I have a friend who is in her 60s, LDS her whole life and from a big, extended LDS family. She spent many years living in both California and Utah. We were talking about disaster prep (one of her favorite subjects) and she said she thought if there was a big disaster, the church would have everyone bring their food storage to the stake centers for distribution and safe keeping. I asked how she thought they'd decide who got food distributed back to them and who didn't and she said "Why, everyone who came to the church hungry would be fed." I said "I know people who were denied church welfare because they weren't current on their tithing and these were members. Why would they give food storage to non-LDS in a disaster if they won't help their own members unless they are paid up?"

She was shocked and, to her credit, she believed me. But she'd never heard of such a thing and tried to convince me this was a rogue bishop who wasn't living the way the church taught. This is what we are fighting against. This complete information blackout, that makes it possible for everyone to project their good intentions and beliefs onto the church and deny anything bad because it doesn't fit with what they've convinced themselves they see. Everyone TBM sees Mormonism the way they are NOT the way Mormonism is.

There used to be some teaching about gathering the food storage and feeding the ward/stake...

...but I've heard it explicitly denied in conference. They used the parable of the 10 virgins to basically say "our food storage is yours. You shouldn't feel like you have to share it just because another member you care for didn't prepare"

What kind of "disaster" are they waiting for until TSCC steps in to help care for non-members who are in need? Does TSCC sponsor any feed-the-hungry events or open their churches as area shelters during natural disasters?

Such an astute observation you make that good people who are Mormons project their own goodness on TSCC. Good Mormons do help under the aegis of their own decency and conscience. I have read of some organization of the yellow-shirted Mormon volunteers going out into the community at times of natural disasters, but I've yet to hear of a top-down TSCC policy of TheChurch to help any members, let alone non-members, in-need.

Hasn't Oaks given talks about member self-reliance and not counting on TSCC for help even for faithful tithe payers? TheBrethren are concerned with their own survival, and the survival of their families.

When a big disaster strikes, most people will be thinking less of doing good for others and more about the physiological and safety needs of themselves and their families. Throw group dynamics into a chaotic mix and the idea of a peaceful, orderly distribution of the provisions of the few to the waiting hands of the many does not seem plausible. The idealized version of how Mormons think things will be is very different than the reality that awaits.

When things don't go as TheBrethren have intimated, it will be because of the wickedness of the world. As for the members, they were either 1) not worthy enough or 2) being tested by TheLord.

Heads, they win; tails, you lose.

If they are not willing to give it to people who need it like they say

Oh, they are willing to help those in need if the needy are a) LDS b) tithe payers c) like cl2 said - potential tithe payers, those who are possible to reactivate.

However, the fast offering designation is moot anyway now that the new tithing slips say the church will TRY to use the funds as directed but there is not guarantee that they will. That is pretty much an admission they are skiving money off from wherever they can for whatever they are up to.

You read the Church's mind. "That is pretty much an admission..." C'mon. Critical thinking...

o.O I didnt know that either. But I've only been actively looking at the negatives of the church since March. That's horrible.

but I found out I was the exception to the rule for most single mothers.

The reason I asked,though, was because my brother's MIL was getting her house payment paid--when she hadn't been active mormon since a young child. She was an alcoholic and was serving time in jail for beating up her boyfriend and had burned through a $100,000 inheritance in a short time.

My ex's boyfriend at the time was not a mormon and it was the bishop who told us to marry--who was paying his boyfriend's rent (though the bishop had no idea my ex was involved at all).

I actually think that more often than not--they give welfare to those they think they can suck into the church--and not the active ones.

I was inactive at the time and had been for quite a while. The women I told to go ask for help were all active and none of them got help.

And, yes, it is very much up to the bishop. I do so love it when someone says the bishop had it wrong. I had that said to me I don't know how many times about my marriage--and then I say, "We got info from the horse's mouth--BKP--who sent stuff to our bishop to help him work with us." That usually shuts them up, but most of them still sooth their fears by thinking it couldn't possibly have been the lds church that helped create our marriage.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2012 06:56PM by cl2.

However, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I had separated from hubby and didn't have a maintenance agreement yet and he was trying to get me to drop it by giving me no money. I was looking for a better job and went and asked the Bishop for some help. He told me to pay a full tithe and the Lord would bless me and help me find a job. And just in case it took the Lord a little while longer to get around to me, if nothing had changed at the end of a month and I'd paid up, I could come back and he'd help me.

I was so torn. The Lard's annointed had told me to put God to the test (as had my dad, who wouldn't "help someone who wouldn't help themself.") I really wanted to, but I was a mother and I caved and couldn't give what little I had to feed my children to the church. I felt so awful when I spent that money. The next day I got a call for a job interview and a week later was offered a much better job with benefits. If I'd paid my tithing and that happened, as it would have, I'd have been sucked in for life. I would have known that it was my blessing for trusting in the Lord. If Bishop had helped me without my paying up, I would have thought it was part of the help from the church and that I truly owed God. Instead, it helped me realize that I got a job despite the good Lord. I got it because I worked for it and I was the most qualified. It was a real epiphany for me and one of the big cracks in the door.

I still thank God for the asshat bishops (and I had several through my life) who helped me see the reality of cult mind control.

You have the most kickbutt, inspiring stories.

It is not only welfare that is denied to inactive members, it is also services. I once needed help with a stranded child and the bishop in another state refused to aid until the COB was open and he could check to see if I was "truly" an active member.

This was one of several experiences of lack of charity and compassion of the heart that made me ask myself, "Who are these people?"

When I was in the non-profit world, we held many faith-based service activities and the Mormons refused to participate in any of them. They just didn't care that some of their own members were in need. You got the feeling they wanted their "unworthy" members to suffer and didn't want us to help them.

ANagrammy

During fast and testimony Sundays, members never hear stories like NormaRae's. I wasn't paying a full tithe and something good happened. I left the church and my life got better. Nope, members will never hear those stories.

The complaint in DW's ward is that the bishop keeps giving storehouse goods to undeserving inactives, people who are permanently on the bishop's handout list, people who reek of cigarettes and do not even come to church. DW has to go over and fill their orders. Apparently it is only some bishops who do not give to people who don't jump through the hoops. I think it's all up to the bishop's or BP's decision, and there are a good lot of assholes amongst them.

The Church Handbook of Instructions is pretty clear that Tithing is supposed to be a pre-requisite. They are also encouraged to do service for the church or someone in the ward to help "pay" for the help they are receiving.

...but I'm glad many leaders just help anyway.

and we had been very much liked in the ward before we left--my husband especially. I'm rather quiet--not shy--as someone told me once--reserved. My husband is genuinely loved by everyone and he had served in a bishopric with the bishop I went to for help.

My ex left me for his boyfriend (most of you know this story) and the ward was very shocked--especially those men who had served with him in the bishopric, which might be why the bishop was willing to help me.

For many, the first fallout was rather shocking, but now that my ex and I live together part of the time in the ward, they are very accepting of him. The ladies especially--I'm rather floored watching it. They all stop him when he is out on his walks with his dog and stop him at the grocery store.

Now our lives have improved drastically and we just confuse them a bit . . . but I know I was treated better than many because of who the bishop was and who my ex is.

The odd thing I found was the things the RS presidents told me when they'd come for me to fill out the order and contrary to what others have said, we loved the church food.

I was a bishop for a bit longer than 5 years, and was released about 2 years ago. I lived in a very (relatively) "average" ward (meaning some were wealthy, some were poor, and most were right in the middle).

In my five years, we helped almost everyone with one thing or another. Did we discuss tithing regularly? Of course. Was it a pre-requisite for receiving help. No. I encouraged it because I felt like it was help qualify some of these families for blessings that I could provide, but we did everything we could to make sure families kept a safe, warm roof over their heads and food in the pantry. I'm sure I made some mistakes, but I hope I erred on the side of kindness in most of those cases.

And what's more, I was trained by the Stake President on these matters and as the Bishop's Welfare Committee Chairman, I trained the other bishops to go the same direction.

Thought you'd be interested...

Should have proofread my last post...

"blessings I *couldn't* provide"

Duh.

Sorry :)

The norm in the morg is to twist arms and force people to pay before offering needed help. Tithing isn't the only requirment as many bishops also require humiliating personal budget audits, toilet cleaning or wardhouse maintenance, and tapping out relatives and friends before accepting church help. Many times the member is also told they'll have to repay whatever is given to them and often their privacy is violated and their kids are humiliated.

Nor am I impressed with people on this thread. The idea that "well, if it is good about the Church, then it is an exception. And if it doesn't square with my hatred toward the Church then it is a lie", is proof of unveiled bias and a lack of critical thinking. Whether you believe the Church is "true" or not isn't my point. They fact that you can't see anything beyond the horizon of your "side" is the let-down.

The church Handbook of Instructions says that the church should provide no financial assistance, nor help from the bishop's storehouse until:
1) The member has asked their family for help, & been turned down
2) The member has tried government resources such as welfare or food stamps, and has either been turned down or still isn't able to feed their family

It also says that the member should be both active and a full tithe payer (it doesn't emphasize it so much that a bishop couldn't ignore it, but it is in there), and that the member should be encouraged to do service for the church so that they feel like they are working for their help rather than receiving a hand out.

Any anecdotes about bishops not following those guidelines are examples of a bishop not actually following the rules, but just using his own discretion.

I'm glad it happens, and that many of them choose to help... but technically they are being disobedient when they do so.

I read the Church Handbook of Instruction about 10 times because in college I basically ran the singles ward I was in. The bishop delegated everything to me, and he gave me the handbook, told me to study it, and wanted me to run Ward Council and also to determine who in the ward needed help (I was ward mission leader... so it was a weird scenario, but I "faithfully" ran the ward). I wish I had kept that book. I actually only gave it back about 4 years ago (a little less than a year before I apostatized) because I learned that no one other than SP and Bishops were supposed to have it. So I gave it back (even though I was in a different ward now).

So because it wasn't the exception FOR YOU means it wasn't the exception for other Bishops? Do you think yours are the only valid experiences--the one, true experiences? That's not the same ol' Mormon mindset at all.

It's great your Stake President trained you and you trained others, but your testimony that your experiences are the norm is based on just that, your experiences. Most people who post here recognize there are, indeed, exceptions. It ain't all about you, you, you, Bishop JustSayin'.

You have a grand total of five posts on this site, all of them today and on this thread. Are you still a Bishop? Does your Bishop/SP know you are associating with what your church calls "apostates?" We won't tell on you or report you in PEC meeting. ;) Hope you stick around, but you might want to read the board's rules. Raising your arm to the square and rebuking posters while bearing your testimony might get you a court of board-admin love, all for your own salvation, of course. :D
Isaythesethingsinthenameofjosephchrist ahhhhh-men!

"So because it wasn't the exception FOR YOU means it wasn't the exception for other Bishops? Do you think yours are the only valid experiences--the one, true experiences? That's not the same ol' Mormon mindset at all."

You're right. But, this entire thread is a list of you guys saying that your experiences are the only valid ones. Just like you've accused me of doing. Of course I have a hard time thinking my experiences aren't representative of a norm. But all of you have the same problem. I went and read all kinds of threads this morning and the taste was all the same.

How are you aware of "the norm"? Is your data this thread? Or unbiased studies from scholars? If your data comes from you and your friends swapping painful stories about bishops who did you wrong...I'm not sure that qualifies you to define the norm in the church.

Members aren't required to repay any assistance. Now, I'm sure there have been cases where a bishop gave that message, but that isn't standard operating procedure at all. Inviting people to put forth effort, re-look at their budget, and rely on their family as part of the solutions seems reasonable.

Are you TBM by chance, just sayin?

I don't know. What does TBM stand for? :)

Are you a believing Mormon right this very minute or just a normal poster without the balls to say things unless it's under a pseudoname?

TBM means "True Blue Mormon" or "Totally Believing Mormon"
http://exmormon.org/d6/drupal/abbreviations

that link shows all the common acronyms and slang here

Oh...just got it...True Blue Mormon...(right?)

yep.

Yep? As in yes you are currently a believing active Mormon?

I was treated well--though I felt like the scum of the earth. I wasn't asked about tithing. He knew I wasn't paying. I wasn't required to repay anything. I wasn't required to do any work at the church. I was working 2 jobs as it was. I wasn't receiving any child support/spousal support, etc. He did call my ex to repentance and I was more upset than my ex was about that.

There are good people in the lds church. Not everyone is a bad guy. I'm still friends with this bishop and his wife--they have treated my TBM daughter very well.

I have to add--I've been around here a long while, so you don't have to question my bias.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2012 11:16AM by cl2.

I agree that there are tons of great people and great leaders in TSCC.

My point is that the POLICY of the church is to require both tithing and activity in the church in order to receive any assistance, and even that is AFTER you have exhausted family & government resources.

You are also ENCOURAGED (that is the word they use in the CHI, not required) to do service to earn the help (though the CHI phrases it more along the lines of making the person getting assistance feel better about it)

This is from my blog. It's one of the few things left from the church that still hurts:

I’ve told this story before, but it’s a reminder to me of the importance of giving and sharing without being judgmental.

My father told me this story about 3 years ago. I had never heard any of this, and it still hurts to think about it.

When my mother became pregnant with me, my father was a Ph.D. student at USC. He worked for an aerospace company one day a week, and they paid most of his tuition.

My parents had three children before I was born, and my dad’s income barely paid the bills. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment that had been converted from a detached garage behind someone’s house. Needless to say, they did not have health insurance.

About 5 months into the pregnancy, my mom started bleeding, and not just a little spotting. The doctor told her that she was going to miscarry, and she should just have a D&C and get it over with. But, since she insisted she was going to do everything possible to have the baby, he told her she would need bed rest until I was born.

My parents sent my brother and two sisters to my grandparents in Utah for four months so my mom could stay in bed. When I was born, the doctors discovered a life-threatening birth defect, and I had major surgery that day. I spent the next six weeks in the hospital before coming home on Christmas Eve.

My uncle gave my dad everything in his savings account, but it wasn’t half as much as the bills. The Crippled Children’s Fund loaned my dad the rest of the money. My dad was forced to quit school and go to work full-time.

Until I was almost 6 years old, I had to go to the hospital overnight once or twice a week to have my esophagus dilated. By then I had two younger brothers. My family was very poor, heavily in debt, and under a lot of stress.

From the time that my mom started the bed rest until I was done having my bi-weekly procedures, no one from the church provided child care, meals, rides to the hospital, nothing. We didn’t get anything from the bishop’s storehouse, and no money to help with the bills. Literally, the local ward did nothing to help my family.

Just after I turned six, we moved from that ward. A few days before we moved, the former Relief Society president showed up at our house. She begged my mother’s forgiveness for not helping when we obviously needed help. She said that, in a ward council meeting, the bishop had said no one was to help the Williams family because “Brother Williams is not a full-tithe payer.”

I can’t tell you how much it hurt to hear this story. I gave so much of my life to the church, and this felt like a real betrayal. It still hurts.

But it reminds me that we must help people in need, even if we think they don’t “deserve” it, even if it inconveniences us, and even if it’s hard. I do not want anyone to think of me as someone who saw their need and didn’t help.

I'm glad you survived to tell the story.

That is so sick and wrong. It just goes to show that the church is a fucked up cult that doesn't really give a shit about helping its members unless they pay up. Their stupid gospel is not about love and acceptance, it is about money, deceit, and greediness. I'm so sorry your family had to go through this.

That is beyond unfeeling. I just posted above the reasons I think I was helped.

In the prior ward we were in, we had premature twins by C-section and I had preeclampsia, etc. We received one meal. For years, the RS president would see me places and also apologize for not doing more.

I attribute the help I got to the bishop in the ward at the time. The bishop following would not have given me help.

Wow. I am constantly surprised at the levels of douche-baggery certain bishops can achieve.

Your bishop would definitely medal in the Douche-lympics

Charity begins at home. So someone explain to me why they deny help to members (members or not) while they claim all over that they are helping the world. Typical american mindset of being saviors of the world while their own house is not in order.

My mom is teaching some RS lesson this week on the importance of personal accountability, taking responsibility for yourself and not relying on others. Yet she goes on and on about how charitable the church is to the same members they are teaching not to ask for help.

Honestly, I think this is the problem in a nutshell. There are some very good bishops and very good Mormons doing very good things. Then there is official church policy, which no on is sure of because it in the handbook for Bishops and not available to the rank and file. Which means the craptastic bishops and mean members can push the rules and get away with outrageous behavior. And everyone just sees it the way they want to see it. If there were more openness for members and much more training for bishops, there would be more consistency across the board and less abuse of the system. Less abuses written into the system, come to think of it.

One challenge is that bishops have very limited funds to work with - they only get what their ward members give in fast offerings. The vast majority of funds get vacuumed off to Salt Lake for important projects like multi-billion dollar malls and temples.

So you get a wide variety based on the ward of how stretched a bishop's budget it. In some wards they have more money & less needs. (In very needy wards a bishop came sometimes get a little extra help from the stake - but he gets a lot of pressure not to.)

From what I have seen the bishops I worked with gave priority to active / tithing paying members.

If someone was inactive they would often get some help, but it was more limited and with lots of strings attached. Yes, I'll help you once but it you expect any more help you had better be showing up at church.

I know for sure a friend of mine in the ward was getting help and then couldn't pay tithing so the bishop stopped helping - kick 'em when they're down.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2012 11:39AM by bc.