Are Mormons Paying Too Much Tithing? - LDS Discussions Pt. 83 | Ep. 2196

0:00Good morning, and thank you for joining me on today's episode of Mormon Stories Podcast LDS Discussions Edition. I'm your host today, Colby Redish, and as a reminder, the LDS Discussions series is an effort where we examine Mormon Church truth claims based upon the best available evidence and we try to approach those claims as objectively and fairly as we can. This series was started by a man named Mike of the website LDS Discussions who has since retired from this project. We're incredibly grateful for the work he did to build the foundations for this series. Because of that, you can find dozens of LDS Discussions episodes both on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well as the LDS Discussions playlist on YouTube because these episodes typically build upon one another. If you are new to the series, we strongly recommend starting at the beginning and working through them sequentially in order, especially because today we are joined by Julia Sanders and Nima the Mormon to finish our discussion on the history of tithing. This literally is a part two of an episode we did earlier just several weeks ago.

1:05John Dillin believes that LDS Discussions is some of the most important work that the Open Stories Foundation and Mormon Stories has ever done. So we're incredibly thankful for those who support this project and keep it going. With that introduction, thank you for joining me, Julia. How are you this morning? I'm great. How are you guys doing well? Nima, how are you? I'm wonderful. Good. As always. Great. Do you folks, before we get started, do you want to remind people where they can find you aside from on this video? Yeah. So I'm analyzing Mormonism on YouTube, Patreon, TikTok, Instagram. Yeah. I'm Nima the Mormon everywhere except for my face. I hear that's coming back. I don't know if that's real. Well, if it is, I'm going to reserve my handle immediately. Right. And then you can say that anymore. And I can't say that anymore. But that came up in Slack the other day. Colby blamed some increased views online MySpace jokes.

2:05So yeah, this will continue now. Welcome, right? Yeah. But I'm Colby Reddish. You can only find me on MySpace. No, I'm joking. You can find my channel. Let's disagree also here on YouTube. So I'm really excited to jump into our part two on the history of tithing. Julia, tell us what we're in store for today. So this is the part two of history of tithing. Although I don't know that we talk about the history. But I think more of it's the discussion of are we paying too much tithing? And then tithing was given for four very specific reasons. And we're going to explore if those reasons have been fulfilled or what those look like. And so yes, there are some historical sources that we're talking about. But I think mostly we're launching into discussion of are we paying too much? Great. Yeah. Yeah, so we're going to just get started. I just want to go over again, the language of the tithing revelation. Colby, would you read this? I would. So this was given on the 8th of July in 1838. The question is asked how much the servants, the servants of God should be required to pay

3:08as a tithing. And the answer is, verily thus, say, if the Lord, I require all their surplus property to be put into the hands of the bishop of my church of Zion for the building of minehouse and for the laying the foundation of Zion and for the priesthood and for the deaths of the presidency of my church. And this shall be the beginning of the tithing of my people. And after that, those who have thus been tithed shall pay one tenth of all their interest annually. And this shall be a standing law unto them forever for my holy priesthood, say, at the Lord. Verily I say unto you, it shall come to pass that all those who gather unto the land of Zion shall be tithed of their surplus properties. And shall observe this law, or they shall not be found worthy to abide among you. And behold, I say unto you, if my people observe not this law to keep it holy and by this law sanctify the land of Zion unto me, at my statutes and my judgments, may be kept there on that it may be most holy. Behold, I say unto you, it shall not be a land of Zion unto you. And this shall be an example, I think, in sample, but example unto all the stakes of

4:10Zion even so amen. Okay, so what can you tell us, can you just summarize what this revelation is? Yeah, so the way I interpret it is people when they enter into Zion, when they enter into the church, they are required to pay all of their surplus property and then after paying all of their surplus property to pay one tenth of all their interest annually in their other properties. Yeah, that's what I understand. There'll be a standing law unto them forever. So one tenth of all their interest, that's the law forever. Just want to check that that's what that says. It does. So forever means it shouldn't change, right? Yeah, it does mean it shouldn't change. Yes, that is a word forever means. Cool. Just just want to get that clear. All right. Thank you. Yeah. So so again, one of the things we talked about in our last episode was that people didn't pay tithing just with money. They paid with with actual property with land, with cattle, with with whatever they had.

5:11So goods and things like that. So it wasn't just money. So that, but I think right there, it seems like they're the languages, the surplus property to help build Zion. It sounds like they actually mean land is what I'm gathering from these. But anyway, one of the things that's interesting to me about this is that it doesn't answer the question of who gets to determine what is your surplus property? Because and I know you've got these definitions. So maybe we can start going through those definitions now, Julia, but it doesn't answer the question of surplus and whose eyes, right? Is it in your eyes or is it in the bishop's eyes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I took some definitions from there's that you can go to the 18 is this 1828 or 1829 dictionary. 1828. Yep. Okay. And then you can just type in a word and then it'll show up what it meant back then because the word meaning changed. And so I pulled out three definitions here. This first one is surplus. And the first definition is over plus that which remains when use is satisfied. Access beyond what is prescribed or wanted in the United States.

6:13The surplus of wheat and rye not required for the consumption or exportation is distilled. So what? So what is beyond access beyond what is prescribed or wanted? Or what is wanted, which is very important because members may say, well, I want to hold more land. Oh, yeah. And then we're going to surplus, right? Under that definition. Yeah, that's true. So it's quite a flexible law. It is. It is. And then Colby that brings into who gets to decide what this is. And then this next one is interest. Colby, do you want to read some of these definitions? Yeah. So this is, yeah, this is the term it's actually used, right? That they shop a one-tenth of their interest annually. So you can see, definitely, I think the ones that are relevant here, most of us are going to be most familiar with the concept of interest in definition four, which is the idea that you're paying a premium for the use of someone else's money, right? It goes back to time value of money concepts here in 1828. You can see definitions three and five really have a kind of a separate definition, which is recognizing interest is basically profit.

7:19And profit is the idea that after you've paid the expenses, it's what remains off of your revenue. So revenue is what you take in. Your expenses are what you pay to generate that revenue and your profit is what remains after. So you can see definition five, any surplus advantage is basically the same idea that's in depth and three. Can you imagine though if definition four was the way that this is actually intended to work? And they were like, hey, look, okay, right. So you've put all your money into the bank or a lot of your money to bank. Once the bank pays you your interest, you then need to give a tenth of that to the church. Yeah. I think it's important to mention here though that what this none of this means is 10% of all your money, please, before you do anything else with it. That's not what this means. Very right. Yeah. We can um an hour about what interest might have meant back then, like whether it was, you know, just your surplus advantage, generally, like money that you essentially had going spare or whether it was private profit that you'd made through,

8:20because a lot of people when they move into these towns, right, they set up businesses, they, they do work that is paid, you know, you'll have a printing shop, you'll have a, uh, green grocer essentially, I don't want you to call it then, but, you know, you'd have people that are selling wares and doing labor and being paid for it. So it could be a tenth of that profit that they make through that business. It could just be surplus advantage, generally. Either way, it's not just all the money they have 10% of that. Right. So I'll push back on that a little bit just to say there's a little bit of ambiguity. If we look at definition two, which would be the more common use over three and five, right? That's the way that these are ranked share portion part participation and value. That could be broad enough, I think, to incorporate just your ownership interest in something. If you look at the end of that definition, he has an interest in a manufacturing of cotton goods. Yeah. So it may be a little bit more complicated than there's, you can give it a chance. You'll share. Right. So I can at least see where someone could look at this definition, definition two and say,

9:24well, interest, at least in definition two does seem to incorporate the entirety of your interest. Potentially. We just don't know. Yeah. Right. Well, then again, the language, another word that was used was surplus, like we said, which is above what is wanted. When it's regarded to land. Yeah. Right. There's another word that's not in the tithing revelation, but it is used often by church leaders. And it's called its increase. And so one of the definitions for that is increment profit interest that which is added to the original stock. And that's the one that I pulled out that there was of interest to me. So that seems to have the kind of the same reflection of not not all of your income, but what is, but your profit from everything. So, but anyway, I just wanted to have this discussion because. But even a produce as of land, for example, right, that's also relevant. Maybe not progeny. That's, you know, perhaps the church isn't wanting you to tithe one tenth of all your children.

10:24But, you know, if you're someone that the main form of your productivity is what you grow, then that's also a reasonable thing. It puts you in this time to think, okay, well, then you could bring a tenth of that into the storehouse at the church, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Produce the second definition. Can you give in the biblical sense in which sacrifices are taken from what you produce from your fields or your flocks? Yeah. Or the fields and the flocks of the people that you've conquered as we look at in the scriptures the last time. Yeah. But yes. So this, this breakdown, so whenever I was an active member of the church, I came across this blog where I pretty sure was an active member of the church, but he just had a hard time with typing and he had all these things that he was defying and he was trying to understand why we're paying so much. And he held, he kind of presented this, this chart. And I don't have his source because it's an old blog and I need to go and find it. But I, that was probably 2018 that I saw that.

11:24But anyway, so he was showing this where you have your business and your sales revenue and then underneath the sales revenue, you have to cover your expenses, you have to pay electricity, your employees, maintenance, just everything you have to pay for. And then whenever it's left over as the gain is what the company is making as far as I understand. Or the profit. Those people are going to call that net profit. Okay. Yeah. And which in which to me, the words increased surplus and interest are very similar to that, that profit word. So then if we look at it from more of a personal perspective, from like, this is your employment, let's pretend you make 60,000 a year, you have to cover your expenses, you have to cover your mortgage, electricity, your vehicles, your insurance, childcare, internet, food, everything. And then whatever is left over would be the profit or the gain or the interest surplus or increase. And so to me, what I'm wondering and what this person postulated in that blog post that I can hopefully track down is that we should be paying tithing on what on the profit rather than on our 60,000 60 case salary.

12:25And so I just wanted to have this discussion because like I just wonder if we are paying too much diving. This is a common argument within the church, particularly when you read that it talks about increase, right? And in the UK, I've certainly had this discussion before and a common retort that many people have heard is do you want net blessings or gross blessings because there is this transactional element to the concept of tithing in that you do it and then you are blessed. So, yeah, I think I said it in the last episode. I had a bishop tell me that this is the only commandment you can keep fully because it's, yeah, mathematically calculable. So a lot of people going to hold on to it as if I do this, then I will get blessings. So do I want net or gross blessings? They'll also throw the robbing god line out there. But I think fundamentally if you look to the scripture and see increase, then there is a good argument who made that after you have paid what you need to pay. And for some people, particularly again in those conversations I was talking about growing up, that was about before or after tax, not necessarily after mortgage electricity vehicles insurance, childcare, et cetera.

13:32It was just like, well, before or after paying your taxes because they're taking a source. And so there would be a discussion about whether you ever actually saw that money or not. Right. So, you know, because yes, you technically earned it, but the government takes it straight away. So is that an increase and should you therefore pay tithing on it, et cetera? Yeah. Colleague, do you have anything, dad? Well, I just, I think they're good practical reasons to look at it this way. Right? Like if you make just using the example you have on the slide here, if you make the $60,000 a year, but you're paying $58,000 of those dollars a year into taxes, into your mortgage, into your vehicles, into your childcare, into your food, into your, you know, your practical necessities that you need utilities insurance, those things. You really don't have the additional $6,000 if we were calculating it based on the $60,000, right? You don't have $6,000 to pay in tithing. And so I think we'll get to the verse from Mazzaya a little bit later.

14:34But I think this is one reason that the Book of Mormon recognizes, recognizes, I think in line with what we're talking about here, that the giving, it doesn't even use the word tithing in that passage. But that the giving that people give to the church or to build up the kingdom of God is based on their increase surplus and interest because. To me, that's the only way it really would make sense, right? For people who really are having a lot of expenses. This is one of the reasons that tithing. Because of it's a higher like proportion of your income, if you're a lower income person, this is the reason that it impacts lower income people much harder that it does. People who have millions of millions of dollars, right? Yes, it's the same proportion. And so it seems fair from that perspective. But it's not when you're looking at it through the lens of what's your discretionary income after you pay your expenses. That's why it would be truly fair if it were standardized done on money after expenses paid. Correct. Because then it would be a true reflection.

15:37I mean, we could get into the widow's might about this, right? Because the widow's might is not about how much money she earns before expenses is about how much money she has that she can give away and she gives away more as a proportion than the rich people who just throw away stuff that they're going to fall to throw away. And similarly, this, this would create a fair sense of sacrifice for those if we were doing it on game. Where is it, like you said, disproportionately burdens the poor or those who have large expenses with lower salaries. But basically it's that ratio between income and expenditure that if that's high for people that then tie things going to hit them harder because you're taking away a larger. And to do that income if you're doing it at source. Yeah. Yeah. So it just seems to me that we should be paying a tenth of our profit or gain. Like a tenth of a tenth almost is how I think it would come out. That would be the law run to us forever according to the scripture. Yeah.

16:37That's how I would understand that. Yeah. There's this quote from Bergen Young Jr. in 1875 that I wanted to read. He says it says, um, this is, yeah, it's general conference. He then spake on the subject of typing and said that neither himself nor anyone else, either man or woman, had ever paid their typing as it was revealed and understood by him and the doctrine in covenants. But however, we might fall short of this and many other things. This people were the people of God and he knew it. And God would eventually bring us up to standard to the standard he required us to occupy. There were at least three different ways that the United Order was being tried throughout the territory. He helped that that air along a system would be gone into that all could unite and enter upon in earnest. And so, so just at the beginning, he's saying, I don't know if anybody who's paying, typing as it was revealed. And I don't exactly know what he means. And he is talking about the United Order in some sense. But it seems like what he's meaning to me is that people are not paying it as it had been revealed.

17:41So like, I, yeah, I would push back on this slightly if the implication here would to be that, you know, people should be paying less, not more people are paying too much. I don't think that would ever be what he's saying here. Partly because I don't think I've ever heard a church leader ever get up and say, guys, you're paying too much. Pay less. Particularly in the early days of the church when they're trying to establish Utah and things like this. What I see here, particularly with the mention of the United Order being tried as though the United Order isn't currently living up to what it should be. That is based around the law of consecration. And so this very much reads to me like saying, hey, by my understanding of the revelation, we should be giving a lot of ourselves over to this and people aren't giving enough and we're not fully consecrating ourselves. And there will come a time when we're lifted up to that place where we basically give everything we have of the church and it becomes potentially very communist utopia. That's the way I would understand it as well. I think the other thing I'd note on this is regardless of exactly what he means.

18:43One of the things that's very funny about this to me is he says there are at least three different ways that people are trying this, right? So there are at least three different interpretations is what I'm hearing from him on what this paying, tithing means. And it's important to remember that supposedly God who gave this revelation forever as a standing lot to his people forever is not a god of confusion. And yet they can't get something that is such a basic law. Correct. Because he left surplus open to interpretation. He left what that means open. And so I think what that in terms of the history of this still I think what we're seeing is church leaders desperately trying to grab control of those areas in which things are more vague or more open to interpretation and put down what the interpretations are in a way that essentially means pay us more. I think you could you could kind of round it up into that and say every time it's like surplus. Well, what does surplus mean? Well, I know surplus means X Y Z.

19:46And that basically means passable. So what you're saying is last episode we listen to a talk from Lindsey Robbins called tithing a commandment even for the destitute or we listen to a part of this. You're saying this was the original general conference tithing a commandment even for the desk. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So you so you're saying that whenever he's saying we haven't been paying tithing as revealed doctrine covenants because we just read it. You know, you give one 10th of your interest or your surplus or all your surplus property. You're thinking he's saying we are not because I'm confused because there's two different things going on. He's talking about the United order or consecration, which is give everything. And then the church kind of gives back what you need. And then the doctrine covenants tithing revelation is just give of your interest and surplus. So what do you think he's what is this beginning part mean that he's saying that people aren't paying enough and you can see that because when you look at the the next sentence, but however, we might fall short of this and many other things. So he's saying that his understanding of what increase meant as given in that revelation must have been broader than what most people

20:48I see because otherwise you've using a different phraseology. You're saying however, though we may be too generous right now, I'm sure we can rein it back in guys, right, which is not what he's saying. So even that we're interpreting interest or surplus like to mean more. Okay. Yeah. And you've got the benefit as well of continuing revelation in the church, which allows leaders to essentially say, well, my, because he says as understood by him as it was revealed and understood by him in the doctrine covenants. And he gets to play that, well, how I interpret that is we should be giving more. Right. Well, then I love the three different ways like because God can't be clear. I don't know. On certain things, but yeah. Okay. But there's another talk that we've talked about before. This is from President or Lorenzo Snow in 2012. This is the church's manual. And I just think this is really interesting. So they published this manual in 2012. And then it says, they share a quote from snow, but they change it a little bit.

21:49So it says, I plead with you in the name of the Lord. And I pray that every man, woman and child dot, dot, dot, shall pay one tenth of their income as a tithing. So he's acknowledging here that not everyone should be paying. And the church took that out because they want they don't I'm assuming they don't like that piece. I would encourage every person watching whenever they see a lip sis and a quote. Just always go and see if you can find the original quote and see what's in there. Because it's not a lot of people who are not going to be able to see the church. So I think they're not going to be able to see the church. So I think they're not going to be able to see the church. I think they're not going to be able to see the church. Just always go and see if you can find the original quote and see what's in there. Because chances are the person quoting it to you is leaving something out. Well, they are definition of leaving something out. That's what they're looking for. But the question is why they're leaving it out. Well, then they do it here again. Tating is not a difficult law. Dot, dot, dot, I didn't pull that one out. But then he puts ever man receives $10 is tiding his $1. If he receives $100, he's tiding his 10. It's very easy to comprehend two sets of ellipses in there.

22:52I wonder what the caveats are. Right. And I'll put the whole talk in the show notes, but yeah, it's just interesting. But anyway, the church seemingly was trying to get rid of this idea that not everyone has to pay. And then I think that reflects again on the original revelation where it says you give of your interest or your surplus. And because not everyone's going to have that because they have all these expenses. Some people live paycheck to paycheck. Some people don't get that extra cash afterwards. Or even worse, right? Some people are in long term debt. Like, right. If you, if we use that example from the slides earlier, if you're paying $4,000 a year more than you have in tiding, like if you're paying $6,000 a year, but your expenses are $58,000 a year after everything's said and done, you're going into debt to pay tiding. You have negative. Yeah. Yeah. That's a wild to me. I didn't hear of that concept until one of the recent Mormon news episodes with Megan and John Dillon. They talked about how people go into debt. They have to take out credit cards to pay their tiding.

23:55And I just think that's wild to me that. Well, as we'll see later, people are willing to sell important household assets in order to pay their tiding bill. Like, I, what I object to here, generally speaking, is the idea that like tiding comes as this bill from the IRS of like, here's what you owe us. It's like tiding settlement can often feel like, well, here's what, here's what you've paid. Is that enough? The fact that it even comes back to you as a sort of receipt. It's like that thing of, you know, we know how much you ought to have paid because we know what you earn. So it's a question of, do you think you've paid us enough and they can't enforce it the way the IRS do, but they can threaten you with a termination because there's precedent to do that. See the fire insurance talk, then I'm sure we'll cover. So yeah, that's what bothers me about this is it's taking what's meant to be a law of sacrifice and turning it into this weird debt. Debted obligation, um, relationship, but again, we'll hear later that you actually just do talk about it as a debt.

24:58So yeah, so I have that one. I don't think I pulled the one from Nelson where he says that this is basically fire insurance. Oh, okay. He'll burn. I don't think I, I don't think I added that one. But speaking of that, I have sprinkled in some talks about tiding throughout this discussion. And so this one here is from Elder Bednar. This is a fireside that he gave in 2016. And so he, and he has an interpreter there. So he has to pause and. And this is this is the same fireside I believe where he said there's no gay members of the church. Yeah, I know how it's actually. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the same one. Yeah. All right. The time. Now, I want to say this in terms that I hope won't be scary, but they're true. I want to say this in term, but I don't want to be afraid of what's happening. If after having entered into the covenant, see they can have been in the company. We don't abide by the conditions of the covenant. No, we don't know, no, we've been in the conditions of the company. For example, for example, if you and I don't pair tiding, do we have the option not to pair tiding? No, no, no.

25:59It's breaking a covenant. It's not the exercise of agency anymore. Because what happened to our individual agency? Because what happened to our individual agency? It was enlarged. It was amplified. Now it's more important to represent him. Now it's more important to represent him. Is this making sense? No, it's not making sense. It makes sense. I could literally talk about that clip for half an hour with how revealing it is to the way that Elder Bednar's brain thinks behind that Lego hair. It just looks like it's so perfect. It just looks like Lego hair to me. I don't know any other way to describe it. The idea that your agency is expanded because you have less ability to choose is so or wellian. I mean, it literally is or wellian. He's saying we've expanded your agency and you can't make that choice anymore.

27:04We've increased your freedom by reducing your choices. That's right. Freedom is slavery. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this also we just juxtaposing that this next two who has means. You don't have agency to pay tithy anymore. But then we just heard from the prophet Lorenzo Snow saying that you only have to pay if you have means. But also the revelation itself says if you have an interest or surplus, then you pay a tenth of that. And so what I understand is what is left over. That's what surplus means and then interest is similar. Like I don't. It doesn't. I thought the entire reason we had agency was like obviously he's right. The whole concept in universe in the Mormon universe of agency is that you should use it to choose good things. Right. That you should use it to choose the right. But what it also stands for is that you have the right to choose. Even if you choose the wrong things and we this is this is something that's different about Mormonism relative to other forms of Christianity. We believe in a fortunate fall, meaning that when Adam and Eve took of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden,

28:10that that was actually a good thing. Most conventional Christians think that was not a good thing. That it was something that changed humanity's eternal destiny. Mormons don't believe that. We believe that that was a good thing. That that exercise of agency was a good thing and that it brought good things into the world. It's so weird to have been raised in a system that taught me to believe in people's right to choose so strongly. And then to hear someone who leads that system say actually agency means you don't have a right to choose. That's just so wild to me. How they perverse course. It's like you have the freedom to choose to enter into the binding contract and then once you're in that binding contract, you are bound and you don't get to choose to disobey it or leave it. Right. And let's talk about that binding contract for a second. Most people who are members of the church enter into this binding eternal contract that they must fulfill the conditions of forever at the age of eight years old without disclosure of any of the relevant terms of that contract.

29:12Like the idea that you should view it as a contract, like even the legal, the US legal system, which I cite to as I cite to it because if humans can come up with a better system of ethics, morality and justice than an eternal God, that's probably a suggestion that the system that's being offered that's worse that's being claimed to come from the eternal God probably didn't come from the eternal God. And what I mean is you can't be bound to a contract as a child. You can't be bound to a contract even if you're a 17 year old. In most instances, you can't be bound to a contract to let alone an eight year old child who hasn't been given all the material terms of that covenant slash contract. So looking at it that way, I think is absurd. Then what's also really interesting is if you go to that talk by or that fireside, given by Bednar where he grabs that child, you know, talks about how when the child takes steps beyond the line and does things wrong, then he's in Satan's grasp and Satan's bound him up.

30:14What is he describing here other than being bound up and unable to make choices? That's true. You lost your agency. See, he talks about sin as this event horizon over which once you pass, you lose your agency. But also obedience to covenants is the same event horizon. You lose your agency that way as well. So there's a loose, loose scenario for Elder Bednar, whether you sin or whether you keep your covenants either way, you're an automaton with no choice anymore. It's crazy that that is that man's worldview. I mean, but he would say that your agency has increased, right? Isn't that kind of what he said? So even if you're a bit too too too, he hasn't. And that's what's really interesting there. Right. Yeah. And for a point of reference, the talk or the fireside they were talking about, I think he bare hugged a child. He was like, confined. Grabbed a child from behind. This kid was crying. He showed a disturbing lack of empathy for the fact that the child was crying. Was he crying? He just looked different. He was absolutely. He was. Oh my gosh. The people that are most uncomfortable with the other adults in the room,

31:17but you did nothing. Oh my gosh. I was going to say, and it's so astounding to me that there's an entire room full of other adults that do nothing about a grown man holding a young child against his will. Like that is so weird. Well, I think I go along with the study. I think that goes along with the study as if a man at the lab coat tells you to do something they're more likely to do it. And this man is an apostle of the Lord. So like, Is that what we're just asking in the profound spiritual lesson that he's teaching this child? And this child's tears clearly come from the spirit, you know, rather than acknowledging that, you know, this kid's scared because he's in front of a group of people. And then this man's like restraining him for a position of authority. It's a wonder when things like that happen and people don't do anything. It's wonder then the church has issues with abuse more broadly. Because while Bednar may not have had any, you know, sort of motives in that direction in this encounter, the fact that people can see that power dynamic play out so clearly between a defense child and someone in a position of authority

32:21and not do anything makes you realize how then situations that are in that of the direction can occur also. And it's a difference in degree. It's not a difference in kind to hold a child without explaining to them what you're doing. Because the whole interaction is captured on camera. To hold a child like that, the kid was probably 12, 13. I can't imagine he was any older than that based on just how young he looked. To hold the child against their will and physically restrain them without explaining to them what you're doing, I mean, I would call that abusive. It's not abusive, like, again, a difference in degree rather than a difference in kind. But yeah, to restrain a child in front of a bunch of his peers and a bunch of other adults is abusive behavior in my mind. Yeah. So there's a little side tangent on David A. Bednar's personal ethics. But yeah, I think it's important that taken to the extreme, these things do lead to a loose

33:22loose scenario. Where if you sin your bound and if you're a beginning your bound, it's just who are you bound to, I suppose, is the question in his mind. Yeah. And so with that talk in mind and with the who has means to pay, they can pay. Colby, will you read this is from Mozaev 4? Yes. You'll read these verses. Yep. So Mozaev 4 is King Benjamin's, one of King Benjamin's sermons in the Book of Mormon. And so he is teaching the people and he says, and again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient that you remain from day to day, I mean all you who deny the beggar because you have not. I would that you say in your hearts that I give not because I have not, but if I had, I would give. And now if you say this in your hearts, you remain guiltless. Otherwise, you are condemned and your condemnation is just for you to covet that which you have not received. And now for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you, that is for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day that you walk guiltless before God, I would that you should impart of your substance to the poor every man according to

34:25that which he hath such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and mistraring to their relief both spiritually and temporally according to their wants. So I want to jump in here and talk about how obviously there's slightly different scope in what King Benjamin is talking about here because he's talking about giving to the needy and as we talked about, that may have been the original interpretation of tithing in the sense of like the old testament, but it isn't the way that the Mormon church has interpreted what tithing is for. It's really for building up the church's assets as we looked at in that revelation. But the other thing that I'm struck by is if tithing is a revelation that God gives to his people and it stands forever, forever doesn't just mean into the future like you had asked me about Nemo, it means that the law should also project backwards into the past, forever means forever. And it's interesting that we even have this discrepancy between what King Benjamin in the book of Mazzaya is telling people and the law of tithing is revealed to Joseph Smith. If it truly were

35:30a standing law given to God's people forever, it should be the same standard for the four people throughout time, forever. That's literally what the word forever means. And we don't think that at all. Particularly when you consider that the church can be a restorationist movement, right? Exactly. That restoring things as they used to be so you would expect it to track backwards. Exactly. But we don't even see that. We don't see a reference to tithing here explicitly. Instead, we see this concept of giving to the poor. But the reason you included this Julia is obvious to me. It's because it obviously looks like that all you who have means type intention. When it says, if you deny the beggar because you have not, you can be hold guiltless as long as you have the right intention. And so to me, that connects to this original interpretation of tithing or the looser definition of tithing. I guess the less demanding interpretation of tithing. We find it here in the book of Mazzaya. But we really should find if it really were supposed to be a standing

36:32law to God's people forever, there should be no disagreement between what King Benjamin is teaching and what the contemporary church leaders are teaching. And that just isn't the case. I'm why I was just I could somebody just say this is about fast offerings and not about tithing because fast offering was given to help the poor. That's probably what they would say. But then that's why I'm giving this other pushback and saying then why don't we see any reference to tithing as taught by the contemporary leaders of the church here. If it's a standing law to God's people forever, why isn't it taught in the book of Mormon the same way that it's taught in by the contemporary church. And we talked about this last time. I'm pretty sure every reference to tithing in the book of Mormon are just reflections of the old and new testament. I don't think there's anything new about it. Although I will say the book of Mormon is very against priest craft. And that's one of the reasons why when Joseph first, he was like, hey, let's Sydney and I have an 80 acres of land and 1100 or 1400 I can't remember exactly the amount. I have this X amount of money

37:33then that can be that that we can use that. And then they're like, no, that's that's priest craft. Let's not do that. But then Joseph implemented the law of tithing. And so like to me, when we look at the reasons here soon about the four reasons tithing was given, to me that looks a lot like priest craft, which is the churches, I think that book of Mormon defines that as churches that are built up to get gain. And I just want to have that in our heads too was when we're going through the reasons for tithing is this is this priest craft because I think that's very specifically against the book of Mormon is very specifically against priest craft. Also, Mosir 426 is very clear that in order to walk guiltless before God, you should impart your substance to the poor. Every man according to that which he hath. Now I think there's a case there to be made to look at the churches amount of giving to the poor versus what they hath. And I think they don't they don't impart to the poor according to what they have or what they have. They impart to the poor according to what they think is enough to satiate their critics.

38:36Because it went up the moment people found out how much money they had, but it's still not even a tenth of a tithe of that amount of money that they give away to the poor. So it's very little by comparison, when we celebrate that they gave away $100 million, that sounds like a lot of money and it is a lot of money, but compared to the amount of money they have, those sorts of donations should be going out the door more often than they are. Yeah, when you said, we would critics say this is kind of off a little bit, but one of a friend that says, there was like, oh, the churches and against LGBTQ, they even donated to this LGBTQ foundation. And it was with the amount of, I think it was less than $2,000. So I was like, that's like the, that's nothing. It wasn't even in the millions. It was just a few thousand dollars. It's less than a penny falling out of that pocket. Right. But I think it was like, but then members are able to go, oh, look, they donate even though it's not, it's barely anything, but anyway. Okay, so I want to talk about this letter that happened.

39:37This is the first presidency letter from March 19th of 1970. Nimo, will you read this one? So let me just jump in here first and say, this is, so the Brigham Young Jr. talk we read from General Conference was 1875. So this is 95 years later. Remember, this model of God is not the author of confusion. And this question remains unanswered 95 years after Brigham Young talk. About to make the exact same point. Why is there still question marks around what is considered a proper ties 95 years after that talk? And even longer, well over 100 years after tithing was first implemented. Right. Right. If it's such a simple law to comprehend as Joseph F. Smith said, then what's going on? Anyway, dear brethren, and this is from March 19th, 1970, this is the first presidency letter. Dear brethren, inquiries are received at the office of the first presidency from time to time, from officers and members of the church asking for information as to what is

40:39considered a proper ties. For your guidance in this matter, please be advised that we have uniform we replied that the simplest statement we know of is the statement of the Lord himself, namely that the members of the church should pay one tenth of their interest annually, which is understood to mean income. No one is justified in making any other statement than this. We feel that every member of the, but then this is key. Because they're not going to, they're not going to just say, and that's it, they're going to introduce some more confusion just, you know, for traditions sake. We feel that every member of the church is entitled to make his own decision as to what he thinks he owes the Lord and to make payment accordingly. Since earlier brethren, Joseph F. Smith, Harold B. Lee, and Eldentana, so the son of the man who said, who has means is making the point that, hey, it's income, but every member of the church gets to make their decision as to what they think they owe. Everyone gets to make that decision

41:43for themselves, which it feels in Congress with the idea that you're presented in a meeting with the amount that you've paid and you're asked if that's enough. Is this a full tied? Right. Yeah. Well, the other thing I'm struck by is they, if you can pull that up again for one more second. Do you want this? Okay. Yeah. So they say one tenth of their interest annually, which is in that 1838 revelation, and they say, which is understood to mean income. If it were understood to mean income, why doesn't it say income? Yeah, it doesn't say that at all. Right. Those are two different words. And just to maybe make that point, if you'll share my screen, Julia, I went back to the 1828 definition of income. But keep in mind, this is 1970. Yeah, this is 1970, but I'm making the point that as close as we can connect it to what it would have meant in 1838, the in the original revelation, which is supposed to again come from a God who is not an author of

42:45confusion and as a standing law to his people forever, there are differences between income and interest. So we earlier talked about what interest meant in 1828, but you can see here, income is defined as that gain, which proceeds from labor, business or property of any kind, the produce of a farm, the rent of houses, the proceeds of professional business, the profits of commerce or of occupation. So you can see that one line, the profits, because we talked about how profits work, you can see that as maybe supporting income and interest being the same thing. Then you see it in the next line, the interest of money or stock in funds. And then this is really where the difference is highlighted. Income is often used synonymously with revenue, revenue, meaning all the money that comes into a business, right? Before you pay those expenses or get arrears on those expenses or expenditures. So it's just interesting to me that like, if God meant income, why didn't he say income? Because income is everything that comes in. And then interest is

43:53more tightly defined than that. Exactly. Because what the reason I think it mentions here, the profits of commerce or of occupation, the profits of your occupation are the money you are paid to do that occupation. Right? It's not profit in the sense of the money you make after you pay your expenses, it's a running business. It's the profits of selling something. So then it's about, it's like you can imagine it like a balanced scale. The thing you own was worth certain amount of you to acquire. And when you sell it, if there's money that you get from selling it, that's more than the value that you paid for it, then that is the profits of that. And then similarly, profits of commerce, of occupation essentially, it's a deal whereby you sell your time for money, you sell your time in your labor for money. So it's got a slightly different connotation.

44:55I guess the other thing I'm just struck by too is right after that making two terms, which mean very different things equivalent. They say, and this is actually where I want to give them some credit. No one is justified in making any other statements than this. And then they make it more about personal decision between you and what you think you owe the Lord. I don't really like that phraseology of, oh, the Lord. And we're going to talk about, you know, how that can kind of be an unhealthy interpretation. But they say explicitly, no one is justified in making any other statement than this. Shouldn't that have ended the conversation? We have three profit seers and revelators saying, this is the best answer that you can get. And no one, no one period, is justified in saying anything other than this. And yet we're going to go through even more talks where people say other things than this. Yeah. But also, it kind of feels contradictory to say, no one is justified in making any other statement than this, like it means income, whatever comes in, that's what you

45:58pay your tiding on. But then this last sentence, we feel that every member of the church is entitled to make his own decision as to what he thinks he owes the Lord and to make payment accordingly. The church does not follow this at all. You could just throw that out because people come in, or they've been people and more and stories recently where this man was paying tiding to different to different entities other than the church. And the bishop says you this tiding these tiding receipts are not a doctor salary because he was a doctor. And he for he was like, you need to be paying that to the church itself. So when it says we let every man make his own decision about what he thinks he owes the Lord and make payments accordingly. That is not at all what the church says. And I've had even some of my own siblings be brought into the bishop's office. And the bishop says you are not paying enough tiding. So the yeah, they don't think that I was denied the temperament on this basis. Personally, they told you that you weren't paying. Although like because you're not paying tiding to the church, I was like, well, okay, fine. But I'm pretty sure the first presidency said we feel that every member church in tell to me because their own decision

47:00is 20 thinks he owes the Lord and make payment accordingly. And that's what I'm doing. I feel as though I am paying a full and honest tithe. And you quoted that to them and they still denying you. Oh yeah. Yeah, because the words of past profits do not age or increase in value like vintage cars and comic books, Julia, did you not listen to Elder Hayney? They do not increase with value, in value with age. Oh my gosh. And it's the follow the living profit. There's a hidden asterisk in that sentence that says it's up to you that goes along with Elder Bednar's interpretation of agency. So it's your choice if you want to make the right choice to make the wrong choice. Yeah. Yeah. So you want to rob God or not. And then them just changing that word, the interest to income, which is a completely different word. It was not in the original revelation. Like, I don't know. That's just wild to me. Yeah. Just just and we'll move on. But just read this out loud again. One tenth of their interest annually, the words of the the statement of the Lord

48:01himself, one tenth of their interest annually, which is unstuck to mean income. Why is it? He said the word interest very specifically. And you've just made the appeal to authority by saying they are the words of the Lord himself. So why you immediately changing them to mean. Exactly. That's insane behavior. But this, I mean, this is what happens anytime you have humans who need to speak for God to maintain their system. Joseph Smith does the same thing when he says, I can't remember if it's in the happiness letter or a different statement he made regarding polygamy. But he says that someone who condemns polygamy understands the laws of heaven only in part. That's how he did. Yeah. I thought it was the happiness letter. But, you know, God is very condemnatory of polygamy in the book of Mormon, specifically in Jacob chapter two, right? Calls it Hortams and Abominations. So does he only understand the laws of heaven in pot? Kobe, is that what you're saying? God says he understands the laws of heaven in pot. That's certainly the implication of what Joseph Smith says because he can't remember what he had,

49:03you know, dictated in 1828, 1829. And he has to adapt it according to his contemporary needs. And we see the same thing here. I just want to underscore the point you made, Nimo, because it's so patternly ridiculous. If you believe as these men do that this is the statement of the Lord himself, why in the world would you ever need to amend or change or interpret God's words if God can speak to humans clearly? And if he is not the author of confusion, especially if it was a standing Lord given to us forever, it's not a standing Lord given until the definitions changed. And just to real quick bring Elder Bednar back into this again, we see the same thing when Elder Bednar gave a long general conference talk about how taking offense is a sign of a spiritual malady, deep spiritual malady. And then you get Russ, I'm Nelson, we'll stand up and say, when we use nicknames for the church, Jesus Christ himself is offended. So you're like, okay,

50:03so is Jesus Christ suffering from some sort of deep spiritual malady? Is that that seems problematic? Words have meaning and words are important and there is a history in this church of not of not everyone being on the same page about what words mean. And one of the one of the things I want to connect this to is we did an episode recently where we looked at how you know believing in this system can make people subject or vulnerable to frauds. And I think one of the reasons that Mormons can be so vulnerable to frauds, I would point people to that episode for kind of the evidence. I'm not going to go into even a thumbnail version of that today. But one of the reasons they can is because they get so comfortable with believing contradictory things at the same time. Income means interest, I'm sorry, interest means income when we need it to. Agency doesn't mean agency. And one of the reasons that's so problematic is if you dig into the philosophy of epistemology, right, the study of how we know the things that we know when we're

51:07justified in believing things are true, what the word true even means. One of the three essential laws of thought or laws of logic is the law of non-contradiction. It's recognizing that something can't both be itself and it's opposite at the same time. This is one of the reasons that Orwell's 1984 and that phrase Orwellian helps reveal what totalitarian systems do to someone's internal psyche. And this truly for me is the reason that I believe Mormonism leaves people so vulnerable to the frauds is because it makes you very comfortable with believing completely contradictory things. And this is the important part. As long as the right person is authorizing you to believe those contradictory things, that is dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. Put far too much control in certain people's hands. Yeah. All right, Julia, what's next? So the next part is to break down the four reasons the tithing was given. And I'll just remind you guys what that is. So it says, for the building of mine house, laying the foundation of Zion, for the priesthood, and for the deaths of the presidency

52:11of my church. So the first one is for the building of mine house. And I understand this to mean temple building. And so this is a this is from the church statistics, the temple website. And so you have different numbers here. You have dedicated temples, 219 temples, temples under construction, 61, announced temples, 105, and then they have all these different numbers. But then total, they have 385. So to me, that's been fulfilled. We have 385 either being dedicated, being built, whatever, temples. So like, I don't know if you guys have anything to add to that. No, it's just like that is tithing is being used for that. Right. Yeah. I think it's a I would argue it's a misplacement of tithing given the amount of members that actually are that are able to actively worship in those temples and given that a lot of those temples are under manned and understaffed and underutilized anyway. It seems to me that this is the use of tithing rather than for the laying

53:16of the foundation, rather than for temples, it seems that it was used to satisfy the vanity of a man who wanted to beat one of his predecessors in the amount of temple is reconstructed. That's what this seems like tithing is actually being used for here because I've yet to hear a good argument for why this many temples are necessary when the church is losing members. I would disagree that it's necessarily about vanity. I think really what it boils down to is the current leaders of the church suffer from a profound lack of imagination and creativity. I think this really ties back to how old they are. I think the simplest explanation here is that it's a bit like the Kevin Costner movie field of dreams. I think they don't know what else to do. They think if we build that they will come, they think if we continue building these temples that it will result in more convert baptisms, one of the numbers I just ran really quickly is to your point of

54:17the temples being understaffed and for people who don't believe that, you can go on Reddit and see emails that go out in the Wasatch front weekly about how they need additional volunteers to staff these temples and please talk to your bishop about getting a calling as a temple worker. If you were to take the 385 temples and I get that 105 of these are still just announced and haven't necessarily been completed yet. But let's say we're with that 385 number and we divide that by the 17 million members that the church repeatedly claims. That's about 45,000 members to each temple. Obviously there are children involved in the church and so we would have to do some adjustments but just to give a rough estimate that's like 45,000 people for each of these temples. There's not even close to that amount of people participating in each of these temples. There's not even a not even a tithe I would suggest probably not even a 10th not even you know four to five thousand people that are regularly participating in these temples.

55:19So I guess what I'm saying is even if I were to grant them that it's not just about vanity and push back on that idea a little bit Nemo, I don't think it really helps them in any way. I think it shows a profound lack of imagination, creativity and also just like how long are you going to keep doing the same you know strategy that doesn't seem to really have resulted in what they thought it would. What's crazy about the adopting that strategy is that 70 years ago they tried it when it came to meeting houses. We'll get onto this but they tried it under Henry Moil. He would have made Kevin Costner look like a cynic frankly the way he was spending money and the only difference here is the church has enough money for this not to matter whether the gamble pays off, whether people actually do turn up or not, whereas we'll get into later a Henry Moil the church didn't have the money for that. So this is them going well we have the money now so I guess we can make it work but it's yeah it's not an unheard of thing for them to build

56:21buildings in the hope that all the trapped people in. Well I also think one of the reasons is they build them to keep the members that they have strong. Like I don't even know if the church cares if they stand empty but if it helps increase the faith of the members who are still active I I get's holding on to what they haven't yet lost. I don't know I think there's many reasons why they would build temples that they know won't be used. So I agree with that except for when members start to recognize that they're being asked to do more and more and more in the temples and to fill those temples and to staff those temples and they go and they notice that the temples aren't full but yet they're hearing in general conference how the church has never been stronger, how it continues to grow at unprecedented levels. I think Clinton cook made that claim recently in general conference. I think there will be not everybody but there will be members who start to look around and go maybe the emperor doesn't have clothes on. To your point Colby they are very used to believing contradictory things. So they're able to believe that the church is growing and also

57:24acknowledge the reality around them that these temples are empty. Yes. And there will be a question of how long they can sit with that dissonance. Yes there will be plenty of people who have gotten so comfortable with just believing what they're told and not thinking about it that there will be nothing that could shake them out of their faith. Yeah. Yeah. Okay so the next one is for for laying the foundation of Zion. And I think you did some research where this phrase was coming up in a sense of physical land. Do you want to read this slide? Yeah sure. So for as far as I could tell we managed to work out that laying the foundation of Zion seemed to be about getting land for building up a Zion right because Zion is something that is built up and it's a it's a place. They say it's the pure and hard it's whatever but like it's it's also in many instances within under a scripture or place. So we've got here while somewhat vague this phrase likely refers to the physical foundations of where the early

58:24saints were located. In chapter 15 of the teachers of Joseph Smith we see the phrase twice. On August 2nd Joseph Smith and others met to begin the building of Zion. The prophet recorded I assisted the Coal'sville branch of the church to lay the first log for a house as a foundation of Zion in core township 12 miles west of independence. And then the other instances in the early 1830s the saints attempted to lay the foundation of Zion in Jackson County Missouri as commanded by the Lord but were unable to do so because they were not spiritually prepared. The phrase also appears in DNC 587 and DNC 124 concerned the building of the Navu house. My favorite example of how the Lord can be incredibly specific when he wants to be. And yeah he still can't give a clear definition of what to hiding is and what increases to the point where they have to come back 100 years later and go now it's actually income turns out. He wasn't clear enough at the time. Yeah. But yes so I think that this is about buildings it's about church property. And so again

59:26tithing is being used for this purpose if you want to think about the fact that they are florida's largest private landowner that there was just recently an article out by Bloomberg where they looked into the church's real estate holdings and it is incredible the size of the church's real estate portfolio. They can outbeard Bill Gates for farmland in Washington state. That's insane. Yeah so there we've got some news articles. This one is the title is how a religious organization became florida's largest private landowner and then agriculture dive I guess is what this one is. The title is Mormon Church pays 289 million for dozens of US farms and then it goes on to say the church of Jesus Christ letter to saints this real estate arm is paying yeah that same amount 289 million. Was there anything else on here? They're just buying the farms. They're buying the farms. I mean they've done it in the UK as well. There's farmland in the east of England where a lot of our agriculture is the cold and gula states.

1:00:27Farmland reserve which is obviously the entity the church works through paid 108.5 million for farmland in the UK and that's pounds so that's probably 120 130 million dollars. Yeah and they list off here Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Carolina and then you just said in the UK as well and they've had a long tradition of agricultural holdings here in the UK because it's productive farmland. Okay well to anyone who might push back Nemo on your idea that Zion the building up of Zion it was intended at least by Joseph Smith to be a literal place it's right in the articles of faith Julia feels share my screen. I believe in the actual gathering of Zion right I pulled the article of faith 10 here so we believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the 10 tribes that Zion the new Jerusalem will be built upon the American continent so I get that it's kind of been equivocated into a more

1:01:28general definition of oh it's just a people it's a mindset yeah in Joseph Smith's world in Joseph Smith's view in the literal articles of faith Zion is a specific place and that specific place was supposed to be built starting at Jackson County Missouri. Yeah just to remind people and we may mention this last episode but it's worth bringing up again that the church is so willing to fight for their taxation exemptions that in the UK they fall all the way up to the highest court of jurisdiction at the time the European Court of Human Rights to try and get a full exemption not just the 80% exemption they're being granted for their temples because they were told that they're not public buildings so they don't get the full exemption from business tax rates that's how desperate they are to press every little advantage for for taxation purposes. Yeah that's wild to me. Just think about the millions they will have spent fighting that legal case in a foreign jurisdiction up the ladder all the way up to the highest appeals court they can get to.

1:02:33Right okay so this next one the third reason for tithing is for the priesthood which is very vague so I have a this is from the Salt Lake Tribune this headline for this article is how much do top Mormon leaders make leaked pay steps may surprise you and then we have from this is from 2017 so this so I acknowledge that this is this is an older article and so the the amounts they were going to talk about are probably much higher but you have so copies of the biweekly steps from Henry B. I. R. In then a member of the Court of the 12 Apostles reported that he earned is as 83 over 83,000 from the start of 2000 until the first week of December and then an increase in showing the the increase amounts. And you want to read the parts that I've put arrows on? Absolutely a second newly leaked document for a more recent year is a 2014 memo from the Church's presiding bishopric which handles all financial issues for the faith noting that the base

1:03:34living allowance for all Mormon general authorities was being raised from 116,400 to 120,000. And it goes on to say if there's more it's unclear if there's more perks etc. And then at the end it says no funds for this living allowance the spokesperson from the church said come from the tithing of church members but instead from proceeds of the church's financial investments. Here I think we're seeing the tension between that idea of pre-scraft and the idea that in scripture it says for the priesthood is one of the purposes of tithing so they could 100% justify saying well no tithing is used to feed and house the leases of the church that need feeding and housing. I think it becomes possibly more complex in the eyes of many members when you introduce the pre-scraft element and that's why I think they make this distinction here but I would also point out anytime the church says none of this stuff comes from tithing all the church's money ultimately comes from tithing. It may now come from selling orange juice out of deseret ranch in florida but that ranch was bought

1:04:35with tithing money or the interest gained from tithing investments originally. It all seeds back to that. That was going to be well no that was going to be my big comment is on this slide is like we've talked about with the huntsman tithing lawsuits in an episode John and Herardo and I did a few years ago. All of this ties back to tithing like they try and build this bifurcation and say oh this comes from the church's financial investments. Those financial investments were made with invested tithing reserve funds like there's no real separation here. I get what he's trying to do but when he says none of this comes from tithing he means like literally in the year that it's received as tithing none of it comes from tithing. All of it like you said Nemo ultimately goes back to tithing. The church doesn't have any other funds. It's just interesting that like it says it in the verse for the priest which is so vague but I would assume that it means for the the priesthood holders these general authorities who are getting paid and even the presiding president or presiding bishop who they're getting paid

1:05:39so like why why say that it's not coming from tithing when the tithing revelation says it's okay that it comes from tithing but then we also know that it does come from tithing because everything that your chas is tithing. So it's just a weird. Also this according to a quick google $120,000 to 2014 is worth about $169,000 today. I'd be very surprised if the church hasn't at least kept up with inflation. So we'd be surprising at all if this amount was somewhere closer to $200,000. So yeah. Right. One of the one of the things I would say as far as paying for the priesthood is if we go back to the model that's in the book of Mormon specifically again with King Benjamin. King Benjamin makes a point in those early chapters of mosaic of explaining that he has not relied on the other people to provide for his sustenance that instead he has worked shoulder to shoulder with them and provided for his sustenance with the labor of his own hands. I think that's a mosaic chapter two. I think the better explanation for why it's talking about supporting the priesthood

1:06:43is honestly because a lot of times Joseph Smith just remixed concepts together in a way that like sounded great as it fit his current need but didn't necessarily make sense when compared to the rest of what he had taught. For example, he claimed that the book of Mormon, I think it's in the introduction of the book of Mormon, contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel. The doctrine and covenants provides a later definition of what the fullness of the everlasting gospel means, which includes the temple ordinances and blessings. Those aren't found in the book of Mormon. Right. I remember actually noticing this contradiction going back to that law of non-contradiction, noticing this contradiction and asking my mission president about it from a place of sincerity, saying like these two like it's very weird to normally find it and they were exactly the same term, defined in different ways in church scripture. And my mission president told me to not ask questions like that. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's vicious. Okay, so there's more on this one

1:07:44where it says, many, this is from the same Salt Lake Tribune article, many universities, presidents and even some faculty may make, may make much more money, says ships, who taught American religious history in Indiana for years. Compared to their pay, this is small potatoes. So like, oh, you could argue that this is the big corporation that they're in charge of in getting paid what, 120,000 is so tiny. Like this is small. So yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there. I want to do want to make a point here, right? I find the sort of appeal to popularity or the water baptism here to be kind of, it's like irritating or just funny. Well compared to other people, we pay them less fine. That's not really what's a question here. I will say something I do appreciate about it. It does seem to be there's an egalitarian nature to it in that everyone is paid the same amount. It bothersome that no female leaves the church because their general officers, not general authorities, they don't seem to be paid, which means that the only top female positions in the church are just unpaid. It also meant that Brad Wilcox wasn't paid when he was a general

1:08:50officer of the church is on the immense presidency, most likely, but he had his teaching gig at BYU. But anyway, so I do appreciate that. And I do also appreciate that by and large, we're not seeing from these men the same thing we see from certain mega church pastors and other religious groups where they are very clearly benefiting and living very overtly a prosperity gospel that is quite toxic and they're talking about their private jets and they've got their sub right. I do appreciate that at least. I think there's still a conversation to be had about the way the church has tried to represent the fact that they don't pay. They have no paid clergy, knowing for well that they'll use the church to pay. That's what misrepresentation clearly needs to be addressed. I just want to say if I understand it correctly, you're saying that you're grateful that the Mormon general authorities don't live like with private jets or in a certain lifestyle, is that? Well, they're not living the, what's his name? I can't remember his name, but there's a very kind of, yeah, kind of, kind of, kind of, yeah. They're not living that kind of lifestyle. They're not,

1:09:55they're not showing this overt personal wealth and gain and this materialism. We're not seeing that from them. They're still living living very privileged lives. They do take private jets. We know, for example, a private jet was organized to go see Jacinda Arden by Russell M. Nelson. We've got the emails showing that, yeah, a private jet was used to make that trip. But, you know, it's not being, yeah, does that make sense? It makes sense to me. Let me jump in and explain. I don't, I don't think you could look at even the living allowance and say, it seems like the leaders of the church are motivated by enriching themselves personally. I don't think that the evidence bears that out. And I think that is a fair criticism of prosperity, gospel teaching evangelical pastors that I don't think applies to the Latter-day Saint leaders. Now, I agree with Nemo. The bigger problem is that the church has for a very long time repeatedly made the claim that it has no paid clergy. And the simple truth is that, that just

1:10:58isn't true. These men are acting as clergy and they are paid for what they're doing. Now, whether that pay is reasonable is a different question. This is often when we get the Ma and Bailey logical fallacy approach from polygists, including this non-mormon janships, by saying, well, you know, compared to other people's pay, this is small potatoes. It doesn't matter. The church's original claim was we have no paid clergy. It doesn't matter how reasonable that pay is or that the leaders of the church aren't enriching themselves. That's, it doesn't seem like they're motivated, I guess, by personally enriching themselves. Those are two separate questions. And the church had always said, I had taught as a missionary repeatedly, the church has no paid clergy. And that's not true. The church has been taught over the public at a general conference. Thomas S. Monson said it when he was explaining how the church can afford to build buildings in Germany when they built a temple there. He was saying the church isn't wealthy, but we practice the law of tithing and we also have no paid clergy. I should have included this. The church is the wealthiest church, I think, in the world, if not in just the United

1:11:58States. The Catholic church has a lot of money. That is, that is incalculable for the wealth of the Catholic church, just in the process of a lot of the artifacts. The reason it's different is that the Catholic church doesn't have a consolidated structure, the same way the LDS church has the different diocese. And so the different diocese own things separately. Oh, okay, gotcha. Okay. Now, the other pushback I would give to the Apollo, like the kind of proto-apologetic attempts in here is at the top of the page, it talks about how many of these individuals who make it to senior church leadership went to elite schools. They had successful careers as college presidents, lawyer, surgeons, and CEOs tell me what the going rate is for a man in his hundreds because they're not earning six figure salaries doing a job anymore. They're just not. So that's another form of kind of like fallacious thinking that is often offered on these. Well, these men could be making more if they had stayed in their, you know, not at the age they end up

1:13:00getting pulled into these jobs. Exactly. And then also, okay, fine, these men have had very successful careers, brilliant. If we are going to continue to select white collar individuals who have had very successful careers rather than getting some one of a more modest profession in terms of financial renemoration, why not say to these men, okay, you've had very successful careers. One of the reasons we're picking use because you can then be self-sufficient in your retirement and then give your time to the church. Why don't you just use the clearly very, very good pension you will have earned being, I don't know, a director in Lufthansa or the director of I fit, for example, when they went public, almost made them a billionaire. So why don't they just allow that and just say, okay, cool, you're independently wealthy men live on it. Right. The church doesn't need to support you. I would understand if these people were being picked from for more modest financial means, then it would actually make a better case for them paying them a stipend and paying their living costs, etc. Or if they even had to bother relocating, you know, Patrick Kiran was one of the first

1:14:07apostles called that's even then he was a 70s who was living in Utah anyway. But he became a 70 and then had to relocate into Utah. So these senior church leaders, they're a lot of them because they're American and a lot of them because they're from that part of America, they're not even having to move very far if it's all to do this job. Yeah. Yes, I have some slides from the widows my report and I recognize the writing is really small. But you can see that over the years in 2026, what I want to show from this chart is that it's it's almost up to 200K and you might think you pointed that out to with inflation and things like that. So it's so they're getting they're getting a good amount of money. There's another reason they haven't kept up with inflation, which I don't think is a reasonable assumption. Right. This one is talks about their what they're being they're living allowance and things like that that they're being given. Let me see if I can increase this picture. I just want to read some of these. Yeah. Nimo, can you read some of these? Sure. So widows might estimate that 25% of

1:15:10the living allowances classified as clergy housing or passenger allowance. Passengers is not counted as taxable income, but the remainder of the general authorities living allowance is taxed at the federal and state level. Interesting. Standard healthcare and retirement benefits are generally not counted as taxable income. Just a point on that when Russell Nelson was very, very sick, you know he was receiving very, very high quality healthcare. And I can't imagine that he paid for himself. Yeah. If you throw that back up on screen. Per child, up to the age of 24 allowance estimated to be 3950 per year in 2020. Six is also taxable income. So they're getting a per child allowance. I see you have a fair amount more money to have loads of kids. And then there's several deductions for supplementally sure and suggestion general authority benefits such as healthcare and disability, mirror typical corporate plans. Oh, interesting. They mirror typical corporate plans today almost as though most of them are involved. Understand those systems very well. It's almost like the church acts as a corporation. Well, chance. Right.

1:16:14And this is just an image of the pay stub from I ring I believe and I get these are really small but I'll put them in the show notes so that you guys can explore those. But okay, so this is a talk from Elder Holland. It's like a water garden that we already referenced before. This is from October of 2001. Pain tithing is not a token gift. We are somehow charitably bestowing upon God. Pain tithing is discharging a debt. Yeah. Did you guys have any thoughts on that? Oh, it's just incredibly manipulative. I don't I mean to call it a debt, I just don't think reflects what it could be taught healthily. Like the way I understood tithing the only way I could ever teach it to investigators that didn't make me sick to my stomach was to talk about how it is an exercise of our faith that one of the things that is most difficult for us to do is to make that sacrifice of our money and to give it freely. But to call it a debt makes it sound again like it

1:17:19just brings in this element of coercion that I just find so off putting particularly when he's speaking for the church that is the recipient of people's donations that he's calling a debt. The last that I have I guess on this is actually just shortly before came in I appeared on Mormon stories almost five years ago for the first time. I was in the middle of my faith crisis and I had always been taught that our paying of tithing is one of the ways that we show the Lord our faith. And as I was like right about to appear on Mormon stories I think it was just like a month before. We were deciding to go back to church try and make this weird kind of nuanced thing work after all the stuff we'd experienced in our local warden stake. And I had been saving the tithing that I hadn't paid in and I can't like in a separate account. So I knew exactly how much I owed and I paid it at the very last minute like as a show of faith because I looked at it this way that I looked at

1:18:20like almost like this coercive element and I don't know it just makes me sick when you compare that coercive element and you look at that talk that we looked at from Lindsey Robbins. It's very difficult for me to square that with good intentions on the leaders part. It seems very coercive to be telling the members that this is a debt that you owe God when they really mean this is a debt you owe the church and we all know that. Yeah. Yeah. There's a point we've already made this point too but we can talk about this a little bit. So on September 3rd of 2009 the church's newsroom published an article titled The Church's Unpaid Clergy. Although the word clergy means people trained ordained and authorized to lead religious services ceremonies and spiritual care within the faith the article only addresses bishops. It reads in part bishops are supported by two assistants and a myriad of administrative and teaching staff all contribute their time and energy without compensation. So they're just kind

1:19:21of side stepping or go we don't pay bishops. So look we have unpaid clergy even though we know this. Can I make a perhaps somewhat glib point? Sure. I would argue that actually bishops are really the only clergy the church has. Even though they're not trained particularly well they are authorized to lead and they are ordained as bishops and the senior leaders of the church the 12th the 15th the 70s and particularly the 70s. You could almost make the argument that they're not paid clergy because they're not really clergy they're not really spiritual leaders. They they they aren't really engaged in the spiritual work of the church they're managers. They run a corporation. They give corporate speeches at a gathering every six months. They don't feel like they actually they may view themselves as such which is white hypocritical for them to say they have no paid clergy because they clearly view themselves that way but I hope it's clear at the point I'm making that actually really I don't

1:20:25think they do feed the church particularly well spiritually. That's a very interesting take. Yeah well if you change that definition or you make none of the top leaders clergy then sure they have no unpaid clergy. I don't think that's what the church is doing to be clear. I think they think they're just being hypocritical and dishonest with this but I think it just brought to mind the fact or the just the sad spiritual state of the church's top leaders is what it brought to mind for me the fact that they act far more like corporate managerial individuals than they do like genuine spiritual leaders. That's really interesting. And then here I call me do we read this one that this is from the church's website it says do general authorities get paid? Yep. So the answer the church gives is general authorities leave their career when they are called into full-time church service when they do so they are giving given a living allowance which enables them to focus all of their time on serving in the church. This practice allows for far more church members on a

1:21:27worldwide basis to be considered for calling to serve as a general authority rather than limiting considerations to only those who may be financially independent. The living allowance. So yeah the vast majority of them come from very well the backgrounds. The living allowance is uniform for all general authorities. None of the funds for this living allowance come from the tithing of the church members but instead from the proceeds of the church's financial investments which came from the tithing of the church members. So again we've got this like oh but don't worry it's not coming from tithing. The revelation says it can guys this is your one thing where you could say yeah of course as established in scripture tithing is for this is what they could say but they seem to have a real sort of a version to people feeling as though tithing money is used to pay leaders because I think it screams of pre-scrapped. Well you say that but then the next thing is the debts of the presidency of the first the debts of the first presidency which means to me is like this really feels like pre-scrapped. Well and it I suppose I mean these days that would be the

1:22:32debts of the church right because it's a corporation soul so down the jokes his debts are the church's debts in the new corporate structure of Mormonism that's kind of how that works but in the old days yeah it's the individualized debts of the first presidency. I think the idea being that they've incurred these debts in the running of the church or in the leading of the church and so they should be supported in that. For example like Joseph Smith would take on personal debts in order to do X, Y, Z building project and the members then you know support those debts because the building benefits the whole church. That's the most like steel man way I can see this being or operating in the early church is that Joseph's incurring these debts as a person because a person has to be responsible for the debt and so it is supported by the rest of the church with tithing because the thing he's going into debt for benefits the church. Right it's also interesting to me that they say for the priesthood and which you could say could be the debts of the priesthood maybe but just to be

1:23:33more specific there's thing and also for the debts. There's also an argument that for the priesthood could be about missionary work right we we've not even touched on that it could be we don't we just don't know because for some reason it's really good. It's really good. Can you mean like for gaining priesthood members or priesthood or just for the supporting of the priesthood brethren who got and teach the others. Like the elders yeah. The elders yeah. Maybe maybe we need to go more literal with it. Maybe the reason the church needs all of this money is because we need to invent a time machine to get Peter James and John to appear and give the priesthood literally to Joseph Smith. Okay we need to cut that. I mean well hang on. No Colby we'll keep that in because they're already appearing out of sequence in the temple ceremony where they appear as resurrected beings despite having not lived yet. They're already time so so you know what you call resurrected beings are else. That's a good that's a good point. I commend you for your integrity. Oh my gosh okay so this for the final one we've already been kind of talking about is the debts of the president first presidency and then I know we're kind of running out of time because we're

1:24:37trying to keep this under two hours but oh we've got plenty of time we'll get there. We'll go okay so we're this is a brief we're going to run out of brief history of the Eldia's church the church is debt so I don't know if we should we go every other one or should I just read them all that's read them all. All right the church which is a Christ what are they saints experience several periods of serious financial difficulty throughout its early history in Curlin and Navu the church borrowed heavily to fund land purchases construction and expansion the most significant 19th century financial crisis came in the 1870s and 1890s as a church expanded its businesses and construction projects while also facing increasing financial and legal pressure from the federal government over per over plural marriage. Can I pause you and ask a question on this would that be more severe than like the Curlin safety society scandal in 1837 1838 I just am wondering where they're asked it's we're going to be taken away if they did not stop plugging me so like everything was just going to be removed so I don't know which one would be more serious I don't know that's a good

1:25:38question. In 1898 the church was reportedly was reportedly more than 1.25 million in debt. In 1899 Lorenzo snow launched a major campaign encouraging members to pay a full of tide and then he's the one who also said who has means I'll just add that the increase the results the resulting increase in tithing revenue helped the church stabilize its financial finances and pay down its debts so they're able to get out of that by the early 1900s the church had eliminated its major debts both LDS histories generally dating this to around 1906. I'm sorry I got something wrong earlier I thought about it being Joseph Smith when it was Lorenzo. Right yeah that's fine. Okay so I just throw this one in there this is me this next clip is from me one of the reasons the church was able to get out of debt is because they had their own buildings that people they they would allow to be rented out and then some of those buildings knowingly they were whorehouses so they the church was profiting off of of sex workers so I'll just play this clip and we can move on. Did you know

1:26:40that the moment church was making money off of whorehouses in the early 1900s? Can I say whorehouses on tiktok? It sounds made up but it's not so in the early 1900s the moment church was struggling financially but under president Lorenzo snow it began to recover. It was for this reason that the church allowed these houses of ill-reviewed to continue. The moment church owned buildings on what is now Regents Street that they were knowingly leasing out as brothels according to a story in Dei Michael Quinn this remained an uncomfortable secret until 1908 when the Salt Lake Tribune proclaimed that the Brighon Young Trust Company filled these houses on commercial street aka modern-day Regents Street. This article noted that the church owned Clayton Investment Company continued to lease these houses of prostitution and that the LDS Church's annual rent was $2,400 from just one of these brothel leases. $2,400 in 1908 is equivalent in purchasing power to over $86,000 today. The Tribune's description of the situation was known as Harsha's the Views of Counselor Anthony H. Lund who had previously written as an apostle that the general authorities on the company's board had fitted a whorehouse or young's charge that they were running a whorehouse.

1:27:46Although the LDS Church was technically and legally only the leaser of the buildings some general authorities regarded the church's leadership as morally implicit in brothel management. In internal records even show leadership eventually ordering these properties to be cleaned up or closed emphasizing the morality not many should be that priority but the shift didn't happen immediately. For years the revenue continued and fact the moment church did not divest its houses of prostitution until 1941 so the moment church continued to profit from these brothels under Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith and most of the presidency of Hebrew J. Grant as Quinn puts it in all for general authorities of the LDS Church, law officers or directors of the two LDS holding companies while they leased houses of prostitution. Interestingly the moment church climbed out of debt on April 5th of 1907 so why did they keep profiting on for brothels for 37 years after they no longer needed the money? Why did they allow brothels at all? Could it be that the church really cares about money? Yeah and if you and so during that during this clip that I'm showing you can just go on Regent

1:28:50Street and there's all this history like on the on the floors and on plaques and things like that so I just want to point out that Regent Street in the UK is the home of Hamles the world's largest toy shop so I don't know what you guys are doing with your Regent Street but as is wholesome as anything all right stop smirching the name of Regent Street please. Anyways so I just wanted to throw out because it's a very interesting part of church history. In some ways it feels no different to the fact that church owns distilleries right or owned distilleries under Brigham Young. Wow yeah. Was it Valley Tan? Was the name of this very strong whiskey that Brigham Young was produced under Brigham Young. But anyway so yeah the church has... it's the same as what they choose to invest in now right I don't think their investment portfolio is particularly sort of morally managed I don't think there's any sort of particular consideration given to what Lockheed Martin are doing with the money that they give them. For example so yeah I think that's a long tradition in the church that

1:29:55when it comes to making money the act of making money is in somewhat sort of separated ultimately from the thing that they make money from. The act of making money seems to be more important and that I'm sorry to say is a very American thing when people talk about Mormons and being a very American religion I think it's behavior like this this intensely sort of capitalistic behavior of the church that I think draws that comment. Yeah. Going on with it Dad, Nima will you talk about Henry Deemoy? I love talking about Henry Moil partly because it happened in the UK a lot of what he did so I'll read this slide there's a picture of Henry Moil there. In April General Conference 1959 the church did his class that say saints published the financial data for the year 1958 and I've made this point a lot and I'm really glad we're making it here. This was the last time the church ever gave a detailed accounting of its finances. Despite Gordon B. Hinkley saying to a German

1:30:59interviewer sort of late 90s early 2000s saying that you know we believe that those financial details belong to the members of the church so that's why we don't share them publicly. The members of the church have never had a detailed account of the church's finances since 1959. I think Wadell for what it's worth Wadell said something very similar in his 16 minutes interview to what Hinkley said in that one. I'll see if I can find it while you continue. Yeah. Although we can't we can't play that though. No, I would just I would just read. You can go on on archive.org. I hope we put a link in the description where you can read the 1959 account and see just how detailed it is. It's the amount they're spending on missionary work. It's the amount they're spending on the release of society program. It's the amount they're spending on all these things. Two months after that conference in April 1959, Newly appointed second councilor Henry D. Moil, architect of the baseball baptism scheme, which is what took place in the UK launched a building spree to increase the number of LDS meeting houses. In a bid to attract members, Moil adopted a build it and they

1:32:02will come strategy worthy of that Kevin Kevin Kostner film. In tandem with this building program, Henry D. Moil uses baseball batches and program to create the converts to fill the chapels. While on paper, the number of converts increased, tithing revenue did not because they were mainly baptising 12 year olds and using permission slips to play baseball that were actually consent forms to be baptized into the Mormon church and become a member. So it's this weird thing where he thinks we've got an increase of members on paper and we're going to build these buildings so that if somewhere for them to go and then somehow this tiling money will appear. Even though these children weren't even given the lessons to say hey you're going to have to start paying tiding now. They didn't know. So I suppose that's what you get for baptising young boys as converts without their parents. Moil had thrown out the established budget and spent eight million more on these programs than the church had brought in. That was in stark contrast to the church is spending for the fiscal year before the before Moil took charge when they reported a seven million dollar surplus.

1:33:03In order to try and hide the financial pressures that the church program was putting on the church, Henry Moil convinced President David OK to cease publishing detailed financial data. As we teach our children hiding something doesn't make the problems go away. And in fact, things only got worse. The deficit by 1962 stood at 32 million dollars. Like let's just not tell them that we got it. We got in trouble. That's fine. Yeah. That's fine. If I can't see them, they can't see me. That's how that works. If we got the next slide. Yeah. Yeah. So, OK. So this is just summarising all that up again. They had to put this 32 million dollar deficit. And by the summer of 1963, church finances were so strained that financial officers questioned whether the church would be able to meet payroll obligations Moil was subsequent removed from personal experience of church finances and missionary work. And that's so weird because I was taught who the Lord calls equalifies. We're indeed. But now they very much operate on who's qualified the Lord calls. So, you know, Christopher Waddell

1:34:08with his banking experience and Bishop Corsé with his banking experience and all that sort of stuff. So the church's financial strategy then brings them back in because they had depended on future growth and future tithing to pay for expansion expansion and the gamble didn't didn't work. And so they brought someone in to study the ship and they did within a few years. But did they go back to publishing tithing records? No. Of course not. Once you realise, oh, the members don't care if we tell them what's going on with our money. We just don't tell them anymore. We don't need to. We can just have Kevin, Newuygenson, stand up and say, well, we're playing by the rules we say ourselves. It's all fine guys. But you worry. And Colby, did you were able to find that quote did from Moil? So I found the one that we've talked about before where the interviewer in that 60 minutes interview asks him, don't you agree that this would be a non-issue if there was more transparency? And he says, no, because then everyone will be telling us what they want to do with the money. And I guess

1:35:10maybe what I'm thinking of is if Hinckley's statement is true, if the tithing belongs to the members and they're the ones who should have that disclosure, wouldn't they have a right? It would seem to me to tell the church what they believe the church should be doing with the money. Separate external voices from internal voices. They're lack of transparency on this issue for bids both external and internal voices, which is so ironic because that's where the money originally comes from. But they apparently if members don't demand better of the church, then the church is just going to do what it's going to do. And it has done for the last, well, since 1958. The consequences for demanding better I have experienced personally are excommunication. So they do generally discourage asking for better. I did find a 2020 interview with the pro-vite presiding bishopric where Wadell said, this is in the desert news, the members of the church have a right to trust that it's going to be

1:36:11managed and handled well and not just thrown at issues, which has aged so so poorly since the SEC issue that we talked about several episodes ago. I also love the idea that that is such a thing. Like they have a right to trust us. That's what that's the right they have. They have a right to trust me, bro, that all is well with the money that you give over. Imagine like, imagine someone coming to you and asking for investment. But okay, so what sort of rights do I have as an investor? You have the right to trust me that I'm not going to like, oh my gosh, mess with your money and throw it away and lose it. You have the right to trust me. That's very similar to bednars reinterpretation of what agency means, was you have the right to choose exactly to do exactly what you're told to do and nothing more and nothing less. But what we always meant to pay tithing to you, this is the question. And I think all the back is going to teach us, right? Yeah, so this is Elder Packard. This is the talk called Teach them Correct Principles. This was in April of 1990 and he's reiterating Lorenzo Snow's earlier talk.

1:37:13President Joseph Smith, as early as 1907 said, we may not be able to reach it right away, but expect to see the day when we will not have to ask for one dollar of donation for any purpose except that which you volunteer to give of your own accord. Because we will have ties sufficient in the storehouse of the Lord to pay everything that is needful for the advancement of the kingdom of God. Yes, I'm going to spoke it was Joseph Evesmith because we talked about that before where in our other the history of tithing where this will not, we will see the day where we won't have to ask you for tithing. Did you hear that get stuck in his throat a little bit? Like I said, I had to say it because I was like you couldn't quite believe what he was about to read that he was about to even imply that tithing may stop. It's interesting to me too that this is because Enzain Pek is created in 1997 as we gave a whole

1:38:14history on that in the SEC episode we did recently. It's interesting that this is given in 1990. So in 1997, their solution to having more income in tithing than they need is to go park it in the stock market and grow it. Right? Like infinitely. So I wonder if there's a backstory on the why he's having that thought in 1990 based on the church getting itself out of the financial trouble that Henry DeMoyle had gotten them into. Right. Yeah. I'm going to say just to recap what or summarize what we've talked about. So the tithing was given for four reasons. The building of mine house, the church will soon have once these are dedicated and completed 385 temples. For the laying of foundation of Zion, they're the largest evident landowner in Florida at least. I know that they have purchased land throughout the United States and throughout the United Kingdom. For the priesthood, the general authorities could pay six figures. Of course this can mean other things like missionary work or whatever, but it's just a vague phrase. But then missionary work is

1:39:19paid for by members directly. That's true. And yeah, we talked about that as well. And then this last reason is for the debts of the first president of the church. The church has been out of debt for decades. The church, yeah, the church just is not in debt anymore. So I also, well, I just want to argue that I think we're paying too much tithing because I think the words interest and surplus are very specific and they do not mean income. So I think we should not be being not have to pay tithing on that specific 10%, but on a different 10%. And then the four reasons have been have been met. And I don't think that they, even if we will stop paying tithing, these things can still operate and function just fine as from my understanding of what enzyme peak makes. Correct. Yeah. Okay. So this is a, and yet tithing is still so important that in April, 2026, we heard this, I heard this conference talk live and in person. I was in Salt Lake in the building and heard this talk given. Okay. The only thing I had of value was a car that I needed

1:40:23in my efforts to grow my business. However, I concluded that I should at least make an effort to sell my car. So I cleaned and polished it and placed an ad to sell it. I want to be clear that Elder Cutler did not ask me to sell my car. This came to me after pondering and my desire to book God first. A few days later, a man came to see, came to the house to see the car. He seemed interested. He drove it and came back to discuss the details. He gave me his business card and I realized he represented a car dealership. I was nervous about what would surely happen next. The haggling back and forth over the price. He asked me, how much do you want for the car? I told him I needed a precise amount. I had calculated what I needed to pay off the loan on the car and pay my tiny. He then said very calmly, okay, I'll come back in a few days with

1:41:25a check. He thanked me and left. I could not believe it. No arguing, no haggling, no negotiating. A few days later, he came back with a check for the amount I requested. I was surprised and amazed as he drove off with a car. I deposited the check and paid my tiny. As I contemplated what had occurred, I realized that I didn't have a car to continue with my business. While I was thinking about what to do, a friend called me and said, okay, you like my car, don't you? At that point, I would have liked any car. He reminded me that his wife was having twins and that he needed to buy a larger vehicle and wondered if I would be willing to take over his car payments. It was a miracle. Okay, that's on this clip. Right, I so many thoughts. I cannot help but imagine that he

1:42:28just undersold his car, undervalued it to this guy. This guy is like, great, I got a steal. That's why there's no haggling. No car salesman is going to not haggle if they're going to lose money. So he just undervalued his car. There's nothing extraordinary about that. Other than he went, I need this amount of money. It's making you probably went, I need six grand and the cars worth 10. So the deal is like, yep, yeah, okay, that sounds fine to me. I'll pay you six for that car that's worth 10 and I'll make money on it. That's fine. So there's that. And then there's an idea that it's a miracle that someone else has a car. Or it was not a pack old like it. But it wasn't even a gift of a car. It was the gift of taking over someone else's car. So you know what it was? It was the gift of getting into debt is what it was. Essentially, he had a friend call up and like, hey, do you want to take over my debt? And the church forever encourage you, just not to be in debt and forever trying to model that we shouldn't get into debt is now celebrating over the pulpit at general conference, a man going into debt in order to pay his tithing, literally going into debt

1:43:32in order to pay his tithing. Yeah, that's true. I just, it's also wild to me that how stories of miracles sort of change during conference or these presentations. Like the one that I really as think as funny as the guy that is squished a net and the resurrection of the net. The resurrection of the net. Elder gay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so my, this last question is what is tithing used for? And so I just wanted to read the overview. Colby, what'd you read the overview from the church? Of course. Church members give their tithing donations to local leaders. These local leaders transmit tithing funds directly to the headquarters of the church where council determines specific ways to use the sacred funds. This council is comprised of the first presidency, the core of the 12 apostles and the presiding bishopric acting according to revelation, they make decisions as they are directed by the Lord. Tithing funds are always used for the Lord's purposes to build and maintain temples and meeting houses to sustain missionary work to educate church members and to carry out the work of the Lord throughout the world. So that

1:44:35means an email earlier when you flagged, hey, wouldn't they have spent a lot of money on lawyers litigating this issue of this tax exemption in the UK up to the top core in the UK? Remember that those tithing funds were used for the Lord's purposes. So that was the Lord's litigation. And that was guided by revelation. There is a clip out there of Gerald Corsair saying that the church's tithing money is spent with the spirit of revelation, which means that when they built 13 shell companies, that was the spirit of revelation. That's what the SEC didn't agree or didn't agree with that. The spirit of revelation led them to violate SEC regulations. Yes. Yeah. On to the next one. Mima, will you talk about this one? Yeah. So what I do find really interesting is when the church pushes back on the 60 minute segment on church finances, whenever the sort of finances are reported and how wealthy the church is is reported, they say, well, no, you've missed the rags to riches history of the faith, which I think the rags to riches

1:45:38think again is meant to play to an American audience. This idea that we pulled ourselves up by a bootstraps and we made ourselves wealthy. That's like an American narrative that plays well. But I think what this does is essentially say, hey, but don't forget, we used to be poor. And I think implicit in that is this idea that we could be poor again, because the church has had financial difficulties in its history. And in the same way that the church maintains a persecution complex because they have been persecuted in the past, it kind of becomes part of the DNA of the church to have this scarcity mindset of we might just lose it all at any minute. And don't forget that we used to be poor and when we weren't always, we weren't always this wealthy. So please bear that in mind. So yeah, playing this rags to riches story and I think it's trying to frame this more of a look how successful we've managed to be rather than look how ungodly wealthy we are. And then there's an article was published in 2012 by Peter Henderson and it reads in part, relying heavily on church records and countries that require far more disclosure than the United

1:46:40States. It's cool. Sociologists Ryan Cragan and Howard Roeders estimate that the church of Jesus Christ, let her say in some brings in some seven billion annually in times and other donations. And that's from NBC. It would be really other countries of the UK and Denmark amongst others. And Australia, it'd be really interesting. And Canada, basically everybody but us, it'd be really, it'd be really interesting to me to know because this data, they're they're making assumptions based on data that we do have, right? And I think they're making reasonable assumptions. But this was published in 2012. What would be really interesting to me is to see whether the data shows a precipitous drop in tithing revenues after the enzyme peak whistleblower report in late 2019. I don't know. This number was reconfurned by Roger Clark in 2019 when all that broke. So it remained steady at least until then. That's true. Yeah. And then there's another one. This is an

1:47:47article just a screenshot from the Washington Post. The article is the headline is Mormon Church has misled members on 100 billion tax exempt investment fund whistleblower alleges. People were starting to work it out in 2012 that the church was bringing in a lot of money and then the story broke that not only they've been bringing in a lot of money, they've been storing some of their way and they've amassed $100 billion. Right. Yeah. So I think I really think that brings in 7 billion in tithing. But doesn't enzyme peak make about the same every year and invest. Right. So if we go to the next slide. Yeah. We can we can throw a heart and wreck to junior up as well. But um, okay. Was it after that? Yeah. It is a fact that we will look better when we pay tithing. Because it comes into the heart of the tith here that even reflects in his countenance many times. That's very Kenneth Copeland, right? That's what I wanted to throw that one in there. Very mega church pasta coated. I don't know whether it's the site Southern accent or what it is,

1:48:48but it's yeah. Who knew that tithing could offer you a glow up? Maybe I should start paying again. I don't know. So Nima, did I have the slide in there that you were looking for? Yeah. Well, it comes towards the end. That's fine. Okay. So I just wanted to remind what the tithing it's a standing law into them forever. And yet we have Joseph Joseph F Smith where he says we expect to see the day when we will not have to ask you for one dollar of donation for any purpose except that what you volunteer to give of your own accord. So I guess we've talked about this before. They have seen that day, but they won't. They're not going to ask, I guess. Just stop tithing because it's a standing law forever. It's just an interesting thing. And then this is what I was going to bring us to. This is the petition I started when I was wet behind the years naive and thought I could maybe make a difference. It's still active and live. Those people can go and sign it. I think we could have a link in the description if you want to go sign this petition. So you didn't create in 2021 or this is just how I created it in 2021. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been running for five years now. When he still had hope in his eyes, when I still had hope in my eyes, when I wasn't I guess I wasn't

1:49:50really really jaded. Yeah. Okay. So the idea was that essentially it's been confirmed. If you could throw up the next slide, sure. I can summarize this because I wrote it. But essentially Joseph F. Smith said in 1907, we will see that day when we'll not have to ask you. I argue that that day has arrived that they have sufficient in the storehouse of the Lord. They have a hundred billion dollars. They've also confirmed that they bring in about seven billion dollars of tithing annually. They confirm that they make about the same amount. They make sort of seven to eight percent return. And so what you could do essentially, I argue, if you go to the next slide, I argue that we allow seven billion dollars to be freed up and go into the charitable sector worldwide, whether that's local or international charities and a mixture of both from people. The church runs N. sign Pete like an endowment fund skims off the top because we know that of that seven billion, they use six for church operations and then they put one away. They could do exactly the same

1:50:50thing with returns on ends on Pete's. They could spend six of their returns put one away. So their fund would grow by a billion dollars a year and they could spend the rest of the interest and that the actual, the original capital wouldn't be touched. That's the argument I make here. Two and a half thousand people nearly agree with me. And if you do too, you can also sign it and maybe I'll send it off to the first presidency when we get a fair few signatures to see what happens. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure that they would actually like, just go feed to the Mormon land in like 2021, I think. That's my first time being featured in Salt Lake Trip. Wow, that's exciting. But I still think that this is a perfectly functional alternative where people still get to obey the law of tithing. They still get to keep that standing law. They still get to give that sacrifice of themselves. They still get to give that money away to the poor needy who need it because the church, church doesn't need it anymore. And even if tithing income stopped tomorrow,

1:51:52they could run the church for decades on them out of money that they have. So, well, I think they could probably run it into perpetuity as long as there's no real change in the expenses because if we think about the fact, well, sorry, yes, if tithing revenue stopped coming in because we give it to charity instead, they could run it in perpetuity as an endowment fund. But even if other stuff crashed and went wrong, like even if they had to start spending the capital, I think was my point there. There's enough capital there for them to run it for decades. Right. Yeah. And decades is a long time to then get your feet back under you in whatever new landscape emerges. Yeah. It's a lot of breathing room, shall we say. Yeah. But they won't because they've got dragon sickness. They've got dragon sickness and so dragon sicknesses from the island. Yeah. Where people become obsessed with the wealth that they hoard and they become very jealous and guard it very jealousy. And I think they're also just paralyzed by the

1:52:55amount of money they have, honestly, that would be my final closing take would be I think that leads to church are paralyzed by the amount of money they have. And I don't think they know what to do with it. They know they also it growing equals good, but they don't know beyond that what they should do. I think they also show a profound lack of faith repeatedly in their own members on this issue. By withholding information from the members, I think they do legitimately probably believe and justify to themselves on the basis that they believe they're doing it for people's own good. But again, coming back to how we opened this episode and what I was taught about agency is that's not the way I understood agency. That's not the way and I stood agency and belief in agency is one of the things I feel like I've taken with me after my exit from the church, meaning that I believe that a ground of my morality personally is treating other people as autonomous agents who have the right to individual choices and those individual choices need to be respected. That's what I always understood from my time as a Mormon that agency meant. I thought it was so important that we had a

1:53:58whole war in heaven over the issue, but I think it comes back to what we opened with from Elder Bednar is they don't really believe in agency. They don't really believe that members of the choice should or I'm sorry members of the church should be making these choices. They think they need to make them for them by withholding information from them. And it's all part of a broad pattern of infantilizing church members, which is a theme throughout the church's relationship with its members. And join us next week when I debate Corby over the pros and cons of determinism and how much free choice we actually do have. But for now, if we had it, if I had any choice to disagree with you, then maybe I would. Yeah, Julia, what are your thoughts on the end of the episode? Oh, it's just something up. Well, in summary, like I like all these thoughts too. So I just think that the church, I'm not an active member right now, but I think members of the church are paying too much tithing. I think they are being paying on something that they shouldn't be paying on. I think it's really interesting in 1970 that they changed it from interest to income because those

1:55:00are not the same at all. And then what the church, what the church uses, tithing for from that revelation, those are all being met and they could still continue being met without tithing being given. So like I just I struggle with tithing. I really admire the members who who work at out with their bishop to pay tithing to charitable organizations rather than to the church. I don't think the church is giving nearly as much as they should or could into to those entities, whereas members can feel like their money is going somewhere better rather than like the shell companies or abuse coverups or different things like that. Like I would rather not want to know that my money is going to help people rather than going to those other entities. And your money isn't even going into a particularly generous social scene at the church. It's not even going into particularly generous church activities. Ward budgets are scrimped about and stake budgets are scrimped about. People are kind of often out of pocket themselves personally

1:56:02for putting activities on. The amount of activities the church puts on have massively decreased over the years. They've just reduced the amount of time people can spend socializing a church again by trying to cram loads of stuff into two hours. The schedule change is not good for the community of the church. So it's this weird thing where people are still investing the same amount in their church. They're still paying into their church. If you want to view it kind of that way for a moment, maybe the personal blessings and the lives are still the same, but what the church is offering them for the money they're putting in, it's like the product is getting worse. I would argue from a community perspective and from a what the church is actually spending the money on perspective in terms of facilities. Yeah. Okay, well, Colby, do you want to close us out? I probably should, right? Probably. You have 50 seconds. Excellent. Well, thank you again for joining us on today's episode where we looked at the history of tithing for our second kind of deep dive on this issue. I have two quick requests as we wrap up here today. If you value the

1:57:06other us discussion series and you want to see it continue, please consider supporting the Open Stories Foundation and Mormon Stories. These episodes require a lot of work, substantial research and preparation on both Julia and Nemo's parts. I just basically show up and we are compensated for the work that we do in making this series happen. So if it's important to you, remember that your donations do make it possible for us to keep doing it. And we promise that we will never threaten your eternal salvation if you don't donate. Second, we want your feedback. So you can email us at MormonStories at gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube. And we are very open to your feedback and things that you would like to see more of including future topics. So thank you again for joining me on today's episode of Mormon Stories Podcasts LDS Discussions Edition. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you next time.