Back in the 50's and 60's and maybe later, talks on tithing always included "the windows of heaven will be open. You will have blessings poured out upon you that you will not be able to contain."

I can not remember any General Conference address in the last 10 years talking like that. Now, it's a commandment so pay your tithing. Is there a reason for the change?

Last Sunday in SM meeting the Bishop announced that all year end tithing settlements will be done and concluded by the first week of Dec. He told the people, he had a few spots left for this afternoon. I can not help but think that the Church is hurting for tithing dollars when I hear this. And the Bishops are acting like pimps for the top 15, I mean 14.

As an aside, I mentioned in the summer that they were repairing the marble cladding on the Edmonton Temple. It was to take a few months. I noticed on my return only half the building has been done. I asked someone in the know, what's the problem. He said they ran into big problems and it's going to take longer and cost more. He told me the cost was around 200,000 dollars before the problems. Way to go President Hinkley. Start to build cheap buildings and waste tithing dollars on repairs.

Tithing is a commandment because they are desperate! So many have been seeing the church for what it really is and dropping out. So much of their tithing revenue has been lost. New converts don't tend to tithe for very long, or don't keep to the same standard of what a full tithe is. "I will pay tithing when I can afford it. Surely the Bishop must understand that my expenses..." They aren't as easy to fool anymore. You can't just demoralize them into place, or they will be gone.

brigidbarnes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tithing is a commandment because they are
> desperate! So many have been seeing the church for
> what it really is and dropping out. So much of
> their tithing revenue has been lost. New converts
> don't tend to tithe for very long, or don't keep
> to the same standard of what a full tithe is. "I
> will pay tithing when I can afford it. Surely the
> Bishop must understand that my expenses..." They
> aren't as easy to fool anymore. You can't just
> demoralize them into place, or they will be gone.


There's an entire debate the hurch has never really embraced, which is the difference between "income' and "increase." The church likes to think of it as being the difference between gross and net, but the debate goes much further. Some churches consider "increase" to be what you have after one's financial obligations are met. Were the lDS to accept that interpretation, we'd have a whole lot more people eligible to attend temple weddings, but a whole lot fewer temples in which for those wedings to be held.

Notice 2 changes which mean lower census and tithing.
Plus the general economy sucks.
With an increasing lesser-houred and lesser-paid workforce, 10% is more of a burden.

The fact that groundskeeper, janitorial and maintenance are now Service callings indicates a few thousand dollars less income in each ward, per month or two.

Next, it seems to be standard for home and visit teachers to have 5-6 visits instead of the standard 2. This should mean another reduction of at least half participating in tithing and such.

Of course, there are always the fix-it fundings needed— occasional big repairs as the reroofing, or such.
Y
Did Romney ever release his final incomes to “you people”.
Donot think US Joe really cared, BUT the members would have immediately known if he was cheating on his tithing?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2017 09:54PM by itzbeen20.

5 families for home teachers is "standard" now.

Funny, I haven't seen a visiting teacher or a home teacher in at least 5 years.

How to get rid of them (if you can pull it off):

Convince them that you are unemployed and have no income, or very little income, coming in. Therefore, you can't pay much if anything over to the cult.

Not everybody is in a situation to be able to pull that off.

My husband and I are, and it really cuts down the number of leaches coming to visit our rural homestead.

Down to ZERO.

No missionaries pestering us to "do some service."

No home or visiting teachers even trying to schedule a visit.

No demands that we attend Tithing Settlement.


(Psss.... don't mention the great job my husband got soon after we convinced them that we were financially hopeless, or the huge salary that comes with it...)

Malachi 3:10-12 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove ME now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing; that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before her time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts.

Most churches consider this to be an "Old Covenant" law that was fulfilled with the Sacrifice of Christ. Plus the economy and culture were vastly differently back then. Most paid a tithe of crops and baby animals.

Read the verses in context. Those tithes and offerings were “paid” to support the Levites, not to support God’s one true mega church, build more temples, build malls, etc...

yup----that's where the authorities quoted from the 1950's and 1960's got it, though.

Missionaries still use this scripture every day when discussing tithing. Nothing has changed.

A historical note (please, somebody- Steve Benson?- refresh our memory of the dates): the early 60s was when the bills came due for all those Henry Moyle chapels in England. That was also when two other significant things happened: the church stopped publicly
announcing their financial reports (previously they had done it in General Conference), and they came out with that "Windows of Heaven" movie starring Lorenzo Snow, depicting his vision of the saints in southern Utah being blessed with rain for their crops if they started paying up. The three events were intimately connected. One of the things that made my heart ache was to find out that the movie was little more than a string of lies put out by the church. Snow never had such a beatific vision in the middle of a conference talk. The saints were already doing everything they were asked to do, IIRC. And the rains didn't come for months and months later. It was all a hoax. And this was the milieu in which the promises were made by the church about the windows of heaven. I think they stopped making those claims when people learned the truth about the movie and its timing, and the church leaders started to look like a bunch of slime balls.

I think the fact that Jesus failed to show up for Y2K and the continual truth generator of google has killed the church forever. All those promises of blessings never seem to come when you're down and out; a lot more members have figured it out.

Revenues for the church must be down in serious ways. They've over-entended themselves with malls and other ventures with unsubstantiated assumptioms that money would appear to cover the costs. i wonder how much the big boys are addressing the problems by cutting costs at the upper end. My guess would be not much.

for me personally, I don't think I've ever felt blessed as a result of paying tithing. On the other hand, there have been times when i've handed my last twenty to someone who apearee to need it more than I did, and mysteriously never missed the money. Sometimes Karma accomplishes more than the Holy Ghost, i guess.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2017 01:32AM by scmd.

Tithe if you want to, but...

http://www.tentmaker.org/books/TheTitheisIllegal.html

I have to wonder how much the Great Recession hurt the Mormon church's revenue stream. So many Mormon breadwinners lost their jobs and their family's homes. Utah had a huge foreclosure rate, one of the highest in the country, IIRC. I remember a church authority stating explicitly that the church would do nothing to help the members keep their homes.

"Windows of Heaven" indeed.

When I joined the church as a teenager, I thought that the church was gradually taking on Zionish behavior. That is what they taught me in Seminary. The welfare farms and canneries and tithes and fast offering were preparing us for that not-far-off day when we would all be taking care of each other. Sticking with the church meant that you would be safe, that you would always be taken care of.

Decades later, we have learned what sticking by the church really means. The hard working members are to blame for their own troubles. It doesn't matter that if you had kept your tithes and offerings, you would now be able to take care of your own needs in a recession. Many people have no savings because they gave their excess money to the church--who, they were sure, would help them out when the time of troubles came. Many did not take extra hours at work because they had so much church work to do. Also they had two or three times as many kids to absorb their time and energy as they would have had had they not been Mormons.

I would love to see the church come crashing down, as a result of what they have done to others. The day can't come fast enough for me.

When ('67) I became a Salesperson for LDS, Inc. the TRIQ was asked & answered Very Lightly as I was saving (no parental support!) to be a Salesperson.... er Missionary.
Afterwards, I stuck with the program for a while, but sparsely.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2017 10:16PM by GNPE.

I never understood the purpose of tithing settlement. If you know how to calculate 10% of a number you know what you should pay. Why meet with the bishop?

200,000 dollars ? that is nothing!!!!

Gordon BS Hinckley was the corporate ramrod of the construction of the new LDS inc conference center. The LDS Inc Conference center is covered with stone facia plates, to make it look like a stone building. Hinckley insisted that the stone for the Conference center came from the same little cotton wood quarry that supplied the stone for the Salt Lake temple. Other stone was available from other quarries that was the same color. The Little cotton stone had inferior mechanical properties compared to the other stone that was available. to compensate, The Little Cottonwood stone required 3 mounting backing rails instead of two. That 50 percent increase in backing rails alone drove up the cost of the conference center over 1.5 million dollars. Which is still small change compared to the Billion dollars that LDS Inc spent just to get to clear ground for their CCC mall project and the additional billions spent to erect CCC mall.


IF Jesus created the entire universe, then superior stone from outside of Utah should have been just fine.

Hinckley loved to blubber about how MORmON tithing was biblical.
He was WRONG. Biblical tithing was based on personal INCREASE, NOT on subsistence as in the way that MORmONISM so readily rips their members.

Here are some more big differences. In the 50's 60's 70's greedy blood sucking LDS inc was ripping their members for everything that they could come up with. After tithing was another big hit for ward budget, then fast offerings, building funds and anything else they could come up with. It was essentially double tithing when LDS Inc was done.

Here is another thing. Back then state sales tax was 1 percent and change or 2 percent at most. Now, State Sales tax is damn near another tithing.

........People are tapped out!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and the financial blessings promised by THE church, do not show up !!!!

The luxury condo tower at CCC mall is unoccupied !!!!!!!

It does not have as much as a single legitimate tenant in it !!!! Every person that may be in it at any time is a shill !!! There in some attempt to try to maintain appearances for LDS inc.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9yUJXCQzQA


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwkFavjPsdE