Stiffers for Christ: Using Bible Quotes for Tips? Unbelievable!

The piece (‘What Would Jesus Tip?’) in the Sunday Denver Post had my head spinning! Fundies (mainly) using scriptural quotes as restaurant tips! They sign restaurant tip spaces with bollocks like: ‘Isaiah 41:10’ which reference turns up: “Fear not, for I am with you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you!”


Jeebus! Pity the poor waitress stiffed like that! I mean, will she be able to make her rent or electric bill with a quote from Isaiah? Look, I’m not a big fan of American tipping culture since I believe it lets greedy employers off the hook for paying decent wages. Be that as it may, I still provide a respectable 15% tip whenever wife and I eat out, and 18% if the service is commendable, 20% if excellent. In all my years of tipping I only "semi-stiffed" a waiter once (even then giving him a very generous 10%) and this was after three times failing to deliver what I asked for. Three strikes and you’re out!

But these Jesus freaks are at a whole other level of stiffing. In fact it’s so bad and they give their kind such a bad name that wait staff around the country have begun to refer to them with the sobriquet of “Stiffers for Christ”. So many service workers are aware of the trend that they try to beg off Sunday brunches when most of these holy rollers show up, just after Sunday services.

A notable incident in Missouri last month was actually made public by a waitress at an Applebee’s. (Alas she was fired for doing so!) In this case, a “Pastor” Alois Bell – as reported in the Post piece- crossed out the 18% automatic tip and scribbled in:

“I give God 10%. Why do you get 18%?”


Uhhhh….well, for starters, because she is real and serving you real food you just gobbled up, while God is….where? In heaven?

Anyway, waitress Chelsea Welch posted a photo of the stiffer’s bill on Reddit, and the story went viral. Once the restaurant picked it up on the radar, she was fired.


But that’s only one instance, there are many many more. Indeed, the ‘Daily Finance Website’ has noted that “the idea that Christians are poor tippers has apparently been whispered in service circles for a long time”.

Even the Christians themselves admit it! Writing for Lutheran Magazine, one minister put it thusly:

“As a matter of fact, we’re pretty cheap! What makes this worse is that we paint ‘cheap’ with a religious sounding veneer and call it ‘being a good steward’. Nothing like hiding behind the Bible to camouflage your stinginess! “


This is also very difficult to comprehend. I mean don’t these bible thumpers recall Christ saying “Whatever you do for these the least of my brethren, that you do unto me?” Well, don’t wait staff with a tip minimum wage of $2.13 an hour qualify? They surely don’t earn as much as some of the fundie pastors I’ve seen around the Springs driving in their Bentleys and Mercedes, to and from their Mega-churches!

It seems the bible beaters only trot out their quotes when it’s convenient to do so.

The author of the Post piece observes: “It’s equally classless to leave gospel tracts and quotes instead of tips.”

He then cites several cases including one incident where the pastor (Pastor Mike?) left a fake $10 bill with a scripture quote and the addendum: ‘Some things are better than money’.

Oh really? And what if your waitress is a single mom with three kids to feed, and working two jobs. What if the proper tip for your $49.95 steak dinner might have just enabled her to purchase a slightly more suitable meal for them? Now, what is she going to do with your foolish $10- fake bill?

Worse, by leaving such tracts or fake tips with nonsense verbiage, the Xtian stiffer is devaluing the person that just labored over serving them their fare. Baptist Pastor Dan Readle, quoted in the piece, acknowledges that such a no count cheapskate is effectively saying with the slight:

“You are not a person, but just a notch on my belt of evangelistic pride”

Hmmmm….so very close to certain “pastors” who put notches on their blogs showing friends, family and others in flaming “Hells”, with their own scriptures warning time is running out….tick…tick….

But in fact, the time is running out for them and their foolish, self-righteous creeds. Recent polls and surveys disclose more and more young people, especially, abandoning traditional religions and churches to pursue their own spiritual paths. They want no part of the blatant hypocrisy. And by all standards, any church which preaches helping one’s brother (or “saving” him) but whose members stiff service workers, is certainly a bastion of hypocrisy.

As the author notes: “Waiting tables is tough enough without getting an unwanted dose of piousness, especially in place of a gratuity”.

Imagine then that hypothetical mom with 3 kids, waiting tables all day long including many with picky kids, and overly demanding diners. Then, at the end, she waits on one large table of 10-12 churchgoers. After catering to their every whim for over an hour she finally gets left the bill, and a paper napkin beneath it with these inked in words:

“Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?” - P.S. Aren't these words worth all the tips in the world?


Would YOU want to be “saved” by any of these sanctimonious fools? Or, would you dismiss them as cruel ignoramuses and pursue your own spiritual path?

I know what I’d do!