Whether you call it a donation, a membership fee, a love gift, a prayer offering, a tithe, or any other name, at some point money leaves your hand and goes to your new religion. By itself this is not a bad thing: every religion needs a clean and sound place to meet (usually a building), food for celebrations and holidays, utilities and climate control, educational materials for children, seating, backing for charity work, advertising and missionizing funds, money for administrative costs and staffing (including clergy salary), places for congregants to park; bulletin, newsletter, newspaper, and book printing expenses; and many require music, vestments, and ritual supplies (including what would be called 'art' in a secular setting.)

How does your new community ask for money? How do you feel when the request is made - not 'how should you feel', but how do you feel? How often do they ask? How does the religion determine what an appropriate contribution level is? Is this standard applied in an evenhanded way? Are exceptions (for hardship or other reasons) made in a fair and reasonable way? How does the religion respond if you come upon unusually good (or unusually bad) financial circumstances? Would the religion treat you (or any adherent) the same way if tomorrow (and forever after) you found yourself absolutely unable to contribute to the collection plate? How are volunteers treated? Are people who give more (or less) treated differently or given a different status based on their contributions?

Can you look at the religion's books? At every level - your gathering, your region's gatherings, and nationwide (or worldwide)? Can you ask for a breakdown of where your contributions go, in general, and do the actual account books support this information? Do independent sources? Former members? Does money seem to pool in any part of the organization or go overwhelmingly to a particular cause or priority? Do you agree with this? What power do you have to change things if you don't? (It may even be a good experiment to ask for a financial report or a breakdown of, say, administrative costs per dollar given - just to see how your new community handles such questions.) I'm not asking you to write an investigative news report or audit the religion - but try a bit of looking around and watch for defensiveness or a sudden influx of theology (minus hard figures.)

Religions say a lot of things about money to make it easier to part with - set them aside, for the moment, and ask yourself if you'd accept the same treatment from a secular charity (say, the Red Cross/Crescent) or from a nationally-known business. Your income is yours to disperse as you please (I spend too much of mine on fountain pen ink...), and a bit of skepticism may serve you well. It is often valuable to check whether any group's spending matches its publicized goals and ideals, and at best the honesty, administrative efficiency, and funding of the greater good in your religion will be as advertised. (If not, then as an adherent you are in the idea place to ask for the changes you'd like to see.)

-Kushana