Around the first week of December, the ward clerk gave me a print-out of all my tithes, offerings, and other donations for all of 2010. I looked through the form and it all matched my personal records, so I thought nothing more of it and filed it away for preparation of my 2010 tax return. A week later, the 1st counselor in the bishopric called me and asked if I could schedule a time for tithing settlement. I figured I didn’t disagree with the amount on the form, so I didn’t need tithing settlement. The bishop pulled me out of Sunday School a couple weeks after that (a mixed blessing) and met with me for tithing settlement. When I told him I didn’t think the tithing settlement meeting was necessary, he told me it absolutely was because 1) he needed know how much tithing I was declaring and 2) he said it’s important for the entire family to participate in order to build a strong tradition of paying tithing.
The whole experience started adding to the cognitive dissonance that I’ve been spending the last couple of years tearing down. More than once I have heard a bishopric member complain about how busy their Sundays in December are because of tithing settlement. Why doesn’t the bishop just stand up on December 15th and say something like, “Brothers and sisters, each of you are receiving a print-out of our records as to your donations for the year. Please review it carefully and let us know if there are any discrepancies between your records and our records. If we do not hear back from you, we will assume our records are correct.” How much more efficient would the year-end tithing issues be if it was done that way? You don’t need a separate meeting to declare your tithing when you’ve been declaring it already throughout the year each time you fill out a tithing slip. Clearly tithing settlement isn’t necessary from a practical standpoint.
I think the unspoken/unwritten/subconscious reason for tithing settlement is to make the individual member feel compelled to pay tithing when they otherwise might not or not pay as much. When you know you are going to be meeting with the bishop, the person with the highest authority at the ward level, you want to make sure you’re fulfilling your duty. He and his counselors are, after all, the first stop in securing a temple recommend. By meeting with the bishop about tithing specifically, you are accountable to him. Even though it is supposed to be between a member and his/her god, the tithing settlement shoves Bishop Johnson right in the middle.
Why would the church need the bishop to monitor the members’ tithing activities? Why don’t we have Law of Chastity settlement? Or Law of Consecration settlement? Or testimony settlement? Or Sacrament partaking settlement? Or any other settlement about any other core doctrine of the church? I can only imagine the reason for this is to make sure the church gets their money. One of the biggest differences between tithing and the other doctrines of the church is the fact that tithing directly affects the actual entity of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints immediately. Whether a member has a testimony or not, whether he magnifies his calling or not, etc does not really hurt the church right now. Maybe it would in the future if he went completely inactive. But if tithing revenue dropped by 30%, the church would feel that immediately. They want their money.
So when my bishop told me that tithing settlement is important for the whole family in order to build a strong tradition of paying tithing, I felt sick. It’s a tradition of being compelled to give money to an organization. I participated with my parents and they with their parents. It doesn’t mean it’s right.
I was thinking about the amount of teaching we do as Mormons every Sunday in all 3 hours of meetings. The amount of preparation that goes into each lesson and talk is usually substantial; obviously there are the winged lessons here and there, but they’re the exception I think. One of the most cliché things a member says before presenting his/her talk or lesson is something like, “I was so nervous when I got this assignment. But as I studied and prepared, I felt the spirit so strongly and learned so much. The teacher always learns so much more than the class they’re teaching. I know I was given this assignment for a reason.” I have heard something along those lines countless times. I have even experienced that myself, which I’m sure was shared at the beginning of my lesson.
Alternative, more natural, explanations are infinitely more satisfying to me. I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon lately, how people have amazing spiritual experiences when preparing for lessons. Again, this anecdotal, but I think it’s a plausible way of thinking about the situation.
The following was my experience for the last 15 years of my lesson/talk-giving life. I know for a fact that when I, and many others I know, am given an assignment to teach a lesson, I agonize over it from the moment the assignment is given. It’s all I think about. No matter what I’m doing during the day, no matter how happy I am at any given moment, there is a constant nagging feeling in the bottom of my stomach. And when I look at the pain, it always identifies itself as the responsibility of preparing and delivering a lesson. When I sit down to begin preparing the lesson itself, I feel overwhelmed as I read through the manual, thinking, “Man, this is so standard and self-explanatory. How am I going to make a lesson out of this?” Then as I start to give structure to the material and think of appropriate stories and scriptures, I start to feel good. As I fill up the minutes of the lessons with solid material, I start to feel great. When the preparation is complete, I look back and think about how far I’ve come and how great I feel now. The Lord has definitely blessed me, right? Right?? I then give the lesson and, although still a bit nervous, people participate and answer questions and it goes great. Of course it was my own insecurities that caused the anxiety in the first place and through the spirit I was strengthened to overcome my own weaknesses and actually grow, thus enabling me to serve the Lord more fully, right?
I think there is a more plausible explanation. I think the stress and agony comes from the fact that you have a responsibility you did not necessarily want to take on. But you feel the pressure to say yes and perform well because that’s just what you do as a Mormon. Then when the time comes to actually sit down and prepare to fulfill whatever the responsibility is, you begin chipping away at the burden. You can feel the weight lessening with each new story, scripture, and quote you put down on your paper. You become happier and happier because you’re finally tackling the burden. When you’re done you’re elated. And not because your mind has been quickened by a holy ghost, but because you’re prepared to fulfill the responsibility you were given. Sure, you probably learn new things since you have to read through material you might not otherwise read. But the feelings that are described as the spirit, I think are feelings of fulfilling a responsibility. It’s no different than finally finishing that long essay in college or the project at work. When I finish long, stressful projects at work, I feel like my feet are a couple of feet off the ground as I walk; I’m beside myself with relief and joy.
I have to say upfront that I don’t know exactly what it is like for a homosexual to “come out” to his/her family, friends, and community. I would imagine it is nearly impossible. The bullying and bigotry that a gay person faces must be unbearable. But in this post, I am going to liken my current religious experience with that of the homosexual coming out, even though I don’t know if it’s a totally fair comparison.
For the past couple of days, I have been hearing many interviews on the radio with various homosexuals about the repealing of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy in the U.S. Armed Forces. Many of the interviewees said they made a decision to leave the military in the early 90s, after the policy was put in place. They said it was an extremely hard decision, but that it would have been harder to live in dishonesty. They talked about the unbearable burden of pretending to be someone they weren’t. They talked about how they wanted to maintain their integrity and that the only way to do that was to be open with everyone.
I’ve also been listening to other interviews and lectures on homosexuality, like William Bradshaw’s lecture that John Dehlin posted on MormonStories. In that particular lecture, there is a very honest Q&A at the end where some men are saying how impossibly hard it is to be part of a community (Mormon, family, town, etc) you love, but to know that if you were completely honest, people would view you differently in a very real way.
As I have listened to these interviews and discussions, I have been very moved, almost to tears. Something hits me in the base of my stomach. I feel like I can empathize, to an extent, with a gay person’s need to be honest to the world while feeling like it’s utterly impossible. I have the same feelings toward my family, friends, and community when it comes to my lack of religious/spiritual/supernatural beliefs. Stated simply, I don’t believe in God. And it’s not out of defiance or rebellion in any way at all. I’m not opposed to there being a god; I truly hope there is a god when we die. But I don’t see the the rationale for a literal one. My default position has to be non-belief. For me, it’s the most logical and satisfying way to view the world, everything makes more sense. But saying something like that to my parents and certain other family members and friends seems like an impossibility at this point. It would be crushing to so many people and would undoubtedly change my relationship with people that I care about. But at the same time, this is who I am. I am finally being completely honest with myself and it’s exhilarating. That part of me wants to be honest with everyone and let the consequences follow, whatever they are. Is it honest to lead people to believe that I have the same beliefs as they, just in order to maintain their happiness? Is it right for me to put up a front and deny myself my own freedom of expression? It is gut-wrenching and has occupied my thoughts constantly as I drive to and from work and while I jog mile after mile. It’s not an easy situation, to say the least.
I’m not trying to come to a conclusion about what I should and should not do about being open. I just wanted to say how much I empathize with the gay community. It must be agonizing and impossibly hard to live in communities that would rather have you be someone you’re not.
This is as much of a political post as it is religious. There are many big systemic and legal inequalities in our country when it comes to religion vs other types of organizations. The Internal Revenue Code contains provisions that benefit religious organizations while leaving other organizations out. A secular person might argue that the CEO of a company who makes microchips or whole wheat bread is doing much more good in the world than a minister of a church. The CEOs of many charitable organizations are doing amazing work, but they’re not ministers, so they don’t receive the same special tax status as a minister.
I do recognize that scientific, education, and philanthropic organizations are also recognized as tax-exempt at the entity level. But for whatever reason, the ministers get an extra benefit at the individual level which I find hard to understand. If the reason is because the minister is engaged in noble work for little pay, then what about teachers or scientists or most farmers or anyone else who doesn’t get paid much for meaningful work?
This past week, I did a tax return for a local minister. I want to share some aspects of his return because it really shines a spotlight on the inequalities and amazingly unfair treatment a minister can get in our country. It’s mind-blowing; at least I thinks it is.
The minister gets paid from his church, from which he received cash of $105,000 in 2009. He received a W-2 with wages of $40,000 and a “housing allowance” of $65,000. First, ministers, along with other state workers, are allowed to elect out of social security and Medicare. By electing out, they don’t have to pay into the programs and they don’t ever get to draw from the programs either.
Next, of his housing allowance of $65,000, he only has to recognize as income the portion that he did not spend on ANYTHING related to his house. So, he can essentially deduct mortgage interest, mortgage principal, taxes, utilities, HOA fees, insurance, furniture, appliances, silverware, napkins, gardeners, soap, towels, etc, etc, etc from his income. Normal people can only deduct their interest and property taxes. So, after all of his expenses, he only had to recognize about $9,000 of his housing allowance as income, for a total income of $49,000 ($40,000 in wages and $9,000 of excess housing allowance).
Next, even though he already deducted all of his housing expenses, including interest and property taxes, he still gets to use Schedule A like everyone else. So he is able to deduct his mortgage interest and property taxes again. (Technically, the first time was just an exclusion from income, so he’s not getting double deductions. But essentially he is. The end result is a double deduction).
The following table illustrates the difference in taxes paid by the minister and a hypothetical “normal guy” earning the same amount with the same expenses. As you’ll see, the “normal guy” ends up paying about $18,000 more in taxes.
So in the end, the minster made $105,000, had $740 of total tax, but actually ended up getting a refund of a few hundred dollars because of various child tax credits.
This is unfair. What makes his profession so special that he is able to take deductions that no one else can? Why is he able to elect out of social security? Why is he able to deduct his mortgage interest and property taxes twice?
To top it off, he wrote a letter to our firm asking for a discounted preparation fee because he is a minister of humble means. It made me sick to my stomach.
For some reason Ayn Rand is extremely popular amongst Mormons. Even though the religious implications of her philosophy are pretty clear, Mormons love her novels. I was no different. When I first read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, I was a normal 100% believing orthodox Mormon, but the two books had an effect on me.
She presented ideas I had not considered. One of the more powerful ones was in The Fountainhead when Howard Roark builds the horizontal temple to honor man. It was the first time I had read a persuasive argument that declared it was OK to recognize that, as far as we can tell, our lives are the most valuable thing we have, period. There was no invocation of a higher power with promises of a better after-life. It was an argument so completely based in reality and experience. It didn’t really cause me to question anything, but rather it just got my mind going.
Her ideas were fully formed and rather blatant in Atlas Shrugged. Rand paints her characters in very black and white ways, on purpose I think. The protagonists always value reason over everything else. The antagonists constantly plead with others to feel rather than think. Reason vs feeling is one of the central themes of the book. When I realized that her words applied directly to Mormonism, it hit me pretty hard, opening the new world of epistemology to me.
When I finished Atlas Shrugged, I remember being very confused by the questions that were taking shape because they were questions I’d never sincerely thought about before. Everything and nothing seemed to be in question all at the same time. It was strange. But the one question that finally materialized was the most basic existence-of-god question. I didn’t even know how to think about it, yet it would it surface throughout the day. I was asked to teach an Elders quorum lesson during that time. I don’t remember what the topic was. But I do remember that during my preparation, I decided to just sit and think about the God question and its implications. After about 15 minutes, I decided to stop because I thought it was absurd. I thought that of course there was a god; Ayn Rand was wrong; my parents and billions of other humans were right; believing in God felt right and good, so he must be there, otherwise I wouldn’t feel it. So in my lesson I prepared a part towards the end where I would share my experience with Ayn Rand and my re-conversion, so to speak, back to orthodoxy. Unfortunately time ran out before I could share that experience. I would like to have seen what I would have said and how the discussion would have gone with the other guys in the class.
I have since come to work-in-progress-conclusions that are very, very similar to Rand’s positions on the supernatural (I still don’t understand her position on love, empathy, and charity). Even though it didn’t make me question for much more than 15 minutes, I still value the experience of reading Atlas Shrugged and the related paradigm shift. At the time, I wanted to “recover” from my questioning, but the questioning had already started and it would only grow from there. In a Mormon Stories interview, Richard Dutcher likened his initial questioning of the religion to two spaceships in science fiction movies, where one gets disengaged from the other in outer space and it just slowly drifts away.
I still don’t fully understand why Mormons like Ayn Rand so much. She is very pro-laissez-faire capitalism and I think that resonates with many Mormons, males especially? Maybe it’s the emphasis on self-sufficiency? Not sure. I’m assuming they just ignore the religious and spiritual implications of her arguments.
I recently took home a handsome copy of Mormonism and the Negro from DI. Written in the 1960’s, the book is a defense of the doctrinal and historical consistency of withholding blacks from the priesthood. It is a fine relic of that era, and in my opinion a remarkable example of wasted energy. Bookshelves are littered with thousands of these intellectual artifacts that encapsulate abandoned ideas and theories of individuals. Of these abandoned notions, I don’t know that most are as cringe worthy and amusing to read as this well intentioned attempt to rationalize an absurd religious belief–that black skin represents a “lack of valor in the pre-mortal existence,” and Negroes are people who forfeited their “right to bear the Priesthood of God and enjoy its inherent blessings in this world.”
I’ll leave a discussion about blacks and the priesthood for another time. For now I just want to highlight the efforts of believers to squeeze out a semblance of rationality for various beliefs and practices. I understand there is a necessary faith logic within all religions, and apologists are sometimes able to offer well reasoned arguments. But it makes me a little sad that the authors of Mormonism and the Negro rose to defend the church’s doctrinal policy, not knowing the policy would be abandoned 15 years later. They exerted a lot of energy to defend an idea that wasn’t true but which was constructed on the words of scripture and modern prophets, a façade of rationality, and the glue of faith and loyalty. I’m sure the book buoyed the faith of members nursing doubts about the policy. But the authors didn’t know the doctrine was fickle; that the tides of societal change are stronger than dogma and that their rousing defense would be considered silly by today’s standards – even by faithful Mormons.
While it’s easy to judge these beliefs without considering the context in which they were established, they are clearly the ideas of men. They were not out of character with the broader racist mindset of the time. It’s likely that various contemporary LDS truth notions will be regarded silly and embarrassing in 20 to 30 years.
I love the Mr. Deity videos. Mr. Deity and the Skeptic is especially great because Michael Shermer makes some great, simple points. The stand-out line for me is when Shermer is answering to Mr. Deity, he says,
“You created us in your own image, and you don’t walk by faith, do you? You walk by sound knowledge. And science is based on sound knowledge. So, I was trying to be more, you know, deity-like.”
Around the first week of December, the ward clerk gave me a print-out of all my tithes, offerings, and other donations for all of 2010. I looked through the form and it all matched my personal records, so I thought nothing more of it and filed it away for preparation of my 2010 tax return. A week later, the 1st counselor in the bishopric called me and asked if I could schedule a time for tithing settlement. I figured I didn’t disagree with the amount on the form, so I didn’t need tithing settlement. The bishop pulled me out of Sunday School a couple weeks after that (a mixed blessing) and met with me for tithing settlement. When I told him I didn’t think the tithing settlement meeting was necessary, he told me it absolutely was because 1) he needed know how much tithing I was declaring and 2) he said it’s important for the entire family to participate in order to build a strong tradition of paying tithing.
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