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Brothers and sisters, I stand before you today to bear my testimony to you that you need not fear if you quit paying tithing. Your financial blessings will not change.
I was raised to pay tithing, starting with the dime I would put in the tithing envelope when I got a dollar allowance as a child. Throughout my life until my late forties, tithing was always the first thing I paid. After a lifetime of faithfully paying tithing, I had tithing stories galore! I could stand in front of a Sunday School class and tell tithing blessing stories for an hour.
Then the spirit prompted me to stop paying my tithing. I questioned this prompting. How could the spirit prompt me to disobey our church leaders? Nevertheless, the prompting came again and again until I stopped paying my tithing. The timing of this was frightening, because my life was at a financial crossroads. I had taken a job that was for a specific time period, and the year I quit paying tithing was the year I was going to need to look for new work. Every other time in my life that I have needed a job, I had been paying tithing and felt blessed in my job search. Imagine my surprise when, even though I wasn’t paying tithing, I quickly found a job that not only had better pay than the job I was leaving, but had the excellent retirement benefits that I needed so badly.
Then something went wrong with my start date — it was delayed for a month. My end date at my previous job was firm, so I went a month without a paycheck. Fortunately, I had enough savings to cover that month’s expenses. It made me think about how I would have framed that month if I had still been paying tithing. I would have attributed my ability to still pay the bills to paying tithing. However, even though I wasn’t paying tithing, I could still pay the bills for that month without a paycheck. Whether or not I could pay the bills that month had nothing to do with my tithing, but if I had been paying tithing I would have spun it as a tithing blessing and worked it into my next Gospel Doctrine lesson on tithing.
I realized that I had been attributing all of my financial decisions and blessings to paying tithing, even when it was actually due to other factors. Heavenly Father did not penalize me for quitting my tithing. Instead, obeying that prompting showed me that his financial blessings are unconditional. Heavenly Father “sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45) and he won’t make your family suffer financially just because you didn’t pay your tithing.
Now, if you pay tithing because you can afford it, you believe the Church is a good entity to support, and you want to pay tithing, then by all means, keep paying your tithing. This testimony is for those members who are struggling financially and wish they didn’t have to be full tithe-payers, but are worried that Heavenly Father will punish them financially by making things worse if they stop paying tithing. I promise you that any financial blessings that Heavenly Father has in store for you will be yours, with or without tithing.
The time is now yours, my brothers and sisters, to bear your testimony and reassure our readers that they do not need to obey commandments out of fear that Heavenly Father will withhold blessings and punish them for disobedience.
Wheat & Tares 
1. Good things happen to good people AND to bad people.
2. Bad things happen to bad people AND to good people.
3. Good things happen to tithe payers AND to non-tithe payers
4. Bad things happen to tithe payers AND to non-tithe payers
Bonus info:
5. Some sick people recover, some don’t.
6. Some sick people who receive a priesthood blessing recover, some don’t.
Thanks for your time.
“I promise you that any financial blessings that Heavenly Father has in store for you will be yours, with or without tithing.”
If he blesses you one way or the other–then why not keep paying it?
Also, I give it to you as my opinion that we should avoid public expressions of personal revelation that are contrary to general counsel.
Josh h, you’ve expressed the Book of Ecclesiastes in a nut shall:
“There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.”
But regardless of that seeming injustice the book ends with this reminder:
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
In other words we pay tithing first and foremost because it is our duty and not because we might receive blessings for paying it.
I like Jana Reiss’ plan of paying tithing to reputable charities outside of the Church. If you cannot afford financial donations, then offer time instead. There are so many ways to serve one another. Please seek the Lord’s guidance to determine how you can best help given your unique resources and circumstances.
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/11/30/jana-riess-my-new-way/
Great testimony, Janey. I think it’s especially interesting since you’ve experienced both paying and not paying, and observed your level of blessedness. Just like how GAs, by and large, haven’t experienced life both inside and outside the Church, and so have no real idea of what it’s like outside, GAs and others who advise you to never slack in paying your tithing have likely never tried not paying it.
I also love that you hit on the word “attribute” a couple of times, because I think that’s absolutely key, not only for tithing, but for all kinds of experiences related to the Church. The Church encourages us to attribute any and all good stuff that happens to us to God blessing us for having done this or that right thing. But it’s not cause and effect like watching billiard balls hit each other. The attribution could very well be wrong, as your experience shows.
Also, contra Jack, I think it’s a good idea to widely publish your ideas that go against Church counsel so that we don’t all turn into the mindless automatons that Elder Bednar and others so wish we would be.
I believe strongly in tithing not as a vending machine transaction or tit-for-tat but because I believe deeply in the transformative power of sacrifice. Money is hard for me to give up, so hard. Doing so and knowing I do so is a character thing for me.
I still pay to the church, but only do so out of respect for my spouse as it’s deeply important to him. Otherwise I’d send a smaller amount to the church and more to local charities. Helping our neighbors is also a character thing for me. The stock market, building temples, etc. is not.
What josh h said.
What I find interesting is how much of Mormonism is rooted in stuff that doesn’t really have much of a presence in the scriptures. The idea that strict adherence to Mormonism will bring blessings in the form of money, health, and good relationships seems pretty fundamental. I guess some of those ideas are derived from Jesus’s parables, about how you can be healed by faith. But the stories in Mormonism still seem to carry a very different sense. The second fundamental belief of Mormonism that you constantly hear in testimony meetings, which doesn’t seem to have much presence in the scriptural canon, is the idea that you can hear some still small voice guiding you in both important decisions such as taking a job or not, or even in the smallest most trivial things such as what to wear. And that this still small voice can often sound just like a human voice and that by listening to it you can spare yourself from massive calamity in a split second.
Tied in with this idea is that there are all these micro-miracles happening all the time (not Moses parting the Red Sea, but unexpected pieces of good news like extra pay, or unexpected turn for the good in health), and that you just have to pay close attention to them, and that once you recognize these micro-miracles, well that just proves everything true about the church’s truth claims. People always claim some sort of special moment or experience, that is just too sacred to share (of course), that proves everything. Come on. It is not believable that some magical experience proves all the church’s truth claims. Bear in mind that Mormonism is not the only religion where people claim to have magical/hyper-spiritual experiences that prove everything about a tradition. Lots of other religions do. In particular, the FLDS have long claimed the veracity of their religious practice and their prophets by making the same claims. What makes them wrong? If we have FLDS members bearing their testimonies about an undeniable spiritual experience that just proved to them that Warren Jeffs was really the true prophet to guide the Lord’s church in these latter days, should we place much stock in that? Wouldn’t you say that there is a whole lot of confirmation bias going on there? If that’s the case, then why not claim that Nelsonite Mormons are basically experiencing the same kind of confirmation bias leading them to believe that their seeing all sorts of micro miracles and having undeniable spiritual experience that somehow prove everything true. Also, could someone please give me some solid descriptions of what these “undeniable” experiences are and stop hiding behind “too sacred to share” cop-outs? Might it be that if you spell out these “too-sacred-to-share” experiences in greater detail that what you find is really not all that significant or different from the norms of claimed spiritual experiences and that what is going on are rather normal human brain responses to a rather normal set of stimuli and that what explains these “undeniable” experiences are just normal human psychological phenomena and not the supernatural?
Also, at the statistical level, none of these stories about praying and fasting extra hard for healthy recovery at the hospital pan out. How many prayers are said and priesthood blessings are given in Utah hospitals? Do we see any statistical differences between recovery rates in Utah hospitals and non-Utah hospitals? Not really.
Umm…this is a little awkward and I hate to be the person to say it… but I’m pretty sure we need to haul Janey before a disciplinary council, I mean (court of love) and prosecute her for blasphemy. Who’s with me?…. Jack?
Elder Christofferson, October 2022 General Conference: “We ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we (1) select a desired blessing, (2) insert the required sum of good works, and (3) the order is promptly delivered.”
I have found it really helpful to ponder why I keep the commandments that I do (or don’t), and to do the mindful, difficult work of discovering/identifying my motives and motivation, so that I do not do things out of culture or habit, but because they are the right things for me to do in this time of my life.
Jack, S.Scotty, and others saying the righteous need to pay tithing to the church by shaming. Just what is wrong with Janey saying her experience? Both sides to an argument need to be heard and then let people decide. Shutting the opposition up does not win an argument. Let the opposition speak, then prove them wrong. Stop trying to win the argument by shaming the opposition into silence. If you can’t win the argument on the merits of paying tithing, then lose the argument graciously. But stop bullying your way into being correct. I get so tired of people saying “do it because not doing it is BAD.” Why is not doing it bad? And let’s talk about the dangers of giving a rich institution 10% of your total income before paying rent of buying groceries. Let’s talk about not saving for retirement because you give all the money you can spare to the church. Let’s talk about what the church does with the money *honestly* for once and let people decide if that is what God would really do with his money.
@Anna- and for anyone else- I want to clarify that my comment above (and really any comments I make) should be taken as extreme sarcasm. I mean no offense towards Janey. (I mean a little bit of offense towards Jack, 🙂 but good natured offense that I hope he can handle).
I’d like to bear my testimony that I know the Church is tru…ly just fine without your tithing dollars. God will not withhold blessings and punish you. In fact, withholding blessings and doling out punishment is actually coming from the bishopric seated behind me who insist on “keeping our ward out of red” despite the fact that we live in one of the lowest income neighborhoods on the Wasatch front. While you’re worried about feeding your families and coming up with the extra time to complete the mandatory service hours to “earn” your trips to the Bishop storehouse and DI in addition to paying tithing, our church is sitting on billions and have a lovely diversified portfolio along with much more real estate than your family will ever own. Remember that “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
I get it, I no longer pay a full tithe to the church but try to make sure I am paying one tenth to charitable causes of my choice.
But let me play ‘devil’s advocate’ for a moment. My mother joined the church as a lone parent abandoned by two feckless husbands. If a donation was asked on the doorstep she would say ‘charity begins at home’ into people’s faces. As an abandoned, angry woman she abandoned her connection to others right back. It was a zero sum game.
When she joined the church and began tithing, she was beginning to conceive of our mutual responsibility for each other, and it helped her to feel more powerful, and eventually more loving. It also helped her to manage her finances, and taught us to feel a connection between what we might strive to achieve and our responsibility to contribute to the public good. Those ideas had not yet been invented in our family.
I reflect upon this as I encounter the world of my Hong Kong chinese daughter in law, whose family have not yet been exposed to these ideas and believe in doing good to each other in order to maintain the family only, charity is seen as ridiculous. For her the world is ‘dog eat dog’. Self esteem is achieved within her family purely by what you can own. She is big on loyalty and generosity within the family, and does not engage with the needs of others as individuals, groups or nations. Generosity comes with a big side of control. Children are not seen as having a need for emotional care and attention, in fact attending to them is seen as making them more demanding.
Really interesting to encounter and reflect on the role of tithing in my life, angry as I am about current circumstances in church finances. I think it has had a mitigating effect on the harms of my childhood overall though, and I’ve seen that in the lives of others in need with whom I grew up and became net contributors to society.
No problem, Scotty. And for the record, I’d show up for Janey’s court–but only if it were my lot to defend her.
Anna, I’m not going to judge individuals who choose (for their own purposes) not to pay tithing. Even so, when we flatly contradict the basic commandments from the pulpit then we’re setting ourselves up for correction. It would be the same were we to declare that we knew by personal revelation that it wasn’t necessary to obey the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity.
@Jack–“I give it to you as my opinion that we should avoid public expressions of personal revelation that are contrary to general counsel.”
I, and it seems like a number of other W&T participants, no longer believe that “general counsel” from the Q15 is necessarily always true, correct, inspired, etc. In fact, this counsel sometimes directly violates our own personal values and inspiration. We have sat, and many of us continue to sit, silently through hours and hours of church meetings where “general counsel” of the Q15 is the only position allowed to be discussed or considered. W&T is a breath of fresh air to us because we can actually write and discuss our true thoughts and feelings about the Church and its “general counsel”, something that is impossible to do in church meetings, or even often in private with local ward members because if we were to do so we would likely be ostracized, criticized, or even kicked out of the Church. If W&T were to start censoring any discussion that was not in line with the Church’s official stance, I would stop participating here in a flash. I know that you are a strident defender of pretty much every word that comes out of the Q15’s collective mouth, and your orthodox voice is welcome here, but W&T might not be the best place for you if you wish to “avoid public expressions of personal revelation that are contrary to general counsel.”
I testify that it feels weird to ask Saints in Africa to pay tithing as a way to end poverty while the good old boys at Ensign Peak are playing carnival games with the Lord’s rainy day fund.
To further this thought experiment, I’m going on five years of not paying tithing. My finances are growing at the pace they did before. Life seems in many ways the same. Just one data point of many I suppose.
And to further the conversation and the comments, let’s just celebrate charity in all its forms. You feel inspired to pay tithing to whatever church you associate with, that’s wonderful. You need to hit pause on charity to get your finances in order, I see and understand you. You choose to give charitably of your time and money in other ways, I feel you. Let’s start by recognizing that we are all doing the best we can with the heart and mind that we have. W&T is pretty good in this regard. Other bloggernacle sites, not so much.
For me personally, doing research about where and how to give has been an incredible experience.
mountainclimber479,
The OP seems to suggest that the context for that expression is a fast and testimony meeting. That’s a much different setting than a blog–though I believe that we need to be careful with how we express personal revelation in any context.
That said, if we opened the floor up for discussions on anything by anyone with zero oversight there’d be no end to the schisms within the church. In fact, there probably wouldn’t be a church. That’s one of the reasons why Alma commanded the teachers and priests (of his day) to teach nothing but what they had heard him teach. Not only was it what the saints needed to hear–it was also to keep false doctrine from fragmenting the church. I hate to say it–but historically the saints have been a gainsaying people. And with out some kind of unifying influence to keep them in order none of them would agree on anything–including those elements that are necessary for building a cohesive community.
GUUUUYS! Okay, I didn’t explain it very well, but this wasn’t supposed to be a discussion about tithing. It’s a testimony meeting about DISOBEYING the prophets counsel and having things go great! Everyone should testify about something that makes Jack suggest you get hauled into a Court of Love. (love you Jack! I knew you’d show up and spur the discussion along!) Jack suggested the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity as possible topics. So like this:
“I’ve begun drinking green tea for the health benefits, and I haven’t felt any decrease in the health in the navel and marrow in my bones that the Word of Wisdom promises us.”
Or:
“I told my sons that they never have to tell a bishop whether they masturbate.”
Or, on a different topic:
“I know the prophet counsels every young man to serve a mission, but I did not pressure my son to serve a mission. He chose to stay home. Our relationship is stronger than ever because I respected his choice.”
See, lots of lifetime members like me have only heard the cautions about leaving Church. You’ll lose the spirit! You’ll never be truly happy again! You’ll be miserable every Sunday! This is a thread of reassurance to people who are struggling that life is good post-Mormon. Nothing really changes that much (except for the social ostracism).
Great post. What Chet said x1000. Also, I think this post speaks to a larger question I’ve always had about testimonies: If we’re supposed to testify to the truth of our experiences, and if truth is actually subjective (it has to be in a Mormon context, since people receive “personal” revelation all of the time), then why can’t I stand up and testify about my belief that merely thinking the Mormon church is true does nothing to eliminate poverty or hunger, or my belief that Mormonism contains some potentially wonderful and inspiring core beliefs, but also that it must stop treating women, LGBTQ people, racial and ethnic minorities, single adults, etc. like second class citizens? That’s my truth, right? And if each of us telling our truths ends up strengthening our community, isn’t that better than the rote repetition of a testimony script that ends up often alienating anyone who doesn’t believe the exact same thing as the person testifying? THAT kind of truth is much more likely to build community than a bunch of oft-repeated platitudes, surely.
I’m asking these questions only half-kidding; I know that the church had the life correlated out of it years ago, and that anyone going remotely off-script is likely to get called into the bishop’s office, but if we’re all actually brothers, sisters, and non-binary people in Christ, don’t we want to really understand and commune with each other? I thought that was the goal. And to Jack: I disagree with your assertion about schisms. We’d certainly learn a lot more about our church community, but if Christ and his love is truly at the center of our church, that’s all the unity we really need. Maybe we’d learn a bit more about forgiveness, acceptance, and friendship if we let folks really speak their truths. I certainly understand that it might be startling to hear someone give their testimony of how Trump is God’s anointed followed by my testimony, but we’d at least really get to test the church’s theory of Christ being the uniting force of our community, which I think is a worthy goal. And if the church can’t manage widely disparate testimonies, I’m not sure why it exists or whether it should. Because I guarantee you that a fair number of folks in any testimony meeting are already performing internal eye rolls; we’re all different with respect to our beliefs, which means that trying to correlate everyone’s beliefs is already not working. I just think we should feel more free to acknowledge those differences, share them, and talk about them. And maybe if we stopped hammering the Mormon Belief Script into people and encouraging them to repeat that script in testimony meeting, we might all actually become less zealous and more forgiving. Just a thought.
per Janey’s new guidance – my self-employed wife is a blessing to our family !!
@Jack,
It’s a blog post. It’s satire. I doubt that Janey plans to stand at the pulpit and bear this testimony to her ward (if she does, then I’d really like to know where and when, so I can bring popcorn and enjoy the show). It does sound like Janey has some doubts, which I share, about the claimed blessings/punishments for paying/not paying tithing often stated in testimonies shared in Mormon chapels. She also is concerned that the Church demands tithing from those struggling financially, a concern that I also have.
I’m not exactly sure how to go about allowing freer discussion in Mormon church meetings. My understanding is that there are other religions/churches that manage to successfully allow discussion of different viewpoints. Maybe we should study how they do things. We would almost certainly have to mature as a religion to the point where we are no longer required to believe that everything the Q15 says is the literal word of God ’cause if you have to believe that, then how could there possibly be room for alternative viewpoints?
The main point I was trying to make is that W&T is kind of a place where people do express personal theories/ideas/feelings/inspiration/revelation that don’t necessarily always perfectly align with the Q15’s “general counsel”. It kind of sounded like you were saying we shouldn’t do that. I’m just saying that this is kind of what we do here, so anyone who wants to hang out here better get used to it.
a bit more than my usual drive-by observations…
purity culture did a lot of harm to us as parents and our kids, but it woke us up and we are on a great journey now of self-awareness and creating boundaries and possibly questioning authority.
youngest child has a bit of work to do (probably counseling) as he was witness to all of this and buried his feelings but served a mission and now is happily plodding along at BYU.
I’d like to bear my testimony of turning down callings. As the mother of 3 teen girls I was asked to be the girls camp director. I loathe camping and anything outdoors. My parents forced me to go every year with my sisters so they could go on vacation. I laughed when asked to fill this calling and straight up said no. Another women in my ward was called and had the time of her life. The mother of teen boys, she spent a great deal of time in scouts and was familiar with all the camping tasks. She loved spending the time bonding with women and came away from the experience with a deeper love of God, nature, and all that Jazz. Within 5 years she was diagnosed with MS and passed away. I’m so glad I ignored the bishops promptings that I serve as camp director. In the NofJC Amen!
mountainclimber479 & Janey,
I think it’s OK to be playful so long as we remember that the word is a living thing. Because if we go beyond genuine humor and move toward any sense of contempt (for the word) it begins to wither immediately. So yeah–keep it real. But also remember that there’s nothing trivial about what we’re really dealing with.
I want to bear my testimony of the importance, as a woman, of preparing for work outside the home, seeking fairly compensated full-time work, delaying having children, and exercising the choice to limit the size of your family. When I was growing up, I was taught by prophets and apostles that married women should stay at home if at all possible, and work outside the home was not the ideal and should be viewed as a last result. Fortunately, I ignored this teaching and from a young age knew that I would seek an education that enabled me to have a fulfilling career. Although married for over a decade at the time, I gave birth to our first child in my mid thirties and our second and last came along two years later. This in spite of teaching in my youth to start having children immediately upon marriage. The financial stability and much of the happiness my family now enjoys comes as a direct result of my choice to pursue a fulfilling career not as a back-up but as the goal and to delay having children. Birth control, which prophets in my lifetime have preached against, has profoundly blessed my life and the lives of my husband and children, as has limiting our family’s size so we can focus our limited-but-more-abundant-than-they-would-have-been resources on the two children we have. In hindsight, my choices appear prescient and inspired by personal revelation; in reality, I was making self-interested choices that I thought would lead to the greatest happiness for me and for my family. I am deeply grateful I did so.
I realize that our Latter-day prophets are now teaching different things than they did 30-40 years ago, and now many of my decisions fall within the range of what is perceived by some to conform to current teachings. Let me be clear that when I made these decisions, they directly contradicted the teachings of the Brethren. I was and have been profoundly blessed anyway.
I bear testimony that my child’s gay, Mormon best friend from high school made the right choice when he decided to attend an Ivy League college instead of BYU (even though BYU was his dream school) because he wanted to be able to have boyfriends in college like he did in high school (while still being “worthy” of holding a temple recommend). I pray daily that that this young man leave the Church and never look back. I testify that he will be happier without the Church’s false and backwards teachings on LGBTQ individuals and that God will continue to love and bless him as much out of the Church as He would if he were to remain in the Church.
Great testimony! I feel the worst reason to do anything or obey authoritarian leaders in general is out of threats and fearful reactions/worries! For tithing, the church (um, I mean God – sorry K. Hamilton) has been threatening ‘burned at the last day’ and payment of fire insurance (tithing) will prevent the fire. Anyone who doesn’t see the manipulation and emotional abuse in that tactic needs to do some reading and shout to leaders at every level to STOP the fearmongering that does great harm to many members. I’m so done with manipulation, especially when leveraging God’s name and power – this makes it spiritual abuse!!
I’ve read over Jack’s comments, which have been the most downvoted and have seemed to stir the most controversy. Look, Jack’s view is precisely what I hear from the average LDS believer and leader. On the rationale for tithing, he is correct that it is taught by the leaders as a moral duty and that not paying tithing is breaking a commandment the same way in which not keeping the law of chastity is breaking a commandment. Now, clearly, the leaders have taught that blessings come because of tithing payment. There is no doubt a health-wealth aspect to tithing teachings in the LDS church. Now I don’t pay what the average member pays in tithing (as to whether it is a full tithe, I believe it could be justified as such, I pay a little since my wife is active but NOM), because I don’t believe many of the church’s teachings. Plus, I take issue with the church not disclosing how it spends the tithing and I also have a problem with the church being one of the wealthiest religious organizations in the world and its recent problems with the SEC. I certainly will not attend tithing settlement and will sternly decline any invitation to attend. But alas, I do not seek a temple recommend. However, if you generally believe what the church teaches, then it makes perfect sense to pay a lot to it in tithing.
Janey style.
Hi, I’m Anna for those of you who don’t know me, and that will be all of you because this is the first time I have set foot in a Mormon Chapel in years. I belong to that sweet bald guy in the third row. Anyway, I would like to bear my testimony of the health benefits of coffee. See, I could take pills for my ADD, and suffer the side effects or I can drink coffee to help my brain catch up with the world. My eternal sweet heart bought me the coffee maker and suggested I try coffee to fix my melt downs. I sincerely wish I had discover the benefits of coffee while my children were small because it would have made me a much better wife and mother during those difficult years. Coffee helps me so much spiritually because without it I can’t think straight, let alone feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost. When your brain is short circuiting it is difficult to pray and impossible to listen for answers from God. So, I am grateful for the spiritual benefits of coffee. I say this in the name of Starbucks. Amen.
Thank you Margie, Chet and Anna. Also docjohn, mountainclimber and more. Truly, we have been enriched by the spirit of your words and testimony. I know that the Spirit guides each of us as individuals, because Heavenly Father accepts us as individuals, even when, as Brother Sky so eloquently points out, the spirit tells us different things, and even things that might contradict what leaders want us to hear and learn.
Probably my first experience with seeking revelation “outside the box” was when I was searching for guidance with my education. All I ever wanted to do was be a stay-at-home mom, and I was choosing college classes to work around that goal. Yet I always felt disquieted – I knew there was some guidance out there for me, but I couldn’t access it. I would study it out in my mind, pick a course of study, then pray and ask if my choice was correct. I didn’t get a burning in my bosom or a stupor of thought, but a third, more confusing thing. The lead ceiling. Finally, I quit studying it out in my mind and asking God to confirm/reject my decision. I just asked a completely open-ended question: “I’ll do anything you tell me to do, but you’ll have to tell me.” At that point, I got a strong prompting to go to law school. That hadn’t even been on my radar before that prompting. I followed that prompting, and it’s set me up for life as a single mother in ways I never could have imagined.
Another experience I had with personal revelation was when I finally opened my mind and prayed about gays. “Heavenly Father, what do you really think about gay relationships?” Before, the few times I’d prayed about LGBTQ issues, I’d prayed to believe what the Church taught. This time, I was praying with an open mind. I got the strong impression that what matters to Heavenly Father is how we treat our partner. Respect and kindness matter much much more than the genitals of the people involved. We are more than babymakers, and sex is more than the sacred procreative process.
I know these things as strongly as I ever knew the Book of Mormon was scripture and Jesus is the son of God. I didn’t leave my spirituality behind when I left the Church. It’s changed form — it’s a lot more open since I stopped using personal revelation mainly to confirm that what the prophet taught is true. It’s more creative, more joyful, and I don’t feel exhausted at the thought of enduring to the end anymore.
Also, I really like my morning cappuccino.
Wayfarer, your comment put me in mind of a podcast I listened to recently:
https://sunstone.org/e142-how-testosterone-changed-mormon-history/
The conception of responsibility to family v wider society. My experience is that the church itself becomes family, so expands responsibility somewhat, but there’s a very clear boundary between church and the rest of society, which for me, feels isolating. The podcast goes some way to explaining that tribal identity.
I want to bear testimony of raising kids to be their best selves, regardless of what that looks like to the church. I had a very visceral reaction to a conference talk when my kids were small, along the lines that we were raising future missionaries. My mind revolted with the response that my kids are not your canon fodder…
Also I’d like to bear testimony to not rushing in to marriage. My husband and I took 7 years to marry, by which point we were both in a much better position to do so. And while I haven’t used my extensive education in the work place for many years, the experience I gained has been vital in supporting my eldest ASD kid during their university experience, and prior to that in encouraging them to develop their interests, and searching out appropriate resources.
I’d additionally like to bear testimony to limiting family size, both in protecting my mental health, and allowing us to provide opportunities for our two kids to explore their talents. When I decided to I would rather concentrate on the two kids I had, I was told in a blessing that this was a wise decision.
Ziff: “Also, contra Jack, I think it’s a good idea to widely publish your ideas that go against Church counsel so that we don’t all turn into the mindless automatons that Elder Bednar and others so wish we would be.”
As fallen beings none of us is very smart. And so if the counsel of living prophets is calculated to help us become more like that Savior — whose mind is as wide as eternity — then it ought to be a prudent course to prioritize that counsel.
I bear my testimony that drinking coffee is good for you. Of course, this is in my self interest. I bring high quality Ugandan coffee beans in my luggage and sell roasted coffee in Orem. And I say this in the name of Pacha Mama. Oops, wrong continent.
I bear my testimony that to be LGBTQ is part of the beautiful, natural diversity of the human family and that living authentically brings more joy than trying to repress one’s self. I know this from having studied it out as much as I could, listening to first hand experiences of LGBTQ people, and receiving one of the most powerful spiritual confirmations of my life. I bear my solemn witness that the Q15 are flat out wrong about human sexuality issues and that heeding their counsel leads to needless heartache and despair. If you reject their ignorant rhetoric, I promise that you will be blessed with greater love and opportunities to support people in your life, particularly LGBTQ youth, who need you.
Tithing is personal. Too many make a big deal out of it. Especially slc and how they basically preach the fast track to hell if you don’t. It’s a threat, shaming, etc. and then they sit on it. Or at least say they do. I feel differently. I’d love to see a true audit. I kinda think they’re financing a train load of things and don’t want anyone to know. Fatcat slc guys’ have own little credit union. Lotta red faces and “mistakes were made” speeches on the horizon. Next general conference it will be interesting to see how they spin it, if they even mention it. They’ll send renlund out to tell us it’s Christlike. Seems to be the pattern.
I remember a lot of rich guys that never paid tithing because “technically” they didn’t make any money that year. A good accountant I guess. But still went to Hawaii, sent their kids to the “y”, bought a new caddy. You know how it is. Tithing is for little people. I paid a bunch. I mean a bunch.
The coffee deal cracks me up. No calories. No fat. No carbs. Im retired, got overweight before I retired . Got tired of feeling bad so I’ve lost over 50 lbs in a little over a year. Only real change I made was drinking coffee. Curbs my appetite. Get a little boost from caffeine. Much better than the mt dew or energy drinks the 400lb bishop I know guzzles all day long.
My great grandfather was literally one of the first saints to cross the plains. Led multiple wagon trains and handcart companies west. Helped rescue the Martin company. He knew Brigham personally. As well as Joseph, Porter, all the early prophets. Fought Johnston’s army. That stuff. He told my grandad that Brigham decided coffee was taboo because it seemed guys were always waiting for it to boil, instead of working. He heard him say “we don’t have time to waste waiting for coffee to boil”. He also said Brig decided tea was no longer good because all the saints coming from England wanted at stop and boil tea 3 times a day crossing the plains. Said he heard him give them the order just before they left to lead another group from Missouri to tell them no tea.
Whatever, coffee and tea aren’t bad for you unless you load em with sugar and waste a lot of time sitting around drinking it. That’s what my wow tells me.
SLC has really stepped in it and continues too. “Mistakes were made” and continue and I don’t see any effort to rectify it. Double down on the lies. There’s a reckoning coming. Dark days ahead.
I would like to bear my testimony about the truthfulness of regular underwear. I wore women’s garments for 25 years until I finally worked up the courage to try a simple bra and panties when I had abdominal surgery and the garments pulled the staples and stitches and then the healing wound. I enjoyed the underwear so much that even once the wound was healed I went back to work in those heathen clothes. I can truthfully say that I have not once been tempted to break my marriage vows and I work with a lot of men. Also, none of those men have been overcome with desire after looking at my bare shoulders and attacked me. I have not missed the sweaty, stickiness of summer garments nor the weird looks I used to get when changing in a public place. Finally, I can testify that the extra room I now have in my luggage is travel changing. I say this with full solemnity, amen.
Hard to know where to begin, Azsaint. Your claims of queer people destroying society are entirely unsubstantiated nonsense. Your characterization of trans women is hateful, hurtful, and totally ignorant. You claim to know a lot about LGBTQ people but have clearly never listened to their lived experience. This kind of rhetoric is toxic and dangerous to impressionable youth. It’s also stupid.
I’m glad you feel you can follow Christ independently of SLC but your comment displays an attitude of hatred diametrically opposed to Jesus’ message of love and inclusion. Go repent and do your homework.
I bear testimony that in our current church culture, it’s worth learning about virtue signaling. Named by the Lord in the NT as doing works to be seen of men, aka performative righteous action. I believe this is a good impulse in children of God with its origins in a fervent desire to be good, and its corollary belief, that to be good one must do good as much as possible.
I testify there are multitudes of hazards in following this impulse— when taken to extremes, as many ways to wreck your life as there are people.
I testify that any one of us with a fervent desire to be good like the Savior is better off understanding that goodness is our nature — the natural man and natural woman is a good thing. But/and cultivating that goodness into skills takes trial and error learning. Mistakes must be made, then examined for their lessons. There is no other way. To follow this way can show you how to salvage holiness from a wrecked life. Also how to move forward, deploying the holiness of empathy, especially towards oneself, or the holiness of accountability, ditto.
I testify that moving forward in trial and error testing one’s reality, one can learn more about accepting that reality, particularly the hard parts. I can learn more about intimacy with myself, as opposed to delusion. Also more about integrity as a measure of realistic structural strength (or lack of) so I know what I can depend on (or not.) Also learning more about humility and accepting my limits, and the practice of which brings me freedom from having to be perfect, and its accompanying shame because I am not perfect.
I testify that all external influences should be examined and tested for the learning within, especially in experiencing the craftiness of men and how they would coerce one into serving as a tool without consent.
I testify that fallen beings can be very smart, and can have the appearance of humility. I’ve known hundreds of them, maybe thousands. I have been one, I still am one. I claim my fallen nature and my smarts, and my inherent moral goodness. And if you ever catch me virtue signaling, please call me out so I can repent of being a troll and a trickster.
(Well done Janey!)
But did you pray about it, Azsaint? Did you feel the spirit of peace, the spirit of joy, the spirit of love when you earnestly asked God to confirm to you that your hatred is inspired?
Azsaint,
These verses came to mind after reading your comment–and remember, I’m a rather staunch social conservative:
“And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”
Azsaint, I’m going to guess that the only things you know about the queer community come from Fox News and other rightwing sources. It sounds like you’re otherwise very grounded in reality with a good life and relationships. You don’t have to change your opinion, and I doubt you will. But it’s really clear from what you’ve said that you don’t have an actual relationship with a queer person. We’re just people; we’re not a threat to society. The rightwing fearmongering tells a lot of lies. You’ve based your opinion on lies. It’s sad that a good person like you has been swindled like that.
“To a fox, too …”
That made my day. Thanks for the trip back to 1978, Azaint. You should be preserved in amber.
At some point, methinks, the good name of the blog comes into question. I mean, even our dear troublemaker Jack is put off.
We were asked to bear our testimonies of things we have experienced that may conflict with church, not argue with those whose testimonies is different than ours. I think we should stop arguing with Jack and Azaint about how their testimony is wrong. The whole point of this post is that in some situations, we are not allowed to share our truth. And we have well proved to Jack and Azaint the this blog is a place where they are not allowed to share their truth. They have now experienced how we questioners and doubter feel at church. We have created the same environment this post was objecting to. Congratulations.
And by the way, I think LGBT people are just fine with God, and I think someday Azaint might find that he loves someone who comes out as one of the people he now finds disgusting. My FIL did when he found out my daughter, his own beloved granddaughter was lesbian, and he changed how he felt about LGBT people because he honestly loved one that he knew to be a sweet loving person.
I tried, Anna, but was ignored. Maybe because the new contrarian’s ravings sucked all the oxygen out of the conversation. Or maybe I didn’t connect up my philosophical notions with any examples from my own life, which makes a testimony boring, kind of like Sunday afternoon conference. But why should I cast my personal pearls before the swine-ish behavior currently afoot?
The last few comments/exchanges brought up an indelible image in my mind, of a boorish local AZ businessman thoroughly exhibiting his lout credentials in the most provocatively offensive way he could muster. The things he said and did apparently met his goal of offending to the maximum those who witnessed his actions. Unfortunately it was all caught on camera, so the witnesses he anticipated were exponentially more than he planned on, with predictable results. The braggadocio upthread about hard work off the grid and whatnot inspire the same credibility, and bear the same flimsy gravitas. So not engaging.
Also, there’s the exact same lack of personal examples, so … boring. Yawn.
My wife and I are on a tour of Japan. For years her Doctor (who is Asian) has been telling her that drinking green tea would help her bladder infections. On this trip she has been drinking green tea, and after 4 days bladder problet fixed. She now has a testimony of green tea. Did not drink it before because of WoW.
Of interest the hotel rooms are very small but the last 4 have had 2 giant (4.5 ft wide) single beds. Told couples have a queen sized bed on their honeymoon, but single beds thereafter.
Tonight we have a room with a triple bed. Three pillows,three pairs of slippers (adult size) and 3 robes. Have been trying envisage the set up this room serves.
It’s kinda funny how a lot of people think if you have a different opinion you’re a bad person. Your hard work and experience mean nothing if you don’t whine. Run along. The road to hell is a short walk. I don’t care what others do or think. I do what I know is right. All day, everyday. If you don’t like the “churches” stand on queer things go to another church. You won’t change the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m headed outside to be happy. Yawn
Boomer cowboys who live off- grid are not spending time posting multiple comments on a progressive Mormon blog.
At least John Charity Spring is funny.
Hey, azsaint, read through our commenting policy. It’s here:
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When we first launched the site it was based on the premise of Wheat & Tares. The parable cautions:
“pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also. Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is full ripe.”
One of our founding principles is a very light moderation policy.
What does wheat look like? What does a tare look like?
It’s fairly hard to tell which is which, except of course that the wheat in this image is ripe and golden, whereas tares don’t ripen to a golden yellow. That’s the point really. We’re all tares on this earth until we ripen and are then harvested (based on who or what we’ve become). It’s too close to call in the meantime, and it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
We might be wheat or we might be something that looks like wheat but doesn’t actually contribute positively to society. The difference is that people have capacity (unlike tares) to actually change our nature. And people do change their nature, all the time.
While our goal at Wheat & Tares is to have a light moderation policy, that doesn’t mean we are hands-off. We certainly have goals as to the kinds of discussions we would like to have. We would like to help as many people contribute successfully to discussion on this site as is possible, so we have drafted the following goals, guidelines, and policies to help you understand from where we are coming.
Updated Policy (12/13/2017)
The following behaviors will get you in hot water:
Personal attacks against others, including authors and commenters.
Derailing discussions for hobby horse topics
Trolling (starting fires), especially drive by trolling
Sock puppets
Inability to reach you over an inflammatory comment may result in being banned and comments removed
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It’s a light moderation policy, but the vitriol you’re pouring into this thread is getting close to the line. Dial it down a notch, okay?
Up until you showed up, this was kind of a sweet discussion about how personal revelation is very individual and Heavenly Father loves and accepts a wide range of behavior.
Our Sacrament Meeting talks today were on “the blessings of tithing” which were explained to my ward as more gratitude, more faith, knowing God better, good health, and your car will keep running.
Also debatable were these comments
1-tithing is always used for the Lord’s purposes and to build up the kingdom
2-tithing is needed for temples
Azsaint: “You poor snowflakes hav no idea what life is about.”
I mean, it’s true, right. He has a point. We don’t love people. We don’t have families. We don’t serve others. We don’t have happy moments or sad moments. We don’t struggle with things. We don’t grow. We don’t lose. We don’t win. All we do is go to websites that express opposing views in attempts to poke and prod and demean and proclaim our holiness and their degradation, and call them names, so that we can wallow in our misery. He knows us all so well. Wait a minute, what is this I’m feeling. Profound love and peace. Yes, yes. I’m coming to the light. I’m feeling the charity. Look, look, isn’t it beautiful!
Inasmuch as it’s relevant to the OP while also a response to certain comments:
Can bearing an unorthodox testimony get you in trouble? Absolutely. It’s a no-brainer that bearing a testimony of not paying tithing in a sacrament meeting will get you some negative social consequences. Likewise in a predominantly progressive space like W&T, if you start disparaging marginalized groups with some nasty hate speech, you’re going to get a lot of downvotes and some pushback from other commenters. Does that make it right? Or wrong? That’s missing the point.
One of the things I love about W&T is that ideas here are expected to be presented in good faith with personal experience and academic rigor to back them up. So it doesn’t matter whether your ideas are orthodox or not (whether by TBM or exmo standards); what matters is: do they hold up to scrutiny? Do your arguments make sense? Do you actually know what you’re talking about or have you fallen prey to confirmation bias and are just parroting the party line? These are the discussions we usually can’t have at church.
For example, if I read a comment that uses hurtful stereotypes of trans people and I have a knee-jerk reaction to call it out for how awful it is, I can take a moment to ask myself: am I just virtue signaling? Am I trying to silence dissent by policing other people’s voices? But then I remember, no. Standing up for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters is important. There are lives at stake because of the hate we’ve seen on full display in this comment thread—hate that refuses to self-analyze, to engage in good faith discussion, or seek out evidence and logic to get to the truth, hate that is self-satisfied. I can call out Azsaint’s rhetoric for what it is—dangerously ignorant—without attacking the commenter personally (if they speak truth about their personal life, they’re up to some deeply meaningful and beautiful service elsewhere). And I know I’m not going to change their mind, but if a queer or trans kid reads this thread, I don’t want that kind of hate speech to sit unchallenged. The ideas themselves have to be called out.
So I’ll say it again: the revulsion for LGBTQ people demonstrated on this thread is not only at odds with Christ’s message of love and inclusion, but also at odds with objective reality as we come to understand more about the biological and environmental underpinnings of gender and sexuality. This kind of hateful rhetoric has real-world implications for people exposed to it in terms of mental and emotional health and it needs to be called out for what it is: harmful, ignorant, and flat out wrong.
About Azsaint’s line about us being snowflakes. In Azsaint’s very first comment, he said he had to detour all the way around SLC on his way home from vacation. Why? Because he disagrees so strongly with the Church leaders. That’s pretty snowflakey behavior, I’d say. Going miles out of your way to avoid driving through the city in which people live that you disagree with shows some extreme emotional fragility.
And thank you, Kirkstall, for explaining why it’s so important to push back on this kind of hate-filled rhetoric. We’re not going to convince Azsaint, but anyone else reading this thread has to see that people are willing to stand up to that kind of vitriol.
Amen, Kirky. Your testimony is confirmed by the spirit of love. Also civilized decency.
I’d like to bear my testimony that I know road shows were true. But I also testify that even if the Church brought them back, it would do very little to stem the tide of cultural dryness plaguing the Saints and… I guess what I’m saying is I’m tired of people invoking the demise of roadshows every time they want to put on sackcloth and ashes and weep for the lost good old days. Good grief people, it’s not like their discontinuance was prophesied in the Book of Revelation, right? … right? Seriously, could somebody check that? Dave B., are you on this thread?
I also bear my testimony I am indeed grateful the Church taught me the principle of tithing, though not the literal 10% fundamentalism it advocates. After I went inactive, and spurred on by 9/11, I began and have maintained a conviction of the importance of giving from my increase to charitable causes and worthy non-profits—worthy because they keep their books open and their overhead expenses to about 10 percent.
I’m grateful for my family.
Lastly, I testify for and in behalf of my fellow W&T bloggers that while we believe in free speech, and while we seek to support free speech, we do not owe anyone a free platform for their speech. If anything, I owe Hawkgrrrl $20 bucks a month for letting me post pretentious poetry.
I know the current crop of W&T permabloggers are true Mormon thoughtleaders. They also double as comment thread moderators. Sometimes they have to sift through and delete the most vile and filthy spam comments from real-for-sure perverted pornography sites and shady independent pharmaceutical stores who are probably just phishing for credit card info. Anybody want to tell us we owe those actual child predators free speech? No? Then don’t waste your time telling us we owe it to every longwinded attention seeker who purposely (or inadvertently, doesn’t matter) drifts into what can reasonably be called gaybashing and, if not outright hatespeech, certainly hatespeech-adjacent rhetoric. If, after a moderator removes your comments, you still feel a conviction your speech should be published, then use some of that remarkable self-reliance and get-up-and-go strength you’ve been boasting of to set up your own blog and pay the annual WordPress hosting and domain name fees (more expensive for an ad-free experience like W&T offers).
I say this in the name of Jesus Christ and talented, law-abiding drag queens everywhere. Amen and amen.
@Geoff – Aus
Your testimony just boosted mine of Matcha Lattes 😂 I dunno but feeling a wee bit rebellious of the WofW and coffee doesn’t seem to quite jibe with my tastebuds – can’t figure out what the fuss is about? Granddaughters who are never Mo introduced me to the drink while they enjoyed their coffees and although they know about the main 4 I don’t think they knew that matcha was an issue too. Grandma got a lovely milk steamer for Christmas along with some matcha.
@ wayfarer, I found your comment thought provoking. Watching your mother change for the better by being tithed, recognizing a responsibility towards others, and the resulting transformative effect it had for you and your family is lovely.
Is looking beyond and outside of ourselves the overlooked benefit of tithing? Can we include it in our testimonies?
(Do I mistakenly believe tithing is to give me blessings?)
I remember an interview with the Reverend Carolyn Tanner Irish a number of years ago. She had left the faith of her childhood (O.C. Tanner was her father) and embraced the Episcopalian faith. She expressed an ongoing gratitude for being taught the principle of tithing. It was important to her to pass that on to her children. She found it to be a way to actively demonstrate gratitude for her blessings by giving to help others.
What if our church exercised this value by thoughtfully finding ways to use excess tithed money to fulfill the 4th mission of the church, Care for the Poor and Needy.
Would it similarly open us up to accepting, esteeming, and embracing marginalized people within our communities?
If it were widely adopted, could it be transformative from our collective prosperity gospel outlook? Could we alter the current global never-ending-quest-for-greater-profits, wealth-on-display, trod-on-others-to-get-to-the-top, pay-the-lowest-wage-you-can-get-away-with, reward-the-wealthy-with-low/no-taxes, (etc) crushing race we are in?
I’ll bear my testimony of not wearing garments. When I stopped wearing garments a few years ago, not only did I feel really great about taking back a very personal issue and deciding it for myself, but health problems that I had no idea were related to garments went away. #blessed
Can confirm. Stopped paying tithing. Quit the church. Income more than doubled, house too…
I want to stand before you today and tell each and every one of you how much I love and appreciate you. Your comments, which combined rationality with a clear statement of right and wrong, set such a good example for me about how to deal with people who want to verbally attack us. I am so grateful for this forum and the way it gives us a rare place to be open and honest about our thoughts and feelings. There are very few people in real life with whom I can have these discussions. I don’t want to make my neighbors and friends uncomfortable, and yet I need to talk about these sorts of things. I feel very blessed to have found wheat and tares, and being invited on as a permablogger has been a rewarding and joyful experience. I know these things with every fiber of my being.
I would like to testify with every fiber of my being that for me, a fear-based approach to deity did not work. I made it work for decades because I was never made aware of any other option. Replacing this approach with me simply accepting myself and trying my best has been incredible. Questioning which aspects of spirituality to retain has blessed my life. With so many positive outcomes resulting, the one I would like to briefly mention is that I feel more accepting of ideas and peoples now. When I find myself agitated in religious conversations, I’m more able to recognize that we can all trod our own paths without judgment or criticism. I don’t think I would have learned this if I didn’t take two giant steps back from a fear-based approach to faith.
I stand before you to proclaim that Book of Ecclesiastes is the finest book in the OT. And I thank Laura for quoting from it. Your quote was very refreshing. And I say this in memory of Albert Camus.