My Bishop says to me in his office that If I ever wanted to return to the temple Than I would have to make sure my Tithing payments are up to date week by week without a miss from March to the following March a year later then, Only, then, I will be issued a temple recommend! WOW!! I thought God knows each of us and what is really in our hearts. So now we have these "HOLY MEN" telling us who's good and who is not good enough to enter heaven.

Those EVIL Catholics, selling indulgences!

Bad enough when polititions do it. It's much worse for a churches to do this since their purpose is to be holy and decent and help people be the same.

But the government is open about how is spends money. You can read all the budgets online. You can even vote them out of office if you don't like how it is spent.

Church budgets are secret. You get no say in how they are spent. They won't tell you how much they make and how much they spend. If you don't like what they do, you will be sanctioned for criticizing them.

My BIL said he prefers the way the church is run; I replied that I prefer democracy.

Actually, government isn't better, because if I don't pay taxes, I go to jail. And I can't vote the guy out of office, because 90% of the country wants the goodies they hand out, so I am forced to pay for them. Legal theft.

Which is why we aren't supposed to be a democracy where the majority can impose their will on me. We're supposed to be a republic that is restrained by the Constitution.

so you have to pay to get in so that you can then "covenant and promise before God, angels , and these witnesses at this alter, that you do accept the Law of Consecration as contained in the Doctrine and Covenant, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and ***everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you***, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion."

each of you bow your heads and say "wtf have i gotten myself into?!"

"the church only requires 10% of your income" is a whopping lie =) the figure is missing a zero--100%

I hated the temple, so when I quit paying tithing, it was no big deal to me. Thank him for making it impossible to go where you didn't want to go anyway.

Each week dutifully give the bishop a tithing envelope with an I.O.U. inside.

ROTFLMAO that's a great comeback! :-D



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2011 09:15PM by imalive.

Tithing is all they care about. The rest is just a program to get you to subscribe to pay tithing, and right now they are testing to see how much they can cut back the program side and still maintain subscriptions.

My gym dues is a fixed rate that will never go up. It's a little higher than most stripped down gyms in my area but, it has more "amenities" like steam, sauna, basketball and raquetball courts. Well, since they can't raise the dues [except for new members], they are now charging $5 extra for a raquetball court. I wonder how many "subscriptions" will not be renewed.

It's all about the LDS corporate bottom line. How about $5 per endowment session to cover the cost?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2011 09:43AM by FreeRose.

Every Bishop that I had, when I was behind on tithing payments, said, "Just forget it. Just start paying from this point onwards and if you're still paying it in 3 months (or sometimes 6 months), then we'll get you that temple recommend."

Yeah but Grey, is this not a testiment to their lack of inspiration. How does one bishop give a set of rules and another gives a completely different set of rules? Isn't God's house one of order? Don't they both pray to the same source?

Very inconsistent practices. I use to talk about this with my ex mission companions. We always talked about those who got off with a warning for fornication while others got the boot.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2011 09:13AM by Nick Humphrey.

Nothing specifically within the Handbooks. There is however the temple recommend book, that has all the "worthiness" questions in it. And that question is "are you a full tithe payer?"

as genuine as other sheeple's dollars. End result: I have a 10% raise and an extra day off. Tell them where they can put your TR.

It was when it finally settled into my brain that I was paying money (tithing), not doing things I would like to do (have coffee and drink wine), doing lots of things I didn't want to do (church meetings, callings, garments and on and on) in order to be able to do something I REALLY HATED doing -- going to the temple.

It was a truly WTF moment and it gave me permission to quit the charade.

My moment of freedom.

"It was when it finally settled into my brain that I was paying money (tithing), not doing things I would like to do (have coffee and drink wine), doing lots of things I didn't want to do (church meetings, callings, garments and on and on) in order to be able to do something I REALLY HATED doing -- going to the temple.

It was a truly WTF moment and it gave me permission to quit the charade.

My moment of freedom."


I think you just expressed my whole exit story in 100 words or less. Well, except there was no coffee or wine in my story. More like, wanting to go surfing on Sundays.

Well, that's total bullshit IMHO. In my 22 years of morgbotbeing, I always paid tithing twice per year. I told my bishop that the Lord would be getting more tithes that way as I could invest in the interim and pay tithing on that gain as well.

I know, I know. But hey, I was a morgbot.

Ron

because he wasn't paying tithing.

Bishops are Gods of their wards. Some are actually caring; others are simply front line managers for The Corporation of the President. Unfortunately, too often the good ones eventually succumb and become corporate managers, too, (a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

Tithing settlement is once a year. Even the IRS has an annual deadline (quarterly for some businesses). Why do you get singled out to settle once a WEEK?

I don't know about you, but financially I've always had waves of good times and harder times. It's reasonable to pay when it works for you--if indeed you feel the need to pay at all. Last I checked, tithing was supposed to be a charitable contribution, not a shakedown.

To expect a person to be up-to-date by the week is micromanagement. Are you going to allow that?

Churchco calls it The LAW of tithing. Its mandatory, not optional.

this is Clearly a ruse to have ppl eligible for an tax deduction.

We could spend days & weeks discussion church 'donations' & the tax laws, couldn't we?

LDS / ChurchCo has their 'Faithful' on the ropes, and they won't let go.

...being shocked and offended when a jack Mormon said a temple recommend was a receipt to show you're paid in full. Naive me.

Hope you told the idiot bish where he can put the TR and walked out, never to return.

Church leaders have no authority to collect/extort money in God's behalf , the whole premise of Mormonism is a fake book.

I've told this story before on this board, but its appropriate to post it again here on this thread. Bishop at tithing settlement one year threatened to take away not only my TR, but also my wife's TR if I did not pay a full tithing. I had declared partial tithepayer that year. I had given several thousand to the church already, but didn't want to tithe on an inheritance that I received. It would have doubled my tithe payment. I am the only breadwinner in the household. She was a SAHM with a small amount of income on Mary Kay sales that year, on which she had paid a full tithe.
My marriage was on thin ice at the time, so I caved in and coughed up.
In retrospect, I think the Bish suspected that I was already on my way out, so he used anything he could as leverage to extort tithing from me. In this case, it was my marriage.

Many here have paid very, very dearly to be out of the Morg's clutches.

What price freedom...

Technically, I don't think bishops have the right or authority to tell a person how they are to pay their tithing, and to make up an amount if they are behind.
The question is only: do you pay a full tithe.
You can say: yes, or no, and why.
You decide what is a full tithe.

The more I hear about how members are asked to do janitorial and custodial work, the more I wonder if the tithing funds are dipping dramatically. Sure sounds like it to me.

Not paying enough tithing? Well, we'll fix that. You can clean the buildings and make up for the smucks that are slacking off!

Thanks everyone for your input. At times it truly is mind boggling this whole scenario of paying tithing. It feels like I have to pay to Enter Gods Kingdom.

"God's Kingdom" sounds like a good name for a strip club.

As if, "Gee, now that I must pay every cent of tithing I've owed since my inactivity to get my recommend, I'm going to be EVEN MORE motivated to come back..."

What the...?

Ha! If they ever dream they're ever going to get any back tithing out of me they're nuts. Though it must be quite a chunk since I haven't paid since 1973.

I've never been to the temple and I don't think it's worth more than a buck or so to get in. I've been to costume parties before.

The last time I paid tithing the bishop demanded more money. I explained that for half the year I was in high school and then I worked 3 months and then went to BYU. I simply didn't owe very much.

The bishop didn't believe me and told me if I didn't cough up some more money he wouldn't let me go on a mission in a few months. Well that was the best news I'd ever heard.

Anyway the bishop didn't get anymore money out of me, I didn't go on a mission and I haven't paid tithing since.

Sometimes the biggest assholes turn out to be the best bishops in the long run. At least from an exmo point of view.

Edited to add: Maybe I did leave because I was offended! But in the years since I've learned much and can say that I really left because it's all bullshit. It never felt right and I'm fifth generation BIC.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2011 12:22AM by Charley.

Maybe you could work out some kind of lay-away program. Say, 2.5% and you get one handshake. That way you can spread it out over a few years.