Prophetic Words on Church Wealth

Do away with tithing as a temple recommend requirement? Don’t hold your breath. We can only hope for a more accurate definition of “increase” and an acknowledgement of “full tithe” as someone works their way out of debt and has no “increase”.

I’ve often cited this BY quote on the bloggernacle, I marvel that one of the main themes of the BOM (materialism), and BY’s primary concern for the saints as they made the desert blossom as a rose has slunk out of our preview as we’ve become wealthy beyond our pioneer ancestor’s wildest dreams.

Tithing should be, and scripturally always should have been, based on one’s increase. “Increase” is circumstantial.

Consider:
-retirement differences in costs for those who live in countries with strong social safety nets, those who work for a company with pension benefits, those who must plan young and carefully to adequately fund their own retirement, and so forth.
-Healthcare costs, again, country and job dependent. Premiums, expenses, rx costs, dme needs, and so forth.
-Housing costs also vary greatly by location (as well as by generation): rent, saving for a down payment, mortgage, maintenance, property tax.
-Education. An education (college or other training) provides means for supporting one’s self and family, as well as contributing to the community and collective knowledge. Some countries fund and value education better than other countries do. Earlier US generations could pay for a bachelors degree by working a summer job. Not so anymore.
-Food.
-Childcare costs.
-Taxes -you get it, vary by location.
-Transportation.

Perhaps if the church had defined tithing on one’s increase we may have more members (and Q15+) who recognize individual circumstances and are sympathetic and charitable for those with heavier life burdens. Hopefully we would be a more progressive-thinking people.
Probably we would not have amassed the horrid $124,000,000,000: we would have insightful and creative minds on the real meaning of money.

Sasso, I agree, “increase” is circumstantial. The items you listed and others require interpretation which essentially propels us into the United Order. For example, why should my sibling not pay tithing b/c she bought a fancy Ivy League college degree when I only paid for a state school and therefore have significantly less debt? Does my neighbor, who owns a boat and jet skis, state of the art Xbox and home theater system, a cabin up the canyon, trendy house on the benches, wears name-brand clothes, takes fancy vacations, etc. but suffers from consumer debt be off the hook for tithing while a modest saint pays a widow’s mite? Most US families live in consumer debt, but I know a lds family who homesteaded on a corner of farmland (without running water) in order to dig out of debt. What is the expectation? The motivation?

Would tithing become the luxury of only of an ultra-modest and the uber-rich socioeconomic strata? What is an acceptable standard of living? Is it different in every country, from rural to urban, state to state? I think that people understand non-voluntary expenses like medical bills, but considering my home mortgage, should I have bought a piano (or jet ski) instead of paying a tithe? (Or for that matter, swimming lessons for the kids or music lessons?)

My point is that “circumstances” is difficult to define and when we consider circumstances, we move into UO territory.

People often use extreme examples and dire consequences as distraction and to sow doubt. I included words like adequate and job training, which indicate using a reasonable standard.

I didn’t invent increase – it’s the scriptural standard.

It’s a Pharisaical practice to insist we define what an increase might be. We can trust and empower individual tithe payers to come up with an appropriate amount.

It was disingenuous of the church to edit Lorenzo Snow’s statement on tithing in a way that completely alters his meaning. The church replaced three words, “who has means” with ellipses, so that the quote states “I plead with you in the name of the Lord, and I pray that every man, woman and child…shall pay one-tenth of their income as a tithing.” The omission of those the words “who has means” substantially changes the meaning of President Snow’s message. Our current policy that shapes our practice of tithe paying is deeply regressive and might put us in the category of robbing God or dishonoring the widow’s mite.

Mortimer–what about Mitt Romney’s IRA that is reportedly worth over $100,000,000? Our current policy seems to leave him off the hook for paying tithing on the money that sits in that fund until he withdraws it. I just can’t square that with the fact that we ask middle and lower income families to do without necessities when wealthy members are able to let their wealth grow in such an uninhibited manner over a lifetime. I don’t think this was Christ’s intent.

At final judgement, I envision complete transparency – nothing hidden or shaded with nuance. Our deeds and, most importantly, the intents of our hearts will be “on display”.

Why can’t our own well considered and prayerfully confirmed judgement of what our “increase“ looks like be our standard here on earth? If we aren’t honest with ourselves and God, it will be revealed.

The expense of cancer treatment vs. a boat? One causes money to vaporize – no increase there. The other – I’ve traded a cash increase for an increase of tangible personal property. Like most “commandments”, the principle seems simple. How we live it may be a struggle, but it is a struggle we can take before God and come away with personal revelation.

Why can’t a member declare a full tithe when they’ve paid $0 because they’ve had no increase? The way it is now, God may be right with that – but they won’t get a temple recommend.

The “will a man rob God” story is not directed to the members. It was Malachi’s admonition to the priests who, having collected the people’s tithes and offerings, were hoarding them because times were tough and they were not distributing to the poor and needy. The priests wanted to make sure their portion would be there in the future.

This story should cause reflection by the brethren on how they are handling the tithes and offerings (and the other income that is derived therefrom) rather than be weaponized to shame people to pay tithing instead of rent or food. The opening of the windows of heaven in Malachi’s tale is a promise to the Church that if they distribute the tithes and offerings, taking care of the poor, there will be enough and to spare for the Church. It is not God’s promise of prosperity to individual members, i.e. The Lord’s Law of Finance.

The increasingly legalistic church forced me to seek my own understanding and spiritual confirmation of so many principles. In many instances, that means that the path I feel is right for me diverges from the brethren’s definition of the “covenant path”.

Tithing should be strictly on an honor system. Pass around a collection plate, or equivalent. Pay online. Have members mail in payments to the COB. Keep local leadership from knowing who pays how much. The COB can email or mail statements to tithe payers for tax purposes. No longer require answering to tithing payment in order to obtain a temple recommend, neither at tithing settlement, nor at the recommend interview.

As it stands idea that tithing payment is voluntary is questionable. Many members in Mormon-heavy areas face great pressure to pay. Tithing settlement can and does act as a pressure system. It shows that local leaders know how much you pay and makes it so you know that the bishopric and clerk knows how much you pay.
Furthermore, it places members in front of family members and children reporting a yes or a no to the question of whether or not you are a full tithe-payer. Feeling the need to say no can be detrimental to some relationships (on the ex-Mormon reddit page, I read story after story of tithing-related strain to marital couples). People should no longer feel pressure to pay tithing to obtain a temple recommend. They should no longer feel pressure to pay beyond what they can afford. They should no longer be put in any situations where they feel extreme guilt for not paying enough. They should no longer feel the need to pay on the gross (the leadership needs to specify that it is the increase on which tithing is to be paid, and that paying on the gross is too much). With a $100 billion, there is no more need for this pressure system, which does not exist in other churches, mind you.

Sasso & John W… agreed. A few years ago, paying tithing on gross or net began to bother me after I considered this scenario: Household income in Home A is $100,000, where lives a working husband and wife with part time job, 3 kids, 2 car payments, a mortgage, modest savings for 401k, average bills, student loan and credit card debt, etc. Next door, in Home B, 25 year old slacker lives in Mom’s basement eating Cheese Its and playing video games all day. Mom enables him by paying bills and giving credence to Junior’s empty promises to launch. One day the doorbell rings. Junior answers it to meet a lawyer informing him that his deceased uncle just left him $100,000. — Under the current “understanding” of tithing’s “increase” as “income,” the family in Home A, and the debtless slob in Home B both will have the exact same tithing. This makes no sense to me and cannot be what the Lord intends.

To put this another way, I find no support in the scriptures for the notion that the Lord seeks to tithe our existence, that is, our minimum level of support to just live in a reasonable manner in our allotted t
ime and place. If it were otherwise, if the Lord did intend to tithe–tax–our very existence, then those with no income would always owe tithing. But they don’t. Those with no income pay no tithing. I deduce from this that the Lord does not tithe/tax our existence even though all living souls consume some level of valuable resources. (Presumably those with “no income” still ate this year, wore clothing, enjoyed shelter, accepted rides, received dental and medical care, etc.)

Now, I believe the hourly or salaried worker’s labor is worth something–inherently. (How can labor not have an inherent, minimum value when it comprises consumption of food, lost opportunity cost, amortized training, education, and experience, etc., etc.) If this understanding it correct, then the portion of remuneration for that inherent, minimum value of one’s labor CANNOT be increase. Only the portion above that is increase.

In my view, pressuring hourly working or salaried members to pay on gross or even net wrongly tithes part of their income that ought to be left alone, the part that is not increase at all. Neither the farmer nor the business owner pays tithing on all revenue; much of it simply replenishes overhead. Likewise with the worker–he has non-tithable overhead, too.

I figure my wife and I have paid tithing well into the six figures over the last thirty years, just going on autopilot from church culture, habit, and pressure to pay on gross. But having thought this through, it now feels wrong and confiscatory. There were MANY years we couldn’t get ahead. When our kids were young and well into their tweens, we were one or two months’ away from being broke. And I had a professional, white collar income and great medical benefits. We were much like Home A, above.

To any objection that “increase” is difficult to calculate, or chaotic, or nonuniform, I say I don’t think so, really. Common sense and prayer goes a long way in making an acceptable offering. Besides, this decision ought to be left to free moral agents no matter the ease or difficulty of calculation.

thechair

I’ve never, ever paid tithing on gross income. Where did people get the idea they should?
I do remember once in Primary someone telling the kids they should pay tithing on birthday money. Really? And should they estimate the value of other presents so they can pay tithing on that too?

In a First Presidency letter dated 19 March 1970 and quoted often since then, and I believe repeated in the Church Handbook of Instructions:
“The simplest statement we know of is the statement of the Lord himself, namely, that the members of the Church should pay ‘one-tenth of all their interest annually,’ which is understood to mean income. No one is justified in making any other statement than this.”
While the law of tithing in the LDS Church has not always been understood this way by its leaders, we’re coming on nearly a half-century of instruction to stop telling anyone how to define “income” or to pay on “gross” rather than “net”. I wonder where any pressure after to pay on “gross” is coming from unless from unauthorized and unjustified LDS social culture or rogue or ignorant and unjustified local church leaders.

I’m surprised that others are surprised that many tithe on gross. How does one suppose the Church got its EPA fund so well-endowed? Unfortunately, at least in Utah and nearby western U.S. states, there is an “unwritten order of things”(in Boyd K. Packer’s words) that allows and fosters these sorts of practices and cultural habits. For example, where did the intense expectation come from for priesthood holder to wear a white shirt? The Handbook doesn’t demand it. The Handbook only suggests that those administering the Sacrament wear a white shirt, but even that isn’t a requirement. Yet here we are in North America, at least, with most men appearing in a sea of white shirts. I once wore a colored shirt to Church on the day the new bishop was announced. By this clue, a fellow brother “knew” I would not be the new Bishop; I must have known I wouldn’t be Bishop if I were flouting expectations like that. As for the Handbook on tithing, the 1970 quote, the Lorenzo Snow and Orson Hyde quotes, and the like, I know and knew of all that. But here is what the Brethren teach today:

“President Nelson also said tithing can break cycles of poverty in poor nations and families.
“We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation,” he said. “That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing.” (Pres. RMN, preaching to Saints in Kenya, reported in Deseret News, 4/16/18.)

“One of the first things a bishop must do to help the needy is ask them to pay their tithing. Like the widow, if a destitute family is faced with the decision of paying their tithing or eating, they should pay their tithing.” (Tithing—a Commandment Even for the Destitute, Lynn G. Robbins Of the First Quorum of the Seventy, Apr. 2005 Gen. Conf.)

“After some events related to a civil war in Central America, my father’s business went bankrupt. He went from about 200 full-time employees to fewer than five sewing operators who worked as needed in the garage of our home. One day during those difficult times, I heard my parents discussing whether they should pay tithing or buy food for the children.

“On Sunday, I followed my father to see what he was going to do. After our Church meetings, I saw him take an envelope and put his tithing in it. That was only part of the lesson. The question that remained for me was what we were going to eat” (The Language of the Gospel, Elder Valeri V. Cordón
Of the Seventy, Apr. 2017 Gen. Conf.)

If the needy and the destitute are instructed to pay tithing first–on their “income”–then it should come as little surprise that a number of North American middle class members pay on gross, (or perhaps on some robust form of after-tax net–I speculate, here.)I know this is a minority, but the practice seems significant enough amongst leadership families to be a real thing.

At any rate, I’ve reasoned myself out of this understanding on gross.. Yet right after my last post, guilt got the most of me as I paid tithing online for the whole year in one big chunk. Despite three decades of overpayment, still we paid. Primarily to remain eligible to enter the Temple to see our last child marry someday soon.

A final thought occurs to me. The home is at least as important as the Church, no? If so, then isn’t the domestic fisc as high a priority as the Church’s? After all, “home-centered, church-supported” isn’t limited to instruction, right?