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Throughout most of my life, I believed that a paid ministry was priestcraft. However, my exposure to how things really work at the higher levels revealed that many of the GA’s are paid. I don’t begrudge this in any way, but it has me wondering what the definition of priestcraft is now that I know many non-local leaders are paid in the church.
What exactly is priestcraft, then?
Hmmm. Well, my own view is that selling books at Deseret Book is priestcraft. Any time you sell the “word of God,” so yeah, I think my definition is pretty stark. http://www.wheatandtares.org/16121/passing-the-heavenly-grift/ I looked it up on lds.org and this was the first thing that popped up when I searched ‘priestcraft’. https://www.lds.org/manual/teaching-seminary-preservice-readings-religion-370-471-and-475/the-dangers-of-priestcraft?lang=eng I would skip down to the part titled The Dangers of Priestcraft, as the beginning doesn’t cover priestcraft specifically until that part.
I found it interesting and it explains it in a way that makes prophets not look bad for being paid
This is a definition I found. I don’t know if it applies or not.
Quote:Word Origin and History for priestcraft: late 15c., “business of being a priest,” from priest + craft (n.). After rise of Protestantism and the Enlightenment, it acquired a pejorative sense of “arts and devices of ambitious priests for attaining and holding temporal power and social control” (1680s).
The distinction seems to be about functioning as a member of the priesthood vs the business of holding & functioning within the priesthood.
I read the article. Longwinded… Key takeaways
a) When your motive for serving in a church position is the money and not the welfare of zion — that is priestcraft.
b) When you start accepting a following of people who love you more than the gospel (like you are oracle of knowledge, with your own cult following) that is a form of priestcraft.
c) Setting up your own church, or even anti-Christian movements is priestcraft (like Nehor).
For me, the article seems to imply the key distinction beteween priestcraft and priesthood service is motive. Tough to see outright, really — it makes priestcraft a very slippery and hidden concept. And easy to justify paying GA’s for their service. The article does not explicitly broach the selling of books, the ponderize concept we heard about a while ago, or slogans on ties and lapel pins etcetera (like ‘Lengthen your Stride”).
The thing that bothers me the most, though, is that most people accept the blanket statement that “no one is paid” in the church when that is not true. People high up in the church, even in the mainline ecclesiastical positions receive financial support. Mission presidents get a decent standard of living, private schools for their kids, etcetera.
I personally wish local Bishops were paid and could dedicate their full time thoughts to their positions. You’d get better “service” at the local level. I still remember one bishop saying “You’d be surprised how long people can wait” when someone asked him how he deals with sudden emergencies that cross his desk. Seems like a bit of a double standard that some missionaries, particularly those without member families, or recent converts have to crawl over broken glass to get the money together to serve a mission while the mission presidents are paid a comfortable living.
Anyway, I am not convinced the meaning of “priestcraft” is clear to me any more. It sounds like it’s a matter of the heart, and the higher ups are content letting people believe that priestcraft happens when you are paid to be a preacher, letting the membership live in ignorance about the fact that many GA’s are paid.
I lean very much toward Hawk’s definition, and likewise condemn faith business and faith crisis business. On the flip side, I can actually see the benefit of having paid local clergy. (Because in this church, the relief society president is expected to give her time for free, but a GA is compensated.) Paidclergy is usually also trainedclergy – imagine how amazing it would be if every congregation had someone trained in pastoral care, counseling, etc. And at least around here, being a pastor is a 40- or 50-hour workweek but that’s not on top ofholding down a full time job. Imagine the bishop actually getting to see his wife and kids sometimes! What is said about priestcrafts in the BoM sheds some light on a possible definition. 2 Nephi 26:29 wrote:He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold, priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.
Contrast that with:
John 8:12 wrote:Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
So one possible definition is when someone seeks to supplant Christ.
When I think about how people use priestcrafts at church I also imagine they are talking about a specific phenomenon that can occur when people preach to sustain their living. In that type of environment there can be a temptation to modify doctrine to attract certain demographics, the teachings adjust to the world as opposed to the world adjusting to the teachings. The LDS church usually likes to go through several decades of being extremely unpopular before eventually figuring out that they too need to adjust to an ever changing world. Being unpopular is a badge of honor… as is being popular. It’s nice to have win-win scenarios.
For me, I believe priestcraft to be preaching the word of God for personal gain and advancement. Modern day GAs don’t seem to have this issue, in my eyes. Many of them come from high-class backgrounds, and were very renouned in their field. I’m sure any money they recieve from the church is supplimented with their own retirement. Just like with a mission president, I believe it is reasonable to give them housing along with a stipend for food, clothing, and other necessities. They aren’t building up mansionsor buying sports cars.
I do have an issue with Brigham Young, when it comes to priestcraft. When he died he had an estate of $1,600,000, although John Taylor claimed he owed the church $1,000,000 of it. In the court case against his ex-wife Ann Eliza Webb, she claimed he had a net worth of $8,000,000, with an income of $40,000 a month. Brigham Young refuited, stating his net worth was only $600,000 and that he only made $6,000 a month. Keep in mind that $1 in the year 1870 was equivalent to $17.56 in our time. That was a LOT of money. And I’m sure Brigham Young earned some of that by his own hard work. But I can guarantee his position and income within the early Utah theocracy was heavily linked to being the prophet. I have a hard time beliving that Brigham Young’s own work was worth by today’s standards, an annual salary of $1,264,000.
dande48 wrote:For me, I believe priestcraft to be preaching the word of God for personal gain and advancement.
Modern day GAs don’t seem to have this issue, in my eyes. Many of them come from high-class backgrounds, and were very renouned in their field. I’m sure any money they recieve from the church is supplimented with their own retirement. Just like with a mission president, I believe it is reasonable to give them housing along with a stipend for food, clothing, and other necessities. They aren’t building up mansionsor buying sports cars.
Private schools, a large, spacious home, health care, living expenses paid — and a directive not to share these things with the general membership is part of the policy someone posted about payments to mission presidents. Could you not levy the same argument for full-time missionaries? I won’t go into what my SP made me do to serve a mission. But the sacrifices were substantial. What sacrifices is the MP making financially? And is it a double standard compared to expectations of the missionaries and their families?
I am not saying it is priestcraft, however. Simply pointing out the inequities….
I am hoping my daughter does not decide to serve a mission. I would rather not fund it. Fortunately, she has all the ingredients for marriage and an apparent willingness to do so when the time is right (sooner, rather than later) so I may not have to worry about it.
Preaching in order to get money and/ or fame. The only institutional cases I see as obviously fitting that within the LDS Church are the Deseret Book type cases: books, inspirational quote plaques, scripture action figures, etc.
I would say there are individual members / leaders who have a priestcraft mentality, however – at all levels. It is sad, but we all are human, so I am not surprised by it.
I think there are several really interesting points here. 1 – We favor independently wealthy leaders because they aren’t tempted by riches (like earlier church leaders undoubtedly were). But basically, by saying “no paid clergy” and “being paid for preaching is priestcraft” we are setting up a prosperity gospel in which nobody but the wealthy can be trusted to preach, and the wealthy “righteous” have a tendency to attribute their wealth to “blessings” or in other words, their righteousness paid off like a Vegas slot machine.
2 – Any time someone’s living depends on the contributions of an audience, they will write/speak/preach for that audience. Whatever extracts more $ from the audience is what they will write. Are there exceptions? I guess, but it holds true in journalism, politics, and religion very equally. It’s one reason I have steadfastly refused to monetize my blog and refused to participate in paid seminars. I can be (more) true to myself and my views if I’m not paid for what I say and think (although even payment in “likes” is inducement in blogging).
3 – You can absolutely start with a pure heart and end up somewhere very different. When it comes to money, I don’t think people can ever be objective. We have to eat. We have to have shelter. We have to send our kids out in the world. We need retirement funds.
4 – There are some fantastic paid clergy in other denominations, trained in pastoral care, set apart from the concerns of the world to focus on how to care for their flock. We do miss out on something by having businessmen with busy lives handling everything. Some of them are very good, but none of them are full time at it. So we mostly stick with self-care. That’s both a feature and a bug.
Speaking of Priestcraft, this is a book review I did of a talk I really liked that they turned into a very expensive book that simply doesn’t work IMO:
https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/07/16/book-review-a-summer-with-great-aunt-rose/ Old-Timer wrote:The only institutional cases I see as obviously fitting that within the LDS Church are the Deseret Book type cases: books, inspirational quote plaques, scripture action figures, etc.
There is one more that the church stopped doing about 20 years ago. It was called “Know your Religion” The was a paid speaking circuit where BYU professor/CES types would be paid to go from stake to stake giving talks. Attendees had to pay to get into the chapel to listen to the talk. There was a Know your religion stake person who sold tickets, and was always pushing them in the wards. You could pay at the door or buy a season pass! They stopped due to lack of attendance, not because it was the very definition of priestcraft!
Sheldon wrote:Old-Timer wrote:The only institutional cases I see as obviously fitting that within the LDS Church are the Deseret Book type cases: books, inspirational quote plaques, scripture action figures, etc.
There is one more that the church stopped doing about 20 years ago. It was called “Know your Religion” The was a paid speaking circuit where BYU professor/CES types would be paid to go from stake to stake giving talks. Attendees had to pay to get into the chapel to listen to the talk. There was a Know your religion stake person who sold tickets, and was always pushing them in the wards. You could pay at the door or buy a season pass! They stopped due to lack of attendance, not because it was the very definition of priestcraft!
How long ago where they doing this?
I remember my parents going to some of these but when I came off my mission in the mid 80’s they had stopped from what I remember
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