“If the Skeksis are all-powerful and
they have everything, then why do they require tithes from even the poorest
Gelfling?”
The Dark
Crystal: Age of Resistance S1
E1, ‘End. Begin. All the Same’ (2019)
It’s not often that I feel able to
recommend a television serial after having seen only the very first episode of
it. After all, we’ve barely even properly clambered into the actual plot of the
thing yet: it’s probably been mostly scene-setting and character introduction
and laying of foundations whose true importance will only be revealed later.
The premise might be a compelling one, but I can’t tell yet whether it’s been executed
in such a fashion as to do it justice. So when I say I really think you might
like to see The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, please be aware that I’m
saying I really think you might like to see it. The thing is a visual
marvel. It’s all done in puppetry, which I’d argue works as a kind of
best-of-both-worlds option straddling the line between live action and
animation. Like live action, it can incorporate a phenomenal degree of detail
in costume and set that most animated media, reasonably enough, simply can’t be
bothered with. And like animation, it can create breaktakingly fantastical
worlds and inhabitants thereof, with no limit on what’s achievable but the
human imagination. Add to that the total and utter charm of these
real-yet-unreal entities – solid, graspable, yet hailing from beyond the realm
of the factual and possible – and you have a recipe for absolute visual glee.
If the plot turns out to be decent as well, well, that’ll be an added bonus.1
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| This is Deet, one of the characters we met in Episode 1. Thanks to doublemaximus at newgrounds.com for the truly gorgeous fanart. |
Probably my favourite set of the first
episode is the library in the city of Ha’rar, which is the capital of the
Gelfling, the main inhabitants of the planet of Thra, where the story is set.
Every surface of the library glimmers with wood panelling, not that you can see
much of it under all the stacks and stacks of books – proper, hardbound tomes
the lot of them, some designed in exotic shapes so that the pages fold over
onto one another at unexpected angles.2 A magnificent spiral
staircase lined with yet more books snakes up to the high ceiling. Just next to
the bottom of this staircase is the reading-desk that seems to constitute the
favourite haunt of Brea, the youngest daughter of the All-Maudra, who rules
over Ha’rar and, by extension, all the Gelfling. But soon after we meet Brea,
she’s torn from her studies by an invitation to attend Ha’rar’s annual tithing
ceremony.
The All-Maudra might be top dog among
the Gelfling, but she and all her subjects sit under a yet higher authority,
namely, a small group of offworlders called Skeksis, who, if you couldn’t tell
from the fact that they basically look like carrion birds in elaborate Tudor
dress, are very definitely the Bad Guys of the story. From the off, it’s
abundantly clear that they care nothing for the Gelfling or for the wellbeing
of the world of Thra more broadly; on the contrary, they are intent on
exploiting these things in any way possible so as to extend their own
lifetimes. The Skeksis’ corruption is not well known, however, and most
Gelfling do their best to be of loyal service to their foreign overlords. Part
of that loyal service consists of offering a tithe, in kind, of one’s annual
income. Whether this is a strict tithe, as in ten per cent, or more of a gift
of whichever value the Skeksis deem appropriate, is not made clear. What is made
clear is that the whole process is horrifically unjust.
At one point during the tithing
ceremony, a farmer and his wife come forward and offer a bowl with a few
sad-looking fruits in it. The All-Maudra is not impressed: “Your tithe is
wanting.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” admits the farmer. “We
beg the lords’ forgiveness. Our land has suffered a strange blight. Nothing
grows.”
There is a pause. One of the two
Skeksis attending the ceremony, skekOk, steps forward to get a closer look at
the couple “Hmm. Lovely,” he remarks.
“What is, my lord?” asks the farmer’s
wife.
“That piece – pretty! – about your neck,”
replies skekOk.3
“My lord is too kind,” she says. “It
was my mother’s. Her final wisdom has been dream-etched into the stone.”
Sharing one another’s dreams and memories is a thing that Gelflings can
apparently do by various means; it’s not been explained very much yet, but
suffice it to say that this pendant takes sentimental value to a whole new
level.
“Now this would make an honourable
tithe!” declares skekOk.
Tension blooms. Brea is unsettled. “There’s
plenty of food in our stores,” she says to her sisters standing with her. “We
could pay the tithe.” They shoot her suggestion down without hesitation or
concession.
Meanwhile, the farmer pleads with
skekOk. “Please – anything but the pendant. Perhaps next harvest–”
“Why?” skekOk address the room in
general in a hurt, whingeing tone. “Why do Gelfling hurt us so? Skeksis give so
much and ask so, so little! It breaks our hearts.”
Uproar buds and blossoms among the
crowd of Gelfling assembled to offer their tithes. They insist that the farmer
pay just like the rest of them do.
The All-Maudra’s authoritative voice
cuts through the commotion: “The lords are benevolent! Kind! They never take
that which is not given.”
The farmer turns to his wife with eyes
about as full of anguish as a puppet’s can be, whispers an apology, kisses her
gently, and unclasps the pendant from around her neck in order to hand it over
to the Skeksis.
“This is wrong!” objects Brea, though
not loudly enough for anyone but her sisters to hear.
“This is the law,” snaps one of them.
“It’s the way of things,” says the
other, more gently, but with no more willingness to move.
The tithe is proclaimed accepted, and
the ceremony moves on to the next contributor.
Later, Brea is back at her favourite
reading-desk. “I’ve been reading about the tithing,” she tells the librarian. “None
of it makes sense … If the Skeksis are all-powerful, and they have everything,
then why do they require tithes from even the poorest Gelfling?”
“Because all Gelfling benefit from
Skeksis rule, so all Gelfling must contribute,” replies the librarian, clearly
less than comfortable with where this conversation is going.”
“Or perhaps they want us fighting each
other for the leftovers,” Brea suggests darkly by way of an alternative.
Of course, Brea’s question is a very
good one, a very incisive one – one that threatens to expose the Skeksis’
corruption for what it is and challenge the rightness of their rule. That’s why
the librarian proceeds to wrestle the book off her and forbid her from pursuing
her line of thought any further: because she’s getting dangerously close to the
truth. (Never trust anyone who tries to stop you reading, kids.)
If the Skeksis are all-powerful, and
they have everything, then why do they require tithes? Well, the answer to that
is, they don’t. They use the tithing system as a mechanism for exerting control
– keeping the Gelfling poor, and perpetuating a narrative of their dependence
on their Skeksis overlords. It might be the law, or the way of things, but Brea’s
right: it’s wrong.
 |
| I think this properly brilliant fanart by BlackArro3 at newgrounds.com is based on the 1982 film which inspired the 2019 TV series, rather than the latter itself. Still, this is how Skeksis look. |
So – and you knew where this was going
– what about God, then? If he’s all-powerful, and he has everything, then why,
under his covenant with Israel as laid out in the Torah, does he require tithes?
Well, a good place to start in terms
of answering that one is, what are the tithes for? In the Skeksis’ case,
they seem to just hoard the Gelfling’s contributions for themselves, with the
occasional gift for a favourite along the way: the farmer’s wife’s pendant is
subsequently given to the All-Maudra. By contrast, check out the following
chunk of Numbers 18:
To the Levites I have given every
tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do,
their service in the tent of meeting, so that the people of Israel do not come
near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall do
the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It
shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people
of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithe of the people of
Israel, which they present as a contribution to the LORD, I have given to the
Levites for the inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have
no inheritance among the people of Israel.4
So tithes, under the covenant with
Israel, are the property of the Levites, who weren’t assigned any land of their
own and so had no other means of supporting themselves. The other tribes, who
did have land, all gave ten per cent of the income it generated as the wages of
the Levites for their service in the tabernacle (or later, the temple), which
they carried out on behalf of the whole nation. Levites weren’t the only ones
who benefited from tithes, either; take a look at the following couple of
verses taken from Deuteronomy 26:
When you have finished paying all the
tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing. giving
it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they
may eat within your towns and be filled, then you shall say before the LORD
your God: I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I
have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow,
according to all your commandment that you have commanded me.5
The categories of people to whom
tithes were given were those groups vulnerable to poverty in the socioeconomic
system of ancient Israel. Land was assigned to heads of households of native
Israelites, so if you found yourself outside that framework – as an immigrant,
widow, or fatherless child – you’d likely be landless, as the Levites were, and
so without a reliable source of income. The tithes were there, in short, to
provide for those who lacked the means to provide for themselves.
Tithing as outlined in the Law, then, is
not about giving stuff to the one who already has everything. God doesn’t need
anyone’s stuff. It all belongs to him first by default anyway, and he lacks
nothing:
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills and
all that moves in the field is mine.
If I were hungry, I would not tell
you, for the world and its fullness are mine.6
That’s a little bit of Psalm 50 for
you there. Now consider the Skeksis again. They have everything, because the
whole planet belongs to them, but they demand offerings from even the poorest
Grifling. God likewise has everything, because the whole planet – the whole
universe, indeed – belongs to him, but what he demands is that the poorest of
his people be provided for by the offerings of the rest. If Thra were governed
according to the rules laid out in the Torah, the poor farmer whose crops had
suffered blight would have been receiving of the tithe, not giving one
out of his own meagre harvest.
So what does this mean for us under
the new covenant with Christ? Well, the first important fact to get settled in
our minds is that we are not obliged to tithe. That’s not our covenant. We’re
simply not part of the same system as tithing. There is no cause for you to
work out ten per cent of your income and – well, do anything in particular with
it. (In fact, you might want to set your subconscious working on the matter of
what you would do with it if you were going to try to tithe, while you
read the next few paragraphs; I’ll touch on that question in a bit.)
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| Calculate your ten per cent ... and then whisk these pound coins to the bank, sharpish, and get them exchanged for the new sort you can actually spend. |
I’ve seen it argued that, based on the
Torah, ten per cent is clearly God’s base requirement for charitable giving,
and so we ought to use that as our starting point when making financial
decisions. I think this argument is potentially missing the point a bit.
Tithing was not really charitable giving as we’d understand it; that would have
been something you did on top of your tithe. Tithing it was an economic safety
net for those made vulnerable to poverty by the nature of how their society
worked. Paying tithes was also compulsory. So if you’ll forgive me for straying
into slightly politicised language, it was fairly akin to what we might call a
social security tax. It was not, to borrow Paul’s wording from 2 Corinthians 9,
each one giving as he had decided in his heart. Indeed, to impose any base
requirement on charitable giving is surely to defeat the point of it being
charitable. Insisting that the contribution is freely given, while colouring it
as sinful not to give that specific contribution, smacks a little of what the
Skeksis did to the farmer and his wife, don’t you think? Somehow “God loves a
giver obliged by duty” doesn’t sound quite right. Obligation is not generosity.
In fact, obligation removes the opportunity for real generosity to be demonstrated
– but I’ve written about that before.7
There’s also the issue that imposing a
ten-per-cent minimum that Christians imagine themselves to be sinning if they
don’t meet, can do harm to exactly those people tithing was designed to help –
the poor and vulnerable. I saw a heartbreaking post on the Subtle Christian
Traits Facebook group some months ago, in which a member of the group was
asking for advice about how to handle the following situation: her parents had
started ‘tithing’ – which in context seemed to mean paying to their church –
ten per cent of their before-tax, rather than after-tax, income, as an ‘act of
faith’, and had ended up in debt because of it. I refrained from writing a
reply because I was worried I was too furious to write a helpful one, but a
glance at some of the other comments only made me more furious: a majority of
them affirmed that the girl’s parents were right to be tithing, even if they
disagreed about the niceties of exactly how. Meanwhile, the very idea that
Christians were ending up in debt – quite possibly to a non-Christian creditor –
because their church was telling them to contribute more than they could afford
towards its expenses, seemed pretty sickening to me.
The principle to take from Old
Testament tithing isn’t the figure of ten per cent: it’s the need to provide
for those members of the covenant community who lack the means to provide for
themselves. Our model for how to do this is indicated in Acts 4:
No one said that any of the things
that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common … There was
not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses
sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’
feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.8
So if you thought I was letting you
off the hook when I said we’re not meant to tithe under the new covenant, think
again. This point is probably worth a post of its own, but when Jesus quotes
something from the Law and follows it with a ‘but’, he has a rather irritating
habit of then following that ‘but’ with a demand far more stringent than the
one made in the Law.9 He moves the battleground from the outer
person to the inner one: no longer, do such-and-such, but rather, be such-and-such.
No longer, do not murder, but rather, don’t even be angry with anyone; no
longer, give your stipulated ten per cent, but rather, consider everything you
own to belong to your brothers and sisters as much as to yourself. Impossible
demands they may seem, and indeed they are, for us in the flesh, but Jesus is
able to make them of us, because he has granted us his Spirit dwelling in us to
conform us to his righteousness. There is radical sanctification, and there is
grace, by his blood, for every way in which we fall short. This is the law to
which we are subject.
I repeat: the principle to take from
tithing is the need to provide for those members of the covenant community who
lack the means to provide for themselves. I’m afraid I can’t resist mentioning
that this doesn’t involve paying for church-owned real estate or salaries for
professional ministers. Some people draw an analogy in this respect between the
role of the Levites and that of paid ministers, but this misses a crucial
distinction between the two: the function of the Levites, the duty whose performance
earned them their reward, was as mediators between God and the people. Scroll
back up and have another scan of that slice of Numbers 18: getting service at
the tabernacle or temple wrong was literally a matter of life and death, so
there needed to be a special consecrated group who could carry it out properly
on behalf of everyone else. Under our covenant, on the other hand, we have no
mediator but Christ. No one but he stands between us and God to bridge the gap
between his holiness and our sinfulness, and prevent that dissonance from
spelling our destruction. The Levites are fulfilled in Christ alone, and again,
he’s God; the cattle on a thousand hills are his; he doesn’t need us to pay him
a salary. Likewise, we have no temple or tabernacle to maintain: our temple is,
once again, Jesus, or else it’s the community of the Church. And only one of
those fulfilments is going to benefit from us sharing our income with it.
I’m not saying, by the way, that there
aren’t other categories of generosity that it’s right and good for us to
exercise – that the poor and vulnerable of the Church are the only people we’re
ever allowed to give any money to. But looking purely at the matter of tithing,
this is how it translates in our covenant.
The Skeksis have everything, but
require a tribute from even the poorest Gelfling. God has everything, and
apportions it to human beings as he wills. We glorify him when we manifest his
love for the poor and vulnerable among his people by making sure that everyone
is provided for. Holding everything in common is, for most of us, substantially
more difficult than calculating ten per cent of our income and sticking it on a
direct debit to the church we attend. But Jesus died and rose so that we could
not only inherit his righteousness in a technical, legal way, but also be
confirmed to his image in an authentic and practical way. I’m not pretending I’m
any better at this jazz than anyone else in our prosperous and individualistic
western society, but, in this as in so many things, adelphoi, I really do
believe we ought to try.
Footnotes
1 You can get it on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80148603?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2Cea26c99b-0b3e-4840-bdb1-1b0f05448307-67168608%2C%2C&ad=true.
2 First plug of the day, in case you’re one of those
heathens who still celebrates Christmas and are well organised enough to
already be thinking about presents: I have a friend who’s a bookbinder and
makes really lovely notebooks with nice fat paper that doesn’t mind markers or
watercolour paints: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LunaBloomsDesign?ref=ss_profile.
3 Second plug, to similar effect: I have another friend
who makes really beautiful statement jewellery from polymer clay and other bits
and pieces: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/HandcraftedByHatty?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=621624757.
4 Whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=num+18&version=ESVUK.
Just ESV today. Hey, it’s late, and translating takes time.
6 And, indeed, again: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ps+50&version=ESVUK.
More of my thoughts on this psalm are in ‘Rise of the Slightly Rubbish
Guardians’, under April 2017 in my blog archive.
7 In ‘The Present Situation’, way back in December 2015,
and also ‘Genuinely Generous’ in February 2017. Clearly I have run out of
things to say and am simply repeating myself in different iterations. Hopefully
it’s edifying all the same.
8 Penultimate Bible link for today: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+4&version=ESVUK.
I wrote about that one in ‘Hunted and a Hundredfold Houses’ in March of this
year too. Blimey, I really have run out of things to say.
9 Try Matthew 5 if you don’t believe me: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=ESVUK.
