Church Finances – Tithings, Offerings & Enforcement

In this blog post, we will begin to delve into the financial aspect of the Golden Dawn Tabernacle/Tabernaculo Emanuel, including the examination of their sources of donations, the management of funds, and the strict implementation of tithing by Pastor Isaac Noriega. Additionally, we will investigate any suspect financial practices within the church. Despite our attempts to seek a statement from Pastor Noriega and Church Secretary/Treasurer Samuel Mike Samaniego, they would not answer our phone calls or attempts to reach out.

Synopsis

• Church members are mandated to donate a minimum of 10% of their income towards tithing, and any other financial gains towards the church, as well as make additional contributions in the form of offerings.
• Isaac Noriega oversees tithing enforcement. In cases where he suspects that members have not donated the minimum expected, he may contact them to demand payment of the required 10% or publicly address the issue during a service.
• Isaac oversees and directs the church funds at his discretion (see audio recording below)
• The church allocates the funds towards various endeavors, including the acquisition of real estate, and extending private and business loans to certain members of the congregation
• Isaac Noriega asserts that he does not receive a salary from the church, citing his financial independence. However, this claim is subject to further examination as the matter is investigated further in the blog post.

Tithings & Offerings – 10% of income goes to the church

Pastor Isaac Noriega preaches that a minimum of 10% tithing is mandatory on all gross income, including sales. As an illustration, if a church member earns a gross income of $50,000 per year, they are obligated to pay a minimum of $5,000 in tithings. Similarly, if a church member sells a vehicle for $10,000, they are required to pay a minimum tithing of $1,000 to the church. This principle applies to any substantial sales of properties, homes or any substantial financial gains such as inheritances, lawsuit settlements, etc. Additionally, church members who own businesses are expected to pay tithings not only on their personal income but also on their business profits, and in certain businesses where Isaac had excessive control, they were even required to pay tithings on their revenue (money generated from routine business operations).

Aside from tithings, the church also collects offerings three times a week, during the Sunday morning and evening services, as well as the Wednesday evening service. These donations are said to be directed towards the Deacon board’s discretionary fund, which is used to assist members of the congregation in need.

As previously discussed, per the church rules, members are obliged to inform Pastor Isaac of any significant life decisions, thus he is generally aware of any substantial sales or financial gains made by the members. In one very concerning case, a church member widow was advised by Pastor Isaac Noriega to invest her late husband’s inheritance in a retirement or annuity account that locked her out of accessing the funds until a certain age. However, after she followed his advice, Isaac demanded that she pay tithes on the money, and when she couldn’t, he forced her to sell her late husband’s truck and give the proceeds to the church. This is a disturbing abuse of power, as Isaac took advantage of a vulnerable woman who was already financially struggling, and put her in an even worse situation by taking away her vehicle.

Isaac also utilizes church member-owned businesses as a means of enforcing tithing. He will contact the business owners to verify which members are employed by these businesses and gather information about their income. He will then cross-reference this data with the tithing revenue to determine if members are paying tithes and/or meeting the required minimum tithing threshold of 10%. If they are not, he will use his position of authority to impose consequences. For instance, in one case, a teenage church member who was employed by a church member-owned business was not paying tithes (which are supposed to be voluntary). Isaac Noriega called the business owner (who also happened to be a church trustee) to confirm the teenager’s employment, and then “influenced” the business owner to terminate the employee, citing the reason that he wasn’t paying tithes. When firing him the employer stated that he couldn’t have employees in his company that weren’t in good financial standing with the church.

In another example, Isaac publicly remanded a church member at a wedding reception because he hadn’t paid his tithings that week, even though this church member was only paid bi-weekly (every two weeks).

Are these Tithings and Offerings for a Good Cause?

While voluntarily contributing tithes to one’s home church out of personal choice is not inherently wrong, the examples provided above serve to illustrate the extreme measures that Pastor Isaac Noriega will take to micro-manage and enforce tithing in order to increase the church’s revenue. He employs tactics such as guilt-tripping the congregation into believing that they are not true believers if they do not tithe, as the money is going towards a noble cause. He told one former church member that he was “stealing from the Lord” because he wasn’t paying his tithes. He also says those that don’t pay tithes are not obedient to God’s word and they don’t love the Lord. As evidence, an audio recording of Isaac Noriega discussing his control over the funds and criticizing a church member for not paying tithes, who recorded the conversation, is provided below.

Besides providing evidence on Isaac’s position on tithing, what is very important to note in this recording is that Isaac is explicit that he controls where the church money goes. He stated “I channel it to the places where I feel to help people that that have needs and you know there’s been people that we we — I use I use the money to build those little homes you know for the for the little brothers you know that that can’t afford you know homes and all that. And that’s what we’ve done with it.”

Isaac Noriega claims that the tithings and offerings donations go towards a noble cause, to assist the “bride” and help those in need, specifically referring to them as “little brothers“. However, this language comes across as condescending. It has also been brought to our attention that Isaac has been using the church funds as a personal bank, providing loans to select church members, paying off home mortgages, financing businesses and even buying properties for his relatives before they filed for bankruptcy, as previously reported in our Church Property article. We believe that these practices are being carried out more to exert control rather than to aid others, and we will be publishing an article detailing these questionable financial practices within the church in the near future.

While it is possible that some of the church funds are being used to aid those in need, it is important to question whether the ends justify the means? Is it scriptural for Pastor Isaac Noriega to demand that a widow pay tithes by selling her late husband’s truck when she is struggling financially? Is it ethical to get a young man fired from his job as a punishment for not paying tithes? More importantly, is it humane and compassionate? These actions raise doubts about the appropriateness of such behavior from a spiritual leader. Is this the kind of conduct that should be expected from a true pastor?

Moreover, the church opens itself up to potential abuse by allowing the pastor to have complete control over church finances without any accountability or transparency. This creates a dangerous lack of oversight.

Financial Independence Claims – Class Action Lawsuit

As shown in the above recording, Pastor Isaac Noriega asserts that he does not receive a salary from the church. Despite this claim, there is a general consensus by church members that he receives a housing/parsonage allowance to cover expenses such as housing, food, and vehicle costs, but the specifics of this allowance are not revealed to the congregation.

Isaac states that he does not receive a salary from the church as he claims that God made him financially independent through a class action lawsuit he and his family were involved in during the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, this claim is likely to be untrue as the funds from the lawsuit were distributed among a large number of plaintiffs, and also used to cover legal fees, therefore, it is unlikely to have provided significant financial independence.

The class-action lawsuit that Isaac and his family were plaintiffs in with was “Valenzuela, et al v. Hughes Aircraft Comp” and was in regards to Pollution in Tucson Water.

Case Title: Valenzuela, et al v. Hughes Aircraft Comp
Case: 4:1985cv00903
Court: Arizona District Court
Date Filed: 10/01/1985
Date Closed: 02/23/1995
Total plaintiffs: ~1,600

Regarding the aforementioned class action lawsuit, a settlement of $84.5M was divided among approximately 1,600 plaintiffs. The specific payout per plaintiff is not publicly available as it is likely to be confidential. However, based on conversations with other former plaintiffs, it is known that the amounts varied depending on the severity of the impact on each individual. Furthermore, it is understood that the amounts paid out were not sufficient to make one financially independent. Based on public records, it is known that Isaac, his wife Lucy (who is now deceased), and their children, Stephen, Lucinda, and Grace (who is also deceased) were among the plaintiffs in this case. To provide some context, if all plaintiffs had received an equal payout and there were no legal fees to cover, each would have received $84,500,000/1,600 = $52,812.50. For Isaac’s family, that would have amounted to a total of $264,062.50 for the entire family.

It is worth noting that Grace passed away due to leukemia, which was believed to be caused by the water pollution that was the subject of the lawsuit, therefore, the family would have likely received a larger settlement for her. Through interviews with relatives of former plaintiffs, it was determined that another plaintiff in this case, who had lupus and cancer received a settlement of $187,000. It is also worth noting that Isaac convinced this particular plaintiff to donate around $50,000 of this award to the church. Another plaintiff, who was less severely impacted, received $38,000.

Using these baseline figures as a reference, it is likely that Isaac Noriega’s family each received approximately $38,000 each, with the exception of Grace, who would have likely received approximately $187,000, for a total of $339,000. It is important to note that this is an estimate as the actual figure is not publicly available. It is likely that the settlement payout to Isaac Noriega’s family was closer to $500,000 and not more than $1,000,000. A settlement of $500,000 would not be enough to make a family financially independent, especially when considering the significant real estate wealth that the Noriega family has accumulated as reported in our recent article.

The reason for discussing this class action lawsuit settlement is that Isaac frequently uses it as justification for not needing the church’s money. He has been candid about the lawsuit and how it made him and his family financially independent, to the extent that he claims to have loaned money to the church for church building construction. We find this statement questionable and hard to verify. We would like to challenge him to provide documentation of the amount he and his family actually received from the lawsuit, as well as the amount he loaned to the church, in order to support his claim of financial independence. If he is able to provide this information, we would be willing to share it on this website to clarify the situation.

Summary

We are discussing the mandatory 10% tithing, offerings, and enforcement practices because of the underlying motives behind them. Pastor Isaac Noriega is extremely passionate about collecting tithes and will resort to unethical methods to enforce it. Interestingly, Isaac previously worked as a collections officer and bank loan officer in his previous career. While Isaac asserts that the church’s tithings are used for a good cause, it is difficult to understand how using church tithing money to assist the needy (at Isaac’s discretion) justifies the lack of empathy and respect demonstrated in forcing a financially struggling widow to pay tithes by selling her late husband’s truck.

There is a very relevant verse we would like to share with you:

Matthew 23:23, KJV: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

In this verse, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for being preoccupied with tithing as a display of piety, but neglecting more important matters such as justice, mercy, and faith. Where was Pastor Isaac’s sense of justice and mercy when he was demanding tithings from the church widow for the sale of her late husband’s truck? It appears that Pastor Isaac Noriega’s actions more closely resemble those of a Pharisee than those of Jesus.

Do you have any church finance information you’d like to contribute about Golden Dawn Tabernacle / Tabernaculo Emanuel? Please feel free to comment below, or you can contact us below, anonymously, or if you would like us to respond to you, please provide an email address or phone number.

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