Jean and Jim Darrell are a Los Angeles couple of modest means who live frugally by necessity.
He works part time for an internist, doing office work, and she augments the family income by house sitting and taking care of a friend's pets. They drive a 1989 Mazda and seldom go out to eat.
Yet they've been giving a tenth of their gross income to their church for the past 20 years -- even when Jim Darrell was unemployed after being laid off.
"Leaping out in faith" to commit 10% of their earnings ahead of time has been "an adventure," they concede. But, they say, they have always managed.
"God always provides," said Darrell, who, with his wife, is a longtime member of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. "Nothing extra -- just the essentials, which is all we need."
But people like the Darrells -- those who hew to the biblical mandate of tithing -- are increasingly rare, according to surveys and church records of contributions. Churches and nonprofit Christian ministries across the country have been reporting a significant decline in financial support in the last year and a half. Some attribute the change to competition for charitable dollars since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, others blame the poor economy.
Consistent tithers are a small group -- about 3% of American adults last year, according to a recent study. And the proportion of tithers appears to be dropping, the survey indicates. In 2001, 8% of adults surveyed reported that they tithed, according to the poll of 1,010 adults by the Oxnard-based Barna Research Group. The independent marketing research firm has tracked cultural trends related to beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviors since 1984.
Even among born-again Christians, who make up 38% of the nation's population, just 6% tithed last year, compared with 14% in 2001, the survey found.
Among evangelicals -- defined for the survey as people who believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Jesus with non-Christians -- 9% tithed, according to the survey. The evangelical group makes up roughly 6% of the nation's population, according to Barna figures.
Pollster George Barna attributes the decline in the number of people tithing to the soft economy, the threat of terrorism, the scandals involving Catholic priests and long-term demographic shifts.
"We are losing many of the people who have a habit of tithing," he said, "while the proportion of homes headed by younger adults, who have never tithed and don't plan to, is growing."
