Tithing

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I like the quote above which says tithing is 10% of your “interest” which is a pretty ambiguous statement. If you check Gospel principles I think they used some selective editing or quoting to make it sound like more than it has to be — which is the amount your conscience tells you it is.

What should you do going forward? Now that you’ve told your Bishop, you are bound by his directives, I think. You could followup with your Stake president for clarification, but he might support the Bishop with some qualifying statements, or placing the Bishop’s authority above his own opinion. If you don’t get a satisfactory answer from the SP you’ll have some decisions to make — whether to do what your Bishop asks (he will expect you to obey him if the SP supports his authority in the Ward), or whether to sit this one out until your Bishop changes over and not pay.

I have learned that the less you tell the priesthood leaders the better off you are. One Bishop told me he “doesn’t know incomes” which to me, was admission that he’s at the mercy of the consciences of his membership.

My personal opinion is that self-reliance comes ahead of tithing. If you have to pay the church tithing and then go on Church welfare to make ends meet, your priorities are upside down. (Not that you are planning a welfare request, I am not implying that).

Good luck — remember — happiness is the object and design of our existence, so ask yourself, what would make me happiest?

Thank you! I feel the same way and I love that quote! It’s now written on my whiteboard in the kitchen to remind me every day.

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[Anonymous]

Your bishop has no justification for interpreting tithing as gross, other than as *his* personal method. The only question he is supposed to ask is if you consider yourself to be a full tithe payer. That’s it. Now, if you say “no,” then he may ask some follow-up in order to try to help you with that. But per the last official statement in 1970, every person is supposed to determine their own method of tithing. I’m okay with the church HQ leaving that vague… some will pay gross, some basic net, some net including family expenses. It will balance out as Roy describes. That’s fine to leave it to the determination of every individual. Insisting on paying gross is wrong, though. As I noted before, it’s in conflict with so many things our church teaches and encourages. As SilentDawning said, paying tithing and then needing church welfare to make ends meet shows a screwy sense of priorities.

Quote:

I view tithing as primarily the method used to fund church operations. If everyone pays on gross and the church receives enough to stay in the black, than that works. If everyone pays on net and the church stays in the black, then that works too. Right now we seem to have a situation where many pay no tithing, some pay on net, and some pay on gross. I do not know what it would mean for church finances if those that currently pay on gross were to switch to net. If it caused the church finances to go into the red then I would expect to see some serious emphasis placed on paying tithing on gross. There is nothing wrong with that. The church needs to pay its bills just like everybody else.

The church has tens of billions of dollars in assets. Everyone paying on surplus would probably be a big reduction in overall revenue, but expenses could still easily be met and bills paid. (And some argue that if more people knew that they can pay on surplus and be full tithe payers, more would actually pay tithing when they currently don’t.) And sure, reduced tithing income might necessarily curtail some of the services and charitable things the church offers, but the thing is, per D&C, tithing is only meant to cover the debts of the First Presidency… the overhead and expenses of the buildings and such. We are also commanded numerous times in the scriptures to give charitably and to give service. In reducing my tithing to something closer to the surplus method, I’ve also increased charitable giving by a large factor, both in a personal sense and in the humanitarian aid offering included with tithing slips. So if everyone is doing that, those services and charities can still be funded and offered, just not via money specifically derived from tithing.

Quote:

I like the quote above which says tithing is 10% of your “interest” which is a pretty ambiguous statement.

The 1970 statement says that interest is “understood to mean income.” How about understood to mean “interest”? As in, the extra. Interest is the extra amount you pay to the credit card company, or the extra amount that you get from the savings account at your bank. That’s still how we think of interest, and it was the same at the time of D&C… early leaders referred to people paying tithing only if they had means, after taking care of their families. To redefine the word in modern times to mean something different (income) would be like reading about someone from the 1940’s referring to someone else as “gay” and assuming they must have meant “homosexual.” But again, there’s no need to redefine that, as “interest” today still means “interest” in the way it did then, describing something that is an extra amount.

[Anonymous]

I remember reading about tithing and how different the discussion is when you live in a socialized country. Medical expenses are paid for, many training and colleges are paid for, some mass transit is paid for, BUT the trade off is most of your check goes to the government. I heard it can be like 60% So do you pay gross on that?

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