Deuteronomy’s philanthropic stance against poverty: An advocacy for charity tithe in United Missionary Church of Africa, Ilorin

Abstract

Poverty alleviation has been discussed extensively in economics and other disciplines. While theology has not been left out of the
discourse, there has been little emphasis on the perspective of theological anthropology concerning poverty alleviation. This
paper explores Deuteronomy’s philanthropic posture towards the poor from the perspective of theological anthropology and how
such an anthropology is applied through the practice of tithing in the United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA) in Nigeria. The
paper adopts the Kantian understanding of poverty and uses contextual analysis to interpret relevant biblical texts. Data from
focused group discussions conducted in selected churches of UMCA, Ilorin, were also analysed. It was found that though the
book of Deuteronomy is the ocentric, its narrative is intensely concerned with the liberation of humans, especially the weak in society. It was also established that UMCA models its practice of care for the poor on the tenets of the book of Deuteronomy;
however, the church must also motivate its poor to aspire towards self-reliance. The paper concludes that tithing is a caritative
measure that could be adopted towards effective poverty alleviation in UMCA.