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Nelson: “I Have Learned to Suffer With Joy” #LDSConf

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During the winter of 1838, Mormons were forced to flee from Missouri’s infamous extermination order. On one freezing cold night, Eliza Snow and her family stayed in an overcrowded, underinsulated log cabin. In recalling that night, Pres. Snow wrote:

Not a complaint was heard—all were cheerful, and judging from appearances, strangers would have taken us to be pleasure excursionists rather than a band of gubernatorial exiles. That was a very merry night. None but saints can be happy under every circumstance.

We have a long history of our ancestors and/or church predecessors being happy in what were frankly horrendous circumstances; if they could be happy freezing in a log cabin in the Missouri winter, I should be happy in my modern comfortable situation, right? In fact, I may feel like I have a religious obligation to be happy. 

But Pres. Nelson complicates this easy (and, frankly, unhealthy) narrative. Although Pres. Snow said they were “happy,” Nelson reads this happiness as “joy.”

inside-outAnd, in Nelson’s telling, sadness is not inimical to joy. Rather, the two can coexist. We can have joy, he assures us, “even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!”

I don’t think the desire to appear happy is uniquely Mormon. I mean, even science tells us that if we smile—even when we don’t feel like it—we’ll become genuinely happier.

And that may be true, but replicating those studies has so far proven elusive.

Moreover, there is no sin in being sad. Sadness is natural (and, if we believe Pixar, even necessary). Sin can certainly make us unhappy, but so can tragedy. And brain chemicals. And tons of other things. We live in a fallen and imperfect world, and sadness is the natural and necessary result of many of the fallen and imperfect things that happen in our world.

But joy, Nelson tells us, is independent of what’s happening in our lives. Joy comes from Christ, and we can find joy by focusing on Him and following His example.

If we do that, will we be shielded from unhappiness? Of course not. Even Jesus, who, as the source of joy presumably has better access to it than us, was betrayed by one He loved, and was crucified for us. But he endured the pain in part through experiencing joy.

In short, the Gospel won’t always make us smile. And not smiling is no indication that we’re doing anything wrong. The sadness, the depression But even through our tears, the good news of Jesus Christ can bring us an underlying and enduring joy. And that joy can stay with us through seasons of happiness, of sadness, and of all of the emotions in between.[fn]


[fn] (including fear, anger, and disgust)


Filed under: General Conference, Mormon Tagged: Christ, happiness, Jesus, Jesus Christ, joy, sadness

What We Didn’t Hear at #LDSConf

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On Saturday and Sunday, we heard messages on a myriad of topics. Some resonated deeply with me; others, not so much. But (nearly) as interesting to me as what we heard was what we didn’t: nobody told us to vote for (or against) Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or even Evan McMullin.[fn1]

So what? you rightfully ask. Does the church ever endorse candidates?

No. But last Sunday was a special day: 

Sunday was Pulpit Freedom Sunday.[fn2]

What is Pulpit Freedom Sunday? Some background first: 1954 saw a fundamental reform of the tax system. One part of that reform (a small part, fwiw) introduced a prohibition into section 501(c)(3): organizations exempt from tax under that provision (including, among others, churches, universities, museums, and nonprofit hospitals) can’t endorse or oppose candidates for office.[fn3]

I don’t plan here on discussing whether this prohibition is good or not; academics (including me), journalists, politicians, and others have spilled a ton of ink arguing for and against the prohibition. For our purposes, the prohibition exists.

At least some pastors and other church leaders, however, feel that this limitation prevents them from doing their duty; they don’t believe that their beliefs can be separated from the political sphere in which those beliefs interact.

Since 2008, the Alliance Defending Freedom has sponsored Pulpit Freedom Sunday; basically, it designates one Sunday in October for preachers to explicitly violate the prohibition by endorsing or opposing a candidate in their sermons. Then they’re to send copies of their sermons to the IRS.

By endorsing a candidate, these churches no longer qualify for their tax exemption. In theory, the IRS should revoke their exemptions, which will allow the church to sue, and ultimately (the ADF believes), the Supreme Court will hold the provision unconstitutional.

In practice, the IRS has only ever revoked one church’s exemption for endorsing (or, in that case, opposing) a candidate for office, and that revocation predated Pulpit Freedom Sunday by several years.

In spite of General Conference falling on Pulpit Freedom Sunday, and in spite of the contentious US election, speakers on Sunday were silent about candidates for office. And frankly, I’m glad they were; I prefer that our church leaders exercise their prophetic duties, calling out unrighteousness and power and preaching Christ, and Him risen. I prefer that they trust us to understand our values, and to vote accordingly.

And so the message they didn’t deliver was exactly the message I hoped not to hear.


[fn1] (though clearly at least some on that list deserve to be voted for or against)

[fn2] Btw, the date of PFS was basically impossible to find online this year; it’s been a whole lot easier in previous years. If anybody from ADF is reading this, could you please make it a little clearer next year? Pretty please?

[fn3] They can, on the other hand, lobby and endorse political positions (except where those endorsements are essentially endorsements of candidates), as long as their lobbying isn’t a too-substantial part of their activities.


Filed under: Current Events, General Conference, Mormon, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged: 501(c)(3), adf, alliance defending freedom, clinton, endorse, johnson, mcmullin, pulpit freedom sunday, stein, trump

Are You Listening to the Maxwell Institute Podcast?

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There’s no delicate way to put this: if you’re not listening, you should be. Blair Hodges is an excellent, thoughtful interviewer who invites really smart, thoughtful people on the show. He talks with his smart, thoughtful guests about really interesting religious topics, which sometimes touch on Mormonism, but more often, introduce listeners to religious thought that isn’t Mormon-specific. 

Don’t know where to start? I haven’t listened to all 55 (so far) episodes, but I haven’t heard one I wouldn’t recommend. That said, if you’re paralyzed by choice (or even if you’re not), I’d really recommend his most recent, an interview with Thomas W. Simpson. Dr. Simpson recently wrote American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867-1940.

I can’t review the book (yet), because I only heard of it yesterday on the podcast, though it has fallen somewhere in my to-read list. In his book, Dr. Simpson details the history of the Mormon church setting apart and sending (some of) its people to secular universities out East (and, eventually, also to Stanford) to allow them to get training in especially law and medicine, but also in a wide array of other subjects. He talks about how that helped connect Mormonism to the broader culture, rather than staying self-contained in Utah. He also talks about how education, while helping to form a people, also introduced fissures and conflict into Mormonism.

This episode may have resonated especially strongly with me, since I left the West (California, not Utah) to go to New York for law school, and have since bounced around on the East Coast and in the Midwest, where I teach at a (religious, though it’s Jesuit, not Mormon) school. Even though I left for New York 60 years after the book concludes, there’s at least some resonance there.

But even if the subject matter doesn’t directly reflect your experience, you need to listen to this episode. Dr. Simpson is almost giddy as he talks about this history—researching and writing the book either was or became a labor of love for him. (An unexpected one, to be sure—as he tells Blair, he didn’t initially see himself looking at Mormonism, and he may now be going off in other directions, writing-wise.) There’s no way not to get caught up in his excitement.

And when you’re done listening to this one, there are another 54 episodes you can choose between, with new ones popping up about every two weeks.

Enjoy!


Filed under: Internet & Social Media, Mormon, Mormon Studies, Religion, Scriptures Tagged: american universities and the birth of modern mormonism, maxwell institute podcast, thomas w simpson

Welcome to #MutualNight: Delfeayo Marsalis

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young-women-mutual-improvement-association-jewelry-1931_2I can’t, for the life of me, remember when I first heard it, but I do remember hearing (or reading) that, once upon a time, a significant part of Mutual was introducing Mormon youth to the best of literature, music, art, and other learning. After doing some quick Googling that suggested, but didn’t prove, that my memory was right, I did what any right-thinking person would do: I messaged Ardis. And she was kind enough to respond that yes, the M.I.A. had once been a repository of learning about art and culture.

Satisfied, I decided to follow through on my main reason for searching and asking: the introduction of a virtual M.I.A. Periodically (and undoubtedly irregularly), I plan on introducing and writing about some type of art, music, or literature that I’m enjoying, and what makes it worth sampling. While I doubt that most of my picks will have any significant Mormon connection, I consider this as Mormon a blogging topic as any that I’ve blogged. After all, we have not only roots in the M.I.A. program, but we have scriptural injunctions to seek after anything praiseworthy or of good report, and to learn out of the best books
Also, of course, I want to talk about jazz. And when I mentioned that to Ardis, she warned me that, maybe, in the early twentieth century, that wouldn’t have been considered appropriate by church leaders.[fn1]

In fact, Michael Hicks’s Mormonism and Music: A History makes that very clear. For example, in 1918, John Tanner

devoted several pages to what [he] called “sinful intonations” in music. Likening jazz to the orgies of Rome, the seductions of the Middle East, and the savagery of Africa, Tanner explained: “There is perhaps no more sinful temptation among our young people today than the insinuating sounds that come from the siren voice of a license-loving age. The thoughtful world is just beginning to realize how far the Jazz and kindred music is carrying us from the moorings of our moral safety (191).

And it didn’t really get better from there, at least not for a long time.[fn2]

But we’re over that now; jazz has become America’s classical music (at least, if you ignore the actual classical music written by U.S. composers), and is certainly part of the pantheon of things that cultured people should be familiar with.

It’s Mutual Night!

make-america-greatWhich brings us to my first pick: Delfeayo Marsalis’s Make America Great Again![fn3] [Note: link is to the Spotify album. I’m having trouble embedding the playlist in the post, but the link works.]

Stay with me for just a minute, because I’ll address the political aspects of the album. But first, it’s worth knowing who Delfeayo is.

If the Marsalis name sounds familiar, it should. His brother Wynton is a famous trumpeter, director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center, and the primary source of Ken Burns’s Jazz. His brother Branford is a hot-shot jazz saxophone player who also played on the first couple Sting solo albums. His father Ellis is a jazz pianist, New Orleans educator, and the teacher of, among others, Harry Connick Jr. (His brother Jason is less famous, but is a drummer.)

Delfeayo is the trombonist in the family. And on Make America Great Again!, he leads a 20-ish-person big band.

The album is, naturally, a tongue-in-cheek response to Donald Trump. But, unlike some of the jazz I listen to, it’s not really addressing him; rather, it’s a musical (and sometimes lyrical) look at America through the African American experience.

The album starts with a fairly straight-ahead version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The harmonies are a little tweaked from what we’re used to, but it’s not Jimi Hendrix shredding the melody or Rosanne Barr doing, well, whatever she did in San Diego. It introduces the album with the clear idea that Marsalis and his Uptown Jazz Orchestra are all for the United States.

“Snowball” sounds like a traditionally funky New Orleans piece, starting with a funky baritone sax, then layering clarinet, horns, and a funky symbol over it. (And, ftr, it has an amazingly out sax solo early on.) “Second Line” keeps us squarely in New Orleans, with a clean clarinet line leading to an interplay between the brass and the saxes.

But this album isn’t about New Orleans; it’s about America, and New Orleans is just our starting point. In “Back to Africa,” we get our first vocal. In syncopated unity we hear: “Back! Back! Back! Back! Go! Back! To Africa.” The words come with horn hits. And here we start to expressly get an African American perspective, as the voices sing about trying to make it in a country you didn’t mean to be in. And then, quelle surprise, we have rap, interspersed with interweaving horns, in conversation with and over each other. The thing is, it’s not a song privileging Africa over America, or America over Africa—rather, it’s about the influences that African heritage has had on the way we live here.

And then the song we’ve been waiting for: “Make America Great Again!” Again, Delfeayo’s not here to slam Donald Trump. He’s here to build a fuller picture of the United States, something deeper and more complicated and more accurate than a pithy slogan could ever hope to be. And how does he do it? With perhaps the smoothest, cleverest narration I’ve heard in along time, delivered by Wendell Pierce (an actor on, among other things, Treme). The narration is clever, just fast and intricate enough to be interesting, while still being clear and fun. Under his narrative is a long-short horn refrain, with rising and falling sax riffs. Between Pierce’s verses, various members of the ensemble take solos. And the refrain (“Make America great again!”) is sung in unison by several women (I think I hear three or four), in a style that sounds distinctly 20s or 30s. Although the song speaks of unity and diversity, it also speaks bitingly of the oppression of black Americans and the reverberation of that oppression through today.

I’m not going to talk about every single song, but I do want to fast-forward to “Fanfare for the Common Man.” It starts out with the brass fanfare from the famous Aaron Copland composition, about as American as music gets. It then moves to a funky baritone sax-trombone riff, and the fanfare comes in again over that riff. When the fanfare drops out, the band leaves us with a swinging cymbal, a piano comping, and a solo (clarinet, trumpet, etc.). With Fanfare for the Common Man, Marsalis truly makes America great, integrating white with black, New York with New Orleans.

And, not surprisingly, it turns out that this rich tapestry is pretty great. It’s a beautiful ride through genres, places, and styles, and one which underlines the power that America, with its diversity, brings to the world. The music and musicianship is excellent, and, themes notwithstanding, the album is ultimately lighthearted and legitimately funny.[fn4] And, in spite of (or maybe because of) its humor, this may be one of the most potent message albums I’ve heard in a long time (and note that the message is ultimately one of uplift and positivity).


[fn1] N.b.: she wasn’t trying to discourage my writing about jazz; she just wanted to make sure I understood the historical relationship of jazz and Mormonism.

[fn2] For Nate Oman: “The handbook discouraged playing the banjo, as well as cowbells, rattles, frying pans, and other musical ‘instruments of torture.'”

[fn3] So I’m kind of running against a relevance clock here.

[fn4] When I say it’s funny, I mean musically more than lyrically. Some of the lyrics are funny, too, but the way some of the songs are assembled and performed just cracks me up.


Filed under: Church Programs, Education, Kulturblog, Mormon, Music, Pop Culture, Society & Culture, Young Men, Young Women Tagged: delfeayo marsalis, jazz, make america great again, mia, mutual, mutualnight

The Halloween Parent Tax

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I was asked on Twitter about the Halloween Parent Tax. And with Halloween coming up, it seemed like it needed a post. So here you are:

Design Considerations

You’ve got a couple options here. Are you going to create an income tax? A consumption tax? A head tax? Each is slightly different, in certain relevant ways:

Income Tax: This is probably what you think of when you think of the Halloween Parent Tax. Essentially, children are required to give their parents some percentage of the candy they get. (My wife’s parents imposed a 15-percent Halloween Parent Tax when she was growing up.) There are some design complications here—for example, are you taking a percentage of the number of pieces of candy the kids get? Or do different kinds of candy have different values? And do you take size into account in calculating candy?[fn1]

Challoween-candy1onsumption Tax: Like the income tax, a consumption tax will require children to give their parents some percentage of their candy. Unlike the income tax, though, the Halloween Parent (Consumption) Tax doesn’t take it upfront. Rather, it applies when the child eats candy. If it’s a 10-percent tax, that means that for every ten pieces of candy the child eats, she has to give her parents one piece. In real life, this probably encourages saving, because you don’t pay taxes on interest or investment returns unless and until you spend them. Candy doesn’t really provide investment returns. Still, if your child is patient, she can defer the Halloween Parent Tax as long as she wants, which means you don’t get your candy until later.

Head Tax: Although you probably intuitively thought of an income tax, this is probably what you (or, if you’re a child, your parents) actually impose as the Halloween Parent Tax. A head tax is a tax on the person. That is, you take the same amount of candy from each child, irrespective of how much candy they collect. Example: “Each Child shall pay the Parents 5 Snickers, 2 Butterfingers, and 6 bags of M&Ms (Peanut or Plain).” Note that a head tax is really easy to administer, but is extremely regressive.

Fairness

If you have more than one child, fairness matters, too. Tax fairness encompasses a couple considerations:

Horizontal Equity: Horizontal equity requires that similarly situated taxpayers pay similar amounts in tax. If you have three kids, then, and each of them collects about the same amount of candy, each of them should owe about the same amount of Halloween Parent Tax.

Vertical Equity: Vertical equity says that taxpayers with higher income (or higher wealth, but see footnote 1) should pay more taxes than a taxpayer with lower income. That might mean we have a proportionate tax, or it might mean we apply progressive rates (that is, the more candy your kids get, the higher percentage of candy they have to turn over), but either way, on fairness grounds, we pretty much preclude the head tax.

Predictability: With a fair tax, your kids will be able to figure out how much they owe you (assuming, of course, that they’re old enough to do simple arithmetic). I mean, you can always impose a stealth Halloween Parent Tax; your kids, after all, go to bed before you do, and you know where they keep their candy. And there’s something to be said for this kind of stealth tax—for one thing, it’s not terribly salient, so it won’t distort their behavior,[fn2] but it’s not fair. And it’s not really a tax, or at least not the kind of tax that a country (er, family) devoted to the rule of law would apply. That looks more like a kleptocracy.[fn3]

A “Tax”

I’m seeing a bunch of sites that suggest that the Halloween Parent Tax is what your kids pay you to take them trick-or-treating. It most definitely is not—that would be some kind of Halloween Parent Fee. A fee is something you pay in exchange for goods or services that the government (or, in this case, your parents) provide you. A tax is an amount you pay the government/parents, not for particular goods or services, but to support it/them in governing. So please don’t tell your kids they have to pay the Halloween Parent Tax because you spent your time accompanying them when they got their candy; they owe you the Halloween Parent Tax as a civic duty, and they owe it whether you went out with them, they went out with friends’ parents, or you let them go on their own.

Conclusion

Look, you only have a couple day left until Halloween. Honestly, if you haven’t drafted your Halloween Parent Tax yet, well, you’re not out of time yet, but I’d recommend getting on it, stat. You have important decisions to make, including rate structures and the value of different candies. But these principles will at least guide you in designing a fair, comprehensive Halloween Parent Tax.

[Cross-posted at The Surly Subgroup.]


[fn1] There’s a fourth option: a wealth tax. I’m assuming, though, that most kids don’t carry over candy from previous holidays (especially since there’s a holiday candy drought that lasts roughly from Easter until Halloween). If that’s right, there’s essentially no difference between a Halloween Parent (Income) Tax and a Halloween Parent (Wealth) Tax.

[fn2] Much, at least. If they realize you’re doing it, they might try to hide their candy better.

[fn3] Which, I suppose, your family might be. In which case, go right ahead.


Filed under: Children, Family, Holiday Tagged: consumption tax, fairness, Halloween, head tax, horizontal equity, income tax, parent tax, vertical equity

What I Want the Church to Say

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Yesterday the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve released a statement congratulating president-elect Trump on his victory and praising Secretary Clinton on her campaign. The letter, something of a post-U.S.-presidential-election tradition, is, I think, laudable, and functions as a valuable reminder that we need to both pray and work for the success of the country we live in.

And it makes me think of another letter that I’d like to see. It would go something along these lines:

At every election, we encourage members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to engage in the political process. We want to clarify and expand the scope of this engagement.

Surveys show that, in the United States, the vast majority of church members identify as Republican. There are undoubtedly many reasons for that, including a belief that the Republican party better matches members’ values. But undoubtedly some believe (and not without justification) that the Republican party’s platform is consonant with LDS values (or, conversely, that the Democratic party’s goes against LDS values).

To the extent that members believe this, we wish to disabuse them of the idea. The Republican platform does advocate many values that we hold dear. The Democratic platform does, as well. Similarly, the Republican party embraces policies that we cannot reconcile with God’s will, as does the Democratic party. Each member of the church must recognize that each party can both help and hurt people’s temporal and spiritual progression, and decide for her or himself which better aligns with that member’s values.

To be completely clear: no political party has a monopoly on morality or on truth. Both parties can help us create a more Zion-like society, and both can hinder the coming of Zion. As members of the Church, however, we are constrained in our pursuit of Zion by our political institutions, and must engage and use those institutions to the best of our ability. But there is nothing in LDS doctrine or teachings that requires members to belong to one party or the other and, while we must remain civil in our political discourse, we must also accept and embrace plurality in our political ideals.

A couple notes:

  1. That’s a super-rough draft of what I would like to see. Before the Church released this message, it should certainly be cleaned up.
  2. It does not endorse or oppose a candidate for office. As such, it does not threaten the Church’s tax exemption.
  3. I realize it’s U.S.-centric. I think there should be a more general statement, too, that says that no political party is all good, and basically none is beyond the pale, but I do think (for non-cultural-imperialist reasons) that disentangling party affiliation from the Church in the U.S. is particularly valuable. There is a long history of subtle and not-so-subtle official support of things that would lead reasonable members to believe that the GOP was the One True Political Party, and I doubt there has been a similar tacit endorsement in other countries. If I’m wrong, then a specific letter should be written in those countries, too.
  4. Doing this soon would be propitious timing. After all, almost a quarter of Mormons who have historically voted Republican didn’t vote for president-elect Trump. We, as a body politic and the body of Christ, are, perhaps, ready for official repudiation of the idea that good Mormons can only be members of one party.

Will the Church make this kind of statement? I don’t see any reason why it will, though it would be great if it did. Would it result in Mormons leaving the GOP? Again, no idea. But it would be great if it did. I don’t think we can create a Zion society where we only have a voice in one political party (though query how big our voice is there, since we’re generally a given for Republicans).


Filed under: Current Events, Society & Culture Tagged: democrats, letter, Politics, republicans, voting bloc

#MutualNight: Sharon Jones and Christmas

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sharon-jonesThis year has been lousy with the deaths of prominent musicians. Between Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Phife Dawg, and Merle Haggard, one could certainly be forgiven for missing some of the less-famous deaths.

Of all of the musician deaths this year, though, the one that hit me hardest was Sharon Jones.[fn1] I’m not going to get too biographical here—the Rolling Stone obituary is pretty thorough, and has some incredible videos of her performing—but I will say that the world has lost an incredible singer (and, based on the videos, and incredibly charismatic performer). 

About a year ago, I highlighted Matt Wilson’s Christmas Tree-O as my favorite new(ly-discovered) Christmas album. Because my liturgical calendar is pretty strict about Christmas music not starting before Thanksgiving—and because I was out of town over Thanksgiving—I haven’t been able to revisit Matt Wilson yet this year, but I suspect it’ll have a significant place in my holiday playlist.

But it turns out that Sharon Jones’s final album—released last year—was It’s a Holiday Soul Party! And this is definitely an album you need on rotation this Christmas season.

Of course, it kicks off with a new Hannukkah album (because of course it does). And “8 Days (of Hannukkah)”[fn2] is perhaps the funkiest treatment Hannukkah has ever had (watch the video here or the Tiny Desk Concert video here).

Sorry, I seem to have forgotten to mention: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have perfected the classic Motown sound. Ms. Jones not only has charisma, she has vocal power to spare (I mean, check out the beginning of “Silver Bells,” when it’s just her and a piano).

And then you have the Dap-Kings, with guitars and keys and drums and three horns and two backup singers.

After celebrating Hannukkah, Ms. Jones moves into a mix of traditional and original Christmas songs. The originals are universally great (you may not want your Santa-celebrating kids to listen to “Ain’t No Chimneys in the Project,” but the song is not only a funky evocation of the holiday, but it’s a sweet celebration of a mother who makes sure that her kids can experience the magic of Christmas.

Are you sick and tired of “Little Drummer Boy”? Not this version: it would be worth it if all you got were the funky drum breaks, but there’s oh-so-much more. And she sings the bluesiest “Silent Night” you’ve ever heard.

And I can’t take credit for this—I read it somewhere else—but I would have come up with it if I hadn’t read it. Her “White Christmas” is pure Tina Turner-singing-“Proud Mary.” And I mean that in the best possible way.

The Christmas songs are quintessentially Christmas—there are sleigh bells and other markers of Christmas music. But it’s also different from most of what’s in your Christmas collection. It’s not different in a self-conscious way, though: the whole album sounds natural and right. It’s exactly what a new Christmas album should be.

Christmas is a celebratory season: we’re remembering our Savior and Redeemer’s condescension. And that’s something that should make us happy. It certainly made Sharon Jones happy, and she’s generously shared that joy in a way that will make you want to move your body.

I know that everybody eventually releases a Christmas album. And most are totally forgettable. I mean, how much can today’s singer improve on Bing Crosby or the Rat Pack? But Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings circumvent that problem because they don’t try to sound like Bing or Frank. They just want to put the soul and the party into the season.

You can—and should!—listen to the album on Spotify here.


[fn1] Actually, also Mose Allison, who died right around the same time.

[fn2] (not the Orrin Hatch one, though that would give me an explicit Mormon connection if it were)


Filed under: Holiday, Media, Music Tagged: christmas music, dap-kings, hannukkah, mutualnight, sharon jones

Trump’s Tax Proposals and Mormons

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It occurred to me this morning that Trump’s tax plan, if it passed in its current form, would impact many middle- (and some high-) income U.S. Mormons.[fn1] I mean, it would affect U.S. taxpayers in general, but it would have a particular effect on the deductibility of tithing.

The church cares about deductibility. In 2011, Elder Oaks gave testimony to the Senate Finance Committee that the charitable deduction is vital to the nation’s welfare.

And why might that be? Basically, because it reduces the cost of charitable giving, at least for taxpayers who itemize their deductions (more on that in a minute). For example, imagine I’m in the 25-percent tax bracket and I itemize. If I write a tithing check for $1,000, I’ve made a $1,000 charitable donation, and the church has an additional $1,000. But the after-tax cost to me of that donation was $750.

Why? Because my $1,000 donation also gave me a $1,000 tax deduction, which reduced my taxes by ($1,000 x my marginal tax rate) = $250. In other words, the charitable tax deduction makes it less expensive for me to be charitable.

Trump is proposing two changes that would reduce the effective subsidy, though:

Raise the Standard Deduction

Trump has proposed raising the standard deduction. This year, a married couple filing jointly has a standard deduction of $12,600.[fn2] Trump would raise the standard deduction to $30,000. (Essentially, this means that nobody would pay any taxes on their first $30,000 of income.)

But here’s the thing: either you take the standard deduction or you itemize. And you only itemize if your itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction. And the big three itemized deductions are charitable donations, home mortgage interest, and state and local taxes.[fn3] So if you don’t have at least $30,000 of mortgage interest, charitable donations, and state and local taxes, you won’t itemize; you’ll take the standard deduction.

That’s fine, but it means you bear the full cost of your charitable donations. There is no federal subsidy for them.

That’s not the end of the world, of course. Only about one-third of American taxpayers currently itemize, though it’s closer to 40 percent in Utah. By doubling the standard deduction, a much smaller percentage of Americans (and Utahns and Mormons) will be able to itemize. How will that affect Mormons’ tithe-paying? No idea, but it will raise the after-tax cost of giving.

Cap on Itemized Deductions

Trump has also proposed capping itemized deductions at $200,000.

So that doesn’t affect me, and it probably doesn’t affect you. In fact, it would affect fewer than 400,000 taxpayers. But some of those taxpayers are likely to be tithe-paying Mormons. After all, if you earn more than $2 million in titheable income, you’ll only be able to deduct the first $200,000 of tithing you pay. (Quick aside: in the famous words of Tevya, if money like that is a curse, “May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover.”) The tremendously wealthy Mormons, then, will bear a higher after-tax cost for their tithing than those of us who fall somewhere between not itemizing and not earning millions of dollars annually.

How Will This Affect the Church?

No idea. Charitable giving is elastic, though I’m not sure if there are any studies specifically about the elasticity of religious giving, or of Mormon giving.[fn4] Maybe its only result will be that many of us have slightly less after-tax money than we do under the current tax system. Or maybe our giving goes down. Or maybe it goes up, for some reason (though that seems unlikely).

Regardless, though, if Trump’s tax proposals end up enacted into law, they will have a real effect on Mormons.


[fn1] (And yes, I get that the effects of his tax plan on Mormons aren’t, perhaps, the most pressing thing about the president-elect. But taxes are what I do.)

[fn2] There are other standard deduction amounts for unmarried individuals, married couples filing separately, and heads of household, but to make the post simpler, I’m going to stick with married filing jointly. The same patterns hold for others, only with different dollar amounts.

[fn3] And the House Republican tax plan would eliminate the state and local tax deduction.

[fn4] (I suspect there are of the former, though not of the latter.)


Filed under: Current Events, Economics, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged: charitable deduction, itemized deductions, standard deduction, tax plan, tax proposal, taxes, tithing, trump

On Fred Karger, Tax Exemptions, and the Mormon Church

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Today, Fred Karger asked a provocative question: should the Mormon church lose its tax exemption? To answer that question, he’s asking for certain (anonymous) tips about the church’s use of its money, though implicit in the way he frames the question is that yes, it should. In short, his argument the the church should lose its tax exemption seems to follow these contours:

  • The church has, and earns, lots of money.
  • The church engages in for-profit businesses and investments with that money, and doesn’t pay taxes on its for-profit earnings.
  • The church uses tax-deductible tithing money for lobbying, in contravention of the tax law.

He wants to collect information to ultimately file “the biggest, loudest and most comprehensive IRS challenge to a Church’s tax-exempt status in history.” 

Unfortunately, his analysis evinces a significant lack of understanding of the tax exemption and of IRS procedure in general. As Andrew S (who brought Karger’s post to my attention) charitably explains what might have gone wrong with Karger’s analysis, “non-specialists often get details of a field very, very wrong.”

As a specialist, though, I feel some obligation to respond to his errors.[fn1]

The Church Has a Lot of Money. Also a Lot of Revenue

That’s almost certainly correct.[fn2]

But so what? I mean, sure, I get that in the popular imagination, do-gooding nonprofits aren’t multi-billion-dollar organizations. But that imagination has nothing to do with the actual world we live in. Some numbers:

  • Yale’s endowment is in the $25.4 billion range. It expects net revenues of $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2017.
  • In 2015, the American Red Cross had net assets of $1.6 billion, and net revenue of $2.7 billion.
  • In 2015, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had assets of $40.4 billion. It looks like it only had revenue of $6.7 million, though.

What am I saying, then? Just this: while Karger is almost certainly right that the church has a lot of assets (though I have no idea if it’s his asserted $1 trillion), just like for other tax-exempt organizations, the value of its assets has no relevance to its tax-exempt status.[fn3]

The Church Engages in For-Profit Business and Doesn’t Pay Taxes

Andrew has already addressed this assertion, thoroughly and in great detail. I don’t have a lot to add, so if you haven’t read his excellent post yet, I’d recommend it.

A tl;dr version (but I don’t do justice to it, so seriously, read his) is this: the church has put its for-profit businesses into separate corporations. Those corporations pay taxes. They may well dividend some of their after-tax earnings and profits to the church, and the church doesn’t pay taxes on those dividends, because that’s what tax exemption is. Also, to the extent the church engages in business directly, it should (and almost certainly does) pay the unrelated business income tax, a tax imposed on tax-exempt organizations that engage in business.

Even leaving those details aside, the church does pay taxes. I know, both from my own practice experience and from received knowledge in the tax community, that the IRS takes employer withholding taxes very seriously. And where an employer doesn’t pay those, the IRS both notices and acts. So the assertion that the church doesn’t pay any taxes, unless he has evidence that the church shirks its employee withholding responsibilities (and it doesn’t) is completely unfounded.

But also, as Andrew explained, one of the consequences of tax exemption is that tax-exempt organizations don’t pay taxes on passive income. And it’s passive income to the tax-exempt organization if it’s earned in a taxable subsidiary.

It’s also worth noting that, even if the church were a taxable entity, it would almost certainly not owe taxes on tithes and offerings it received; those would almost certainly qualify as gifts, and gifts are not taxable income (so you don’t have to pay taxes on your bounty from Santa!).

The Church Spends Money Lobbying and Otherwise Influencing Legislation

Yep. And, like the first point, so what?

Okay, maybe a little more explanation: section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code contains two limitations on the ability of tax-exempt organizations to participate in politics. The first is an absolute prohibition on endorsing or opposing candidates for office.[fn4]

The second is a limitation on tax-exempt organizations’ ability to lobby and otherwise engage in political behavior. The language here is kind of vague and ambiguous; an organization doesn’t qualify as tax-exempt unless

no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation …

What does “no substantial part” mean? There’s no bright line, though courts have laid out some contours. One court held that where less than 5% of a tax-exempt organization’s activities were influencing legislation, it did not violate the no-substantial-part rule. Another court held that an organization between 16 and 20% of its annual expenditures to influencing legislation failed the test.

What does that mean for the Mormon church? Karger points out that the church spent $200,000 on fighting for Proposition 8. To clearly violate the no-substantial-part rule, that would mean that the church’s total expenditures for the year would have to have been less than $1.25 million. I mean, it fits comfortably in the less-than-5% safe harbor as long as it spent $4 million. Is it possible that the church only spent $1.25 million in 2008? I mean, yes, it’s possible.

But tremendously unlikely.

And what about the fact that the money it spends is tithing money that may have been deducted? For tax purposes, it’s totally irrelevant.

The Biggest, Best IRS Challenge Ever

Finally, Karger wants to collect information so that he can file an IRS complaint.

The thing is, there’s actually no such thing as an IRS complaint. I mean, you can complain about the IRS. Lot’s of people do. And you can probably complain to the IRS. But you can’t make the IRS do anything.

Why not? There’s something called the Tax Anti-Injunction Act. Basically, it says that you can’t sue the government about taxes unless you actually paid the taxes or the taxes were assessed against you (depending on whether you sue in district court or the Tax Court, respectively). Because Karger isn’t trying to challenge taxes that he pays, he lacks standing to sue.

Of course, that doesn’t preclude him from writing a letter. But I’m curious what he expects the letter to do. Let’s assume that he discovers some tax violation or fraud. What’s the IRS going to do about it?

Probably nothing. Look, auditing a church is a tough thing to do—Congress has enacted a whole bunch of hoops before the IRS can audit a church, and then significant limitations on how the audit can function after it starts.

And, after the Tea Party exemption debacle, the IRS is, in my understanding, gun-shy to go after tax-exempt organizations. Also, the IRS is underfunded and understaffed. And even if it ends up assessing tax, there’s unlikely to be a lot of additional federal revenue. Like I said, the vast majority of the church’s revenue is donations that wouldn’t be taxable anyway. Its business income is mostly in entities that already pay taxes.

What you’re left with, mostly, then, is investment income. But once the church is taxable, it can also take deductions, including for salaries and other costs of running the church and, presumably, depreciation on its extensive real property holdings, etc. In the end, the net benefit to the government is minimal, and weighing that against the pushback—both from Congress and the public—for going after a church, plus the cost of jumping through the hoops of actually doing a church audit make it unlikely that even a sternly-worded letter would cause the IRS to act.

An Apologist for the Tax Law

Why do I write this? Mostly because I love the tax law, and I hate to see it abused and weaponized. Like Andrew said, it’s clearly possible that the church isn’t fully compliant with the tax law. But I’ve not seen anything to suggest that it isn’t, other than Karger’s unsubstantiated assertions, pretty much all of which misunderstand the law as it is.


[fn1] Before I get started, though, one disclosure: to titular question of Karger’s post, I would answer with a qualified no. It’s totally outside the scope of this post, but my coauthor and I are currently working on an article where we address fundamental questions of tax exemption. It’s still in the early stages, but I’m sure we’ll post it somewhere when we have a draft written. Based on that analysis, though, I argue that, as a normative matter, nonprofits, including churches, should be exempt from taxes. (It’s qualified, though, because, as I’ll explain in a minute, tax-exempt organizations do pay some taxes.)

[fn2]And yes, I know that the church isn’t terribly transparent financially. In fact, I’ve written fairly extensively about 20th-century Mormon financial disclosure.

[fn3] Note that I’m going to mostly avoid addressing some of the really low-hanging fruit. For example, I sincerely doubt that church earns money from its law firm holdings, because the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit non-attorneys from owning law firms. I don’t teach Professional Responsibility (and it’s already taking plenty of time to write this without doing additional research into a tangential topic), so it’s possible that some states haven’t enacted this particular rule. But all of the states I’m familiar with have.

[fn4] Though for being an “absolute prohibition,” it’s pretty under-enforced, especially with respect to churches, but also non-church tax-exempt organizations.


Filed under: Current Events, Society & Culture Tagged: andrew s, Fred Karger, irs, proposition 8, revoke, standing, tax, tax-exempt

#MutualNight: Miles Davis’s “On the Corner”

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miles_davis_on_the_cornerConfession: the first jazz album I owned was a Kenny G album.

“But that’s not jazz!” I hear you (some of you, anyway) saying. And I totally agree. In my defense, though, I was in 7th grade, was looking for jazz to listen to, and it’s what my saxophone teacher pointed me toward.

And in fairness to him,[fn1] Sam Goody and the other late-80s record stores classified Kenny G as “jazz fusion,” a classification that helped give “fusion” a bad name among jazz listeners and aspiring jazz musicians. 

There’s another type of jazz fusion, one that isn’t synonymous with “instrumental easy listening.” That type of fusion was pioneered, if not created, by Miles Davis, critically with his 1968 In a Silent Way and 1970 Bitches Brew albums. On both of those albums—and honestly, for the rest of his life—Miles incorporated the instrumentation and feel of rock music, not to mention its studio editing.

1972 saw Miles take his experiments to an extreme with his release of On the Corner. And it was critically despised. Like, the jazz establishment hated it.[fn2] So what was so bad about this album?

For one thing, there wasn’t really any melody. For another, there were no pyrotechnic solos. In fact, the opening track, “On the Corner” doesn’t even really start. When the needle hit the record groove (or, today, when the mp3 starts to play), you’re already in the middle of a song, and you don’t have any sense of how far you are in the song. You have to get your bearings as you listen.

And the song’s basically just a rhythm section groove—a repetitive bass line with a couple drums and the occasional horn or guitar burst. And make no mistake—the solo instruments are hitting quick bursts between and around the groove that the rhythm section plays. Frankly, much less Miles Davis and you couldn’t really call it a Miles album.

So what’s going on here? Two things. One is that Miles is listening to James Brown, to Sly and the Family Stone, and to P-Funk. He sees that they’re reaching young black audiences, and he wants to reach that audience, too. You can tell without even listening to the music: the blaxploitation-style Corky McCoy cover lets you know immediately that this album is street, and is funky.

And maybe the best example of the street cred of this album is the song “Black Satin.” Unlike what has come before, “Black Satin” kind of has a melody floating over the rhythm section. With trumpet and whistling, sleigh bells and hand claps, it’s Miles doing schoolyard game. It sounds exactly like kids playing on the street, complete with ambient noise.

And when I got this album in high school, that was enough for me. It’s experimental, but it’s funky. I’d moved beyond (far beyond!) Kenny G, but I still listened mostly to fusion, though I was getting into the Godfather of Soul and Sly Stone and Tower of Power and whatever other funk I could get my hands on. And the groove is incredible on this album. I may not have understood what Miles was doing, but I could feel the band lock in, and I could enjoy the fact that I was listening to something that greater jazz minds than mine hadn’t been able to understand.

But there was another thing going on, too: at the time, Miles was listening to Karlheinz Stockhausen, an experimental classical and electronica composer. I learned what Miles was listening to reading the album’s liner notes, and I became an instant fan of Stockhausen, without ever actually hearing his work. (I searched for it, again, in the Sam Goodys of the era, but the era was pre-Amazon, and, it turns out, most mainstream CD stores didn’t carry experimental German classical music. I did find one Stockhausen album, which was pretty much the extent of his music that I’d heard.) Apparently, Miles was especially fond of  Stockhausen’s “Hymnen.” Until tonight, refreshing my memory of On the Corner, I’d never heard “Hymnen.” Even in this post-Amazon world, the best price for that CD is over $90. But thanks to YouTube, I’ve now heard part of the composition. Largely, Stockhausen stitched together clips of various national anthems, interspersed with radio static and other white noise. It’s strangely—awesomely, frankly—compelling, and it does an amazing amount of work contextualizing what Miles is doing in On the Corner.

So that’s On the Corner: a melding of funk and experimental classical music. But the thing is, it works. It works so well. The album is deeply intellectual, but it’s also deeply physical.[fn3]

And even if it wasn’t recognized or appreciated when originally released, you can hear its echoes in music ranging from punk to hip-hop to electronica. But even if it hadn’t influenced a single other musician, On the Corner deserves a place in your listening rotation. And put it on in the background to your New Year’s party, and you’ll have an instant ambient party soundtrack.[fn4]

Miles Davis, On the Corner


[fn1] Not that he deserves and “in fairness to him”: a saxophone teacher pointing a kid who wants to hear jazz toward Kenny G has to be malpractice at best.

[fn2] Which is interesting. A decade or so earlier, Miles released Kind of Blue (during “arguably the most creative in all of jazz history.” And Kind of Blue represented a massive shift in jazz, from frequent chord changes to a modal approach to jazz, where soloists would play over one or two chords for whole choruses. And Kind of Blue ended up being tremendously critically and popularly acclaimed. I’d argue that, even if you hate jazz, Kind of Blue should be in your record collection. (I think I have it on CD, on mp3, and on vinyl. Also, I have Mostly Other People Do the Killing’s note-for-note recreation, Blue.)

[fn3] In fact, it strikes me as somewhat the apotheosis of Funkadelic’s injunction, two years earlier, to “Free Your Mind … and Your Ass Will Follow.”

[fn4] Note that it’s not just me: Kind of Blue notwithstanding, Pitchfork singles out On the Corner as “one of the easiest Davis records to recommend to a non-convert.” Convert or not, you need to give it a listen.


Filed under: Kulturblog, Music Tagged: james brown, karlheinz stockhausen, kenny g, kind of blue, miles davis, mostly other people do the killing, mutualnight, new years party, on the corner, p-funk, sly and the family stone, stockhausen

LaVell Edwards: A Personal Reflection

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Tribune file photo BYU Coach LaVell Edwards checks the clock during a game against the Washington Huskies in 1999.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that 2016 claimed yet another victim. LaVell Edwards, that rock of BYU football, died today.

He coached BYU from 1972 (before I was born) until 2000 (when I graduated from BYU). I grew up watching his teams (and the UCLA Bruins) play football on fall Saturdays with my dad and, as a student at BYU, I went to almost every home game.

I never met him while I was at BYU; my sole access to (and image of) him was cutaway shots to him on the sidelines, unsmiling, arms folded over his chest. 

Imagine my surprise, then, meeting him and Patti, his wife, at church in Manhattan.

LaVell and Patti served in Manhattan as public affairs missionaries from 2002-2003, shortly after my wife and I married. Our ward was their home ward. And the strangest thing was, he was always smiling. (My wife, not a college football watcher, was shocked when I told her I’d never seen him smile. She had never seen him not smiling.)

Over the year and a half they spent in New York, I got to know them casually. Things I remember: both were warm and generous, both worked hard and integrated into both the Mormon and the New York community (he helped restart and coach the Harlem Hellfighters high school football team). In my (limited) experience with him, he was humble and kind.

For a couple generations of football fans, LaVell Edwards was the face of Mormonism. And his is a sad face to lose.

[N.b.: many of you know far more about Edwards and football than I; my brush with LaVell Edwards was not life-changing, but it was certainly a positive contribution to who I am. I’d love to hear, in the comments, what he meant to you.]


Filed under: Current Events, Society & Culture Tagged: byu football, harlem hellfighters, lavell edwards, new york, patti edwards, public affairs missionary

What Tax Folks (and Kyle) Talk About When They Talk About Tithing

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Yesterday, I saw this tweet from Jana Riess:

The catch: younger members are more likely than their elders to say they’re paying tithing on net, rather than gross, income.

The question of why younger generations are more willing to cop to paying 10% of their net income is an interesting one, and I have no idea if it reflects changes in religious rhetoric or in their financial situations. For that matter, I have no idea if it actually reflects a shift: maybe Mormons have always moved from net to gross as they’ve aged.

What’s clear, though, is that few people, if any, are actually paying tithing on their gross income. I tweeted to that effect, and got into a fun rabbit hole of a Twitter conversation. So, for your reading pleasure: What Tax Folks (and Kyle) Talk About When They Talk About Tithing:

 


Filed under: Economics, Internet & Social Media, Mormon, Society & Culture Tagged: #taxnerds, gross, jana riess, net, tithing, twitter

Lesson 3: “I Had Seen a Vision” #DandC2017

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Learning Outcomes:

At the end of class, students will be able to:

  1. Describe the religious and cultural context in which Joseph Smith had his First Vision.
  2. Compare the various accounts of the First Vision.
  3. Summarize the relevance of the First Vision to contemporary Mormon belief and practice.

Vermont, New York, and Religious Liberty

Joseph lived in Vermont until he was about 10. In Vermont, there was no state-established church. Rather, each town could select its own minister, effectively establishing a church. Most towns chose a Congregationalist (or “Puritan”) minister. 

When he was 10, Joseph’s family moved to New York. Outside of the four counties closes to New York City, New York did not have an established church. That didn’t mean total religious liberty, though: the New York legislature refused to charter any church that wasn’t either Anglican or Dutch Reformed. As late as 1775, th New York legislature denied a charter to a Presbyterian church. Source.

Religious Confusion

Joseph Smith writes that, when he was 12 years old, “there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion.” JS-H 1:5. Two or three years after that, when he was 14, there was a full-fledged religious revival. [For a compelling case that he conflated two or more revivals in his telling, see Michael Quinn here.]

How did Joseph and his family react to the revivals? Have class member read JS-H 1:7-8.

And how did Joseph react? He decided to pray.

He went into a grove a trees behind his house, possibly because he had “no hope of privacy in the little cabin filled with children and household activity” (Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 39).

He found an open spot and started to pray.

Read JS-H 1:15-16.

Shouting Methodists and Prayer

Note here that Joseph wasn’t making this up: going to the woods to pray seems to have been a not-uncommon shouting Methodist thing to do. And remember that Joseph was partial to the Methodists.

In fact, his experience (which we’ll get to in a minute) followed a fairly common ecstatic Methodist form: a person went to the woods to pray for forgiveness. According to Staker, at some point, they “expected that ‘the power,’ meaning the power of God or the Holy Spirit, would come as they prayed, causing them to fall to the ground, binding their tongues, making it impossible to speak, and sometimes accompanying these manifestations with jerks and trembling.” See Staker, Hearken O Ye People, 135.

Alternatively, according to Christopher Jones, the idea of the Devil impeding a would-be convert’s prayer was common, if not ubiquitous. Jones, 105. [Note that the Jones article provides an excellent overview of Methodist conversion and how Joseph’s conversion reflected and differed from the Platonic Methodist experience.]

But Joseph rejected the ecstatic/devilish interruption as the experience he was looking for, believing, instead, that it was a manifestation of the devil; pushing through, he experienced his vision.

What does it mean that the First Vision followed a common (or, at least, a not-uncommon) pattern, that it wasn’t sui generis? And what does it mean that his experience broke with that tradition?

Versions of the First Vision

Joseph recorded four versions of the First Vision in his lifetime (two published and two unpublished). The earliest version he recorded was in 1832, twelve years after his First Vision. He wrote another in 1835 and one in 1842. The one we’re most familiar with—the one we find in Joseph Smith History—he wrote in 1838. (If you want to give more detail about the context of each recorded version, the link provides that context.) In addition, there are five contemporaneous versions written by individuals who knew him.

Divide class into 4 groups (or, if you have a really big class, 9 groups). Give each group a copy of one version of the First Vision, pen and paper. (You can copy and paste all 9 from links from this site, or you can copy and paste from this site.) Have each group summarize the salient points in the description.

Bring class together. Have each group present their version of the First Vision. What do these accounts have in common? How do they differ?

We can sometimes learn important things from how different accounts of the same event complement and contradict each other. What can we learn comparing versions of the First Vision?

[N.b.: if the class is uncomfortable with the fact that the versions have significant differences, maybe spend some time discussing the different goals underlying the various tellings, and Joseph’s progressive understanding of his prophetic role (line upon line). I don’t personally find that line of thought terribly interesting, but I think it does have some value and explanatory power if it’s needed.]

The Aftermath

Note that, when Joseph saw Heavenly Father and Jesus, it wasn’t The First Vision. It was merely (ha!) a revelatory experience. Looking back from almost 200 years later, we see its part in the development of what is now a worldwide church. But at the time, Joseph had to process it from his experience as a 14-year-old boy. We believe that we learn line upon line, precept upon precept. There’s no reason Joseph, upon seeing his vision, would have the same interpretation as we have. [In fact, JKC beat me to the punch here. You may want to read his excellent post on a limited apostasy and the relevance of the First Vision in that context, and incorporate his insights and questions into your lesson. If you have time, anyway.]

And initially, Joseph didn’t talk much about the vision. Early converts likely didn’t hear anything about it. Bushman, 39.

One exception, though: read JS-H 1:21.

Ask the class: Why would Joseph have told a Methodist minister about his vision?

[Again, remember, he was 14: he doubtless wanted spiritual guidance. Also, from Bushman, 40: “Newly reborn people customarily talked over their experiences with a clergyman to test the validity of the conversion.”]

Note, too, that the minister’s response wasn’t because of the uniqueness of Joseph’s story; rather, visionary experiences were tremendously common, but by 1820, visionaries were viewed with suspicion. Bushman, 40-41.

Formative Evaluation

In the last minute(s) of class, pass out papers and pencils (or have students pull out their phones and open a notetaking app), and have them write a one-minute paper. Possible prompts:

  • How does the First Vision affect your religious practices?
  • What can you learn from Joseph Smith’s progressive accounts of his First Vision?
  • What in the lesson stood out to you?

(Alternatively, choose one question and have students answer it orally to the person sitting next to them.)

Note: Lesson 3 of the lesson manual is available here.


Filed under: D&C 2013, Modernly Revealed, Mormon, Scriptures Tagged: D&C, D&C2017, DandC2017, First Vision, Joseph Smith, lesson plan, shouting methodist, Sunday School

Are Mormon General Authorities Overpaid?

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screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-21-48-pmJust a head’s-up: I’m not going to answer this question. I’m a law professor. A significant part of my job is to complicate questions that appear, on first glance, simple. Like this one. If you want a simplistic yes or no, I’m sure you can find it somewhere on the internet.

The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported that the general authorities who are paid make about $120,000 a year. On the comments to Kevin’s recent post, there seemed to be some significant disagreement on whether they were over- or underpaid, or if their salaries were just right. So which is it?

That’s a tough question; there is no objective “right” amount that people should be paid. And the question is complicated a little by the fact that they’re paid in lockstep, meaning the amount probably represents a raise for some of these general authorities and a pay cut for others. 

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-22-11-pmTo determine whether they’re overpaid, then, we have to find an appropriate comparable. And that’s a whole lot harder than it seems. (Note that, because they’re in the U.S., and because they’re paid in dollars, and because it’s a whole lot easier for me to find data on the U.S., I’m going to use U.S. comparables, rather than international comparables.)

Median Mormon Income

The Census doesn’t ask about religion, so we don’t have any precise information here. We can use Pew data to help, though it’s only kind of helpful.

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-23-08-pmAccording to Pew, about 47% of Mormons make less than $50,000, 38% earn between $50,000 and $99,000, and 16% make $100,000 or more. These numbers line up pretty closely to the American public at large.

Under Pew data, then, paid general authorities are in the top 16% of Mormon income earners. But note that only 28% of Mormons have a college degree or more; I haven’t looked closely, but I suspect that all of the paid general authorities have at least a college degree. So what’s the appropriate comparable here? Median Mormon income? Median income for college graduates (which, actually, we don’t know)?

Median Utah Income

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-23-41-pmWe can get finer-grained information about Utah. And, of course, Utah isn’t a perfect comparable, because 40% of the population is not Mormon, but 60%-Mormon is the most concentrated portion of Mormons of any state.

And in Utah, the median household income was $60,727 in 2015 dollars. (Note that the average household income in Utah is significantly higher, at $76,531.)

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-33-59-pmBut that doesn’t tell us anything about the distribution of income.

And, in fact, there’s an additional problem with these numbers: they don’t take into account age. In general, income increases as we get older. And Utah follows those trends: median household income increases with age, up until 65. It drops after 65, presumably because of retirement.

But general authorities skew old, so it probably doesn’t make a ton of sense to compare their income to median income, because the median income includes a lot of younger workers.

Median Clergy Income

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-24-32-pmAccording to the BLS, the median clergy annual salary is $48,150. Of course, that presumably includes everybody from the Jesuit priest who has taken a vow of poverty to the pastor of a small church to Creflo Dollar. So I’m not sure how helpful that is.

Average Nonprofit CEO Income

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-32-17-pmThe average pay for the CEO of a nonprofit in 2014 was $118,678.[fn1] While the prophet, apostles, and first couple quorums of the Seventy aren’t technically CEOs, the C-suite strikes me as a decent comparable for at least the First Presidency and probably Quorum of the Twelve.

Also, we can get more granular than just average salary. The CEO of a nonprofit with an operating budget of between $2.5 million and $5 million had an average salary of $125,899, and as the operating budget increased from there, so did the average salaries.

Median CEO Base Salary In For-Profit Firms

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-33-10-pmSome individuals like to accuse the church of being essentially a big for-profit company. That makes no sense for a number of reasons I won’t go into here but, for the heck of it, let’s pretend it’s true. Also, let’s pretend the estimate that the church has about $7 billion in annual revenue is accurate.[fn2]

In that case, the median CEO is earning … oh shoot, that data doesn’t tell me that. Okay, let’s pretend it has about $1 billion of revenue: in that case, the median CEO’s base salary (without bonuses or stock options or anything else) looks to be about $1 million.

So Which Is It: Over- or Under- or Just Right?

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-12-34-11-pmWith the comparables I’ve laid out, you could argue any of the above. But any such argument requires assumptions, particularly about what the best comparable for a general authority in the Mormon church is. I think all of the comparables I’ve laid out here are viable, and I’m sure I haven’t exhausted the possible set of comparables.

But they all push in different directions, and even picking one requires a number of assumptions and nuances. And that kind of ambiguity is probably right. At the very least, as we criticize or defend the amount the church pays its leaders, we need to be willing to both lay out and question our assumptions.[fn3]


[fn1] And yes, I know I’m jumping between median and average, but I kind of have to deal with the data I can find easily online.

[fn2] Actually, that estimate was just donations, not returns from various investments. But let’s just go with it.

[fn3] Also, ftr, each of the Google autocompletes is a real screenshot. One of the few professions where everything to come after the “[Profession] are” was positive toward the profession was, of all things, hockey players:

screen-shot-2017-01-14-at-11-53-08-pm


Filed under: Mormon

Guest Post: #MutualNight: Afrobeat & Fela Kuti’s “Zombie”

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Trevor, a relatively recent BYU graduate and Utah transplant, loves to talk music and religion (though not usually in tandem). He blogs (infrequently) at furusatoe and tweets (frequently) at @thabermeyer.

zombieThe first time I heard Talking Heads’ magnum opus, Remain In Light, I was stunned. Released in late 1980, the album sounded like none of its contemporaries in the burgeoning post-punk/new wave scene. The most striking, differentiating feature of Remain In Light is its complex polyrhythms and percussive elements, immediately noticeable even to the casual music listener on tracks like “Crosseyed and Painless” and “The Great Curve.” Yet, as is the case with most music, the heart of Remain in Light is less innovation than appropriation. Following the release of Talking Heads’ previous album, ‘79’s Fear of Music, friend and producer Brian Eno introduced lead singer David Byrne and the band to the work of Nigerian musician and bandleader Fela Kuti – and it entranced them. As related by Eno, Fela’s 1973 album, Afrodisiac, became the template and inspiration for the Heads’ new album: 

When I first met Talking Heads, the first meeting I ever had with them, they had been playing in London and they came over to my flat to talk about me working on their next album. So I said, “This is the future of music”, and I played them Afrodisiac, and to their credit they were incredibly impressed by it. If you listen to the third album we did together (Remain In Light) it’s so influenced by that. It’s sort of shameful in a way.[i]

Remain In Light was both a commercial and critical success, legendary among aficionados of Western pop music. Lesser known is afrobeat: the style of music to which that album is indebted in a “sort of shameful . . . way.”

Afrobeat is easily discernable once you’ve heard a few songs in the genre, but it warrants some description. Born from the mind of Fela Kuti (and, according to Fela, drummer Tony Allen) in the late ‘60s, afrobeat is an amalgam of a few distinct musical threads: Ghanaian highlife, Yoruban percussion, funky guitars (in the spirit of James Brown), big-band jazz, and the West African chant tradition (excuse the gross simplification). Songs typically begin with a simple riff, usually an exchange between the rhythm and tenor guitars, repeated over and over in an ostinato rhythm – the base upon which the rest of the song is built. Drums, bass, brass, and keyboards follow, establishing the melody and exchanging solos in what amounts to an extended jam session. The main vocal line and accompanying chants, interacting in a call-and-response manner, enter at about the halfway point. As for length, afrobeat songs are closer to jazz than pop: anywhere from ten minutes to a half hour.

If you’re someone (like me) who has trouble paying attention to the intricacies of most jazz music, you’ll probably find afrobeat to be much more digestible; in large measure because the music is so danceable. In fact, afrobeat was the most popular music in West Africa during the 1970s (and, according to some reports, even now). Difficult listening this is not.

Here I want to highlight just one afrobeat track: Fela Kuti’s 1976[ii] classic, “Zombie”. This was a pivotal, political time for pop music, with punk rock emerging in the US and the UK through the Ramones and Sex Pistols, and the golden age of reggae/dub hitting fever pitch amidst political strife in Jamaica. So it seems only natural that one of Fela’s most scathing, politically-charged songs would debut in ’76 – the spirit was in the air. A diatribe against the corrupt Nigerian military, “Zombie” is, at its lyrical heart, an indictment against blind obedience and the authoritarianism that enables it:

Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn
Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think

As the song progresses Fela shouts rousing orders at the band, ironically blurring the line between bandleader and drill sergeant (“Attention! Halt! Order! Dismiss!”). Notice also the use of Pidgin English. Though Fela was strongly anti-colonial and pro-Africa, believing Africans should support traditional African culture while eschewing colonial trappings, he mostly sung in this language to allow his music to be enjoyed by a broader spectrum of people. The intent was also political: from inception, Fela always used his music as a vehicle for his political activism, and singing in a more universal language expanded the reach of his message. We’ve come to expect this of artists; but, in Fela’s case, his politics truly infused everything – so much so that during the ‘80s he made a bid for the presidency of Nigeria under his own political party, Movement of the People, further cementing the immortal epithet he came to be intimately associated with: Black President. Though he never attained political office, the cultural power he wielded among the African people was unmistakable.

The political satire of “Zombie” didn’t make it an outlier in Fela’s discography, but the reaction it evoked did. The song’s popularity, Fela’s ever-increasing stature as countercultural icon, and rising tensions with the government culminated in a military raid on Fela’s personal commune within a year of its release. Dwellings were reduced to ashes, residents were beaten and raped, and Fela’s aged mother, Funmilayo – a prominent women’s rights activist in Nigeria – was thrown from a window, suffering fatal injuries. Understanding of this aftermath serves as a reminder that, beyond the entrancing beat, “Zombie” spoke to real issues and spurred brutal consequences.

Remarkably, Fela was shaken but not deterred by the incident. Bitter experience with injustices commonplace in a corrupt environment – from countless arrests to raids on his residence – perhaps allowed him to take the tragedy in stride (in a way, his tenacity reminds me of Joseph Smith). Within the next three years he would write two songs that directly addressed the incident: “Unknown Soldier” and “Coffin for Head of State,” the former a retelling of the harrowing night of the attack (to which the government blamed on the acts of “unknown soldiers”), the latter a rebuke of religious hypocrisy and Olusegun Obasanjo, the Christian Head of State to whom Fela held responsible for the death of his mother (true to the song’s title and as a symbolic gesture, Fela actually delivered his mother’s coffin to the main military barracks in Lagos in protest). Far from being silenced, Fela continued to be an outspoken critic and political activist for much of the remainder of his life, until his death in 1997.

Since at least 1941, when American folk legend Woody Guthrie painted the words “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS” on his guitar, the intersection between pop music and political culture has continued unabated. In recent years, as music speaking to the political realities of black experience, such as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, has moved to the center of both critical and public attention, Fela Kuti’s afrobeat is a fitting predecessor and complement. And yet, is there any contemporary musician whose political art has brought upon them the same level of censure and abuse that Fela experienced?[iii] If nothing else, the story of “Zombie” reminds us of a place and time when political messaging in music was more costly. Though the context may be different, the message of “Zombie” continues to reverberate today as we, both as citizens and saints, grapple with the challenges inherent in pledging our, too often unthinking, support to larger institutions, movements, and ideologies. And beyond the message, it’s just great music. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.


[i] http://thequietus.com/articles/20034-brian-eno-favourite-records-interview?page=10

[ii] I can find no strict agreement on when the track was actually released. I gather that it was recorded and released locally in ’76, but had a wider release in ’77. Whether ’76 or ’77, the point still holds – these were transition years, both politically and musically.

[iii] The imprisonment and exile of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and other artists part of the Brazilian Tropicalia movement of the late ‘60s is the closest comparison that comes to mind (common denominator = corrupt military regime). See this excellent article for details: http://pitchfork.com/features/from-the-pitchfork-review/9978-god-is-on-the-loose-how-the-tropicalia-movement-provided-hope-during-brazils-darkest-years/


Filed under: Media, Music Tagged: afrobeat, fela kuti, mutualnight, talking heads, zombie

Soundtrack to the Inauguration

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Today, Donald Trump transitions from president-elect to president.

I’m struggling here to figure out what to write. I want to write that we elected a valueless misogynistic, race-baiting, xenophobic know-nothing as president, but I confess I’m not sure where to go from there.

I want to decry Mormons’ participation in the Inauguration, only I’m not sure what I can add to what Peter has already said. (Also, what Peter has already said.)

I do know, though, where I’m going to turn musically. Noah Preminger has just released Meditations on Freedom, a protest album, just in time for the new presidency. 

coverJazz has a long history as protest music, albeit a history overshadowed in the popular imagination by the folk/pop/rock protests of the hippie era. Jazz had a distinct, though not exclusive, focus on civil rights movement, ranging from Billie Holiday’s performance of “Strange Fruit” to Mingus’s “Original Faubus Fables” to Max Roach’s free jazz “Freedom Now Suite.” (For a great overview of this history of jazz protest music, you can listen to this wonderful episode of “Night Lights.”

The timing of Preminger’s entry into this genre is not unique: in the wake of Trump’s election, jazz musicians are reasserting their commitment to social justice.

And Preminger’s album may not immediately make you think protest—it’s certainly not in the explicitly absurdist mold of Country Joe and the Fish, and not in the anthemic chant-along mode of Fiona Apple. (That is, don’t expect to hear Preminger’s “Women’s March” this weekend at the women’s march.) But it was written and recorded after the election, and in response to the result.[fn1]

Instead of confrontational protest music, Preminger and his band present nine songs that are all reserved and slightly off-balance. The melodies are tentative, with the tenor and the trumpet floating, just out of time with each other, reminiscent of many of Ornette Coleman’s wonderful sax-trumpet heads.

Preminger’s music fits squarely in the free jazz mold, and he adapts four traditional protest songs to his sensibilities: Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is,” George Harrison’s “Give Me Love,” and the absolutely spectacular “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke. (There are also five originals, including “Women’s March” and “The 99 Percent.”) And the protest is more implied and felt than anything: there are no lyrics, so there’s no didacticism.

The feeling here is neither angry nor triumphant: it’s deeply, deeply melancholic. And I haven’t been able to quit listening for the last week or so, because it strikes the perfect tone for a Trump presidency. It responds to his penchant for Molotov tweets with cerebral introspection, to his glitzy chintz with understated craftsmanship.

Plenty of people have argued that, with the election past, we need to move into a time of healing. I fundamentally disagree: I think we need to maintain some level of pain, some level of disgust. I do not plan to become inured to Trump’s brand of awful.

And the same time, though, I can’t spend the next four years angry, hurt, and disgusted. I’m not arguing that nobody should, but for me, those emotions work in short bursts, but drain meover the long haul. And make no mistake: standing up against Trump will be a too-long haul.

And perhaps this is the biggest strength of Preminger’s protest: it’s slightly off-balance while being exactly what Trump is not—careful, cerebral, virtuosic, situated in a historical context, and deeply, deeply moral. It forces the listener to be slightly uncomfortable, but to think through where that discomfort comes from.

So if you’re looking to trade up from the Piano Guys or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, if you’re looking to expand your repertoire of protest music, or if you’re just looking to be challenged as you challenge the presidency, Meditations on Freedom should be part of your soundtrack.[fn2]


[fn1] It’s probably only fair to let Preminger explain what he meant with the album:

At this time of disruptive and divisive change in our nation, I felt compelled to create these jazz meditations. Working in the tradition of protest compositions by some of our best song writers, I went on to compose my own. We hope this work generates reflection on the fragile and precious freedoms we must fight to preserve and extend to everyone who lives in this country.

[fn2] Also, Eliza Chavez’s “Revenge” should probably be posted on your wall, right next to the Proclamation on the Family.


Filed under: Music, Politics, Pop Culture, Society & Culture Tagged: country joe and the fish, discomfort, fiona apple, free jazz, inauguration, jazz, meditations on freedom, noah preminger, protest, revenge, trump

On Moral Issues and Trump – Updated

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iwasastranger_siteToday, the church is hesitant to enter into the political sphere. For the most part, I think that’s the right decision: church leaders don’t have any expertise in public policy or governance.

The church has, however, reserved the right to speak to “issues that it believes have significant community or moral consequences.” Over the last couple years, it has invoked its right—duty, even—to speak to issues ranging from the legalization of recreational marijuana and physician-assisted suicide to alcohol laws in Utah to the legalization of same-sex marriage.

It has been outspoken in its support of religious liberty. As far back as 1992, Elder Oaks testified in support of of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and he has continued to emphasize the importance of religious liberty.

Yesterday, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from coming to the United States for the next 90 days, and banning Syrian refugees indefinitely.

This Executive Order is deeply immoral. It violates the fundamental scriptural duty to care for and welcome strangers, to love our neighbors, and to support the vulnerable. And we find that injunction throughout scripture.

In the Hebrew Bible we read that because the chosen people were strangers in the land of Egypt, the Lord forbids them(us) from “opress[ing] a stranger” and, in fact, requires us to “love … the stranger.” In fact, Ezekiel tells us, the sin of Sodom was that its residents lived in their abundance and refused to help the poor and the needy.

The New Testament is similarly resplendent with the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves, and defines “neighbor” far more broadly than those we love, or those in our immediate vicinity.[fn1]

In the Book of Mormon, the Anti-Nephi-Lehis break from the Lamanites and, in doing so, face death and the threat of death. Ammon leads the people—refugees, all—back to the Nephites, who are at war with the Lamanites. And the Nephites not only vote to take in the refugees, but, in fact, give them land and protect them from their former people.

Banning immigrants, then, is deeply immoral, and un-Christian. And worse, the banning is occurring on explicitly religious grounds. While it doesn’t explicitly forbid Muslims from entering the United States, Trump has made clear that the exemption he has provided for persecuted religious minorities is mean to apply to Christians. In doing so, he rejects the tenets of religious liberty so dear to both the United States and to our own religious beliefs.

I was heartened to see that more than 2,000 religious leaders have signed on to a letter opposing Trump’s immoral attack on the poorest and the weakest. But none of our leaders’ names are on that letter; seeing that brought me to tears.

I know that our church leaders care deeply about immigrants, and about refugees. And I know that they’re willing to stand up and comment on moral matters. I also know the executive order was just signed yesterday, so there’s still time for them to add their names to this letter, or to make their own independent statement.

Trump’s mistreatment of refugees is easily the most pressing moral matter in the United States at this moment. It deserves nothing more than our scorn and our opposition. And if ever there was a moment for the church to use its moral soapbox, now is that moment.[fn2]

Update 1/29/17 12:06 am: The Newsroom has released the following statement. It’s a nice enough sentiment, but it’s oddly passive and even more oddly unspecific. And it’s not attributed to anybody. Which is to say, if it’s better than nothing, it’s only barely better:

In response to recent media inquiries, the following statement has been released:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is concerned about the temporal and spiritual welfare of all of God’s children across the earth, with special concern for those who are fleeing physical violence, war and religious persecution. The Church urges all people and governments to cooperate fully in seeking the best solutions to meet human needs and relieve suffering.”


[fn1] For more examples of the biblical mandate to receive refugees and help the poor, you can read this.

[fn2] And, for the record, the church can explicitly call out Donald Trump. I understand why it didn’t take a stand during the election: section 501(c)(3) prohibits tax-exempt organizations from supporting or opposing candidates for office. But he is no longer a candidate, and nothing in section 501(c)(3) prohibits tax-exempt organizations from opposing—by name!—government officials who are not current candidates.


Filed under: Anciently Revealed, Current Events, Modernly Revealed, Politics, Rants, Scriptures, Society & Culture Tagged: i was a stranger, lobbying, moral, Refugees, scriptures

On Totally Destroying the Johnson Amendment

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Yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast, Donald Trump (among other things) reiterated his campaign promise to “get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment.”

The phrase “Johnson Amendment” may well be meaningless to you. It’s kind of a stupid name for a broadly-misunderstood provision of the tax law. So, to get us all on the same page, a quick explainer:

What Is the Johnson Amendment?

Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that a number of public charities can qualify for exemption from tax. Broadly speaking, the categories include religious, charitable, and educational institutions (though there are more than just those).

To qualify under section 501(c)(3), though, an organization must meet a number of requirements. One—the Johnson Amendment—is a blanket prohibition on endorsing or opposing candidates for office.[fn1] (Note that this is a prohibition on any entity exempt under section 501(c)(3), not just churches.)

The Johnson Amendment is pretty commonly misunderstood to prohibit tax-exempt organizations from doing anything political at all. It doesn’t. While there are some limitations, tax-exempt organizations can lobby and otherwise speak to politics. (More on that later.)

So Why Is It Called the “Johnson Amendment”?

On one level, I don’t know. I’ve never researched the provenance of the name. It’s been popularized, as best as I can tell, by religious opponents of the prohibition, especially the Alliance Defending Freedom.

But if we ignore when people started using the phrase, it technically refers to the fact that the prohibition was added when Senator Lyndon Johnson proposed a change to section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code in 1954.

And Why Does the Prohibition Exist?

It’s not completely clear. There’s no extant legislative history explaining why it was proposed or why it passed. People who have looked at the history believe it was probably proposed because Sen. Johnson believed that a conservative tax-exempt foundation had opposed his reelection bid and supported his opponent, and he wanted to enact revenge against it.

Two things to note: first, if this is true, churches weren’t a primary target of the legislation. (In fact, I’ve read that some churches actually supported his reelection bid, so he probably wasn’t aiming at churches.) Second, even if the origin story is true, it doesn’t explain why Congress agreed to pass it.

What Do People Think of Its Repeal?

There are two main camps.[fn2] The first camp has been advocate the elimination of the Johnson Amendment for years. The second sees its elimination as catastrophic.

The first camp largely includes a coalition of mostly- (though not entirely-) conservative religious leaders. They believe they have a religious obligation to speak to moral issues, including candidates for office, and that any limitation on their speech infringes on their religious liberties and duties.

The second camp sees an almost-apocalyptic future in which tax-exempt organizations basically begin to launder political donations, probably at the expense of their charitable missions. Why? Because donors can deduct their donations to charitable organizations, but they cannot deduct their political donations. If they could donate to charitable organizations that could then either pass that money on to candidates or advertise for or against candidates, the value of their donations increases.[fn3]

So Which Camp Is Right?

We don’t really know. On the one hand, the prohibition is almost entirely unenforced. (Like, one church has ever lost its exemption for supporting or opposing a candidate for office. And even non-church charities by and large don’t lose their exemptions.) Why isn’t it enforced better? I’ve speculated that the IRS is hesitant to enforce it because it seems draconian (basically, removing the exemption is a death sentence for many charities), and because they would face widespread condemnation with little, if any, benefit.

So maybe eliminating it wouldn’t change anything. Any tax-exempt organization that wants to endorse or oppose a candidate can effectively do so now at very little cost.

At the same time, though, even though it’s almost never enforced, a risk-averse public charity, seeing the extreme costs if the prohibition is enforced, may choose not to, even though it wants to. Without the Johnson Amendment, it may decide to endorse or oppose. And frankly, I don’t have any sense of how many public charities fit into this space.

Either way, though, it’s unlikely the the most apocalyptic vision would happen. Even without the Johnson Amendment, tax-exempt organizations face a significant limitation on their ability to participate in politics. Specifically, no substantial part of their activities can involve politicking.

Right now, it’s not clear exactly what “no substantial part” means; a couple courts have given a range (between 5 and 15% of its activities, maybe?). Without the Johnson Amendment, we get more pressure on this, and courts will probably have to define it better. But the no-substantial-part limitation should prevent tax-exempt organizations from becoming conduits.

Is There Any Mormon Angle to This?

I’m not sure. The first line of the church’s Political Neutrality statement basically comes straight from the Johnson Amendment. If it goes away, will the church start endorsing candidates? I really don’t know; I doubt it would, but I could totally be wrong.

In fact, this is one interesting thing: not all pastors want to get rid of the Johnson Amendment. For those who don’t want to endorse candidates, the rule that they can’t gives them a backstop. They can respond to congregants or politicians who wants them to endorse specific candidates by saying, Sorry, the tax law prevents me from doing it.

So Should I Support or Oppose This Change?

Yeah, probably.

Anything Else?

I wrote a piece about the possible consequences to newspapers over at The Surly Subgroup.

And if you want this more summary, but in an oral form, I spoke with Doug Wright on KSL Radio yesterday. (When and if they post my interview, I’ll update the post with the link.)


[fn1] The precise language: to qualify as tax-exempt, a public charity must not “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

[fn2] Three, actually: there’s undoubtedly a broad collection of people who don’t especially care.

[fn3] The math really quickly: if I’m in the 25% tax bracket, I have to earn $100 to make a $75 donation (because I have $75 after taxes). If that same donation were deductible, though, I could donate the full $100 (because I effectively wouldn’t pay taxes on that donation). As a result, a deductible donation is more valuable to me than a non-deductible one.


Filed under: Current Events, Mormon, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged: 501(c)(3), Donald Trump, johnson amendment, national prayer breakfast, tax-exempt organizations

What If the Church Didn’t Remain Politically Neutral?

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On Sunday, Carolyn Homer wrote a thoughtful post about why, even if Donald Trump manages to “totally destroy” the so-called Johnson Amendment, the church shouldn’t start publicly endorsing or opposing candidates for office. On almost every level, she is certainly right: anything else opens the door to real discomfort and mischief.

And yet, I want to propose that, if Trump succeeds, the church (or, rather, members of the Quorum of the Twelve) should start endorsing candidates.

Stay with me—this isn’t any kind of modest proposal, and I’m being completely serious. But my proposal requires some explanation and significant caveats.

As I’ve previously explained, the tax law prohibits tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates for office. One of the platforms Donald Trump ran on (presumably to help shore up the Evangelical vote) was to eliminate that prohibition. And, if he succeeds, churches and other tax-exempt organizations will have at least a limited ability to start endorsing candidates.

Which brings us to the church. While it currently eschews supporting candidates, the language in the church’s political neutrality statement follows the tax prohibition decently carefully. If the prohibition goes away, it’s at least possible that the church’s neutrality as between candidates for office goes away.

And that could be a good thing.

Of course, its being a good thing depends on two things being true. First, it is only a good thing if there is political diversity among the upper echelons (let’s say Q12, though it could be defined differently) of Mormonism. And second, it is only a good thing if most or all of those upper echelons are willing to share their political leanings.

Imagine if, in October conference, Elder Oaks, as part of his talk, told us that protecting religious liberty was absolutely essential, and that he believed that Evan McMullin best embodied the value of religious liberty.

In a different talk, Elder Renland spoke about our duty to care for the poor, and mentioned that he believed that Hillary Clinton’s tax plan would provide the poor with what they needed most.

And Elder Cook spoke about the importance of the Word of Wisdom and pointed out that, as a teetotaler, Donald Trump represented the country’s best chance to reduce the dangers of alcohol.[fn1]

I see two significant benefits to this: first, it signals to the body of the church that the church isn’t aligned with the Republican party. Or, for that matter, with the Democratic party. (This is why my first condition is that there be political plurality among the top leaders of the church. And Pew says 66% of U.S. Mormons say they’re conservative, and 74% consider themselves Republicans. That leaves 26% who don’t identify with Republicans. If the Q12 follows those numbers, that means 9 Republicans and 3 non-Republicans. Of course, there’s no reason to believe that the Q12 is a representative sample of Mormonism at large, but there’s no reason to believe it isn’t.)

Second, it models respectful disagreement to members. And that modeling is tremendously important. Two quick stories.

The first: I was in a Sunday School lesson once, and the topic was predestination vs. foreordination. I don’t remember exactly how the lesson went, but suddenly, somebody made asked what the difference was between the two. Somebody else answered defensively. And then there was yelling.

And the thing is, I’m pretty sure nobody in that room really cared about the difference between predestination and foreordination, at least not enough to start a fight. But what could have been an interesting and valuable discussion turned into a way that members could let out steam—because we have a social norm against disagreement, we have to bottle it in (or maybe mutter under our breath to our neighbor, if we like our neighbor). So when the disagreement gets out, it sometimes really gets out.

The second: a friend has told me that, in her Relief Society, every time there’s disagreement, somebody mentions how the Spirit has left the room. Her RS can’t function unless everybody agrees. But, for everybody to agree, either the discussion has to be bland or obvious (or, I guess, both).

I realize I’m biased, as an attorney, but I believe that confronting and engaging opposing viewpoints helps us to improve our thoughts and beliefs, and can, frankly, bring us closer to God.

But we’re probably not going to start spontaneously disagreeing; our culture of avoiding even the appearance of disagreement runs deep.

And it even runs deep among leaders of the church. They claim that they disagree on various things, and I believe them (because I don’t believe a group of 12 people can agree on everything, even if they want to). But they don’t make statements unless they do so on a unified basis.

But light political disagreement is a safe place for them to model disagreement. In most elections, there’s little moral valence to the choice of candidates.[fn2]  That our leaders disagree on the best candidate for office doesn’t call into question the nature of God, the truth-claims of the church, or even the apostolic mantle. It reflects individuals with slightly different political preferences.

It’s true that our ability to disagree doesn’t require that church leaders model anything. (My HP group, for example, does really well at productive and civil disagreement.) But it would certainly help.

Of course, for many reasons, even though I think that in theory, church leaders endorsing candidates would be a good thing in a post-Johnson Amendment world, it also carries significant risk, and that risk may ultimately make Carolyn’s assessment the better choice.

For it to work, the endorsements have to be basically throw-away lines (and maybe, my hypothetical notwithstanding, that’s not the best place for them). We don’t need our church leaders to preach sermons on the reasons we should vote for Jeb Bush. Not only is such a sermon outside the scope of the apostolic mantle, but it also provides the wrong model: like you (probably), I don’t want to listen to talks on the benefits of Rahm Emanuel.

It’s also necessary that many or all of the leaders actually do use those throw-away lines. We have a history of political statements by individuals who feel really strongly about politics (*cough*Elder Benson*cough*), while those who feel less strongly either don’t want to comment or don’t want to disagree. The church leadership, most of whom grew up in the same conflict-averse culture that still exists, would have to get comfortable with public disagreement. If the permission to support candidates is only exercised by one person, the potential benefits go away (even if that one person shares my political preferences).

And, as I said earlier, it’s essential that there actually be political disagreement. My whole proposal backfires if it turns out that all of them are behind Gary Johnson.[fn3]

So the risks are big. But, if all of my criteria are met, the rewards might be big, too. At the very least, the person sitting next to you in Sunday School wouldn’t be able to assume that all good Mormons share her or his political preferences.[fn4]


[fn1] Note that, in each of my hypothetical talks, the mention of a candidate is basically a throw-away line; a full talk about a candidate would go offensively far from the ideal of preaching nothing but Jesus, and him crucified.

[fn2] 2016 was uniquely unique in that respect, I think.

[fn3] A couple other caveats: this is totally a US-centric thing. That’s unfortunate, but the church, in spite of its international aspirations, is basically a US church. Our leadership is by and large American, and, to the extent they’re familiar with politics, it’ll be US politics. Also, for pragmatic reasons, they should probably continue not endorsing candidates in Utah, or maybe in the Mormon corridor broadly. I’m not worried about the church’s ability to move the needle on national elections; there just aren’t enough of us. But unless the church wanted people to think of Utah as a theocracy, it should probably largely stay out of party politics in Utah.

[fn4] One final note: I’m not arguing here that the prohibition should or shouldn’t be removed, and I’m not arguing that the church’s moving to endorse candidates would be good or bad for the body politic (though frankly, I don’t think the church is powerful enough that its endorsing candidates would be either good or bad). What I’m saying is, modeling disagreement would be valuable for Mormon culture and religion, and that, if the Johnson Amendment goes away, politics would be a good place to model that disagreement.


Filed under: Current Events, Mormon, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged: 501(c)(3), endorse, johnson amendment, oppose

#MutualNight: The Reunion Project’s “Varanda”

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I’m pretty sure the first straight-ahead jazz album I ever owned was Stan Getz’s “Anniversary!” It’s been a long time (I was probably in 8th or 9th grade at the time), so I don’t remember all of the details, but I know I had it on tape, I’m almost positive I bought it at Sam Goody, and I probably bought it because the store was playing it at the time.

Years later, I opened my mission call to Brazil. When I opened it, I basically knew three things about Brazil: that it was in South America, that they spoke Portuguese, not Spanish, there, and that Brazil was the home of bossa nova. See, Stan Getz was one of the earliest American jazz musicians to popularize Brazilian bossa nova in the U.S., and Tom Jobim’s “Girl From Ipanema” led that charge.[fn1] And although “Anniversary!” wasn’t bossa nova, it introduced me to Getz, who eventually led me to Americanized Brazilian music.

On my mission, I learned that bossa wasn’t the sum total of Brazilian music.[fn2] Music was inescapable. Tracting in the streets, in people’s homes, on buses and out in public, I heard all kinds of music. Samba, pagode, Axé. Música popular brasileira. A member’s husband once pulled out his guitar and played Caetano Velosa’s “Sampa,” which blew me away and, the next time we went to the bridge in the center of São Paulo where vendors sold (probably pirated) CDs, I bought an album of his greatest hits. When I got back to the United States and put that CD on, I was introduced to the world of Tropicália, which was a complete revelation.[fn3]

One thing that I never heard while I was in Brazil? Jazz. I mean, I didn’t really think about it—my high school stabs at it notwithstanding, I wasn’t a serious jazz listener yet. And I suppose that, if you’d asked me, I would have assumed that Brazilian jazz was just bossa nova.

So when I got The Reunion Project’s album “Varanda” the other week, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The Reunion Project is made up of five Brazilian jazz musicians (drummer, bassist, guitarist, pianist, and saxophonist/flautist). I was entirely unfamiliar with any of their previous work. I figured a clean acoustic guitar, a sweet saxophone with a little vibrato, and the tell-tale bossa syncopation.

So I was a little surprised at the opening track, which hits you immediately with an intricate melody played by the sax and the guitar. “Sinuosa” wouldn’t be out of place on a late-period Michael Brecker album, or, frankly, any twenty-first-century straight-ahead jazz album.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s an absolutely wonderful song, leading off an absolutely wonderful album, but I’ve been listening to it for about two weeks straight trying to figure out what makes it uniquely Brazilian.

I think I have an idea, though. “Maracatim,” the third track, starts with a flute.[fn4] The drums come in hinting at samba, the bass duets with the flute for a couple bars, and then you have a unison guitar and piano that interact with the flute in fun and interesting lines.

The opening 45 seconds or so of the wonderfully-titled “Jack and the Goblin Brother” feature a steady piano note (which eventually morphs into a chord), which almost seems unrelated to the bass and drums that come in, only it works. It’s an ostinato, only in the treble, not the bass. And it lends a sense of urgency to the song, and urgency that is only emphasized by the bass riffs, by the drums, and by the melody. (I’m not sure what the story here is, but there’s enough tension that I really want to know more about Jack and about the Goblin.)

But for me, the essential Brazilness of the album coalesces in the title track. “Varanda” doesn’t explicitly adopt the bossa nova rhythm, but the guitar hints at it, suggests a rhythm that it doesn’t entirely employ. The guitar is clean and smooth, and sounds like the kind of classical guitar bossa nova guitarists generally employed. The clarinet is slightly gritty, and brings a hint of klezmer to the sound.

The hint of bossa becomes stronger in “Reunion,” with the flute and piano weaving around a guitar that initially does bossa, and then moves beyond it.

I’m still not entirely sure what constitutes Brazilian jazz. The Reunion Project is a single data point, but if it’s any indication of what is out there, I’ve been missing some great music. Even without the hook of being Brazilian, “Varanda” is a captivating album. The musicians are incredible, and the songs are complex and challenging, while, at the same time, compelling and beautiful. And, unlike a lot of what I enjoy listening to, this album is easily accessible. You can listen carefully or you can let it wash over you.

What I’m saying is, if you served a Brazilian mission, you need to listen. And if you didn’t, you still need to listen. It’s that good.

N.b.: if you’re wondering why I’m talking about a jazz album on a Mormon-themed blog, well, it does have a mission tie-in, but I also explain the #MutualNight posts here.


[fn1] Not that it matters to you, but “Girl From Ipanema” was the first song my wife and I danced to as a married couple at our reception.

[fn2] And I’ll note that I did it as an obedient missionary who didn’t deliberately listen to music for those two years.

[fn3] Also, it turned out, the Caetano album is the only one I bought on my mission that I’ve listened to more than once or twice. I mean, I bought two albums by the Paralamos do Sucesso that I don’t think I’ve ever listened to.

[fn4] Btw, for some strange reason,  I’ve been meaning to do a #MutualNight post introducing some of my favorite non-orchestral flute-tooters.


Filed under: Kulturblog, Music Tagged: anniversary, bossa nova, brazil, jazz, Mission, mutualnight, sam goody, stan getz, tap, the reunion project, tom jobim, varanda
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