, then let us apply the principle consistently. If God’s people must sacrifice financially in order to obey God, then the institution must be willing to do the same.
But none of that changes the biblical principle. You cannot justify harlotry because separation would be expensive.
If obeying God costs us government funding, then let the funding disappear. If obeying God costs us programs, buildings, salaries, schools, hospitals, or denominational prestige, then those things cannot be allowed to become our master. Jesus asked, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
The same principle applies to an institution. What shall it profit a church to gain the financial support of the world and lose its prophetic identity?
GOD’S OWN PEOPLE WERE CALLED HARLOTS
Some will immediately respond, “Are you calling the Seventh-day Adventist Church Babylon?” But that misses the biblical argument. Harlotry is a biblical description of unfaithfulness, and God’s professed people themselves were repeatedly called harlots when they entered forbidden alliances.
Jeremiah was speaking to God’s professed people when he said, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers” (Jeremiah 3:1). Even more striking is Isaiah’s lament over Jerusalem: “How is the faithful city become an harlot!” (Isaiah 1:21).
Notice carefully: the faithful city became a harlot.
Therefore, saying that God’s professed church is committing harlotry does not mean that God never called or used that movement. Quite the opposite. Harlotry presupposes that there was once a relationship of faithfulness that has now been violated.
The question is not whether Adventism once possessed a prophetic calling. The question is whether its present relationships are consistent with that calling.
CONRAD VINE’S POSITION EXPOSES THE CONTRADICTION
This is why Conrad Vine’s position creates such an uncomfortable problem for Conference defenders. As I understand his argument, he is not simply saying, “Stop giving because you are angry.” His argument connects financial support to the larger question of the church’s compromising relationships with the state.
In other words, if the objection is removed—if the church separates from these unlawful relationships, the financial controversy changes dramatically.
That puts the burden back where it belongs. If Conference leaders are concerned about losing tithe, there is a biblical solution: repent of the compromise. Come out of the unlawful alliances. Reject dependence upon the state. Return to dependence upon God and the voluntary support of God’s people.
But if ministers refuse to demand separation from these relationships while simultaneously demanding that members continue financing the institution, then an obvious question arises: What are they actually defending, the truth, or the machinery that pays them?
That is not an unfair question when nearly every objection centers on where the money is going while comparatively few voices are demanding that the Conference sever the relationships that created this crisis in the first place.
WE CANNOT CONDEMN ROME WHILE IMITATING ROME
Adventists have spent more than 180 years warning against the prophetic danger of a church united with the state. We quote Revelation 17: “I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast” (Revelation 17:3). We identify the woman as an apostate religious power and the beast as political power, and we condemn their union.
But what happens when we climb onto the beast ourselves?
Do the prophetic principles suddenly change because the name on the church building says Seventh-day Adventist? Of course not.
If union between church and state constitutes spiritual fornication when Rome does it, it does not become sanctified when Adventists do it. “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11).
We cannot point toward Rome and cry “HARLOT” while walking hand-in-hand with the same kings of the earth.
Scripture repeatedly warns God’s people against trusting political powers. “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help” (Isaiah 31:1). “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3). The church does not become spiritually stronger when Caesar finances its mission. It becomes dependent upon Caesar.
Jesus established a separation of jurisdictions when He said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). There are things belonging to Caesar and things belonging to God. The church belongs to God. Its mission belongs to God. Its message belongs to God. And its support should never become dependent upon an adulterous alliance with the kings of the earth.
THE TITHE QUESTION CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE APOSTASY QUESTION
Some ministers want to isolate the tithe question: “Whatever happens, don’t touch the tithe.” But Scripture does not allow us to separate money from worship, obedience, and stewardship.
Hosea records God’s complaint concerning apostate Israel: “For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal” (Hosea 2:8).
God gave them the resources, but they used those resources in apostasy. Therefore, saying “God gave us the money” was not enough. The question was what they were doing with what God had given them.
That question still stands.
This does not mean Christians should become selfish and simply keep God’s tithe for themselves. Absolutely not. God’s work still requires support. Ministers preaching present truth need support. Evangelism needs support. Missionaries need support. Publications must be printed, meetings conducted, and faithful workers sustained. Paul wrote, “Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14).
The answer to institutional apostasy is not covetousness. It is faithful stewardship.
The question is not simply, “Should I give?” The question is, “Am I supporting God’s work, or am I financing apostasy?”
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
A QUESTION FOR EVERY CONFERENCE MINISTER
Therefore, I would ask every Conference minister who condemns Conrad Vine for redirecting tithe: Are you equally willing to condemn the Conference’s compromising relationships with the state?
Will you publicly call for separation? Will you tell the General Conference to reject the money, sever compromising relationships, and depend upon God again?
Because if your primary concern is that the Conference continues receiving the people’s money while you remain silent about the compromising relationships creating the controversy, then people have every right to ask what you are actually defending.
Jesus said plainly, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
If financial survival requires compromise, choose God and let the money go. If institutional survival requires spiritual adultery, choose faithfulness and let the institution suffer. If the choice is between the treasury and truth, choose truth.
The General Conference cannot demand that God’s people finance a harlot relationship while refusing to separate from the kings of the earth. The solution is not complicated: stop playing the harlot, separate from the state, refuse the compromising money, repent, and return to God.
Then, instead of demanding the people’s confidence, leadership can begin earning it again.
“How is the faithful city become an harlot!” — Isaiah 1:21
The tragedy of that verse is that she was once called faithful. There can be no genuine reformation until we are willing to call the sin by its biblical name.
