There was a nauseating about a woman who could not pay her bills but insisted that she had to pay the crutch first.

Can someone provide a link or year and month of that story?

I have a non-morg friend who does not believe that the morg is all about money,

They pulled that on me once at church - telling me to pay my bills first. I said, "And which one do you suggest I not pay, in order to pay my tithing? My rent maybe? Should I go without food? Perhaps I should leave my car at home and walk 6 miles to work?" (I lived in an area without public transit at the time).

As it was, without paying my tithing, I ended up moving back in with my parents again because I only had $8 for food, per week.

One time only they gave me a food order from the Storehouse, but then what was I supposed to do after that? That one time was the only time I ever took Church assistance. And they thought I should pay my tithing first?! Just where was I going to get that?

Their attitude drove me crazy. I got rid of every non-essential thing in my budget. I would even show them my budget, on paper, and say, "Okay, you tell me what I should not pay, in order to pay my tithing." They'd just look at it and sort of go, "Oh, um ... wow. But just pay it first and see what happens."

Right, so I'd be out on the street, or living in my car, but by golly, I'd be a tithe payer. It drove my parents crazy too. The demands the Church put on its members looked absolutely unyielding and unreasonable to them.

Duh - everyone knows the formula - Pay your tithing, pray for food, and obey your leaders!

"Brother, your gullibility, er, I mean faith, is not strong. Do as you're told and everything might work out." Any Bishop. "And if it doesn't work out that's okay b/c it won't affect me."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2011 10:11AM by Truthseeker.

don't they roll these sort of stories out on a regular basis?

I havent received the ensign for over 15 years, yet it seems that sort of story was a common feature of the readers *true life* stories section.

SpongeBob SquareGarments Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.mormonthink.com/tithing.htm#fhe


Thanks for the link SpongeBob. This is useful (I love that you pay a portion of a bill, after paying the crutch) but I was looking for one of the sappy stories of a poor woman deciding that they church needed money more than she needed groceries or power. I found that the church advocated no food and power for a house with young children to be outrageous.

Oh, great, so you are supposed to pay a full tithe but only part of your other bills. What happens next month when the utitility company wants the rest of last month, plus penalties, plus this month? You have the same $550 but now you have bigger bills.

What happens after 90 days when your credit rating is shot? How do you get a new car if you have a 550 credit score? How do you rent an apartment when you are kicked out for non-payment?

I wouldn't accept 75% of rent from a tenant. Maybe for a month on a hardship, but I would charge them a late few and expect full payment ASAP. If they paid me 75% for 3 months, I'd begin eviction proceedings.

This is simply irresponsible. Here is how you handle that situation:

1) DON'T PAY TITHING! Giving to charity is a luxury.
2) Pay your taxes first
3) Pay your rent
4) Buy groceries
5) Pay utilities
6) Pay your transportation to work: you have to work to stay afloat.
7) Pay the rest of your bills as much as you can.
8) Quit going to church and take a part-time job to pay the rest of your bills. Take night classes to upgrade your skills and get a better job. Work on your resume and interviewing to get ahead in your career.
9) Once you catch up, put money aside for a rainy day and for retirement. Save for college, not a mission.

Paying tithing does nothing but fatten LDS Inc. They don't need your money, you do!

Many bishops, who always have plenty of income themselves (or they are not called as bishops,) are shockingly unaware and/or insensitive to the reality of a monthly income which barely covers one's bills.

I knew a single mother who felt she could not afford to tithe. Her bishop insisted that she tithe, and told her that he would help her if it turned out that she could not cover all her bills for the month. So this woman paid her tithing, but could not pay one bill at the end of the month; so she went to her bishop for help on the one bill. It turned out that he had forgotten all about it... and would not pay her last bill of the month!

I also knew a Nevermo who (due to finances) had to live in substandard housing for a while. She said that others in that position were always ready to help one another, while those who were better off were not.

while i was still investigating, of course for a "minute" they'd already given me ALL of my lessons, just kept scheduling appt. and calling and coming by. They came with 2 members this time and talked about tithing, as well as one of the members handed me an envelope with the bishop's local address. Even though I was aware it was a commandment(lds, that is), I never had interview with the DL or ZL.

(with thanks to poster imalive)
Here's an appalling one called, "Could Tithing Ease My Worries?"

http://lds.org/ensign/2009/07/latter-day-saint-voices?lang=eng

(the page opens as "Latter-day Saints Voices" and you have to scroll down towards the end).

But what gets me is this entirely impossible STUPID paragraph:

"As the Spirit of the Lord filled me, I found myself bearing testimony of convictions I had long held firm and sacred. My voice broke the silence of the kitchen as I declared that I would rather lose the water source to my house than lose the living water offered by the Savior. I would rather have no food on our table than be without the Bread of Life. I would prefer to endure the darkness and discomfort of no electricity than to forfeit the Light of Christ in my life. I would rather abide with my children in a tent than relinquish my privilege of entering the house of the Lord."

OMFG!

> I would
> rather abide with my children in a tent than
> relinquish my privilege of entering the house of
> the Lord."

This part leapt out at me. We have always heard stories about bishops refusing to grant temple recommends based purely on tithing - even when it's obvious the poor saps cant afford it - but its never really been formalised.

this lays it out for the masses:

pay up - even if you have to live in a tent - or we use the ultimate sanction

The first time I read that appalling article, I I was shocked at how well TSCC is brainwashing its members for money! OMFG!

I get really frustrated with one of my friends who is on disability. The Bishop has told her that she doesn't have to pay tithing on disability payments, but she insists on doing it because she feels she needs the blessings. So she pays her tithing and then struggles to get by on very little money.

I wonder how the insurance company would feel, knowing that she gives 10% of it to the LDS Church. Something tells me they wouldn't take it well.

This is one of the things which now makes me think of the Church as evil. That it would advocate that a single mother, with children, go without so that they could meet their 'obligations' to the Church is evil, greedy and irresponsible.

Spencer W. Kimball is on record of saying (paraphrasing): If you are worried about your bills pay 100% on tithing. You'll be blessed beyond measure... or some such.

Pretty impressive the height of delusion.

Thanks, JoD, This wretched bit of propaganda was the one I was thinking of.

However, it looks like their copy editor messed up and put as the last paragraph, what should have been part of the first.

So....after the uplifting bullshit, the story ends with another month of bills that could not be paid. Way to go, cult!!


Could Tithing Ease My Worries?
By Nancy Kay Smith

(second to last paragraph)
From that day forward I have counted it a joy to pay my tithing, without reservation or fear, to Him and for Him who first loved me.

(last paragraph)
When I spread the household bills across the kitchen table, I was deeply distressed by inadequate funds to cover yet another month of utility, mortgage, and insurance bills.

In the past year there was an article in the Ensign about tithing, a woman with children (6 I think)
She was in very bad shape financially, having to decide whether to pay a utility or tithe, and chose tithing. That is where the story ends.

I can't find it for the life of me though.

The thing that caused the most arguments in my ex ‘celestial’ marriage that ended 22 years ago was the non-payment of tithing.

At the start of this ‘celestial’ marriage, I was fresh into my new job after graduating college and the pay was not that great. My new “white but not delightsome” wife and I barely made it every month and it was because I did not pay tithing. My budget showed that if 10% went away, the choice before us was eat or have a place to live with utilities. I chose to eat and have a place to live with utilities.

When my “white but not delightsome” wife found out that I never paid, she was furious and abusive to me and railed on me to pay it. I told her and showed her the budget and told her that the math does not lie, I also told her to choose between eating or having shelter. This made her even madder and insisted that I pay tithing and stop paying the mortgage because we would be blessed to be able to pay our bills. However, she would never agree to go without food or without her credit card shopping for her frivolous things.

So I did. I paid the tithing and not the mortgage and waited for God to invoke some new math on my budget that somehow the numbers would all work out. One month went by, then 2, then 3, and my budget’s math remained the same. No sack of money fell from heaven and no hidden cash bonanza materialized. Soon I began to receive notices from my mortgage company saying my house will go into foreclosure if I don’t pay up.

I confronted her with these facts and I said that tithing would no longer be a budgeted item. I also told her that her frivolous credit card spending was also ending so we can make up the delinquent mortgage payments. She blew up at that and then she said that I should not pay the credit card back and use that money for tithing. I then asked her what’s the difference between shoplifting and not paying back her charged items? I got no response and she stormed off.

We finally divorced and there were many reasons we did, but my non-payment of tithing was one of the main issues that contributed to the end of that relationship.

So in the end, God did not bless me with creative math, a sack of cash, or even a memory of a forgotten or misplaced bonanza of treasure. The windows of heaven had indeed been bricked over.

After I threw the Mormon Church into the dumpster 22 years ago, I have banked that 10% and I let me say that when I and my lovely Asian wife retire, it will be at full salary for the rest of my life and none of it will ever find its way into old Joe’s church.

In my last calling as executive secretary I worked with a bishop who, after a year in the calling, was getting tired of all the requests for assistance. So he drafted a letter that was to go out to all the people who got church assistance. In the letter he outlined all of his requirements for continued assistance, which included paying a full tithe, attending church meetings, etc. He also said what items were acceptable for you to spend your money on if you were to receive church assistance. Some things that were not ok: food (could get it from church), internet/cable (I agree with that one), cell phones, and pets (this one caused the biggest uproar from members).

But his bottom line was, pay your tithing or you get nothing back.

How do you get a job without the Internet? I consider that an essential in my life. Cable TV is harder to justify, but with bundling it's not much of a saving by dumping basic cable.

As for cellphones, they have become so ubiquitous as to be almost essential. You are a single woman driving around with a pack of kids and you don't think you need a cellphone?

Interesting post I found while googling tithing stories. I was trying to find something about strawberries that I remember being one of those destitute tithing testimonies but I was unsuccessful.

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=483170

That's weird: in the discussion started by a catholic about mormon tithing, an LDS poster (since banned, apparently) tells that the "windows of heaven opening" is true, but at the end of the post talks about throat cancer killing her husband.

I guess that, despite the tithing, his faith wasn't strong enough...

OK, here's the edited portion from the LDS poster on the catholic forum that lostmystic linked to:What is true about the LDS church is this:

First, pay tithing. The promise is that if you have the faith to do this, you will be able to do everything else, and receive blessings..."windows of heaven' opening and all that. I can testify that this works, actually.

In reality, what we are told to so is: first, pay tithing. Then we are told to pay our bills. The idea is, if you pay your tithing, you WILL be able to pay your bills.

<edit>

As well, since this Social Security payment was given YESTERDAY, it's a bit soon for someone to complain that he wasn't paid back yet.
Back to church policy: we are asked to have faith, and pay tithing. I know from personal experience, having had my own husband deal with extremely poor health before he contracted the throat cancer that killed him, that we were asked to pay tithing. We had lost his income. I couldn't work because I had five kids and was taking care of HIM.

.........but we paid tithing.

And the church paid those bills we couldn't, like the mortgage, utility bills and food, and it did this for us for nearly two years. Trust me, our tithing didn't come close to covering those expenses.

I strongly suggest that, before you unilaterally condemn the church....and this specific Mormon...for what happened here, you get the rest of the story."