Why are most Christians stingy?

Ron Sider with a review of a book study on the wide gap in Christian giving:

Many have lamented the meager giving of American Christians. Others have questioned the data on which this criticism was based or pointed out that American Christians give more than those in most other nations. Now we have a careful, scholarly analysis of how much—i.e., how little—American Christians give, plus a sophisticated sociological analysis of why.

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Chapter 1 hits the reader like a ton of bricks, spelling out in detail what American Christians could accomplish if they would tithe. If just the "committed Christians" (defined as those who attend church at least a few times a month or profess to be "strong" or "very strong" Christians) would tithe, there would be an extra 46 billion dollars a year available for kingdom work

In my own church, I see the same small number of people doing a lot of work; giving of their time all the time (teaching the children, doing readings, coordinating fundraising for the bell tower, etc). I have the sense that these same relatively small number of people are also the ones who donate the most.

This book looks to be worth a look.