This is a penetrating look at the contemporary practice of tithing in the light of the Bible and church history, in which the author comes to some surprising conclusions.

Stuart Murray argues that tithing is 'biblical, but not Christian'; that Jesus didn't affirm it, that the early Christians for nearly three hundred years didn't practise it and that tithing came into fruition among Christians only well after the conversion of Constantine in the civilisation we have come to call Christendom. Thereafter, tithing came to be a source of contention and dispute, poisoning the relationships of clergy and laity. In England, tithing eventually expired as a formal system in the 1930s. Murray contends that just as Christendom was disintegrating, some Christians began to laud tithing as the Christian way to structure personal giving and church finances. 'Beyond Tithing' probes and radically examines assumptions and practices that have been common among Christians. Murray examines the resistance to tithing, its demise and recovery, and offers possible alternatives.