Tithing Nullification

[Anonymous]

I am grateful that the system would not let me post a comment earlier tonight, since it kept me from saying something I don’t need to be saying. I will keep it to this:

I respect your view on this, wayfarer, but I just don’t see it the same way. I see an attempt to move forward and fix a serious historical problem (adding women as Heads of Households) that had the unintended and unanticipated consequence of allowing a Ward Clerk to enter joint tithing into only one account. I don’t see it as anything close to intentional nullification of a woman’s contribution or as an example of misogyny in the LDS Church, even as I see plenty of other issues of misogyny that I hope are addressed just like adding women as Heads of Households.

There is absolutely no “invention” in that view, and I never once implied that the change was inspired.

That’s my final comment on this topic. There is nowhere else for me to go with it at this point except places where I don’t want to go.

[Anonymous]

Fair enough, ray, and I recognize that you may not reply to this.

Let me see if I can scroll this back and unparse some of the meaning upon which we’re disagreeing (parse THAT sentence…). Here is what I see happened: some functionary in the church, probably involved in ensuring that tithing gets properly credited, changed the way that tithing is allocated, from a general text entry field to a specific drop-down allocated to a member. In database terms, this creates a foreign-key relationship improving the referential integrity of the information. I’m sure that this was done to improve overall data integrity and reporting within the tithing system.

This had an unintential impact of nullifying the contribution of some women who, while working at home in a single-income-provider household, have no income, and contribute ‘tithing’ jointly with their husbands. All my income is simultaneously my wife’s as well, and to allocate a percentage to her versus me would neither be honest nor accurate to what we believe. Since we file our taxes as “Married, filing jointly”, all of my income is also my wife’s income, therefore all of my tithing should also be my wife’s as well. Selecting an arbitrary percentage to go to the wife as her ‘tithing’ does not serve, is not accurate, and in fact harms the integrity of the marriage relationship.

I’m saying that this is ‘unintentional’, and we can both agree that it is ‘uninspired’. So far, so good.

But why do mistakes like this happen? Our minds are not single-dimensional structures — we do not have a cohesive, logical, decision-making framework. Often, we make decisions to do things based upon our emotional memory — based in a worldview formed over our entire lives. The LDS worldview is heavily informed by a patriarchal male dominance hierarchy we call “Priesthood”. While we cannot discern the exact state of mind of the LDS functionary making the decision to enforce referential integrity in tithing records, the choice of tying the tithing to the individual versus to the family was based in the mindset of the culture. (As well, a flexible referential integrity structure — tying tithing to either the family or the individual, is very advanced database programming, and most would not be able to implement such.)

So a ‘benign’ decision was made, and while benign and unintentional, it has impact. You can say ‘don’t worry about the impact’, but it’s still there. What I’m saying is that even if such is non-intentional, the reason we have such mistakes happen is because anti-woman bias ’emerges’ from individual choices, whether we want it to or not. Since in LDS thinking, there is a ‘head of household’, then the decision emerged from the LDS corporate bias toward dominance hierarchy, or lacking a male head of household, the female who donated. But it doesn’t work for joint marital property.

So Why did I say, you’re missing the point? In my humble opinion, when we see the emergence of anti-woman bias, we need to put a spotlight on it, rather than sweeping it aside and saying that it wasn’t intentional. I grew up in a bigoted culture — and when I find myself making bigoted decisions, my approach isn’t to sweep it under the rug, but to take positive, affirmative action to undo the neural network of my bias. I feel that the ENTIRE problem with the LDS church is the inability to admit that our leaders are human, make mistakes, hold internal bigotry and biases, and then try to defend historical decision making as inspired when it wasn’t. Blacks, gays, and women, among others, all suffer because in reality historical decisions were made that harmed true equality and inclusivity. It’s wrong to defend bigotry, even when it is unintentionally emergent from our biases.

I always appreciate your contributions as moderator, and while you may think we disagree on this — i understand your point of view, and your good intention to not make a big thing out of a little issue. Yes, it’s a little thing — a benign mistake or change to a system even. But there is something to be gained by looking at how the emergence of our biases is reflected in the little things. Our goal shouldn’t be to nullify or minimize these things, but to help people put them into context — which I know you’re trying to do, and see how we need to operate differently — which is what I’m trying to do.

cheers!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the additional input, wayfarer. I will retract my previous comment about not contributing more.

I understand and agree with all of that – except that I still see the placement of wives as Heads of Households with their husbands as an important thing.

My solution in the system would be to allow for an even split of donations in the case where spouses are recorded on the tithing slips but only one amount is written or simply have the option to choose more than one contributor for the same donation. Lacking that within the system, since that would take a recognition of the problem that might not occur for a while, my solution is to record the donation on slip as having come from both members evenly and asking that it be recorded that way.

I had an interesting experience literally as I was reading your comment and about to type mine:

My wife texted and mentioned that she would like to go to the store with our oldest daughter to do some Christmas shopping with her. (That daughter is the one who will be entering the MTC in February to go to Germany, and she arrived last night for the weekend, so she can see her older brothers who will be arriving tonight for the holidays. It might be the last time in a LONG time, if ever, that all of us are together.) I responded that we can go together when I get home from my traveling this evening, and she “asked” if she could go this afternoon in order to do it while she is shopping for other stuff.

My text response was, “Yes. I’m not the boss. I don’t mean you are, only that you don’t need to ask permission for something like that.”

I’m glad she did ask, in an important way, since we ask each other about almost everything before we spend anything out of the ordinary (since we try to model fully the idea that we really are “two-made-one”), but she also was raised in a very traditional “father-is-the-boss-and-final-word-on-everything” family. I know that, so sometimes I answer her in a way that tries to emphasize that’s not the case in our relationship, just to reinforce it and fight the effects of her upbringing.

That relates directly to this thread and my belief that I’m not acting like an ostrich in this case or being inventive in order to protect cog-dis. I’m trying to look at it as analytically as I can – and it’s FAR easier for me to do that, since it wasn’t my wife who was hurt by it.

[Anonymous]

This is going to sound naive. (If it is please disregard.)

How is the Church recording the tithing paid by children?

[Anonymous]

Mike wrote:

This is going to sound naive. (If it is please disregard.)

How is the Church recording the tithing paid by children?

As individuals. As a funny side note, my 5 year old daughter paid only $2 in tithing last year. Yet she was the only one with any amount on the paper during tithing settlement. My bishop made an odd comment when handing me my accounting. “Unfortunately I can’t see what you paid since you pay online….” I didn’t say anything but you bet I was thinking why it was unfortunate and why he thought he needed to know…

[Anonymous]

One year when I was 14 or 15 we went to tithing settlement as a family. I was proud of all the contributions I had made from my odd jobs and was ready to declare that I was a full tithe payer. But when we got there the Bishop handed me my piece of paper which had no contributions listed for the year. My dad and I share a first name, so the clerks just put everything under his name. It was a big disapointment. I can empathize with your wife.

If the MLS jockeys want a drop down menu they should have the option to include married couples as one. So they could choose to assign the donation to “Brother Parsons,” “Sister Parsons,” or “Brother AND Sister Parsons.”

Sometimes it takes the MLS programmers some time to adapt their program to the messiness of real life.

[Anonymous]

cwald wrote:

Cadence wrote:

First mistake was going to tithing settlement.

Careful. This is the kind of cynicism that got me put in the straight jacket last month.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2

But I was serious. I really think every single member should refrain from attending tithing settlement. So much stress for so little reason.

[Anonymous]

rebeccad wrote:

I could see both sides of it.

If a married couple has a husband that doesn’t pay tithing, the wife would but doesn’t make money separate statements would be useful.

But it should be done in accordance with what the couple wants and best reflects their financial situation.

I wanted to bump up this thread because of our recent experience.

I have not made any tithing payments this year.

DW recently received the tithing statements. One for each of the children and one for the two of us. She would like to have a separate one for herself. She would pay tithing if she made any money and would like that to be clear that she is a full tithe payer. She asked the clerk if she could have a seperate print out for herself and he said that he hadn’t ever heard of it being done that way. She said “nevermind” and will just explain it to the bishop when the time comes.

I asked her if it mattered to her what was input into the computer. She feels strongly that it does, on principle, and I respect that.

It is a somewhat strange intersection where a clerical error can affect how one feels about their standing before God.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

cwald wrote:

Cadence wrote:

First mistake was going to tithing settlement.

Careful. This is the kind of cynicism that got me put in the straight jacket last month.

But I was serious. I really think every single member should refrain from attending tithing settlement. So much stress for so little reason.

This brings up an interesting point…

For those that chose not to pay tithing… do you go to tithing settlement? I can see how someone in that situation might view tithing settlement as a means of exerting social pressure to pay tithing or a meeting that would only serve to make them feel embarrassed or ashamed. I.e. you sit down with your bishop, significant other, and your children – the bishop hands you a piece of paper with $0 on it and then there’s this awkward moment where there’s the expectation that the non-payer needs to offer an explanation to the group why they aren’t paying tithing. Seems like an all around stressful situation.

[Anonymous]

I attended tithing settlement today. They always print out separate contribution slips for myself and my husband. I had to laugh because the clerk put all the money we contributed under my husband’s name, and no tithing under mine. In fact, my husband has not been a church-goer for 10 years and pays $0 of his work income to tithing. Our compromise is that I pay on what I earn (we both have jobs outside the home). Anyway, I see my contributions as being made by my husband as well, since we are a team and both contribute equally to the family. But it was a bit funny to me the way they recorded it, since he’s the “head of household.” I had to tell the bishop I am a full tithe-payor, with $0 on my slip. 😮)

[Anonymous]

Thanks for bumping, Roy. :thumbup:

nibbler wrote:

For those that chose not to pay tithing… do you go to tithing settlement? I can see how someone in that situation might view tithing settlement as a means of exerting social pressure to pay tithing or a meeting that would only serve to make them feel embarrassed or ashamed. I.e. you sit down with your bishop, significant other, and your children – the bishop hands you a piece of paper with $0 on it and then there’s this awkward moment where there’s the expectation that the non-payer needs to offer an explanation to the group why they aren’t paying tithing. Seems like an all around stressful situation.

I did not go to settlement last year.

I likely will this year, as long as I am comfortable with talking to my bishop. If it was a stressful situation for me, I would not go. I am not into adding stress to my life. I don’t need that.

[Anonymous]

It’s not a problem if you do not pay tithing. Seems like a good solution to me.

[Anonymous]

I’m a SAHM with a (very small) income of my own, and I’ve always had separate statements. This year my husband got a statement in preparation for TS and I didn’t – but that’s because I haven’t actually *paid* my tithing yet, I’ve had a gradually increasing hoard of ones and fives in the side pocket of my church bag. (I pay every single one of my expenses via PayPal except for tithing. I actually just ordered checks for the sole purpose of paying tithing, since I’m given to understand they don’t like sorting through my wad of small bills. ) We do have a new bishopric this year so I guess I will see what happens.

FWIW, even my TBM husband isn’t a big fan of tithing settlement. It’s just enforced awkwardness. And this year the stake has decreed that sign-up sheets are a no-no, so you have to hunt down the executive secretary (and I don’t even know who that is right now) to make an appointment. Last year we showed up on a Wednesday night for our 7:30 appointment and learned that TS was so far behind we wouldn’t be seen until 9:00. So we said ‘thanks but no thanks’ and went home.

I guess I am not sure why TS is necessary, when it’s redundant with – and not in any way connected to – the tithing question in a temple recomend interview.

[Anonymous]

So glad this was bumped up too! Since putting both of our names on the tithing slip only resulted in a statement with my husband’s name on it, I have been going to the trouble of separate tithing slips and two checks all year. When it came time for the statements to be handed out, I was handed an envelope with my husband’s first and last name written on it. Enclosed were both of our tithing statements. Really?

A recent widow was handed her envelope, with her deceased husband’s statement of tithing and then one with her name which started after his death this year. Really?

I don’t think this is just a clerical error in the particular ward we live in. After reviewing this thread though, I am going to bring this up to someone. This really needs to stop. One statement should be in both names if they are both written on the tithing slip, just like our taxes if we file jointly.

[Anonymous]

My wife and I have paid with individual checks and tithing slips all year. Therefore, the money has to have been entered under each name individually. I’ll see how the reports come back to us and let everyone know.

[Author]

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