The Church News is moving. It has just announced that stories from the Church News will be posted on DeseretNews.com, that LDSChurchNews.com will redirect to the DN site, and that eventually the archives will be moved as well.

Which is fine and good, I suppose. Apparently, the Church News was hosted on a platform that couldn’t be supported or upgraded.[fn1] So the consolidation seems to make sense from a technical point of view. 

It may not make as much sense from a tax point of view, though. As I’ve explained before, churches cannot campaign for or against a candidate for office; if they do so, they risk losing their tax-exempt status.

Sidebar on DeseretNews.com

And what does that have to do with moving the Church News to the Deseret News site? Just this: the Church News, according to the sidebar to the article, is an official LDS publication. And the endorsement of opposition of candidates in an official church publication can be attributed to the Church. As the IRS illustrates in its Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations:

Example 3 Minister C is the minister of Church I, a section 501(c)(3) organization. Church I publishes a monthly church newsletter that is distributed to all church members. In each issue, Minister C has a column titled “My Views.” The month before the election, Minister C states in the “My Views” column, “It is my personal opinion that Candidate U should be reelected.” For that one issue, Minister C pays from his personal funds the portion of the cost of the newsletter attributable to the “My Views” column. Even though he paid part of the cost of the newsletter, the newsletter is an official publication of the church. Because the endorsement appeared in an official publication of Church I, it constitutes political campaign intervention by Church I. [fn2]

So far, the Church News shouldn’t have any problem with this. It doesn’t endorse candidates or, as far as I know, discuss politics at all. If the Church News is the same as it was when I last read it, it gives news about what Church members and units are doing, spiritual thoughts, and the like.

Interlude

At this point, I was going to say that the Deseret News, on the other hand, can endorse candidates. Then I did a quick Google search and discovered that it has a policy of not endorsing candidates, and, in despair, I gave up on this post. And then, a few hours later, I realized that the Deseret News can, in fact, endorse candidates, whether or not it currently chooses to. And, in fact, newspaper endorsements are valuable. Not in the big-ticket races, of course, but local newspapers often have the ability to provide valuable information about lower-profile local races, like judicial elections. So even though the Deseret News may currently choose not to endorse candidates, it could change its mind.

End Interlude

Unless somehow, by hosting the Church News, the Deseret News gets infected (as it were) by the Church News’s official status. I don’t know that that will happen, of course: the internet is new enough, and the confluence between standard editorializing newspaper and official religious publication rare enough, that there are no clear standards.

Still, it’s probably advisable that the Deseret News work to maintain actual independence from the Church News, somehow establishing standards and signals to readers to indicate that the Church News, even with a Deseret News url, is a completely separate entity.

—

[fn1] I’m really not sure what that means–maybe it’s somehow Windows XP-related?

[fn2] This is from p. 8. Emphasis added.

In 1999, Jimmie Duane Ross got $840,000 from his former employer, the result of an arbitration hearing. I don’t know what Ross did with that money; I do know, however, one thing he didn’t do: pay his taxes.[fn1]

Which is wrong, of course, but not by itself newsworthy. Lots of people don’t pay their taxes.[fn2] So why blog this? Two reasons: first, today is April 15th.[fn3] Second, in addition to standard tax protester arguments for why he didn’t need to pay his taxes, Ross made some expressly Mormon arguments. 

Tax protesters have a series of stupid and frivolous arguments they forward to claim that (a) the U.S. government doesn’t have the power or authority to tax citizens, and/or (b) even if it does, the tax protester is not subject to taxation. Ross, as he defended himself against criminal tax evasion charges, appears to have made a number of these frivolous arguments.  But he added one. According to the court, in addition to the standard-issue tax protester claims, Ross asserted that

he is a “[s]overeign, non-corporate, spirit filled man sojourning on the domain of Elohim, His Creation” subject only to “Celestial Kingdom jurisdiction pursuant to the source of the highest universal laws: the Bible, Book of Mormon, United States Constitution, Declaration of Independence 1776 and Magna Carta 1215/1225.”

And how’d that go over? Let’s just say, the court was not impressed by any of Ross’s arguments. In denying his constitutional arguments, the court held that Ross “will not be on trial for . . . his purported religious beliefs. He will be on trial for the alleged conduct of tax evasion.”

But it gets worse.[fn4] Not only does his Mormonism not justify his tax evasion (or, at least, remove him from the jurisdiction of federal courts), but it in fact hurts his ability to defend himself.

See, to convict someone of criminal tax evasion, the government must show three things: (1) that the taxpayer didn’t pay the full amount of taxes owed; (2) that the taxpayer willfully (rather than, e.g., accidentally or negligently) failed to pay, and (3) that the taxpayer made an affirmative act of evasion or attempted evasion.

Ross clearly met (1) and (3). (After the settlement with his former employer, Ross allegedly “filed a false mortgage on his home and a false lien on his vehicle, moved funds to an offshore account and used cash for many transactions in an attempt to cover his trail.” That looks like affirmative acts to me.)

To defend himself, then, Ross was likely to raise a “good faith” defense. That is, he would argue that he sincerely believed that the tax law didn’t apply to him. In response, the government intended to introduce, among other things, “evidence that various [Mormon] church officials reminded [Ross] of his duty to pay income tax.”[fn5]

Ross argued that such evidence should be inadmissible as, among other things, unfairly prejudicial. But the court said that these statements were clearly relevant to the question of good faith, were not unduly prejudicial, and could be introduced at trial.

Ultimately, Ross was convicted on 5 counts of tax evasion, and was sentenced to 51 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release after his prison term. He was also required to pay $532,389 in restitution.

Which is to say, though we all hope one day to fall under Celestial Kingdom jurisdiction, in this life, that doesn’t free us from our income tax obligations.[fn6]

Also, happy Tax Day!

—

[fn1] Just an aside, for the sake of clarity: if the settlement had been for a physical injury, it would not have been taxable. There’s no indication, though, in the various opinions and orders or in the press that the recovery was for injury; it’s probably fair to assume that the recovery  was, instead, related to salary he should have received.

[fn2] (though the U.S. has pretty good tax compliance)

[fn3] You know, tax day? Which is to say, if you haven’t filed your return or filed for an extension yet, you should probably stop reading this, and find a Post Office that will be open late. Be warned, though, that this year, it looks like there will be a lot fewer of those.

[fn4] (as it almost inevitably does for tax protesters)

[fn5] And thank goodness; the Church clearly does not condone tax evasion, and it will not have your back if you try to evade. Which is exactly how it should be. Ross is not representative of Church members—it was actually tough to find a tax protester case that explicitly mentioned that the defendant was a Mormon—but is, ultimately, an interesting-enough footnote to the world of Mormonism and taxes.

[fn6] Is this the right place to point out that church policy requires members to pay their taxes? Because this is where I’m going to do it.

Sorry, no, not that Alma; his son.

As Grant Hardy has pointed out, Mormon likes to tell stories that parallel each other. Often, those parallels seem meant to starkly contrast good and evil; the parallels between King Benjamin and King Noah immediately spring to mind. Other times, they seem to illustrate the consequences of different behaviors. Compare, for example, the escape of Limhi’s people from the Lamanites with the escape of Alma Sr.’s people. 

And sometimes, I’m at a loss. For example, in the parallels between King Noah and Alma the Younger. Essentially, in Mormon’s telling, they are the same person.

Don’t believe me? Compare the description of King Noah in Mosiah 11:2, 7, with the description of Alma the Younger in Mosiah 27:8. King Noah “caused his people to commit sin”; in doing so, he led them to “become idolatrous.” He seems to have succeeded because he “did speak flattering things unto” his people.

As for Alma the Younger? He was a “wicked and idolatrous man.” He “did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities.”

So both Noah and Alma the Younger[fn1] are associated with idolatry, with sin/iniquity, and with flattery.[fn2]

Alma famously repents, while Noah, though on the brink, doesn’t.

Alma’s repentance, though, was notably preceded by an earth-shaking angelic visitation and a vision of himself in Hell. In fact, as Alma admits, he wasn’t redeemed as the result of his own worthiness.

The point? In Mormon’s telling, there seems to be a thin line between true and false prophet, the crossing of which isn’t entirely volitional. That is, while Noah and Alma both had the ability to choose, Alma got an angel and, Laman and Lemuel’s experience to the contrary, that seems to have made an important difference.

Ultimately, then, what do we take from Mormon’s similar framing of Alma the Younger and King Noah? At the least, I hope, we’re forced to confront our own spiritual position humbly; while it takes personal effort and commitment to be active and believing members of the Church, it also takes grace, whether it be the grace of having been born into a faithful family, the grace of having felt the Spirit at the right moment, or the grace of having an angel—rather than a prophet—tell us we’re doing the wrong thing. And, I think, we’re forced to confront the fact that those who don’t join us in our beliefs may not be stubborn or iconoclastic, but rather have not (yet, at least) received the same.

—

[fn1] It may also be worth pointing out that both Noah and Alma departed from the ways of their righteous fathers.

[fn2] Flattery actually appears to be a sine qua non of Book of Mormon dissenters: by the time we get to the book of Helaman, Paanchi, in his attempt to wrest the kingdom from his brother, also flatters his (potential) followers.

Last night, my wife and I went to hear the final performance in this season’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chicago residency. Pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel performed all five of Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and cello. 

The music was, it should go without saying, stunning. An evening spent with such amazing musicians playing such transcendent music[fn1] is, by itself, an evening well-spent.

But the performance last night was better than amazing musicians and transcendent music. Before the first and third sonatas, Han spoke to the audience. She explained why they presented the program they did:[fn2] in one evening, in a little more than two hours, they could present an overview of Beethoven’s lifetime of work. His work, she said, is divided into three periods; he composed the first two sonatas in the early period,[fn3] the third in his middle period, and the last two in his late period.

She described his motivation in writing the pieces. She talked about the cellists he had in mind, the audience he had in mind. For his middle-period sonata, she laid out his compositions leading up to and following that composition. She talked about his melodic and formal methods, comparisons between sonatas. She played motifs and sang them, telling us what to listen for. She talked about how his sonatas changed from early to middle period (in early period, the cello basically accompanied the piano, while in the middle period, one would start a phrase and the other would finish it).

And her enthusiasm: she could barely contain herself as she told us the wonders of Beethoven’s sonatas.

Then, after she gave us a ton of context for the performances, we heard the performances. And what would have been merely one of the best concerts I’d ever been to became, well, better.[fn4]

***

I feel like Mormonism is largely a performative religion. That is, we largely lack formal theology and doctrine; instead, we focus on the lived experience of the Gospel, and we reflect its beauty in our lives.

The performative nature of our religion may be good or bad, but it’s probably not going away. As long as we have largely a lay clergy and lay membership, our religion will mostly be the experience of living the Gospel, rather than the theory that underlies it. And that may be enough.

But some sort of grounding of our day-to-day lived Mormonism in a close reading of scripture, in theology, in history, I think, can only serve to increase that beauty, as it helps us understand the context of our performance of Mormonism. To stretch, perhaps, my metaphor: without Han’s explanation, the music last night would have been just as beautiful. I would have come home spiritually and aesthetically fed, and I wouldn’t have missed anything.

But with that context, she provided me with a value-added. I could pay closer attention, and I could understand things I wouldn’t otherwise have understood.

That, it seems to me, could be a valuable use for Sunday School. As it stands, we often focus there in the lived experience of scripture, in applying it to our lives. Which makes sense, since that’s how (mostly) we’re going to use scripture through the week. But what if we used those ~30 minutes, instead or in addition, to read carefully, to understand the context, the author, the audience, the theology, etc.? Ultimately, our experience of Mormonism would continue to be a lived experience. But that brief reminder of the context of our performance of Mormonism would add something significant, I believe, to the experience of Mormonism.[fn5]

—

[fn1] (in the Harris Theater, itself an intimate and beautiful performance space)

[fn2] (besides, I mean, the fact that Han and Finckel are married and that the music, if I haven’t mentioned it, was divine)

[fn3] (when he was 26. Overachiever)

[fn4] Though the Chamber Music Society’s Brandenburg Concertos was still probably a touch ahead, imho.

[fn5] I hope it goes without saying that, had Han’s discussion not been so insightful, valuable, and passionate, it would not have elevated the performance—no matter how excellent the performance—and it could have detracted from it. Which probably says something about how my metaphorical Sunday School class should be prepared.

So in Priesthood today, I offhandedly remarked that I believe that Nephi made a mistake in killing Laban. And boy-oh did that ignite some pushback.[fn1] And I realized that I ought to explain how that belief fits in with my testimony of the Book of Mormon.

As a starting point, I believe that the Book of Mormon is true.  What I mean by that is this: I believe that the Book of Mormon was written thousands of years ago by real people. I believe that among those people were priest/prophets who received revelatory guidance from God. I believe that they recorded their dealings with each other and with God in records that (for the most part) were edited and condensed by Mormon and Moroni, who were prophetic military leaders. I further believe that they were translated, through inspiration, by Joseph Smith, early in his prophetic career.

If that summary of the history of the Book of Mormon is true, it seems to me the Book of Mormon’s demands on us are significant and weighty. Familiarity with its narrative is certainly enough for Primary kids, but as we get older, knowing the plot starts to become insufficient. Instead, I take seriously Richard Bushman’s charge that we need to take the Book of Mormon seriously, to engage it as serious divine literature,[fn2] a  charge that I fear we neglect far too often.

Why do we, as Mormons, often neglect close engagement with the Book of Mormon? I suspect there are a couple causes. One is, we’re not necessarily educated in the close reading of scripture. I’m certainly not; I am, however, educated in the close reading of literature (from my undergrad) and of statutes, regulations, and administrative guidance (from my profession). So I try to import those skills to my scripture-reading.

Also, I think, the Book of Mormon is too familiar. Its language comes from the early 19th century; although Joseph translated into the sacred register of pseudo-Jacobean, its underlying language is one we know. And its stories don’t shock us and surprise us, in the same way Jesus’ parables no longer shock and surprise, because we know how they end, and we know how we can co-opt the discomfort into an ultimately satisfying denouement, the moral that we can teach from the text.

But it doesn’t have to be such. The Book of Mormon, I’ve found, rewards close reading. It is in dialogue with the Exodus, with Isaiah, with Jeremiah, and, intertemporally, with itself. Its authors and editors quote, paraphrase, and riff off of others’ recorded prophecies.[fn3] Moreover, the Book of Mormon is not univocal: throughout the Book of Mormon, there seems to be a running debate about whether the prophesied Messiah is the son of God or God Himself. That the Book of Mormon relates almost 1,000 years of history allows us to see the development of religious ideas in a vastly compressed space.

So back to Nephi and Laban: if the Book of Mormon is true, and Nephi was a prophet, why do I think he made a mistake? A couple reasons:

• I start with my moral intuition: as a general rule, killing is wrong.
• I also start from the idea that the scriptures never present perfect prophets: prophets, in the scriptures, are perfectly capable of making mistakes.
• It’s also worth noting that, when this happened, Nephi was clearly not a prophet. His being a spiritual leader only happened later, after Lehi’s death.
• Laban’s death is a pivotal moment in Lehite history. With Laban dead, they can’t go back—they’re leaving forever.
• As Grant Hardy points out, when Nephi gets back, there’s a gap in the text: Lehi—the patriarch/family prophet—never tells Nephi (who is clearly working to establish himself as spiritually better than his brothers) that what he did was right, or was directed by God. Instead, we see a burnt offering, used to purge sin, upon the brothers’ homecoming.[fn4]
• Nephi seems to have serious regrets about it. I can’t help but read the sin in Nephi’s psalm as being the killing of Laban.
• It’s also worth noting that Nephi wrote this ~40 years after it happened. At this point, his people have divided. The Lamanites consider him (and will continue to consider him) a thief and a usurper. He’s writing, at least in part, to justify his separation and assumption of leadership.

And yet Nephi become the spiritual leader and founder of the Nephites years later. Nephi, in my reading, committed sin, with attendant regret and second thoughts, and yet was able to provide a spiritual foundation for a people (or, kind of, two, if you count modern Mormons). Taking the text seriously, though, demands deep and uncomfortable moral engagement with the text. It’s not enough to say that Nephi did what he was commanded, and everything ended in roses.

I believe the Book of Mormon is true. I believe that it can and should make us uncomfortable. And I believe that that discomfort, and its attendant reflection, will help us get nearer to God than merely reading unreflectively.

For what it’s worth, I also believe that closely reading and engaging with the text makes the Book of Mormon far more interesting.[fn5]

—

[fn1] It caught me by surprise, frankly: I didn’t think that was remotely the most controversial thing I said today. But apparently, you don’t mess with Nephi’s relating of his experiences 40 years earlier.

[fn2] See, e.g., Richard Lyman Bushman, On the Road With Joseph Smith: An Author’s Diary 47-48 (2007) (“The issue is not, Why did it not [function as a Bible], but what does it ask us to do?”).

[fn3] For a far fuller treatment of this inter-textual dialogue, the footnotes to Grant Hardy’s The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition are essential, as is Hardy’s Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide.

[fn4] See Hardy’s Reader’s Guide at 20.

[fn5] (even though David Foster Wallace has convinced me that boredom, too, has its benefits)

(I originally wanted to call this “Pastoral Housing, Take 2″[fn1] but, it turns out, pastoral housing is only one small aspect of the case.)

Last week, a federal court in Kentucky issued a decision in a lawsuit that could have far-reaching ramifications for churches.[fn2] In broad strokes, American Atheists, Inc., Atheists of Northern Indiana, Inc., and Atheist Archives of Kentucky, Inc. sued the IRS, arguing that certain tax provisions applicable solely to churches were unconstitutionally discriminatory. Specifically, the suit appears to have targeted:

• The fact that churches do not have to file an application for tax-exempt status;
• The fact that churches do not have to file annual information returns;
• The fact that pastors (read broadly) can receive housing from churches tax-free;
• The fact that ministers’ salaries are exempt from income tax withholding and payroll taxes; and
• The fact that the I.R.S. faces certain constraints when auditing a church that it doesn’t otherwise face.

These provisions apply solely to churches; these special exemptions and tax provisions aren’t available even to non-church organizations that are exempt under section 501(c)(3) (including tax-exempt hospitals and non-profit universities).

This different treatment, the plaintiffs argued, is unconstitutional, violating, among other things, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth.

So what did the court decide? It determined that the plaintiffs had failed on their Equal Protection claim. It also decided that they had pleaded facts sufficient to support an Establishment Clause claim: that these provisions do not have a secular purpose and they improperly endorse religion.

And yet the plaintiffs lost. Why? Because they didn’t have standing to challenge the laws.

And what is standing? Standing is the ability to show injury, caused by the defendant’s actions. And standing is a prerequisite to a federal court’s having jurisdiction to hear a case.

The problem here, said the court, was that the three plaintiff organizations had never applied for tax-exempt status as churches. Sure, they didn’t get the special treatment churches get, but that was purely as a result of their not trying to qualify.

The plaintiffs responded that (a) it was against their values to claim to be churches, and (b) it was irrational to think that the IRS would treat “purely anti-theistic entities” as churches. To which the court responded, But you didn’t try.[fn3]

So here’s the thing: this court, like the court in Wisconsin, believes that the special treatment of churches, as compared with other section 501(c)(3)s, may violate the Establishment Clause. The problem with this suit wasn’t substantive; it was procedural.[fn4] Which means that, if another organization successfully claims that it asked for those benefits and was refused, the case may go forward.[fn5] And there’s a chance that some or all of the provisions will be held unconstitutional.[fn6]

Assume that, in the future, somebody brings an identical suit, only this time with standing, and the courts ultimately strike down the five provisions. What effect, if any, will it have on the Mormon church?

The biggest thing would be that the Church would have to file a Form 990 annually. Form 990 is an information return, detailing, among other things, the revenue and expenditures of a tax-exempt organization. Forms 990 are available for inspection by the public; suddenly, the Church’s finances would become a matter of public record.

I imagine that the Church provides housing for at least some of the General Authorities, and I imagine that housing is currently tax-free to the General Authorities who receive it. Presumably, if that went away, the Church would gross-up their pay, meaning the Church would have a slight uptick in its salary expenses.[fn7] And it’s possible that the Church doesn’t withhold or pay payroll taxes. So all of that adds a little expense, but we have so few people who qualify for these ministerial benefits and earn a salary from the Church[fn8] that any additional cost would really just be marginal.

—

[fn1] Take 1 being here.

[fn2] At least in parts of Kentucky. Though those ramifications would likely have eventually reached further.

[fn3] (though maybe I’m paraphrasing a little bit)

[fn4] And seriously, who was representing these groups? The court points out that the original complaint didn’t identify the Code provisions that provided objectionable benefits; instead, the court had to do its own research. I mean, c’mon, that’s shoddy and lazy.

[fn5] If you’re really interested in the problems of tax standing, I have an article that discusses it in pretty decent detail (and suggests how to solve the problem of the IRS offering benefits to certain taxpayers that nobody has the standing to challenge) here.

[fn6] How much of a chance? I really don’t know; I’m not a constitutional law guy. But facially, at least, it’s hard to argue how these provisions serve a secular purpose, and they seem to benefit religion over non-religion.

[fn7] I explain the math under the second heading here.

[fn8] Because administrative employees wouldn’t qualify for the various withholding and housing exemptions.

In Church, and in Church-related discussions, I often hear people differentiate Church policies from doctrine. Policies, they say, can (and not infrequently do) change; doctrine, on the other hand, cannot. It has never changed and will never change.

These doctrine-vs.-policy discussions are rarely satisfying, in my experience. We argue over whether we’re talking about doctrine or policy, but rarely make it any further. And in part, I believe, the impediment is that we don’t really have a clear sense of what we’re talking about when we say “doctrine.” 

See, defining “doctrine” as that which cannot change is problematic. In the first instance, that definition doesn’t tell us anything of value. That is, if “doctrine” is the stuff that doesn’t change, we can never know ex ante what is doctrinal. All this definition tells us is that, if something has changed, it wasn’t doctrinal, no matter how important we believed it was before the change. Ultimately, then, the doctrine-vs.-policy argument becomes a shorthand way of announcing whether we think the current practice can change or not. The word “doctrine” ultimately becomes superfluous.

Or maybe it’s worse than superfluous: I think it actually impedes discussion. The shorthand allows us to skip articulating our belief that something can or cannot change, and, perhaps worse, encourages us to elide why we believe something can or cannot change—it merely is or isn’t doctrine. It drops us into an impasse, talking past each other (and, often, becoming frustrated).

Ultimately, though, if “doctrine” really does mean unchangeable, then we’re stuck with the impasse. The good news: it doesn’t. I’ve been curious for some time about the providence of this idea of doctrinal immutability. So I thought I’d try to run it down. Here’s what I can come up with:

The (Non-Mormon) Meaning of “Doctrine”

Webster’s 1828 English Dictionary[fn1] defined “doctrine” as that which is taught, or as the truths of the gospel in general.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s[fn2] definition also focuses on teaching and instruction. It also includes truth-claims made in fields including religion, politics, and science.

Black’s Law Dictionary[fn3] defines “doctrine” as “A principle, esp. a legal principle, that is widely adhered to.”

None of the common definitions of “doctrine” I found demand immutability.[fn4] Instead, they focus on the idea of teaching.

But What About Mormon Thought Specifically?

Of course, there’s no reason that Mormons can’t have an idiosyncratic definition of “doctrine.” And, in our general rhetoric, it looks like we do. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism’s entry for “doctrine” explains that, in scripture, “doctrine” (singular) means the doctrine of Jesus Christ, whereas “doctrines” (plural) refers to false teachings, either from devils or others. The entry then goes on to assert that

the “doctrine of Jesus Christ” is the only teaching that can properly be called “doctrine.” It is fixed and unchanging. It cannot be modified or contradicted, but merely amplified as additional truths that deepen understanding and appreciation of its meaning are revealed.

The entry, however, gives no source for its assertion that doctrine cannot be modified or contradicted.[fn5]

Which isn’t to say it’s unsupportable in Mormon thought. In a 1984 talk to the Regional Representatives‘ Seminar, President Packer admitted that “[p]rocedures, programs, the administrative policies, even some patterns of organization are subject to change. We are quite free, indeed, quite obliged to alter them from time to time.” However, he claimed, “the principles, the doctrines, never change.”

The idea that doctrines do not change predates President Packer, though. Greg Prince, in his biography of President McKay, says that, to President McKay,

there was a distinct difference between a “policy” in the church, which he saw as conditional and thus changeable, and a “doctrine,” which was immutable.[fn6]

From where did President McKay derive this difference? I don’t know; Prince claims the difference was lost on many of his colleagues, so it may have been original to him. On the other hand, he may have learned it from someone else. Either way, though, the Mormon idea that doctrine doesn’t change, while non-doctrinal peripherals may, goes back at least to the first half of the 20th century.

The Scriptures

As the Encyclopedia of Mormonism says, “doctrine” in the scriptures generally corresponds to “teachings.” Strong’s Concordance says that  Hebrew word translated as “doctrine” in the Old Testament (Strong’s number H3948) appears 9 times, and means learning, teaching, and insight. It’s translated four times as “doctrine,” four times as “learnings,” and once as “speech.”

In the New Testament, the Greek word translated as “doctrine” (Strong’s number G1322) shows up 30 times, 29 as “doctrine” and once as “has been taught.” Again, the word means “teaching.”

We get something similar in the Book of Mormon. According to Reynolds’s Book of Mormon Concordance, “my doctrine” shows up nine times, eight of which are in 3 Ne. 11, and all of which could easily mean “my teachings.” “Doctrine” shows up another nine times, frequently within a couple words of words like learn and teacher, which again suggests the idea of doctrine as teachings. “Doctrines” shows up four times, and are always false, and once also vain and foolish.

“Doctrine of Christ” shows up an additional seven times. It’s frequently associated with teaching or preaching (though twice it’s essentially put in the mouths of people who erroneously call it false or foolish).

So What?

N.b.: This post isn’t about women and the priesthood. It’s not about marriage. Or the Church’s stand on immigration or MX missiles or the Equal Rights Amendment. Instead, it’s focused on definitions and usage. If you really want to talk about the merits of any Church practice, there are plenty of places on the internet to do so. Here’s not the place.

That said, the underlying definitional issue is relevant to all those things, and more.

To take the Ordain Women example: I assume that most people who are uncomfortable with the aims of OW would concede that it is at least within the realm of possibility that God could announce, through His prophet, that women, too, can hold the priesthood. Conversely, I assume that most supporters would concede that it is at least possible that a male-only priesthood is God’s will and will not change.

But ex ante, we do not know which will happen. Which means that our traditional doctrine v. policy distinction (that is, immutable v. changeable), adds no value to our discussion. But it makes discussion between the two poles (and any number of points in between) tremendously charged and difficult.

Perhaps, then, we should step back from the precipice of doctrine vs. policy. Instead, we could embrace the dictionary (and scriptural) definition of doctrine. And when we want to talk about immutability, we can expressly talk about it, rather than code arguing about doctrines and policies.

—

[fn1] Why Webster’s 1828 dictionary? Primarily because it reflects the English being spoken in Joseph Smith’s time. Though there’s no guarantee, it’s fairly likely that when he translated something in the Book of Mormon as “doctrine,” and when he used the word in, e.g., the Doctrine and Covenants, he meant something like the definition in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.

[fn2] Sorry, no link. The OED online is a subscription database.

[fn3] Also from a subscription database. Sorry. Though, as some consolation, perhaps, I learned that there is an insurance law concept called the damn-fool doctrine:

The principle that an insurer may deny (esp. liability) coverage when an insured engages in behavior that is so ill-conceived that the insurer should not be compelled to bear the loss resulting from the insured’s actions.

That, I thought, was pretty cool.

[fn4] And you’re welcome to try dictionary.com’s definition, too, if you think I’m cherry-picking.

[fn5] It does, though, go on to say that, in Mormon vernacular, “doctrine” means, essentially, “virtually everything that is, or has been, taught or believed by the Latter-day Saints.” This vernacular usage corresponds pretty closely to the dictionary definitions of “doctrine,” though not to our current doctrine vs. policy definition.

[fn6] Gregory A. Prince & Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism 75 (2005).

In the comments to Russell’s missionary post, there seems to be a strong consensus potential missionaries need to learn to work hard. And I agree; missionary work demands hard work. A corollary, according to many of the comments, is that kids these days do not, in fact, learn to work hard.

That assertion I find a little more problematic. Partly, it’s because I teach Millennials professionally and, in my experience, many of them do, in fact, work hard. And partly it’s because the accusation of laziness is an evergreen one; every generation, it seems, considers the subsequent generation the laziest ever (conveniently, it seems to me, forgetting their own youthful laziness). 

Still, there is certainly value in figuring out how to teach our kids how to work hard. As we do so, though, we need to recognize that the world our kids face is different than the world we faced, and that, perhaps, the ways we learned to work aren’t the optimal ways to teach our kids to work.

A good number of commenters argue that our kids need to learn to work by doing yard work or babysitting or other, similar forms of informal market labor. But, for various reasons, I don’t think those are necessarily optimal.[fn1]

Why not? I guess, before laying out my reasons, I should provide a handful of assumptions. I’m assuming middle-class kids whose parents can meet their needs, who plan on attending college and, likely, plan on serving missions. (My criticisms of informal market labor probably work for kids who don’t meet those criteria, too, although for different reasons.)

Babysitting as Work

A mission costs $400 per month, which means a mission will cost boys $9,600 and girls $7,200. There are additional costs, including clothes and (sometimes) bikes and other things; the Deseret News estimates such additional expenses as falling somewhere between $800 and $2,000.

Then we have college. In the 2013-2014 year, the average sticker price for a private college (including room, board, and fees) was about $41,000. For in-state students attending a state school, that average prices was $18,000.[fn2]

How much does babysitting pay? In Chicago, we pay about $15 an hour. That seems roughly in line with other urban areas. I’ve heard the going rate is significantly lower in Utah. For our purposes, let’s assume our babysitter can make $10/hour. Let’s further assume that our babysitter starts babysitting when she is 14,[fn3] and manages to babysit three times a week for three hours each job, 50 weeks a year, until she is 18.[fn4] That means she’ll earn $18,000 over her four years of babysitting (which she’ll reduce by $1,800 in tithing). That’ll basically let her pay for her full mission, one year of in-state college, or just less than one semester at a private school.

This isn’t to say that babysitting is a bad thing, or that it doesn’t teach a kid to work. But it’s not really a viable way to save for college; rather, it’s a way to have money for consumption. The thing is, though, that babysitting—or, at least, babysitting nine hours a week—is probably not the best use of a teenager’s time. Because the tuition costs I mentioned are just the sticker price. If a teenager devotes the nine hours a week to studying, improving her grades, and participating in relevant extracurriculars, she could, potentially, get some sort of merit scholarship (based, for example, on grades, athletics, or music). If she got half tuition at a private school, suddenly those hours wouldn’t just be worth $18,000—they’ll be worth $82,000. That is, the return on her investment of time will be more than 4.5 times what the return on babysitting would have been.[fn5]

Again, that’s not to say that kids shouldn’t babysit. A future half-tuition scholarship doesn’t pay for dinner and a movie, or a new pair of shoes, today. Still, when we’re thinking about how to teach our kids to work, we should take into account what will provide them with a decent return, not just what we did as kids.

Farms and Gardens

Farming is hard work. Heck, gardening is hard work. I did a fair amount of gardening and lawn mowing as a kid growing up in the suburbs of San Diego.

But it’s important to note that we’re not primarily a rural Church, and the world isn’t primarily a rural world, today. My kids don’t mow lawns. They don’t pull weeds. Why not? Because we don’t have a lawn to mow, or a garden to weed. We live in an apartment in a very big city. My kids could probably count the number of people they know nearby who have grass and/or gardens on one hand.

So that’s not a viable way for me to teach my kids to work. And for more and more of the Church and the culture at large, that’s not going to be a way to learn to work.

Laundry

A bunch of people mentioned disdainfully that kids these days don’t even know how to do laundry. Is that true? I don’t know. But, as Mark B. pointed out, laundry isn’t that hard to learn.

What’s more, the laundry you learn to do may not carry over into your mission. My freshman year of college, I got good at separating my whites and colors and putting coins into the machines in the basement of Deseret Towers.

Then I got called to Brazil. In São Paulo, at least in the 90s where I was, we didn’t have washing machines and dryers. Instead, we hand-washed our clothes in outdoor sinks with built-in washboards and dried them on clotheslines.

Which is to say, my experiences washing my own clothes didn’t carry over. At. All. To. My. Mission.

So What to Do?

First, we should probably keep in mind that the teen unemployment rate is somewhere around 21 percent. That’s about 3.5 times the general unemployment rate. So telling kids to get a job is probably not a viable solution.

Second, we should keep in mind what the best type of work is for our kids looking forward. That best type of work may not be remunerated, especially if our kids are looking to college. It may be, instead, studying, practicing the viola, interning, volunteering, or interning.

In the end, just because something (babysitting, mowing the lawn, or whatever) taught me to work as a teenager doesn’t mean that it is the best choice for my kids; instead, I need to do the work as a parent to figure out how to best teach my kids to work.

—

[fn1] I’m not saying, of course, that kids who want to babysit or mow lawns shouldn’t. There’s certainly value in both. But using lawn mowing or babysitting as the way to teach a work ethic misses the mark, as I’ll argue.

[fn2] It’s worth noting, of course, that not everyone pays the sticker price.

[fn3] Why 14? Because in Chicago, that seems like the absolute minimum age for babysitters. YMMV.

[fn4] Note that I’m trying to make the assumptions high. Even if you’re part of the Baby-sitters Club, I suspect that babysitting 9 hours a week, 50 weeks a year is an unlikely amount of babysitting to do.

[fn5] Note that the study/practice/whatever isn’t actually worth 4.5 times as much as the babysitting: there’s always the chance that she won’t get the scholarship; to actually figure out the value, we’d have to do some sort of risk-adjusted calculation, where she has a 100% chance of earning the $18,000, but her chance of getting the scholarship is something less than 100%.

Understanding the Atonement is tough.[fn1] To try to understand it, theologians have come up with theories to describe the whys and hows of the Atonement, and stories to illustrate how the Atonement works.

We’ve got a handful of favorite illustrative stories in Mormonism, including bicycles and lickings. I was recently reading chapter 12 of the Gospel Principles manual, and I came across an Atonement story that I haven’t seen in a while: a parable of a debtor and a creditor. What follows are my thoughts as I reread it:[fn2] 

Note that what follows is reflective of my thought process, not any objective theological reaction to the underlying parable. And read my caveats in footnote 2.

First, that loan is structured in a really strange way. There doesn’t appear to have been a payment plan; rather, it looks like the full amount of the loan came due at some later date. I mean, there are (or, at least, prior to the financial crisis there used to be) interest-only loans, where the borrower only pays interest through the life of the loan, and then the full principal amount is due at the end. But a borrower would make regular (probably monthly) payments of interest throughout the term of the loan.

There are loans that don’t require borrowers to pay any interest during the life of the loans. They’re called (at least in my world) “original issue discount” bonds. The way they work is, the borrower gives the lender a note for $100, due in one year. The lender, then, gives the borrower $95.24. The $4.76 difference between the face about of the note and the amount the borrower gets represents the interest paid to the lender. But on original issue discount, a borrower wouldn’t make any payments during the life of the loan. So the loan described in the parable probably isn’t an original issue discount loan.

Then, of course, is the fact that there is no reason an economically rational lender would send a debtor to prison rather than renegotiating the terms of the loan.[fn3] I mean, if the lender sends the debtor to prison,[fn4] the debtor isn’t going to repay the debt. The lender will end up with nothing. If, however, the lender extends the term, reduces the interest, and/or reduces the principal, the lender won’t have to write off the investment. She may not be repaid in full—and that may not be pleasant—but she will recoup at least a portion of her investment.[fn5]

Of course, the financial crisis taught us that lenders aren’t always economically rational. Plenty of banks should have reduced the principal amount of borrowers defaulted mortgages, but for a long time, banks resisted.[fn6]

Moreover, the ultimate solution—having a third party pay off the loan—may not be cost-free to the borrower. Under the federal income tax, to the extent a lender forgives a loan, the borrower has taxable income. For example, say Andy borrowed $100 from Betty. Andy falls on hard times and is having trouble making payments, so Betty agrees to forgive the loan. Suddenly, Andy has $100 of taxable income.

And it’s the same whether Betty unilaterally forgives that amount or whether Carl comes in and makes a $100 payment to Betty on Andy’s behalf.

Of course, in the parable, it appears that the mediator takes over the loan. There aren’t nearly enough details,[fn7] but presumably the debtor will owe the mediator something. If the debtor owes the mediator $100 (but the mediator has extended the term of the loan, or reduced the interest rate), there will be no tax consequences to the borrower.

If, however, the mediator has reduced the principal amount—that is, if Andy now owes Carl only $80, rather than $100—Andy has $20 of taxable income. That is, his taxable income increases by the same amount as his debt decreases.

Such were my thoughts as I read chapter 12.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you shouldn’t let your children grow up to work on Wall Street.[fn8]

—

[fn1] Brilliant insight, no?

[fn2] A couple important caveats: I don’t mean in this post to say anything substantive about the Atonement, about why it is necessary, or how it works. Lots of really smart people have tried, and have failed. Heck, the bicycles, lickings, and debtors of Mormonism all contradict each other in terms both of need and of function.

Second, I don’t mean this as a criticism of Pres. Packer, either religiously or secularly. The parable breaks down, of course, as any will, and I’m entirely sure he didn’t mean it to be the last word in understanding the Atonement.

On the secular side, the parable’s understanding of debt is odd. But keep in mind that Pres. Packer’s educational and professional background was in education, not in finance, and he delivered this parable in 1977, years before the financialization of the U.S. economy. So the fact that his understanding of lending sounds like it comes out of a combination of the New Testament and Dickens makes a lot of sense.

[fn3] Or selling the bad loan, for pennies on the dollar, to a collection agency or other distressed debt investor.

[fn4] Which, for the record, you don’t go to prison for defaulting on debt in the U.S.  Well, usually not, and not for long.

[fn5] I guess what I’m saying is, lenders aren’t generally motivated by justice or by mercy. They’re motivated by profit.

[fn6] Felix Salmon explains the economics here. He posits that part of the reason banks resisted renegotiating the terms of defaulting mortgages was because they didn’t want to admit they’d made idiotic loans, and part was an in terrorem effort to keep other homeowners from defaulting.

[fn7] I mean, wouldn’t it be awesome if Pres. Packer had told us the term, the interest rate, the security (if any), and the terms of the transfer? I’m seriously drooling just thinking about it.

[fn8] Though, technically, I worked in Midtown, not Wall Street, along with lots of other Wall Street investment bankers and attorneys. Also, for your pleasure, I present Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson singing “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

In April 1959, the Church published its last financial report. The last here is important, though, because, for almost half a century leading up to that report, the Church presented a relatively detailed financial report in each April General Conference.

Until a couple months ago, though, I’d never seen the financial reports that the Church issued. In the course of his reading and research, J. Stapley came across the Church’s 1947 financial report, and offered to let me blog it. I jumped at the chance, and the disclosure turns out, in many ways, to be as fascinating as I’d hoped. 

A word of warning before I start: there’s no real narrative to this post. I’m just going to highlight a few things that jumped out at me, and give a couple thoughts on them. This is all done in a vacuum, though: I haven’t read previous or subsequent Church financial reports, or the financial reports of other churches, so I’m don’t have any context, intertemporal or interreligious, in which to understand the reports. Also, if you’re interested in reading the about the state of Church finances in 1947 yourself, the relevant section starts on page 116 of the April 1947 Conference Report. With that, here we go:

Situating the Report

The main context here has to be World War II and the Cold War. WWII ended in 1945. The Truman Doctrine of containment, and the beginnings of the Cold War, find their roots around 1947.

In 1947, the Church broke the million-member mark. It had 170 stakes, 1,293 wards, and 132 branches.[fn1]

Also, in 1947, General Conference last three days, rather than two. And rather than the weekend, it ran Sunday through Tuesday. I have no idea if that was standard,[fn2] but the third day was Tuesday, April 6.

J. Reuben Clark

President Clark read the financial statement, and prefaced it with some interesting commentary. He provided lots of detail about the Church budgeting process, including information on the committees involved, how expenditures were authorized, and what happens to any appropriation that isn’t used.

His remarks are remarkably frank, especially compared with the correlated world of today. He mentions that 1947’s expenditures out of general Church funds had more than doubled from the average of 1936-1945. He’s not terribly happy with it, either, and he voices his concern.

What led to the doubling? I’m not sure. That rate seems well in excess of inflation, and, while we hit 1 million members, were only up 240,000 from ten years earlier. He did make it a point to emphasize that the Church had no debt, which makes a lot of sense coming from the man who delivered the now-famous Interest Never Sleeps discourse.

Clark also inveighs against printing more money, like other countries have done. I found that interesting, because he seems to be coming to the issue late; it’s not just other countries that had been printing money: between 1939 and 1945, the amount of cash in circulation in the U.S. quadrupled.

The Financials Themselves

The Church budgeted $12.7 million for 1947. It actually spent $1.5 million less than it budgeted. By way of context, according the CPI Inflation Calculator, $12.7 million in 1947 that would purchase the equivalent of $135.7 million in current dollars.

I found it interesting that, according to the financial disclosure, the salaries, office expenses, traveling expenses of Church employees, and living allowances and travel expenses of GAs were paid out of non-tithing income. The disclosure doesn’t go into much detail about sources of Church revenue, so I don’t know where these salaries and other expenses would have come from, but apparently the Church felt in 1947 paying them out of tithing funds was inappropriate.[fn3]

President Clark mentioned that salaries, while livable, weren’t extravagant. He invoked the “Little Steel formula.” In my quick reading, I learned that the “Little Steel formula” was essentially wage controls on the employees of small steel companies. Basically, to fight inflation, if a wage increase would cause a price increase, the wage increase had to be approved by the Director of Economic Stabilization.

That, clearly, is not exactly what Pres. Clark was talking about; Church employee compensation wouldn’t lead to any sort of inflation. The phrase, though, seems to have become shorthand for small raises.

The Church’s single biggest budget item in 1947 was operation of various church schools (BYU, Ricks, LDS Business College, Juarez Academy), 15 institutes, and 100 seminaries. That kind of surprised me, even though that budget item includes a lot of different expenses put together. I would have thought buildings. Of course, back then, local members were largely responsible for raising money for and actually building their meetinghouses, which would have put building expenses largely off-budget.

That year, the Church spent $43,418 ($464,053 today) on repairing and maintaining various Church historical sites.

Church Welfare

In 1947, 24.2% of members paid fast offerings. Which is kind of cool that the Church kept that kind of fine-grained data.

Not only that, the Church broke out the number of people assisted by Church welfare in 1947. In the U.S., the Church assisted 24,458 people. In addition, it sent enough food and clothing to Europe to assist 50,000 more.

The financial reports are also interesting for seeing how things have changed. The report breaks out the number of people who have gotten off of government welfare during the past five years: 2,198. Of those 948 “have been rehabilitated and are receiving no aid from the Church”; 810 got some Church assistance, and 440 were receiving all of their needs from the Church. (I assume these numbers just represent members in the U.S.)

It’s interesting how this anti-government-welfare ethic has changed: Handbook 2 now says that “[l]eaders may also help members receive assistance through community and government agencies.”

—

[fn1] These numbers are all in the Conference Report, p. 115.

[fn2] And yes, I realize the answer is only a Google search away.

[fn3] I know, the idea that the money comes from a non-tithing source is kind of illusory. Money is fungible, and all. Still, presumably, if the Church decided that salaries and travel expenses didn’t come from tithing, if its other sources of income dried up, while it had a surplus of tithing, it would have to borrow or otherwise find the money for salaries. So, while artificial, the wall nonetheless has real-world impact.

Can we all agree that this is an abominable Gentile fashion? Because Brigham Young certainly can.

For the last year or so, the last page of The Atlantic  has been a column called “The Big Question,” where various notable people answer a question posed by the magazine. In September, it asked: “What is the most significant fashion innovation in history?” In Jennifer Barnett’s mind, the runner-up was buttons down the front of men’s pants in the 1830s. Which is how this question ties into Mormonism: Barnett says that this innovation “prompted Brigham Young to denounce them as ‘fornication pantaloons.'”

I had two reactions when I read this. The first was that those two words, put together, may be the greatest phrase in the history of clothing. The second, though, was skepticism. That sounds like too good a story to actually verify. 

So I tried to verify it. And one of the first sites I came across was Greg Call’s exploration of this same question eight years ago, when the New York Times also attributed “fornication pantaloons” to Brigham Young. Neither he nor his commenters were able to verify the phrase; apparently, they discovered, it was popularized by a couple books on the history of jeans and of fashion. Though the former cited the latter, the latter didn’t cite anything. Their sleuthing ultimately decided that it was based on something Heber C. Kimball said, misattributed to Brigham Young.

Eight years later, the internet has lots of additional documents on it. And, it turns out, there’s a decent reason to attribute it to Brigham Young: the Mormon Expositor.

I don’t know much about the Mormon Expositor; it is surprisingly Google-proof. It only published a single issue in 1875. Wilfred H. Munro claims that it published discourses, the language of which was so coarse that they weren’t recorded in the Journal of Discourses.[fn1]

And, on its front page, it quotes Brigham Young, in an undated and unlocated sermon, as condemning Gentile fashion. In relevant part (for our purposes), he (allegedly) says:

There are those fornication pantaloons, made on purpose for whores to button up in front. My pantaloons button up here (showing how), where they belong, that my secrets, that God has given unto me, should not be exposed.

Did Brigham Young actually say this? I kind of hope so, because it is tremendously awesome. Of course, I’m not sure how credible a source the Mormon Expositor is, and the lack of specificity as to where and when it was delivered makes me at least a little skeptical. But, eight years after the first exploration, the internet (with a massive assist from the Library of Congress) has provided a real live 19th-century source for the best phrase ever, “fornication pantaloons.”[fn2]

Update: Over at Keepapitchinin, Ardis has posted the scan of the full “issue” of the Mormon Expositor, and some additional commentary/background. Did Brigham Young say “fornication pantaloons”? Maybe, but, it appears, the attestation is weak at best.

—

[fn1] p. 9

[fn2] In context, it’s almost certain that his objection was less sartorial, and even less a matter of public morals, than it was an objection to the Utah Saints adopting Eastern fashions and purchasing from the Gentiles (and thus draining money from Utah).

A couple days ago, the Wall Street Journal highlighted (subscription required[fn1]) the accelerating loss of members certain churches in Germany are facing. The popular press is placing the blame at least partly on the new administration of Germany’s Church Tax.

What? you ask. A church tax? What’s that?

So glad you asked.

Roots of Germany’s Church Tax

Germany’s Church Tax finds its roots in the Reformation. In the broadest strokes:[fn2] Some Germanic cities accepted Lutheran ideas; if a city council liked Lutheran ideas enough, it seized property belonging to the Catholic church. Deprived of its property—including productive property from which the church earned money—Catholic churches in Germany faced real problems supporting themselves. Finally, in the Religious Peace of Ausburg, the ruler of each Germanic region was tasked with selecting Lutheranism or Catholicism within his territory and supporting the chosen church.

As Germans started migrating to cities and towns,though, agricultural and productions tithes, which had formerly supported local churches, became less and less relevant and were eventually abolished. Local governments had to find new ways to support churches and, eventually, turned to taxes.

Fast-forward to the post-WWI Weimer Republic: Germany codified the Church Tax at the federal level. And, as best as I can tell, that Church Tax and today’s Church Tax are largely the same.

How the Church Tax Works

As I understand it, the way the Church Tax works is this: religious organizations in Germany can qualify to be treated as public law corporations. Public law corporation status provides a number of benefits, including exemption from income, inheritance, and gift taxes, the right to employ clergy as civil servants in various public facilities, and exemption from bankruptcy laws. In addition, public law corporations can impose the Church Tax on their members.

Churches actually get to draft their own tax ordinances (though the ordinances must be approved by the state). Generally, state statutes provide forms that these Church Taxes can take, including income, wealth, and property taxes. Though churches are technically responsible for collecting the tax themselves, they can—and usually do—enlist the state’s help. The government collects the tax through its wage withholding, then, after keeping a service fee, remits the rest of the Church Tax to the relevant church. When the Church Tax is imposed on a member’s income, it’s levied as 8 to 9 percent of her federal income tax liability, which amounts to between 3 and 4 percent of her income.

What’s Made the Church Tax Particularly Controversial Recently?

Two things: first, in 2012, a German court held that churches could bar people who stopped paying the tax (by civilly withdrawing from the church) from participating in church activities, including becoming godparents and joining church-run clubs.

Second, church members will no longer be able to avoid paying the Church Tax on their capital gains. While technically it has always been imposed on capital gains, in the past, banks waited for customers to volunteer their religious affiliation. Under new rules, banks are required to report their customers’ affiliation, rather than wait. That is, while the underlying law hasn’t changed, the enforcement mechanism has just improved.

So What Does This Have to Do With the Mormons?

Not a lot, right now. The Catholic and Evangelical churches in Germany are the biggest users of the Church Tax mechanism, and some Jewish congregations use it, too. The Mormon church is a public law corporation, but, as best I can find, doesn’t use the Church Tax mechanism.

But imagine we did. Would the financial savings be worth formal disaffiliation? See, this seems like a really easy tax to avoid—in fact, it is a really easy tax to avoid, if you believe that religious affiliation doesn’t matter. But for believers, there are frictions that impede the complete evasion of the Church Tax. That is, if being a member of a religious community matters, then there is a cost to the disaffiliation, and individual members, I suppose, have to decide which cost is more salient to them.Ultimately, for me, the salvific ordinances, combined with the sense of community engendered in formal religious affiliation, would be worth paying the tax.

Postlude

Like I said, I’m not super-familiar with German law or culture (or taxes); most of the substance of this post comes from an academic article and news reports I’ve read over the last couple days. So tell me what I’m missing. And tell me about the church taxes you’re familiar with. (It’s worth noting that a number of other European countries also have church taxes, albeit with different designs and different histories. Also, as Prof. Hoffer points out, church taxes were a relevant part of American history.)

—

[fn1] If you don’t subscribe to the WSJ, you can get relevant excerpts from the article at Paul Caron’s TaxProf blog.

[fn2] And I seriously mean the broadest strokes: German history is not my specialty, but it’s important to understanding what may be happening to church membership in Germany. Any history I don’t link to in the body of the post comes from Stephanie R. Hoffer’s “Caesar as God’s Banker: Using Germany’s Church Tax as an Example of Non-Geographically Bounded Taxing Jurisdiction.”

Ashton Kutcher couldn’t walk around BYU-I like that.

As Steve highlighted earlier today,[fn1] the BYU-Idaho dress and grooming standards are arbitrary and relatively absurd. I mean, seriously, as a born-and-raised Californian, I can’t comprehend a dress code that bans flip-flops.[fn2] The dress and grooming standards can’t be all about modesty, because ankles and toes and beards, oh my! And if all they’re about is obedience, well, that’s stupid. There’s no spiritual value to obeying arbitrary rules.[fn3]

But maybe their actual function isn’t modesty. Or obedience. May it’s economics. 

The idea that the dress and grooming standards are about something other than dress and grooming isn’t new to me, of course. Nate Oman has famously posited that BYU’s dress and grooming standards allow for virtually costless rebellion (tl;dr: because the harm of violating those standards—and thus becoming a rebel—is far lower than the harm of, e.g., smoking or drinking).

But if that’s the primary purpose, BYU-I could easily adopt BYU’s much-less-strict rules; rebelling by not shaving for three days or by wearing shorts an inch above the knees is plenty easy. BYU-I students don’t need tighter restrictions to facilitate harmless rebellion.

BYU-I’s official mission statement includes providing “a quality education for students of diverse interests and abilities.” Its Pathway program is designed to provide a college education for nontraditional students who otherwise might not be able to finish a degree. And, anecdotally, I’ve seen BYU-I as being an invaluable resource for kids who otherwise may not have attended college.[fn4]

But there are a couple things that could potentially get in its way: first, BYU-I’s tuition is negligible: last year, its tuition and fees were less than $4,000 a year. That same year, the average tuition and fees for a private college were just over $30,000 a year, and just under $9,000 for in-state tuition at a state school.

That kind of tuition is tremendously attractive; theoretically, then, it should be attracting lots of applicants. Lots of applicants, though, means better students could begin to crowd out the students that BYU-I can best help. See, BYU-I accepted 99.6% of applicants in 2013. That 99.6% acceptance rate provides a student body of about 15,000 students.

I don’t have any idea what BYU-I’s capacity is, but presumably, it can’t scale up costlessly and instantly. As long as it wants to serve underserved populations, keep low tuition, and keep a high acceptance rate, then, it needs to impose some sort of cost that discourages a too-large applicant class.

Enter stupid dress and grooming rules. That is, now prospective students have to weigh the low tuition and the virtual assurance of being accepted against how much they like to wear flip-flops and capris.[fn5] The dress and grooming standards impose a steep, but non-financial, cost on attending BYU-I. Students who value their choice of clothing have to weigh the restrictions against how much they value their money. And, virtually costlessly, BYU-I can keep its high acceptance rate and its ability to reach the students it wants without being out of reach for anybody.

Which transforms the dress and grooming standards from whitewashed sepulchral rules into rational cost controls. Which I like.

—

[fn1] Also, darn you Steve for getting to this before me. That’s what I get for going raspberry picking. That, and delicious, delicious raspberries.

[fn2] Though apparently they’re shoes-non-grata at my daughter’s elementary school, too. Which I also can’t comprehend.

[fn3] And don’t bother trying to argue this. Because it’s dumb. There is no–absolutely none—spiritual benefit to obeying dumb rules just because they’re rules.

[fn4] Clearly, BYU-I isn’t only for non-traditional and struggling students. It provides a special service to those students, though, and I see those students as being central to its core mission.

[fn5] And, for the record, I’m not a big fan of wearing capris myself.

In every April General Conference, we hear the Statistical Report for the prior year. Roughly speaking, the Statistical Report tells us the number of church units, the number of members and baptisms, the number of missionaries, and the number of temples.

And reading a Statistical Report in conference has at least a century of precedent. I’ve been skimming through a number of early-20th-century April Conference Reports, and in April 1915, Pres. Joseph F. Smith read a statistical report in his opening remarks. [fn1]

That century-old statistical report is similar to, albeit slightly more detailed than, the ones we hear today: Pres. Smith reported on, among other things, the birth and death rates of the church, the number of missionaries serving (1,431), the number of church units, and the number of temple ordinances performed.

One thing leapt out at me though: Pres. Smith reported that 73% of Mormon families owned their own homes.

A little later in the same address, he provided some editorial commentary on Mormon homeownership:

Now, we have a few more statements that I desire to read: Our records show that 73% of all the Latter-day Saint families, residing in all the stakes of Zion, own their own homes. I am sorry that this figure is not as large as it has been in the past, but we have become more numerous than we were when 95% of the people of the Church owned their own little homes and owed nothing to anybody for them.

Three years later, Pres. Smith read, as part of the statistical report, that the Mormon homeownership rate had increased by seven percentage points: in 1918, 80% of Mormon families owned their own homes.

A Warning Against Mortgages

As important as homeownership seems to have been,[fn2] it was not an absolute good. In October 1916, President Smith began his remarks thus:

I have just one little short sermon: Get out of debt, keep out of debt; never mortgage your homes nor your farms.

In the April 1915 talk linked to above, he went into a little more depth:

Let me inject here, once more, my standing admonition to the Latter-day Saints: My brethren, see to it that you do not put a mortgage upon the roof that covers the heads of your wives and your children. Don’t do it. Don’t plaster your farms with mortgages, because it is from your farms that you reap your food, and the means to provide your raiment and your other necessaries of life. Keep your possessions free from debt. Get out of debt as fast as you can, and keep out of debt, for that is the way in which the promise of God will be fulfilled to the people of His Church, tht they will become the richest of all people in the world. But this will not happen while you mortgage your homes and your farms, or run into debt beyond your ability to meet your obligations; and thus, perhaps, your name and credit be dishonored because you over-reached yourselves. “Never reach farther than you can gather,” is a good motto.

So what’s up with his antipathy toward mortgages?

As we read him, it’s probably important to note that mortgages in 1915 are pretty foreign to mortgages as we think of them today. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage that is tokay’s default product was not introduced until after the Great Depression. In Pres. Smith’s day, residential mortgages generally had terms between five and ten years. Rather than amortizing, like plain-vanilla mortgages today do, pre-Great Depression mortgages were structured as bullet loans, with the full principal due at the end of the term. During the life of the loan, moreover, most loans featured a floating interest rate.

Although loans were smaller—generally less than 50% of the value of the residential property—if a borrower couldn’t come up with the principal or refinance at the end of the term, they would have to sell their property (or, I assume, risk foreclosure).

Which is to say, I don’t think that Pres. Smith’s specific condemnation of mortgages carries any moral weight today in the U.S. It’s virtually impossible today to buy a house without borrowing, and the terms and protections have changed.

That said, it’s probably worth taking seriously his recommendation that we not stretch ourselves beyond our ability and that, when we borrow, we do so carefully, and that we calculate what we can afford to buy realistically.

But mostly, I think it’s interesting that the church announced, in Conference, homeownership rates.

—

[fn1] The history of statistical reports may go further back than 1915; I started my research there, though.

[fn2] And it seems, rhetorically at least, to have been important. In October 1911, Elder Joseph R. Shepherd, the president of Bear Lake Stake, spoke about how we can recognize the goodness of the Saints from their fruits. Among the fruits? “I presume that you will find no larger percentage of people who own their own homes, or who are independent so far as means are concerned, than among the Latter-day Saints.”

Church leaders remind us, on a not-infrequent basis, that the family is under attack, and that we, as members, have a duty to defend marriage and family.[fn1]

As faithful members, I believe that we have an obligation to take these warnings seriously and, more particularly, to actively strengthen the legal and cultural underpinnings of marriage and family in our respective societies.

But defending the family against attack requires us to first understand what is getting in the way of familial formation. 

The Problem

There is a real problem with familial formation today. In 2012, nearly 41% of births were to unmarried women. That’s up from 32.6% in 1994, and from 3.8% in 1940. That is, over 70 years, the percentage of nonmarital births increase by a factor of more than 10.

So what has caused this huge increase in nonmarital births? Have people (for whatever reason) given up on marriage? In 2012, after all, we had the highest percentage ever of adults aged 25 or older who had never been married (at about 20%). But giving up doesn’t seem to be the answer: 68% of Americans believe that it’s important for couples to marry if they intend to spend the rest of their lives together.

Are we just a more immoral society? In their book Marriage Markets, June Carbone and Naomi Cahn persuasively argue that the primary impediment to marriage is not lack of moral rectitude. And, in fact, today’s morality looks pretty good on most measures. Crime (both violent and property) in the U.S. has been declining over the last quarter century. Cigarette smoking among teenagers is at its lowest level in 22 years, as is teenage alcohol consumption. Teen pregnancy rates are also at historic lows.

And yet. And yet we have this huge, high rate of nonmarital births. What to do about that?

The Baseline

We seem to set our baseline for marriage and family somewhere around the 1950s. But the 1950s were an outlier; according to Professor Ann L. Alstott, “Sociologists have noted that the mid-twentieth century marked an unusual period in the history of marriage. In that era—in contrast to earlier and later periods—couples married young, had children soon after marriage, and remained married, typically for life.”[fn2]

The outlier nature of the 1950s is borne out by Census data, which shows that the median age at first marriage declined for both men and women from 1890 until 1950/1960, then rose again to its present level.

Chart available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/marriage/data/acs/ElliottetalPAA2012figs.pdf

It’s also important to note that as early as the 1930s, people were having premarital sex. Census data tell us that from 1930-1934, one in six first births to women between the ages of 15 and 29 were conceived out of wedlock. (Note that that ratio had increased to one in two by the first half of the 1990s.)

There has been a major societal change, though, between the 1930s and the present: back then, if a boy got a girl pregnant, he married her, often before the baby was born. Today, not so much. (Specifically, in 1960, 60% of premaritally pregnant women were married by the time they gave birth; by 1980, that percentage had dropped to 29%.)

Still, I don’t think rampant immorality explains the changes we see in marriage. And I don’t think so based largely on one set of numbers.

My One Set of Numbers

See, although 41% of births in 2012 were nonmarital, that number doesn’t tell the complete story. Take a look at page 3 of this analysis of 2011 births.[fn3] Note that 57% of births to women with less than a high school education were nonmarital, as opposed to less than 9% of births to women with at least a bachelor’s degree.

Similarly, the nonmarital birth rate falls from about 69% for women with a household income of less than $10,000 to 9% for women with a household income of $200,000 or more.

The relevance? Unless we want to argue (and I certainly don’t) that the wealthy are more moral than the poor, and the highly-educated more moral than the less-educated, the numbers don’t permit us to tell a story based purely on moral failing.[fn4] Instead, it forces us to tell a socioeconomic story.

The Socioeconomic Story

In their book, Carbone and Cahn argue convincingly that one of the big changes in marriage has been in the stratification of the marriage market. In prior generations, marriage was could serve as a socioeconomic stepping-stone. The executive might marry his secretary; high school sweethearts (who may have had significantly different economic paths) would marry. In fact, between 1940 and 1960, the likelihood that spouses had the same level of education fell from 59% to 45%.[fn5]

Then women began to enter the workforce. “And,” according to Carbone and Cahn, “as they did, they looked for men who valued the careers they had chosen and had lives that fit with theirs.”[fn6] Today, marriage has become economically assortive. Men with a college degree are now much less likely to marry women who only completed high school, and vice versa. Carbone and Cahn again: “[T]he woman from the working-class background who makes it into Emory often must choose: give up the boyfriend from back home or see him undermine her prospects for later success.”[fn7]

This market segmentation has real effects on marriage prospects. At the higher income levels, men outnumber women, while, at lower income levels, women outnumber men.[fn8] To the extent that marriage functions like a market, then, and the market is largely stratified by socioeconomic status, that means that men at high income levels have to compete for women, while at lower income levels, women have to compete for men.

This story is reinforced by recent Pew survey data indicating that, in choosing a spouse, most women (78%) look for a partner with a steady job. Unfortunately, for every 100 never-married women between the ages of 25 and 34, there are only 91 never-married men in that same age cohort who have a job.

How much does that matter? Plenty. There’s a world of difference between a woman supporting herself and her child and a woman supporting herself, her child, and her un- (or under-) employed partner.

A Legal Story, Too

There’s also a legal story here, though that story is tightly intertwined with the socioeconomic story. Carbone and Cahn explain that our marital laws largely take for granted middle-class status. As such, in divorce, by default, property is split evenly and both parents get custody rights.

For a poor woman, this could be disastrous. Remember, men in this socioeconomic tier are much more likely to be un- or underemployed; it’s possible that, upon divorce, she would have to split assets she brought into the marriage with him. And he would have an ongoing relationship with their child.

Without marriage, she keeps her property. She keeps the child. She can control his access to the child. Sure, there’s no divorce proceeding requiring the father to pay child support, but if he’s underemployed, she may not be giving anything up. Without marriage, if she wants support payments, she can condition access to their child on those payments. But Carbone and Cahn’s anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these single mothers are able to make a go of it, even without support from their child’s father.

Maybe Even a Cultural One

Elite marriage today is one of equality, interdependence, and shared parenting.[fn9] That’s definitely how I—and everybody I interact with in my age cohort—views marriage. (And interesting side note: many of my friends—most of whom aren’t members of the church—have young children, and a stay-at-home parent, generally the wife. But we get there in a different way: it’s a personal and economic choice, not a cultural demand.) This is, I submit, a better way to view marriage, but it’s also intimidating when you can’t do it. As Carbone and Cahn say, “The men and women did not marry because they associated marriage with the new model of equal, interdependent, and shared parenting, not because they rejected it.”[fn10]

So What’s the Solution?

Honestly, it’s probably to make it possible for men (and women) to get jobs that allow them to support a family. At this point, it’s fair to disagree about the best way to do that. Is it to enact protectionist policies that bring solid blue-collar jobs back to the US? Is it to provide a better safety net for the unemployed that provides job training in emerging fields? Is it better parental leave? Do we change the legal assumptions about marriage?

Note that I’m not asserting that my socioeconomic story is the whole story behind the problems we’re seeing with marriage and family. It’s clearly not—the problems are the result of a complex web of cultural, legal, economic, moral, and other considerations. But I do think the socioeconomic story is an integral one, and one that will respond to political action. See, we’re not going to roll back a lot of culture. That is, women aren’t suddenly going to exit the workforce en masse. People aren’t going to stop having premarital sex. (Seriously: even back in the good old days they did it.)[fn11]

But there’s widespread agreement that being employed, and being able to support oneself and one’s family, is a good thing. Even if we disagree about how to get there, I think that’s a goal we can all work toward. And if my socioeconomic story is correct—and more people than just me think it is—then improving the job prospects of young men and women will serve to strengthen marriage and the family—just what we, as members, are charged to do.

International caveat: I realize that my analysis has been tremendously US-centric. Other countries may have different issues surrounding marriage. My main point is not that socioeconomics is the universal solution (though it may be). My broader point is, if we want to defend marriage and family, we need to take a close look at what problems they’re facing. Otherwise, our proposed solutions may not do any good.

—

[fn1] For more examples, Google site:lds.org “family is under attack.”

[fn2] Anne L. Alstott, Updating the Welfare State: Marriage, the Income Tax, and Social Security in the Age of Individualism, 66 Tax L. Rev. 695 (2014).

[fn3] Note that this is 2011, not 2012, so the numbers are slightly different. The story they tell, though, is the same as what I’ve seen, but can’t currently find, for 2012.

[fn4] Also, the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon would be pretty uncomfortable with the assertion that somehow the wealthy are inherently more righteous than the poor.

[fn5] Marriage Markets at 62.

[fn6] Id. at 43.

[fn7] Id.

[fn8] Id. at 66-67.

[fn9] Id. at 122.

[fn10] Id.

[fn11] Note that I’m not advocating premarital sex here. I think it should be avoided and, as members, we have even stronger incentives to avoid it. But we’re, what, 2% of the US population? Meaning that, even if every single Mormon was having premarital sex and they all stop, it wouldn’t make a huge difference to the larger culture.

Okay, not actually a mailbag. But a couple months ago, somebody asked a question on my tax blog:

LDS mission presidents’ compensation/tax advice? Sam, are you aware of the tax advice in the mission presidents handbook – that living expenses for self & family (housing, food, transport, medical, etc.) are paid by the Church, but are not to be reported as income?

Honestly, I wasn’t aware of it but some quick Googling indicates that, yes, the church disclaims any employer-employee relationship with mission presidents and advises them that they’re not taxable on reimbursements from the church.

Could that possibly be right? 

Before we dig into the specifics of mission president finances and taxes, though, a couple prefatory remarks.

First, just in case you weren’t aware of it, the church provides housing for mission presidents and reimburses them for a wide range of living expenses. If you’re shocked by that (and a quick Google search suggests that, in fact, a number of people claim to be shocked by that), you’ve never really thought about the economics of being a mission president.

Look, everybody here who could support themselves and their families for three years without earning income during that time, and with a roughly six-month lead time to save up, raise your hands. Me neither. Seriously, unless you want mission presidents called only from the ranks of the tremendously wealthy,[fn1] you have to assume some sort of financial support from the church.

Second, I’m not providing legal or tax advice here. Basically, I’m trying to reverse-engineer the advice that the church gives its mission presidents, and I’m doing it with a blog-amount of research. If I were actually advising somebody on whether or not reimbursements represent taxable income to them, my research and analysis would be far more thorough, and I wouldn’t start the research assuming the reimbursements weren’t taxable. Rather, I’d see where the law took me.

Third, and related to the prior point, the tax law is not black and white. A lot of students come into my Federal Income Tax class assuming that, after a year of constitutional law and contracts and torts, finally they’re in a class where the questions have one clear answer. They’re quickly disabused of that idea. As long as it is, the Internal Revenue Code can’t anticpiate every financial transaction that every U.S. person does. I’m entirely sure that Congress has never once thought about the appropriate way to tax volunteer mission presidents.[fn2]

That is to say, we’re not talking about the church trying to game the tax system (because, frankly, the tax consequences to mission presidents doesn’t really affect the church: most people, I suspect, accept the calling before they’ve taken the time to evaluate the tax consequences of accepting it). Instead, the advice represents the church’s efforts in determining the appropriate tax treatment.

Finally, note that everything I’m saying is U.S.-specific; the non-U.S. tax consequences of these reimbursements may be entirely different, and a mission president would, I think, do well to get independent tax advice if he serves in or is from another country.[fn3]

The Tax Landscape

We have to start with a couple broad tax rules. The first is, if you are a U.S. citizen or resident, you are subject to U.S. tax law. It doesn’t matter if you’re living in another country or if all of your money comes from another country; we have a worldwide tax system. So even if you were a mission president in Mozambique, as long as you’re a U.S. citizen, you’re subject to U.S. tax laws.

Second, “income” for tax purposes is defined pretty broadly. There are a couple consitutional(-ish) limitations on income, but other than those, if you get something of value, you have to include it in your income unless it is explicitly excluded.

Which is to say, there’s no underlying reason why reimbursements to a mission president couldn’t be included in income. So why does the church advise (and why do I agree) that they’re not?

Revenue Ruling 62-113

In 1962, the IRS released a revenue ruling (basically, a relatively formal administrative statement of where the law lies) that, though it doesn’t mention the LDS church, basically dealt with three tax consequences associated with LDS missionaries.[fn4]

The revenue ruling concerns church, called from congregations to spend their full time as missionaries for a defined period of time, whose “traveling and living expenses entirely or partially reimbursed or paid from a church fund maintained for that purpose.”[fn5]

Ultimately, the IRS determines that such reimbursements don’t constitute gross income for the missionaries.

But wait! you may be thinking. Missionaries and mission presidents are totally different.

Ah, but for these purposes, they’re not. The missionaries to whom the revenue ruling is directed are individuals called from congregations to spend their full time as missionaries. That applies, I would think, equally to mission presidents as it does to 19-year-olds.

Which, speaking of: 19-year-olds are subject to the tax law. Heck, 1-year-olds (think baby models and kids in movies, who are clearly compensated) must pay taxes on their income. The U.S. income tax doesn’t apply differently to the young than it does to the old.

But what about the fact that our missionaries pay their own way?

But they don’t. Sure, we say as missionaries that we’re paying our own way. But we’re not. We paying into a central fund, and that fund disperses monies to missionaries as needed. There’s a huge amount of attenuation between what we pay and what we get. I was in Brazil in the 90s; though I paid the same amount monthly as missionaries who went to West Africa and Hong Kong, I suspect that my monthly allowance was significantly different.

Do mission presidents pay a monthly amount? I doubt it. But paying that monthly amount is unrelated to the amount received by missionaries. Though it feels right to say missionaries pay their own way, in reality, the (potentially deductible) contribution they make to the church is transactionally separate from the amount of reimbursement/monthly allowance they receive.

Which is to say, ultimately, that, as best as I can figure out, mission presidents don’t pay U.S. taxes on their reimbursements for the same reason missionaries don’t: because the IRS determined that such reimbursements didn’t feel like what we think of when we think of income. And so it’s excluded.

—

[fn1] I think this would be a really bad idea; it would mean that the non-wealthy wouldn’t get the growth and blessings associated with being mission presidents, and would set up a wealth-based tiering system for who could fulfill what calling.

[fn2] And, in fact, I’d argue that creating a specific regime for them wouldn’t really be worth the time or complexity. Look, the church currently has 405 missions, each of which (I assume) has a mission president. Assume that all 405 mission presidents are U.S. taxpayers, that the value of what they receive is $100,000 annually, and that they pay taxes at a flat 25% rate. (They don’t: $100,000 does land you in the 25% tax bracket if you’re married filing jointly, but because of the progressive tiers, you’ll be paying tax at a rate of less than 25%. Still, treating it as a flat rate works for this example.)

Put this all together: jointly, the mission presidents would have $40.5 million of income. If they paid taxes at a flat 25% rate, that would supply the government with $10.125 million annually. In 2013, the government raised more than $1.3 trillion from the individual income tax, making te potential amount raised by explicitly addressing this would increase federal revenue by about 0.0008%.

[fn3] Frankly, I think a mission president from or in the U.S. would do well to get independent tax advice, too. I think the church’s advice is accurate, but I don’t think, for penalty purposes, a mission president can rely on it, though I’d need to think through that more than I will for this post.

[fn4] Though it applies with equal force to any missionaries who meet the factual predicate there.

[fn5] The relevant portion of the revenue ruling:

Advice has been requested as to the treatment, for Federal income tax purposes, of (1) payments made to a missionary from a church fund as reimbursement for travel and living expenses incurred away from home in the service of the church, (2) contributions to the fund by the parent of the missionary, and (3) direct payments by the parent for the support of the missionary.

In the instant case, the work of the local congregation in the field of missions is carried on by missionaries who are specially called from the congregation to devote their full time to missionary service for a period of specified duration and who are ordained for this purpose. The congregation has a number of missionaries presently serving missions in various parts of the world on a voluntary, noncompensated basis. Some of these missionaries are supported in whole or in part by their parents, some pay their expenses from their personal savings, and some have their traveling and living expenses entirely or partially reimbursed or paid from a church fund maintained for that purpose.

***

From this fund, missionaries are reimbursed for certain qualified living and traveling expenses incurred in the service of the church where such expenses are not covered by amounts received by the missionaries directly from their parents, from relatives or friends, or from their own savings. In order to justify reimbursement for his expenses, each missionary is required to submit a monthly report listing his receipts and expenses and in no case is the fund to supply amounts greater than the reports can validate.

***

Question 1. Are amounts paid by the fund to reimburse the missionary for expenses incurred away from home in the service of the church required to be included in the gross income of the missionary?

Answer. Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and section 1.61-1 of the Income Tax Regulations provide, generally, that gross income includes all income from whatever source derived unless excluded by law.

In the instant case, the missionary is motivated by religious conviction and a desire to donate services to his church. He is engaged in rendering gratuitous services to his church. Under these circumstances, reimbursement by the church to the missionary, or the direct payment by the church, of any of the expenses involved does not constitute income to the missionary but represents the repayment by the church of advances made by the missionary on behalf of, and at the request of, the church. Accordingly, such amounts are not includible in the missionary’s gross income for Federal income tax purposes.

What stood out for you at the most recent General Conference?

Methodology

(1) I copied the text for each talk from each of the six sessions of the October 2014 General Conference (including the sustainings) from LDS.org into a Word document.

(2) I (mostly) only included the language that was delivered orally; I didn’t copy the name of the speaker or the title of the talk. A few of the talks had headings, though, and I didn’t go back to take those out. I also didn’t take out the parenthetical scripture references.

(3) A few of the talks were delivered in non-English versions; I copied the English translations of those talks listed on LDS.org.

(4) I copied and pasted the text at Wordle.

(5) Wordle has a default list of words that it ignores for purposes of creating a word cloud. I didn’t alter those. The only changes I made to the default word cloud were (a) changing the orientation from mostly vertical to mostly horizontal, and (b) changing from the horrific default font.

If you care, you can see the Java version of the word cloud here.

Last week, almost a year after a district court in Wisconsin declared the parsonage exemption unconstitutional, the Seventh Circuit has reversed her decision. And thus ends a (brief) chapter in the religious culture wars.

Or not . . .

I wrote about the district court’s decision a year ago; now I’ll take a look at the Seventh Circuit’s decision. But first, a little context:

The Breadth of the Income Tax

Generally speaking, we’re taxable on our gross income, less certain adjustments. And gross income is a broad category. Among other things, it includes compensation we receive for work we perform. And it doesn’t matter if we receive that compensation in cash or in some other form: either way, we include it in our gross income. Unless the tax law provides for an explicit exception.

Employer-provided housing is generally included in gross income. Assume, for example, that you negotiate with your employer to be paid $75,000 a year. Rent where you work costs $2,000 a month.[fn1] You might be willing to accept a deal where your employer pays you $51,000 cash, and lets you live rent-free in an apartment owned by your employer. As long as you’re fine with the apartment, you should be indifferent—you’re getting $75,000 worth of value.

And you’ll pay taxes on $75,000.[fn2] Even though you only get $51,000 cash. Because the non-cash benefit increases your well-being by $24,000 a year.

But there is a broadly-applicable exception: if you are required to accept the housing as a condition of your employment, you live there for the convenience of your employer, and the housing is on the business premises of the employer,[fn3] the employee doesn’t have to include the value of the housing in her gross income.

Pastoral Housing

The exclusion is even broader if you’re a “minister of the gospel.”[fn4] In that case, you can exclude from gross income (a) the rental value of housing provided by your employer (whether or not you’re required to accept it, and whether or not it’s on the church’s premises), or (b) a cash rental allowance paid as part of your compensation.

Freedom From Religion Foundation Suit

The FFRF and two of its executives challenged the second provision—the cash rental allowance—as being an unconstitutional establishment of religion, and the district court found in their favor.

The appeals court reversed.

Don’t Celebrate (or Despair) Yet

But the court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of the parsonage exemption. Rather, it dismissed the case for lack of standing.[fn5]

I can already see your eyes glazing over, but stay with me: the Constitution only allows courts to hear cases where the litigants are party to a controversy. In the tax world, that basically means that the IRS has disallowed a deduction or credit (or something) that you have claimed.

Here, the plaintiffs admitted to never having attempted to claim an exemption under section 107. The district court excused them because, in her opinion, such a claim would have been pointless. Clearly, there’s no definition of “minister” under which the heads of an atheist organization could be called ministers.

Even if that’s true, though, as the Seventh Circuit pointed out, the standing requirement is a constitutional requirement. It may be less sexy than the Establishment Clause, but it’s just as important, and where the plaintiffs have no standing, courts cannot adjudicate their case.

Which means the case isn’t necessarily over yet: the Seventh Circuit pointed out (in footnote 3) that the plaintiffs would have standing if they had claimed the parsonage exemption in their returns and had them denied, or if they had filed amended returns claiming the exemption which the IRS proceeded to deny or ignore.[fn6]

With that said—and recognizing that I’m a tax, not a constitutional, law professor—the FFRF did not lose on the merits of the case. I suspect that, in fact, the parsonage exemption is unconstitutional and, if the FFRF manages to qualify for standing, the courts will hold it unconstitutional. But for now, constitutional or not, it continues to be part of the tax law.

Mormon Connection

Like I said a year ago, there’s no formal Mormon connection here. That said, I suspect that some portion of the compensation paid to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve (and very likely whichever other General Authorities are compensated) qualifies for the parsonage exemption. In fact, it would be inexcusable if their tax advisers didn’t recommend that they take advantage of the parsonage exemption.

That said, and back to an earlier discussion of mission president finances, mission presidents almost certainly cannot take advantage of tax-free housing. Pastoral housing is exempt only where it is furnished “as part of his compensation”; the church is extremely clear that the reimbursements paid to mission presidents is not compensation, and that no employment relationship exists between the church and its mission presidents.

Cross-posted to What We Pay for Civilized Society.

—

[fn1] Note that I live and work in Chicago; the $2,000 estimate is low for here. It may be outrageously high for other places.

[fn2] Ignoring, for simplicity’s sake, all sorts of adjustments.

[fn3] There’s some ambiguity in all of these requirements, but it’s not relevant for this blog post.

[fn4] It’s not clear what, exactly, the scope of “minister of the gospel” is. It’s clearly broader than merely Christian clergy. And it may be broader than clergy: at least some faculty at at least some Christian schools claim the exemption (though I think that their position wouldn’t stand up under audit).

[fn5] For what it’s worth, that’s the outcome I expected a year ago.

[fn6] Of course, it’s not necessarily that easy: there’s no guarantee that the IRS would notice the claim to deny it and, even if the IRS did notice it, there’s no guarantee that the claim would be denied. And without denial, the FFRF would continue to lack standing to challenge the provision’s constitutionality.

Photo by Adam Jones.

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the New York Times’s article on BYU and beards at least dozens of times in your Facebook feed.

Clearly, BYU’s anti-beard rule is stupid. It just is. That said, stupid isn’t necessarily an affirmative reason to do away with it: plenty of institutions have plenty of stupid rules, and, on the list of stupid rules in the world, the beard prohibition isn’t terribly high.[fn1] For the most part, it’s stupid, but not malicious.

Unfortunately, I learned from the Times article, there’s one situation where it is malicious, hypocritical, immoral, and damaging. BYU no longer offers a religious exemption from its no-beard policy. And that needs to change.[fn2]

I’ll let BYU speak for itself, through its spokeswoman, Carri Jenkins:

The university’s spokeswoman, Ms. Jenkins, said it makes its policy clear to Muslims during the application process. “He would have known all the standards before ever even enrolling in the university,” she said.

I don’t even know what to do with this. This is the same language BYU uses when a student athlete gets in trouble for drinking or having sex. A religious obligation not to shave is not the same thing as drinking and having premarital sex.

Maybe BYU’s administration doesn’t understand the religious obligations some students are under.[fn3] So as a quick primer:

Sikhism

For Sikhs, not cutting their hair or their beard is one of their five articles of faith.

Let me repeat that: not cutting their hair or their beard is one of their five articles of faith. It’s not a hipster trend that may or may not have peaked. It is a central tenet of their religious faith.

But to attend BYU, apparently Sikhs have to violate a fundamental religious duty.

Islam

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Islam (or, for that matter, Sikhism or Judaism), but for at least some Muslims, growing a beard is mandatory for men who are capable of it. (It’s worth noting that not all Muslims agree, but the fact that various sects of Islam aren’t correlated doesn’t mean that growing a beard is somehow not a real commandment for those who follow sects that require it.)

Judaism

Leviticus prohibits “rounding” (or destroying) the corners of one’s beard; per the Talmud, that means that observant Jews cannot use a razor to shave part of their beard. For some Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, that means that, for religious reasons, they do not shave their beards at all.

Religious Liberty

Elder Oaks has spoken frequently in recent years about the importance of religious liberty, and the centrality of religious observance to a functioning democracy. In general, he’s talking about religious liberty vis-à-vis the government, but he doesn’t limit it to that. Elder Oaks asks rhetorically what has led to the threats against religious liberty, then answers his question: “I believe the cause is not legal but cultural and religious.” He further argues that “religious persons should insist on their constitutional right and duty to exercise their religion.”

Elder Oaks doesn’t believe that only Mormons deserve to exercise their religion; it is necessary that all religious people do so. And, in fact, our belief that all people should be able to exercise their religion is enshrined in our Articles of Faith:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

But They Can Go Somewhere Else

Certainly they can. But so what? Do we want to force other religious people to choose between their religious beliefs and their educational goals? Universities are not fungible; while BYU is certainly not for everybody, it has certain strengths that undoubtedly appeal to at least some Sikh, Muslim, and Jewish students. And if BYU truly believes that individuals should be able to exercise the religion they believe in, it should make that exercise easier, not harder.

And the thing is, this is a pointless hill to die on. Being clean-shaven is not a tenet of our religion. Note, again, that that doesn’t mean that BYU can’t, or even shouldn’t, ban beards.[fn4] But it does mean that others’ beards don’t conflict with our religious beliefs and obligations, so granting a religious exemption does no harm whatever to Mormonism. That is, to be more blunt, there’s no ambiguity in balancing the equities, because there is no moral weight on the no-beard side. It is simply a policy, and a school policy, not a religious policy, at that.

For that matter, it’s not even an absolute policy on non-religious grounds. A student who is acting in a play, for example, can get an exemption for the duration of the play, and a person whose skin gets irritated from shaving can get a medical exemption.[fn5] But yet you can’t get it if you have a religious obligation to grow a beard. At a religiously-affiliated school.

So Why The Hard-Nosed Attitude?

Honestly, I have no idea.

That said, if you want to read something really sad, read this description of the bind a Sikh student found himself in a couple years ago. His shaving and cutting his hair is nothing less than tragic.

But the Sikh student was told that the policy had changed because the administration was afraid people were lying about their religious convictions in order to have beards.

To which I respond: so? Banning all religious exemptions to prevent fake religions exemptions strikes me as overkill. Especially because of this: according to BYU itself, in Fall 2014, a full 1.3% of BYU students were non-Mormons. BYU has 29,672 students; that means that about 386 students aren’t Mormon.

That means that not more than 386 students could get a beard card based on fake religious convictions, and that number’s probably closer to 212, since 45% of BYU students are women.

How do I come to this conclusion? Basically, like this: the Honor Code says that if a Mormon student converts to another religion, that student is no longer Honor Code compliant, and can’t continue at BYU. And, while beards are not inconsistent with Mormonism, they’re clearly not required by our religion. Therefore, 98.7% of BYU students can’t fake a religious obligation to have a beard.

So the number of students that could possibly need a religious exemption, much less fake one, is vanishingly small. But BYU’s current policy burdens those students unfairly and inordinately.

Communion Wine

Maybe the problem is a lack of familiarity with the religious traditions that require beards. So let’s think about Catholics: are Catholic BYU students forbidden from taking communion while students? They’ve agreed, per the Honor Code, not to drink alcohol, which would seem to forbid communion wine.

If Catholic students cannot take communion, that’s unconscionable and needs to be changed. If they can, well, why is wine different than shaving?

Changing Places

I’ve tried to think about how Mormons could be put in the same situation; nothing quite works. The best I can come up with is a school forbidding endowed Mormons from wearing garments as students, because they require all students to wear briefs.

But I don’t think that works. Not because the hypo is absurd—it is, but it’s not any more absurd than not allowing someone to grow a beard for religious reasons because, according to Jenkins, “This is just how we’ve chosen to represent ourselves.” The problem is, many college students aren’t yet endowed, and theoretically, a student could put off his or her endowment until after graduation with essentially no religious repercussions. The beard obligations, on the other hand, kick in when a boy can start to grow a beard; for many, that starts before college, and thus, the beard prohibition is a bigger burden on college-aged Sikhs than my hypothetical no-garments prohibition would be on college-aged Mormons.

Even still, imagine how outraged we would be collectively (and rightfully so) if a school enacted such a policy.

In Conclusion, Please Bring the Religious Exemption Back

Seriously. I have to say, reading the New York Times article hit me hard; I don’t like to be embarrassed of my alma mater (a school I enjoyed attending and a school that launched me on a good trajectory, both educationally and religiously). But this is embarrassing: we speak of the importance of religious liberty and religious practice, but we don’t respect the religious practices of those whose religious practice doesn’t look like ours.

Look, I get that BYU doesn’t have to grant a religious exemption. It certainly has the right and ability to require all students to be clean shaven.

But just because it can doesn’t mean it should. And, in this case, BYU should not.

I’m not saying do away with the no-beard policy. It’s stupid, but it’s not harmful. Or, at least, it’s not harmful as long as BYU allows a way for those with a religious obligation to wear a beard to not have to choose between their religious obligations and their educational goals.

—

[fn1] It’s probably worth noting that (a) I’m a BYU alum, (b) I didn’t have a beard at BYU (though I had a couple mustaches), and (c) I haven’t been clean-shaven in at least six years now (most of that time with beards, although I’ve done mustaches during a couple Novembers, and needed a goatee for one Halloween costume).

[fn2] Ideally immediately. Seriously, it’s shameful.

[fn3] That’s actually the best-case scenario: that they’re stupid and ill-informed. Worst case is that they are in fact aware of it, and just don’t care. And I really don’t want to believe either one, frankly.

[fn4] Seriously, the argument that BYU should allow beards because Brigham Young and/or Jesus had one is tremendously adolescent (though I have no doubt I made that argument when I was a student there). BYU students are not Jesus or Brigham Young, and neither Brigham Young nor Jesus was a BYU student. As such, the facial hair that they had has no bearing on BYU’s facial hair policies.

[fn5] And, while I do know people who have medical issues with shaving, rumor was, when I was at BYU, that the medical exemption was tremendously easy to get. Don’t shave for a week, then shave with a dull razor and without shaving cream, and bingo, you’ve got a beard card. (I don’t personally know anybody who did that, but at the very least, that was the rumor.)

Photo by Adam Jones. https://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_jones/12714671305/

About two months ago, BYU admitted in the New York Times that, although it had a medical and a theatrical exception to its no-beard policy, it didn’t allow for religious exemptions from the policy.

That struck many of us as outrageous (see this prior BCC post and the comments), especially in light of the LDS church’s sincere commitment to encouraging and protecing religious liberty. Well, the policy has changed. 

As Utah’s KUTV reported tonight, BYU has officially changed its policy to incorporate three areas where an exemption to the beard policy may be granted: medical conditions, theatrical performances, and religious reasons.

Hurrah!

A handful of things to note: the religious exemption isn’t codified yet. I’ll be interested in the language: based on BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins’s statement, the religious exemption apparently won’t be automatic. Rather, it appears that it will be on a case-by-case basis. Hopefully, codifying the religious exemption means that the case-by-case review will be largely pro forma (that is, limited to determining whether a student is, in fact, a Sikh, rather than an inquiry into how observant the student is). Only time will tell how effective this change in policy is as a practical matter, but I have high hopes.

Also, this change just affects BYU-Provo. I don’t know whether BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii, or LDS Business College provide religious exemptions from their beard bans. If they don’t yet, I hope they follow BYU-Provo, for all the reasons laid out in my prior post.

Finally, this: “Jenkins insists this change is not in response to [the criticism BYU received].”

Look, this is a celebratory post, so I’m not going to argue. But really?