Do I seriously have to say this? Again? Look, Obergefell does not mark the end of churches’ tax-exempt status. It’s just not going to happen.

I thought I’d put this bit of end-of-days hand-wringing to bed here, but apparently I didn’t do a good enough job, because it’s still out there, even in Mormon circles (most credibly repeated by Gene Schaerr, who included loss of church tax-exempt status as one of the potential consequences of of the Obergefell decision).

I don’t know Schaerr personally; I’ve heard through the grapevine that he’s an excellent appellate litigator. But appellate litigation is not tax practice, and does not generally provide any insight into the tax law. And Schaerr apparently doesn’t have any significant insight into the law of tax-exempt entities. 

Quick summary of the argument that Obergefell will inexorably lead to the loss of tax-exempt status by churches that oppose same-sex marriage: an entity that violates an established public policy does not qualify as tax-exempt. That’s established law. People who worry about churches’ loss of exemption allege that Obergefell sets the stage for same-sex marriage to be an established public policy, and thus, churches that oppose it, or won’t perform it, will not qualify as tax-exempt.

I already explained why that’s wrong (Constitution plus actual history with the provision), but I thought I’d give some evidence of how the IRS has used the public policy doctrine up until now.

In WestlawNext, I searched the “IRS Private Letter Ruling” database. (Why that database? Because the IRS tells an entity that it did not receive tax-exempt status or that it lost its tax-exempt status in a private letter ruling.) My search was:

advanced: “publc policy” AND “501(c)(3)”

The search pulled up 88 private letter rulings. The earliest was from 1978, and the most recent from 2015.

I then went through the rulings to see if they actually dealt with putative tax-exempt organizations that either were not granted tax-exempt status in the first instance, or that lost their tax-exempt status, as a result of violating public policy. That narrowed my list to just nine private letter rulings. You can see a spreadsheet listing all 88 rulings, and the nine responsive rulings (plus a little more information) here.

I was surprised by how few rulings were responsive, but it turns out the Westlaw private letter ruling database, while it technically goes back to 1950, only captures select rulings prior to 1977.[fn1] Most of the IRS’s disqualification of racially-discriminatory schools happened in the first half of the 1970s, so by the end of the 1970s, there weren’t as many tax-exempt discriminatory private schools. Still, 1978 to the present gives us the most recent 37 years of IRS actions, which seems like a pretty good indication of what the IRS actually does.

And, as the data make clear, the focus of the public policy requirement really was racially-discriminatory private schools. Which makes sense, because the Supreme Court expressly said in Bob Jones University that those schools violated an established public policy, so the IRS didn’t have to stretch to get there.

It’s also worth noting that, during these 37 years, not a single tax-exempt entity lost its exemption for violating public policy. Each of these nine cases involved an entity applying for tax-exempt status, and the IRS denying its application.

So, without further ado, what kinds of entities failed the public policy test? and how did those entities violate it?

Private Schools

Of the nine, five were racially-discriminatory private schools. A couple of the schools had written non-discrimination policies, but the IRS determined that their policies didn’t actually do anything. I just skimmed through the PLRs, but one of the schools, in its 40 years of existence, had never had a single black student, faculty member, or administrator. Another hadn’t in its 30 years of existence.

Polygamy

Two entities were denied exemption because of polygamy. One was applying as a church, the other as an educational institution that promoted polygamy. In both cases, the IRS pointed out that the U.S. had an established federal policy against polygamy dating back to the Reynolds decision of 1879.

Marijuana

One putatively educational and charitable entity was denied an exemption because of pot. I’m kind of fudging on this one, but it was too much fun to not include. The public policy doctrine goes hand-in-hand with the illegality doctrine: an entity that engages in illegal activity also does not qualify as tax-exempt. So an entity that plans on distributing cannabis cannot qualify as tax-exempt.

Pedophilia

So the last one is actually really icky, and inarguably violates public policy. An entity that planned to lobby for changes in laws that criminalize having sex with minors and taxing sexually-exploitative pictures of minors (srsly?) was denied an exemption on public policy grounds.

Conclusion

So there you have it: every applicant for tax-exempt status from the last 37 years that has had its application denied on public policy grounds. It just doesn’t happen, unless you’re a racially-discriminatory private school, or you engage in behavior that is illegal or that is considered really, really icky.

And no entity since 1978 has lost its exemption for violating public policy, much less any church. (In fact, there’s only one church in this list of 9 entities, and I suspect that’s the FLDS church which, had it been better-advised, would have not bothered applying, and just acted exempt.) Which is to say, the church will not lose its tax-exempt status.

And now I’m done.

—

[fn1] Why? Because they really were private until the early 1970s, when Tax Analysts started filing FOIA requests for them. As Westlaw explains, “Coverage begins with 1950 with selected documents through 1976. After 1976 the IRS made these letters public and we include all letters issued by the IRS from 1977 to date.”

A few thoughts I’ve had about living in a post-Obergefell world:

The first thing: the decision, on a practical level, doesn’t change anything for most of us. It certainly doesn’t for me. And I don’t say that because I’m straight. I live in Illinois, where same-sex marriage was instituted legislatively over a year ago. The only substantive difference Obergefell makes in Illinois is that couples who marry here don’t stop being married when they move to Indiana. And, as Cynthia pointed out, the vast majority of Mormons are in a similar boat: most of us (in the U.S., anyway) live in places where same-sex marriage was just as legal on June 25 as it was on June 26. 

Second, marriage will survive. It’s survived bigger changes than this; up until the 19th century, common law jurisdictions appear to have taken quite literally the biblical assertion that a married couple become “one flesh.” Under the legal doctrine of coverture, a married woman basically didn’t have legal rights or obligations apart from her husband. That is, a married woman couldn’t, among other things, hold property, make contracts, or keep her own wages (if she were permitted to work). In some cases, she didn’t even have legal liability for her bad acts, because the law assumed she was acting on behalf of her husband.[fn1]

Coverture slowly disappeared over the course of the 19th century; in the United States, individual states started passing Married Women’s Property Acts as early as 1839, though three states didn’t do so until the end of the century. The United Kingdom passed its Married Women’s Property Act in 1882, giving married women separate legal existence.

I get that, intuitively, allowing two men or two women to marry seems like a bigger change in marriage. But the Married Women’s Property Acts changed the number of legal parties in a marriage from one to two. To me, that feels like a gigantic change, and one that marriage survived.

Moreover, it doesn’t much matter what we think about same-sex marriage; like it or hate it, the Supreme Court has ruled. And ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the Court was right or wrong. As Justice Jackson explained in 1953,[fn2] “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.”

That is to say, we can argue until we’re blue in the face about whether the U.S. should have legal same-sex marriage but, at this point, it doesn’t matter.

Which leads me to my third thought: Obergefell marks both an opportunity and a responsibility for us.

I mean, the church has spent a lot of time focused on its (and our) obligations to strengthen families; one of its principle arguments against same-sex marriage was that it would harm families, which we were under divine stricture to “maintain and strengthen.”

Now we get to put our money where our mouth is. Same-sex marriage is here, and it’s here to stay. If we were to drop our strengthen-the-family rhetoric, if we were to stop working to promote the well-being of families, if we make a hard pivot toward preserving religious liberty, we belie our assertion that our opposition to same-sex marriage was all about the family. (Note that I’m not saying to ignore religious liberty—I believe that’s an important goal, too.)

And the thing is, I don’t think our church leaders were lying. I think they are concerned about family in our culture. And family, frankly, is taking some hits. Marriage is facing serious problems right now—for a lot of reasons, it works really well for the college-educated and affluent, but it works really poorly for the poor and the less-educated. If we don’t have to focus—if we can’t focus—on same-sex marriage, we can transfer some of our energy to help figure out how to make marriage a more viable institution.[fn3]

—

[fn1] Though that was the law, it may not have been intuitive or uncontroversial to everybody. In Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble famously objects to the idea that he is responsible for his wife’s acts:

‘It was all Mrs. Bumble. She would do it,’ urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.

‘That is no excuse,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.’

‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.’

[fn2] (in what, for some reason, is one of the clearest memories I have from my Constitutional Law class)

[fn3] Note that family certainly should not replace God as the object of our worship; while family is an important institution, it is not our sole aspiration. That said, religion isn’t solely here to draw us to the next life—it is also an instrument we can, and should, use to improve this one. So I think family is a legitimate area of focus for the church, just not the principle one.

Last week, Bruce Young, a professor of English at BYU, wrote a response to Richard Bushman’s recent AMA (or, more accurately, a response to Bushman as filtered through hawkgrrrl).

I’m not interested here in responding to Dr. Young’s comments.[fn1] Rather, one of his comments has been playing itself out in my head all week, and I thought I’d spin it out here for others’ thoughts. 

Dr. Young writes:

My conclusion is that Latter-day Saints must of course make Christ the center of their faith and seek to be his disciples. But to be in any sense Latter-day Saint followers of Christ, it makes sense for us also to believe in the reality of prophetic calling and inspiration and in priesthood authority and the importance of ordinances and to “receive”—listen to and accept counsel from—the Church’s leaders. It also makes sense for us to accept the Book of Mormon as a witness of Christ and the Doctrine and Covenants as containing the voice of Christ. Since I believe—not with blind faith but after careful consideration and with what I believe is strong spiritual confirmation—that the things I’ve listed are true and real, I believe that truly following Christ also means accepting them. If others don’t believe these things but want to follow Christ, I certainly think that is better than not seeking to follow Christ at all—and I hope they find a way to support that effort that makes Christ a living reality for them and not just a subjective ideal.

I think he raises—and responds to—a central tension in Mormonism (and, perhaps, in organized religion generally): we need faith in and a relationship with Jesus, but part of that faith and relationship is mediated by a faith community, by a church, and by a set of scriptures and institutional practices.

So my question is, what do we hope for those who leave?

Before answering, a couple assumptions. Let’s assume (1) that the first-best solution is that people stay Mormon. Let’s assume, moreover, that, (2) notwithstanding our first-best solution, some people will leave the church, for whatever reason.

(N.b.: please don’t argue with my assumptions. For the sake of this post, they’re meant to frame the discussion, not to be the subject of the discussion. If you can’t go with me on (1) and (2), this probably isn’t the post to comment on.)

My thoughts? I would hope, generally speaking, that people who leave the church would find another faith community with whom they could worship God and improve their appreciation and understanding of Jesus and the Atonement.

I don’t actually know where most people who leave the church end up, religion-wise. It’s an empirical question, and I have no data.[fn2] To some extent, I think this crystalizes the tension inherent in institutional religion: if we really believe we’re the One True, then maybe deciding we’re not True means nobody is, so there’s no point in pursuing other religion.

At the same time, though, if our One True Church puts Jesus front-and-center, maybe an individual can decide (as I’ve stipulated that some will) that the Mormonism isn’t for her, but that she can better pursue her spiritual path through another institution.

Personally, I find the latter preferable to the former, but I’d love to hear others’ thoughts.

—

[fn1] I think his response is, by and large, insightful, but I also think he misread Dr. Bushman in some important ways.

[fn2] If you have the data, I’d love to see it!

For the last several months, my ward has had monthly priesthood lessons on the Gospel Topics essays that the church has released over the last year or so. I teach in Primary, so I haven’t been to most of them. A friend taught the Race and the Priesthood essay in June, though, and invited me to his class; he did an excellent job, and it was well-received.

And then, three weeks ago, he asked if I’d teach a class. My topics? Book of Mormon and DNA Studies, Book of Mormon Translation, and Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham. (If only the class had been two Sundays later … )

In preparing the lesson, I decided to do two things I haven’t done before. First, I really wanted the class to be discussion-oriented. And I didn’t want anybody to feel like they couldn’t speak honestly, or like their questions were unacceptable. So I decided, upfront, to provide a way for class members to ask questions anonymously. It’s not that the topics are terribly controversial, or that I thought anybody would actually be constrained. But people are often hesitent to ask questions they think will make them look dumb or like an outsider (and this isn’t a uniquely Mormon problem—I see the same thing sometimes with the law students I teach), and anonymity can resolve some of those issues. I thought about providing notecards but, professionally, I use clickers in my classes, and I really like the technological solution. But most of the response systems aren’t free, and even those that are requires some upfront registration.

Still, almost everybody in my ward carries a smartphone. So I set up a Google Form where they could ask whatever they wanted. My friend emailed everybody about what we were going to talk about on Wednesday before the lesson, and included a link to the Form. I sent out a reminder email on Saturday night.

I also debated how to let people know about it on Sunday, in case they weren’t on the email list or were visiting. Finally, I remembered Tumblr. I tried Tumblr out a couple years ago as a professional blog substitute, but it never worked for me.

But I realized I could use it for my lesson. So I set up a new Tumblr and used it almost as if it were Evernote, putting interesting links and pictures and quotations that I came across as I prepared the lesson. Then, on Sunday, I gave my class the URL. That way, they had a link to the Google Form, and, if they decided to look at their phones instead of me, they had something on-topic that they could look at.

In the end, I got four anonymous questions (though one person told me after class that he’d asked one of them). I got plenty of actual discussion, and it was all careful, thoughtful, nuanced, and faithful. From where I sat, it was a spectacular success, something I’d strongly recommend to other priesthood quorums and Relief Societies. And I wouldn’t hesitate to recomment Tumblrs to teachers, either.

I prepared a lesson (which I’ll paste in below); ultimately, I only summarized what I prepared. We spent the bulk of the time in a back-and-forth discussion, which is what I’d hoped for and what really made the lesson.

In light of yesterday’s Joseph Smith Papers Project announcement, though, I hope this is helpful and interesting.

—

Tumblr

Questions link

Lesson Outline (n.b.: these were my notes for the lesson; I didn’t use all of this, and I don’t think all of it was necessary, but it’s what I wanted on the paper in front of me) (also, quick humblebrag: I managed to quote Daniel Kahneman and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and paraphrase David Foster Wallace, all while advancing the lesson)

Goals

1. To learn the history surrounding Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham translation. It’s not immediately obvious why, but the church found these topics important enough that people put in real effort to understand and explain the history and, largely, did an admirable job
2. To the why: I think exploring these things can help us crystalize and understand scripture generally, as well as why we have modern scripture. What role does it play in the gospel? What role does it play in our lives?
3. Other goals for today?

Start: to get some feel for where I’m coming from, I believe that the BoM and BoA are scripture, divinely inspired.

Common theme in conclusion to Book of Abraham, BoM DNA papers: there’s ambiguity. We cannot definitively prove things one way or the other. That is, we live in a world of ambiguity, which is good

DNA

What’s the issue? Studies have shown that Native American DNA comes from Asia (though there may be less exclusivity than previously thought: a 24,000-year-old bone in Siberia shows genes found today in the Middle East, Europe, and Native Americans). At least a couple people have used those studies to say that the BoM can’t related history, because the Lehites can’t be the ancestors of Native Americans

But the analysis of the evidence is only as good as the assumptions underlying it; if we assume that the Lehites were one group among many, it doesn’t mean as much (though it still may be relevant)

Translation

Book of Mormon

How did Joseph translate the Book of Mormon? Basically, he dictated to various scribes: (a) Emma Smith; (b) Martin Harris; (c) Oliver Cowdery; (d) some of the Whitmers

Procedure: Emma Smith Bidamon wrote to Emily Pilgrim in 1870: “Now the first that my <husband> translated, [the book] was translated by use of the Urim, and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly, black, but was rather a dark color.”

Urim and Thummim: Mentioned Ex. 28:30; 1 Sam. 14:41 (though it was left out of early Hebrew manuscripts, so that part’s not in the KJV). Essentially, they appear to be divination stones.

And they appear to be something different than the Urim and Thummim that Joseph Smith got. See Mos. 28:13-15, 20; 8:13 (calling them “interpreters”); Ether 4:5 (also calling them “interpreters”). D&C 17:1 they get the name “Urim and Thummim.” They were apparently glasses-like, because they were called “spectacles”

Seer stone: Joseph had at least one, and maybe more. One he found digging for a well in 1822. He initially used it for finding lost objects and treasure; as he grew into his prophetic calling, he used it for revelation.

Not clear exactly how he used the interpreters. But with the seer stone, he would put it in the bottom of a hat, put his face in to block out the light, and dictate the Book of Mormon.

What did he see? Not clear.  “Br. Hyrum Smith said that he thought best that the information of the coming forth of the book of Mormon be related by Joseph himself to the Elders present that all might know for themselves. Br. Joseph Smith jr. said that it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon, & also said that it was not expedient for him to relate these things &c.”

There are at least two possibilities. One is that he saw words or sentences scroll in front of his eyes. Royal Skousen believes this–in his mind, it was a very “tight” translation, one which Joseph had essentially no input in.

Alternatively, the revelation may have been looser, presenting concepts that Joseph then had to put into his own language. Richard Bushman seems to lean in this direction, and I tend to agree.

The actual witnesses disagree to some minor extent: Martin Harris and David Whitmer both indicate that words appear, but Whitmer says one character appeared at a time, with its interpretation, while Harris says sentences appeared. In any event, they don’t record these recollections until the 1880s, more than fifty years after the translation occurred.

Book of Abraham

Then we get to the Book of Abraham, which starts to put real pressure on what Joseph meant by “translate”

Quick set of meanings:

1. Book of Mormon: to interpret one language into another, with that language written (albeit not necessarily looked at). With the Book of Mormon, he was miraculously translating a language he didn’t know into a language he did
2. Bible: the JST wasn’t what we’d think of as a translation. He didn’t have any ancient language–he was going through a King James Bible, making emendations which seem to sometimes add in material that is missing, sometimes harmonize contradictions, and sometimes expand. It reads a lot like a Midrash (which offers exegesis on scriptural text)
3. Book of Abraham:

The Book of Abraham seems slightly different. He was still translating a language he didn’t know into a language he did, but he seemed more interested in the language this time. He attempted to understand the writing, and to make a grammar.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs couldn’t be interpreted until 1822 in France, with the Rosetta Stone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone 196 BC, carved in ancient Egyptian, Demotic script, and ancient Greek. Discovered by Napoleonic soldier in 1799.

John Gee claims that the ability to read ancient Egyptian wasn’t well-developed until the 1850s; I can’t find that anywhere else

From the fragments we have, as well as the various hieroglyphs we have in the Pearl of Great Price, though, his translation doesn’t seem to match up to the written documents (though, in fairness, parts were destroyed in the Chicago fire). Seems to have been a stepping-stone for inspiration

Translation as we know it: 1835, began to study Hebrew. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V03N02_43.pdf

Studied German in 1844, was reading Luther’s translation of the Bible. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V19N03_87.pdf; King Follett Discourse: http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/discourse-7-april-1844-as-reported-by-willard-richards?p=5&highlight=germ

“Some Mormons were crushed when the fragments turned out to be rather conventional fuerary texts placed with mummified bodies, in this case Hôr’, to assure continuing life as an immortal god. According to the Egyptologists, nothing on the fragments resembled Joseph’s account of Abraham.

“Some Mormon scholars, notably Hugh Nibley, doubt that the actual texts for Abraham and Joseph have been found. The scraps from the Metropolitan Museum do not fit the description Joseph Smith gave of long, beautiful scrolls. At best the remnants are a small fraction of the originals, with no indication of what appears on the lost portions. Nonetheless, the discovery prompted a reassessment of the Book of Abraham. What was going on while Joseph ‘translated’ the papyri and dictated text to a scribe? Obviously, he was not interpreting the hieroglyphics like an ordinary scholar. As Joseph saw it, he was working by inspiration–that had been clear from the beginning. When he ‘translated’ the Book of Mormon, he did not read from the gold plates; he looked into the crystals of the Urim and Thummim or gazed at the seerstone. The words came by inspiration, not by reading the characters on the plates. By analogy, it seemed likely that the papyri had been an occasion for receiving a revelation rather than a word-for-word interpretation of the hieroglyphs as in ordinary translations.”  — Richard Bushman, RSR 191-92

Other Interesting Stuff

Book of Mormon: at the time it was published, most American homes had, at most, a Bible and a couple other specific-purpose books, like school supplies and devotional reading. When Joseph originally set the price at $1.75, that was crazy. CPI says that would be about $40 today
Most people read books published serially in newspapers. In fact, that’s how the Book of Abraham originally appeared

These last couple days, there’s been a thing going around on Facebook. Maybe you’ve seen it. Some anonymous poster’s friend’s relative is high-up in the Boy Scouts and has the inside scoop on why the BSA allowed gay leaders, knows that the church is going to leave BSA, and knows that it’s going to be over gay issues, not in the interest of gender fairness.

And with that description, you know it’s not true, right? Like, it’s as credible as those email forwards your uncle sends every election cycle (frankly, whether your uncle is liberal or conservative, because what really matters is, your uncle’s crazy, amirite?).

And yet, people are credulously sharing and believing it. So, as a public service, and in the interest of not getting email forwards or seeing these kinds of things on Facebook, a quick review of how to evaluate the plausibility of internet rumors: 

(1) It’s not true. Really. You heard it, unsourced, on the internet? There’s not a chance that there’s any credibility to it at all.

(Sorry, got ahead of myself.)

(1) Try Snopes. That takes care of 99% of what your crazy uncle sends.[fn1]

Of course, in the case of a narrow Mormon-related Facebook post, I’d be surprised if Snopes had any information.[fn2]

(2) Google the details. In this case, there are actual details to Google, including this:

They [the BSA] have lost their nonprofit status through litigation over discriminatory practices in several states due to not hiring homosexuals. They were also fighting in the courts in several other states for the same reason and the attorneys feared they will lose. Other lawsuits were being threatened in additional states.

So I Googled boys scouts lose state tax-exempt status. And I learned that, in fact, California threated to take away the BSA’s tax-exempt status. In 2013. It passed the state Senate, but doesn’t appear to have passed the Assembly, much less been signed by the governor.

Other than that, nothing shows up in the search results.

But what, you ask, if it’s just not newsworthy? or the liberal media is burying it? or that journalists are just incompetent? or something? The next step requires a little more access, so I’ve taken care of it for you:

(3) Look at a relevant database. I searched the Litigation and Dockets part of Bloomberg Law. The BSA is involved in a lot of litigation. But once I added tax and/or exempt to the search, only three and ten, respectively, hits came up. And none of those had to do with the BSA losing its tax-exempt status.[fn3]

Now, this isn’t necessarily a definitive answer. It’s certainly possible that the BSA lost tax-exempt status in some state and chose not to challenge the revocation in court. But, while possible, that doesn’t strike me as terribly plausible.

And other parts of the rumor are even less plausible. This, for example:

The attorneys also mentioned that the LDS church was facing the very same issues and were being forced to consolidate much of their businesses in SLC because they were losing or being threatened with losing their nonprofit status in many states due to discrimination.

That’s just stupid. The church doesn’t operate its businesses as tax-exempt. Essentially, tax-exempt entities that earn business income must pay taxes on that business income and, from what I understand, most tax-exempts don’t like to have to deal with the unrelated business income tax. As a result, most tax-exempt organizations—including the church—put their business endeavors in taxable corporate subsidiaries.

That is, the church’s businesses already aren’t tax-exempt; consolidating them in Salt Lake wouldn’t change that. At. All.

Of course, following these steps takes work and some underlying knowledge. Maybe you don’t want to take the time to run the Google searches before you share it. Is there any other way to determine whether or not it’s credible.

Of course. Back when I worked at BYU’s Writing Center, I’d occassionally teach internet research classes. And one of the important skills I taught was how to evaluate the credibility of internet sources.

So take a look at this:

My relative is a big-wig at Boys Scouts. We are talking very high up in the company. Prior to the announcement that the Boys Scouts will now be allowing gay leaders, the big-wigs at Boys Scouts had a meeting with their lawyers. The following occurred. No further information will be given as I do not want my relative to lose his job (this is all very confidential) and I am having someone else post this for me so that it hopefully protects him further. But I 100% trust that he was telling me the truth.

If you count, then, even if the post is based on something that actually in real life happened, at best we’re getting a third-hand account. So at best we’re playing a big game of telephone. So even if we don’t try to run down the details, the most charitable reading of the rumor tells us it’s not an accurate report, and that we shouldn’t share it further.

Look, the church may leave BSA. Or it may not. I really don’t know. All I know is that it takes almost no work to verify that a lot of the details are clearly wrong, and it takes even less to realize that the rumor has serious credibility problems.

—

[fn1] Of course, introducing your crazy uncle to Snopes is a mixed blessing. I did that for my email-forwarder, but he didn’t really get what it was, so he started to forward me his emails before he sent them out to everybody; I, essentially, served as his Snopes.

[fn2] Did a quick Snopes search, and it doesn’t look like it’s there. No surprise, really.

[fn3] Note that, per the Deseret News, the BSA is (or, at least was) facing a civil rights investigation in New York. But that’s unrelated to its tax-exempt status, so can we quit using “tax-exempt status” as shorthand for legal consequences we don’t understand? Pretty please?

Last month, my mom was in Chicago, visiting us. On the last day of her visit, we took her on the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Historic Treasure of Culture and Commerce tour. Over the course of about ten blocks and two hours, we learned about and saw a number of amazing buildings in downtown Chicago. I’d seen all of them at least in passing, of course, but I now know the history, the reasons, and the thought that went into them.

Chicago Cultural Center Tiffany Dome

For me, the highlight was probably the Chicago Cultural Center’s giant Tiffany dome. But you could make a plausible argument for the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tiffany dome in the Marshall Fields (now Macy’s) store, the metalwork of the Sullivan Center, or basically anything else we saw that day. 

I’ve lived most of my adult life in big cities. I moved to New York City in August of 2001 for law school, and, other than a year in the DC metro area, stayed in Manhattan until 2009, when my family and I moved to Chicago. It’s less common here, but in New York, invariably we’d get a vistor get up during sacrament meeting and lead off with some variant of, “I’m so glad for the refuge church provides in this wicked city.”[fn1]

And I get it; as a people, we privilege nature. We go out to nature to commune with God; we consider mountains the next best thing to temples; we hear (or, at least, when I was growing up, always heard) stories in Conference about farms and farming.

And it’s not just us. Gerard Manley Hopkins found God’s grandeur in nature:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Door County sunset.

And I get it. This summer we went back to New York for a couple weeks. But the week before, we went camping at Penninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin. It’s hard to beat that sunset, the fresh air and dirt paths and the lake beaches and the peace of it all. So I get why we look for God in nature.

But God isn’t a god solely of nature; He’s the God of humanity at large. Yes, He created trees, plants, and flowers. But he also created the people who rebuilt my city after the Great Fire, who continue to rebuild it, who work and live and create here. And God’s grandeur is reflected in those people, and in what they create, too.

In fact, God demands that we be one, that we collectively make up Jesus’s body. And to be one, to collectively be a body, we need other people.

In “No Exit,” Jean Paul Sartre famously wrote that Hell is other people. The thing is, he’s wrong. And he’s radically wrong. Other people are reflections of God, and by loving them—by being with them—we are loving God.

Michigan Avenue

And there’s nowhere like a crowded city to interact with people, people who demand and challenge our love. Whether it’s a summer’s day on Michigan Avenue or the first warm Saturday of Spring in Central Park, or just living in an apartment complex with a diverse group of neighbors you don’t have anything in common with, cities test our charity and force us to get better at it. And in those crowds, we interact with and engage God, through His children.

I wanted to say something about the art and culture of cities (maybe boast about my amazing experience at the Chicago Jazz Festival), but maybe that starts to obscure my point.

And my point is this: we can find and engage with God in nature. But He’s not absent elsewhere: His presence is here in Chicago. It is in downtown Manhattan. Maybe it’s not manifest in the way we expect it, or the way we were trained to look for it, but He’s here to be found, and the ambulance sirens and street musicians and trains and cars and cabs and people can’t take that away.
—

[fn1] Or else some joke about great and spacious buildings, which, as several people have pointed out, buildings in New York are great. But spacious?

[Note: there’s a link to a survey at the end. But if you don’t want to wade through the post first, you can access the survey here.]

I’d been practicing law for about a year when my first daughter was born; when she was born, my law firm offered one week of paid paternity leave. A couple years later, when my second was born, it had upped its paid paternity leave to four weeks.[fn1] (It offers 18 weeks of paid leave for primary caregivers, and up to another 18 weeks of unpaid leave.) 

In Conference in 2011, Elder Cook described one of his aspirations for members of the church:

I would hope that Latter-day Saints would be at the forefront in creating an environment in the workplace that is more receptive and accommodating to both women and men in their responsibilities as parents.

Two years later, he talked about a discussion he had in his legal practice. A colleague mentioned to him that she felt she was juggling her work, her children, and her marriage, and wasn’t entirely sure she could do it successfully. As a result, after discussing her experience with other attorneys at his firm,

[w]e decided that our goal would be a family-friendly environment for both women and men. Let us be at the forefront in protecting time for family.

Almost everybody agrees that parental leave is good for children, good for parents, good for families, and even good for employers.[fn2] And yet the United States is at the very bottom of the OECD in terms of federally-mandated paid parental leave, and at or toward the bottom for protected parental leave.[fn3] U.S. federal law requires employers with 50 or more employees to offer a minimum of 12 weeks of parental, and none of it has to be paid.

The FMLA just provides a lower bound, though. I’m curious how the employers of bloggernacle readers stack up. So I’ve put together a survey to find out how much maternity and paternity leave various employers offer.

A couple caveats and requests: first, and most importantly, this is not scientific. I’m not going to get a random sample, and my answers won’t show anything statistically significant about the state of parental leave. Rather, it’ll give us some anecdotes. But they’ll be interesting anecdotes.

Second, the data won’t necessarily be reliable. I sincerely hope that those of you who participate will be honest, because it’s a lot more interesting that way. But your responses will be anonymous, and, for the most part, I won’t have any way to fact-check them.

That said, I’m going to make charts anyways. Because charts are fun.

Also, I’m looking for the policies for full-time employees, the type of people who, in the U.S., get W-2s from their employers.

Thanks!

Survey available here.

—

[fn1] Willkie still offers a generous 4 weeks of paid leave to secondary care providers. In fact, law firms seem to be among those industries at the forefront (in the United States, at least) of parental leave: a friend’s law firm offers 10 weeks of paid paternity leave.

[fn2] See, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

[fn3] Actually, I can’t necessarily say that: the data didn’t include Chile, for some reason, so we may be second-to-last.

I realized the other day that, until I went to BYU, I had probably never watched a Saturday session of Conference (other than Priesthood session).

The thing is, my parents were (and are) tremendously active and participatory in the Church. I can probably count the number of Sundays I missed as a kid on one—or at most, on two—hands. And two of those Sundays had me in the hospital after an appendectomy.

I mean, when I was really little, suburban San Diego didn’t get Conference over cable, so my parents would have had to have bundled the three, then four, of us over to the Stake Center. But even when the station that carried nothing 50 weekends out of the year started showing Conference on the other two, I don’t remember watching Saturday sessions. 

After BYU, I went to New York, where I (and many other members of the Stake) watched Saturday’s and Sunday’s sessions. And I know my parents watch Saturday these days, too.[fn]

And it got me to thinking: when did actually watching Saturday sessions become a thing? Was there a moment in time (the mid-90s, maybe, when I started at BYU)? or was it regional (like, Mormons in Southern California didn’t watch it, but Mormons in Eastern Washington did?)? or something else?

So I asked a bunch of my co-bloggers about their memories of Saturday sessions growing up. Here’s what they remember:

Steve:

It’s part of a modern Reformation. It’s still not standard except amongst authorities.

Mike:

Growing up in Oklahoma, we normally went to the Church on Conference Saturday to listed to a closed-circuit RADIO broadcast of the Priesthood Session. No visuals, just voices. I pretty much remember sleeping through these. #getoffmylawn

WVS:

I grew up in SLC and it was on the RADIO around the house, but no one stopped what they were doing to just sit and listen, kid optional. When we lived outside the Mormon Corridor, I don’t think we picked up Saturdays until maybe 1983 or 1984, then we helped buy a satellite receiver for the ward. Then we went over on Saturdays because it was basically next door. When we ended up at BYU, it was a habit, but still not a sit and listen thing. The church push that conference was the word of the Lord for the next six months, circulated a lot from the 70s on.

Mike again:

For anything but the Priesthood Session, we were completely at the mercy of the local TV stations (this was in Oklahoma), who, if we were lucky, would broadcast one of the Sunday sessions that we could watch in our houses. Usually this required cable, and many people in the ward claimed that this was the only reason that they had cable TV.

There was simply no place that we could go to watch Saturday sessions, with the exception of the Priesthood Session. It was not broadcast anywhere. There was no Internet. Lots of us only got four channels, and one of those was PBS.

I suspect that the increased sense of obligation surrounding Saturdays has something to do with everybody having access to it.

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one with a memory of going to the stake center on a Saturday to listen to an audio broadcast of conference. It only lasted for a couple of years, between the time a television station in Spokane, WA, stopped showing Saturday conference, and the arrival of a satellite dish at our stake center. But it was, in retrospect, really kind of eerie, all of us sitting in the chapel with lights dimmed (why would they have done that, I wonder?), listening to a box up on the pulpit.

Unlike Elder Renlund, my career has not put me in contact with death. And yet, I understand, on a more modest scale, the need and impulse to develop emotional distance from people and problems. Being able to detach myself allows me to function in a world where things don’t always go the way I would have them go.

There’s a downside, though: as long as I remain distant from my neighbors, I cannot “completely fulfill [my] covenant obligation to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.”

Elder Renlund described an experience where his emotional distance was shattered: he had performed a heart transplant on a boy, and the boy lived as healthy and normal a life as he could. A decade and a half after the transplant, Chad ended up in the emergency room in full cardiac arrest. After desparately trying to save him, Dr. Renlund declare him dead. Though sad, he comforted himself with the thought that “Chad has had good care. He has had many more years of life than he otherwise would have had.”

That could have been where the story ended: Elder Renlund had done what he could, and recognized the good life Chad had enjoyed. But, it turns out, that’s not enough: Chad’s parents came in and saw Chad, dead, lying on the stretcher:

For the first time, I saw Chad through his mother’s and father’s eyes. I saw the great hopes and expectations they had had for him, the desire they had that he would live just a little bit longer and a little bit better. With this realization, I began to weep. In an ironic reversal of roles and in an act of kindness I will never forget, Chad’s parents comforted me.

Elder Renlund’s devasating realization: seeing Chad through his parents’ eyes transformed Chad from a person who had lived a good life into someone who was loved, someone who would be missed, someone who was part of a fabric and a community, and who could have had and been more.

We must, Elder Renlund tells us, see others through a parent’s eyes, and through God’s eyes. Only then can we really understand their value. Only then can we truly love and serve them.

There’s a problem here, of course: by seeing them without emotional distance, we open ourselves up to feeling their pain. And that pain can paralyze us. What do we do about that?

In Elder Renlund’s case, he was comforted by the parents who, themselves, were mourning. And Elder Renlund promises that similarly, Heavenly Father will aid and comfort us.

His was a message I’ve heard before: to truly love our neighbor, we need to see them as children of God. But Elder Renlund’s version struck me in a way the message hasn’t before. It’s not enough to intellectually know that our brothers and sisters are children of God—we need to actually see them from the perspective of their loving parents. Only then can I truly see them as they are, and as they could be.

The Church just released its UK financial statements.[fn1] And with the release has come a fair amount of internet hand-wringing about some of the details.[fn2] Two details, in particular, seem to be bothering people: salary information and the lack of spending from the British Church’s humanitarian fund.

So should these things bother you?

Honestly, I can’t say. But I can say that, before you decide to be bothered (or, for that matter, before you decide not to be bothered), there are a couple questions you should ask.[fn3] 

Humanitarian Aid Fund

At the end of 2014, the Church in the United Kingdom had £1,631,000 ($2,542,000) in its Humanitarian Aid Fund. During 2014, it didn’t spend any of that money. So what’s up with that?

I don’t know. But sitting on the fund is neither inherently good nor inherently bad; rather, it depends on all sorts of factors. Among them:

What is the purpose of the fund? I mean, presumably it has a purpose. If that purpose is to provide food to hungry people, then it could always, and completely, be spent down. If its purpose, on the other hand, is to provide relief to people in the United Kingdom who have been displaced because of an earthquake, and there was no earthquake in 2014, it makes sense that none of the money have been spent.

Who is donating to the fund, and why? In 2014, the Humanitarian Aid Fund received £367,000 ($572,000) in donations. Did these donations substitute for donations that otherwise would have been made to UNICEF or Oxfam or USA for UNHCR? In that case, not spending them down imposed a cost on those who needed aid (assuming UNICEF, Oxfam, or USA for UNHCR would have spent the money on humanitarian relief).

But maybe these donations were not substitutes, but rather additional donations, donations that wouldn’t have been made but for the existence of the LDS Humanitarian Aid Fund. If so, as long as the money is eventually spent on humanitarian aid, the fund’s existence—even without spending in 2014—is a net charitable benefit, because it has provided more money to humanitarian aid than otherwise would have been there.

What kind of returns is the fund receiving? Time value of money says a dollar today is worth more than that same dollar a year from now. That’s because if I invest a dollar today and can earn a risk-free 5% return, the dollar today will be worth $1.05 in a year.

For that reason, in an inflationary environment, current consumption is more valuable than future consumption (because prices may rise faster than the risk-free rate of return).

But if I can beat the market, my dollar today may be able to do more than a dollar’s worth of good in a year. Say we’re in a 5% risk-free return world, but I can guarantee that I can earn 10%. Most people’s dollar today can provide either $1 of aid today or $1.05 of aid in a year; mine can provide $1 of aid today, but $1.10 of aid in a year.

Add to that that my colleague who studies happiness says there isn’t a similar time-value-of-happiness. That is, happiness tomorrow has the same current value as happiness today.

In that case, barring a pressing immediate need, it may be better for me to save my aid money and use it in the future when it can buy more aid than it could today.

How much aid can you get for £1,631,000? Really, I don’t know.

What is the legal regime surrounding the fund? I mean, does it have to be used in the UK? Can it be used anywhere? Are there legal restrictions on what it can be spent on?

So is it bad (or good) that the Church has sat on its Humanitarian Aid Fund? I’ll repeat: I have no idea. Good or bad depends on the answers to these, and plenty of other, questions. Basically, I’m just trying to complicate things here: financial statements lay out how money flows, but they, alone, don’t give us any normative guidance. We have to bring both context and our values into the picture to determine good or bad.

Salaries

The salary objection is much less interesting to me, but I’ll lay it out anyway. One person employed by the Church made between £160,000 and £170,000 (roughly $250,000-$265,000), while 23 made in excess of £60,000 (about $94,000). Is that offensive and obscene?

I don’t know. But I do know some questions to ask. For example, what kinds of jobs were those highly-paid employees doing? What is the average pay for those kinds of jobs? What do other nonprofits in the UK pay similar employees? How about other churches?

Other Stuff

Confession: I’ve only skimmed through the financials.[fn4] There probably is other interesting stuff in there. But again, financial statements are a stylized representation of reality, not reality itself. And they’re normatively neutral: the flows of assets and money don’t tell us the should story; we have to construct that around them. And for those of us not well-acquainted with nonprofit financials or church financials more broadly, they story they tell we hear in fits and starts.

So yes, it’s both interesting and valuable that we have access to some financial information about the Church. But this British financial disclosure isn’t a silver bullet that proves either that the Church is true or that it is a corrupt scam. It just tells us how money flows.

—

[fn1] Q: But I thought the Church didn’t release financial information?!?

A: It doesn’t in the US. Under US tax law, most tax-exempt organizatons have to file an information return with the IRS, and that information return is made public. Churches, however, are exempted from the information return requirement. (If you want a lot more detail about this, you could read my Dialogue article about the Church’s 20th-century experiment with financial disclosure.) UK law, on the other hand, apparently requires financial disclosure, even from churches.

[fn2] As a totally unrelated side note: for those who want to see the Church start to be more financially transparent, I can think of worse ways than instinctively and reflexively criticizing those disclosures the Church makes, without trying to understand them in context. But frankly, I can’t think of a whole lot.

[fn3] Note that these are representative questions; they are, by no means, all of the relevant questions one can ask.

[fn4] Day job, family, and all that.

By Common Consent may seem like an odd place to review Mehrsa Baradaran‘s excellent How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2015) [Amazon]. Although Professor Baradaran is Mormon, the book has little explicitly Mormon content (I mean, it does mention a couple of Sen. Wallace Bennett’s interactions with the regulation of banks, but that’s as close as I remember it getting).

That said, as Mormons, we’ve been encouraged to become informed and involved in our communities. And understanding banking, especially as it relates to the poor, is, if not absolutely essential to that charge, at least tremendously important. 

And you can’t get through Professor Baradaran’s book without becoming more informed. Over the last half decade or so, a lot has been written about the financial crisis. And Professor Baradaran has made a worthy contribution to this crisis library. She doesn’t spend a lot of time retreading what I’ve seen in other books—she doesn’t really trace the machinations associated with determining whether to save the banks, and which banks to save, or the details of the financial instruments that blew up, or much of the current intrigue.

Instead, she lays out the history of banking, with a focus on its relationship to the state. Banks, she explains, have been controversial in the United States since its founding; they’re essential to grow an economy and put money where it needs to go but, by gathering money together, banks can accrue outsized power and influence.

Originally, banks in the U.S. were local; only during the Civil War, when the country needed lots more money than it had, banks really become national. And even then, they were tightly regulated. That regulation ensured both that the banks received necessary support from the government, and that the banks were roughly democratic in how the treated depositors and borrowers. Even with regulation, though, banks tended to shift power to urban areas and to the wealthy, at the expense of the rural and the poor.

In her book, Professor Baradaran traces several good banking movements (including credit unions and savings and loans) that were originally meant to provide banking services to a broader population than the banking industry did. She also traces the downfall of these various attempts, as they either transformed into the banks they were meant to supplement, or otherwise failed.

As deregulatory pressures mounted, the banks managed to almost completely shake their social-contract obligations toward the poor, leaving the poor unbanked and at the mercy of expensive and sometimes-unsavory fringe lenders. She explains in significant detail why this state of affairs is bad, and recommends a solution (postal banking, but you’ll want to read her book to understand why).

So far, so good, right? But how, you ask, does the history and policy of banking have anything to do with Mormonism?

Mormon discourse is tremendously wary of debt. In General Conference in April 1938, President J. Reuben Clark famously warned the Saints of the dangers of incurring debt:

Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours; it never has short crops nor droughts; it never pays taxes; it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused and without home and so has no repairs, no replacements, no shingling, plumbing, painting, or whitewashing; it has neither wife, children, father, mother, nor kinfolk to watch over and care for; it has no expense of living; it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.

Church leaders have continued to encourage this kind of retiscence around debt—essentially counselling us to avoid it as a form of bondage. In reaction to the economic realities of our time, though, they’ve allowed that in certain circumstances—buying a home or a car or financing an education—debt may be necessary. But consumer debt, aside from these big-ticket items? No.

What struck me as I read Professor Baradaran’s book was how class-specific these exceptions are. Homes, cars, and higher education are things that the middle class and above acquire and finance. They are, in many cases, outside of the reach of the poor.

And the poor aren’t using debt to fund excess consumption. They’re borrowing money (at exorbitent rates) to pay their rent, to buy food, to smooth their spiky income. They’re borrowing to meet financial emergencies—more than half of Americans couldn’t get $400 without selling something or borrowing money.[fn1] They’re perfectly aware that debt—and that borrowing from usurious fringe lenders—is not ideal. But they’re stuck: they need their housing, their medical care, their food, their car.

That’s not to say that Pres. Clark was wrong—he’s absolutely right that we should avoid debt to the extent possible. But it strikes me that this proscription on debt should be one of those inward-looking things. That is, even as we personally avoid debt, we also need to recognize the importance of being able to access money. As we look to alleviate poverty, we need to consider policies that will ease the poor’s access to borrowing. We shouldn’t let our personal ethic of avoiding debt bleed into a broader societal ethic.

Back to How the Other Half Banks: it is well-written, fascinating, and important. I can’t recommend it highly-enough. It’s essential if you’re interested in the barriers that the poor face or how to alleviate them. But it’s also an essential introduction to a world many of us don’t inhabit, a book that can open our eyes to the world around us.

—

[fn1] The other month, we spent more than that in emergency room copays. We were fortunate both we could pull that money out of our savings account and that we have health insurance (because it would have been thousands, not hundreds, without insurance), but we didn’t have any choice but to come up with that money. That is, overshooting $400 isn’t that hard.

God’s Army came out my senior year at BYU. And it was a revelation. Fifteen years later, I can still remember the impact of seeing a movie, an actual real live movie, about my people, about my experiences. One that took those experiences seriously.

At the time, I was studying English, with a focus on creative writing. And I was thinking seriously—or, at least, as seriously as I could—about Mormon art. I mean, there was plenty of kitsch, plenty of inspiring-but-not-artistic stuff out there. But Richard Dutcher created a Mormon movie without the kitsch, something quality.[fn1]

After I graduated, though, and moved away from Utah, Mormon filmmaking had almost zero impact on me. Some Mormon cinema was great—I have New York Doll sitting in my DVD collection. Some of it wasn’t. Most of it I never saw, because it never came to New York or Chicago, where I lived. So I was excited to hear that Once I Was a Beehive was going to make its Chicago debut on Friday, October 30. 

I was excited because I’d heard rave reviews of the movie, both from friends and in various online reviews (including John F.’s review on BCC and Eric D. Snider’s review). And now I get to add my voice to the praise.

Actually, I’m going to give two reviews: mine and my second-grade daughter’s. In fact, hers first. About three quarters of the way through the movie, she leaned over to me and said, “This is such a good movie.” After it was over, she said, “Today was the best day of my life. I didn’t learn anything at school[fn2] and then I saw this amazing movie.” And in the day since we saw it, her enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed at all.[fn3]

And with that, my review: it’s a wonderful family film. And I hesitate to say family film, because as often as not, those words mean that a movie is sloppy, scatalogical, slapstick, and stupid, but doesn’t use bad words or have sex or violence.

I mean, there are no bad words, sex, or violence in Once I Was a Beehive—I didn’t cringe once at having my daugher with me. But it’s not a family movie just because of what it doesn’t have—it’s a family movie because of what it does. The story is carefully- and well-constructed, and it’s engaging. At the very beginning, my daughter wasn’t smiling, and she whispered to me that the movie was sad. (It is sad at the beginning.)

And then, something funny happened. And she got a grin on her face. And the grin was on her face the rest of the time.

The movie’s humor isn’t cheap—the humor comes from the interaction between girls and women, girls and women who are mostly, but not entirely, sure they want to be where they are, doing what they’re doing.[fn4]

It wasn’t just my daughter, either: this is a family movie in the most inclusive sense. My daughter loved it, but I did too. The writing is solid, the acting is excellent. And the filming is beautiful—I’ve written that I love the beauty of the city, and this is clearly not a beauty of the city movie; I don’t recall ever seeing an urban (or even suburban) outdoor shot. But I also love the beauty of the outdoors, and the scenery is, well, scenic.

Is it an accurate depiction of Girls Camp? I don’t frankly know.[fn5] But I do know that what happens in the movie is believeable, if exaggerated. (I mean, it’s largely a comedy, so it has to be exaggerated.)

And is it just for Mormons? Again, I can’t say for sure—I’ve never not been Mormon. But it’s not preachy and aggressive, and it doesn’t talk inside baseball. We see the movie’s world through the eyes of someone unfamiliar with the church, which provides a window through which an outsider could approach Girls Camp. And when I saw it, the theater had a number of audience members who weren’t Mormon, who seemed to enjoy it. For what that’s worth.

What I’m saying is, if you haven’t seen it, you really should. It’s rolling out here and there around the U.S. and Canada, and it’s worth keeping an eye on this site to see if it’ll be near you.

And if you’re in Chicagoland, we’ve got it at least until Thursday.

—

[fn1] At least, that’s how I remember experiencing it. I haven’t seen it in at least ten years, though.

[fn2] N.b.: there’s a little bit of second-grade hyperbole there; I know she took a math test, and I know her teacher taught her. But her school also had its Halloween parade, and her class started the day with a dance party, and I’m honestly glad that my job doesn’t require me to keep the attention of second graders the day before Halloween.

[fn3] In fact, she’s already made me promise that we’ll buy the DVD when it comes out.

[fn4] John points this out in his review, but I wanted to second it: the movie clearly passes the Bechdel test. It mostly follows ten teenage girls and three women; the men, when they appear, aren’t central to the story. And, given that it’s a story about Girls Camp, that’s right.

[fn5] My wife has been to Girls Camp at least 11 of the 13 years we’ve been married, but, for a bunch of reasons, couldn’t see it with me Friday night. She’ll see it next week, and then I’ll have a better idea of its accuracy.

On a friend’s Facebook this morning, and in light of yesterday’s policy change forbidding the minor children of gay couples from being blessed or baptized, a friend of a friend asked why anyone would stay in the church.

For me, the answer is complicated and messy, but it has a couple parts. The selfish reason is, it has been a force for good in my life. It has helped me become the person I am, it has helped me develop a relationship with the divine, it has helped me establish my moral compass.

The unselfish reason is, I’ve seen the church work wonders in others’ lives. The lives of people who aren’t as fortunate as me, who financial or familial situations would impede the best of us. I’ve seen members reach out to those in pain, to lift those who have struggled. I’ve personally been on both ends of that comfort and that lifting.

So I’m deeply loyal to the church.

Seriously. I’ve accepted every calling I’ve received, I’ve given time and money toward building the church and the Kingdom. I’ve studied, I’ve prayed. I attend church. I attend a lot of church. Like, when my family is on vacation, we go to the full three-hour block, even where nobody knows us and nobody would care.

Which makes the church’s policy announcement all the more jarring. Jarring because it is both unnecessary and wrong. It hurts children, children that we believe (with strong scriptural justification) are innocent, in fact cannot sin. It closes the door on people whom we could love, people whom we could help and who could help us. It feels pointedly un-Mormon and un-Christian.

I’m typing this slower than I usually type, because this is hard to write. But I don’t have any choice. I’m loyal to the church. And that loyalty demands that I do what is in my power to help the church move forward, and to help it correct course when it falters.

And yesterday it faltered. And yet, in spite of the misstep, the core of the church is good, the core is loving and salvific and beautiful. And I want, I hope, that the church realizes this was a mistake, jettisons it, and corrects its course.

We’re honored to have a guest post from Stephanie Hoffer. Stephanie is a professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. She is an educator, a scholar, and an advocate, and arguably the preeminent authority on the ABLE Act. We’re excited that she’s agreed to introduce us to this important new law.

My son George is a bright shining star. He is almost five, and he loves to read out loud, play the harmonica, and paint. He also happens to have Down Syndrome. He is smart, funny, and loving, and I can’t imagine life without him. I am grateful every day for the privilege of being his mom. And like any other mom of any other child, I worry every day about his future.

Our life with George hasn’t always been easy. On the day that he was born, a social worker came to our hospital room and told me that we should do two things right away: apply for Medicaid and write George out of our will. I was stunned. I choked back the inevitable tears and asked why. “Because,” she replied, “they are really expensive.” Stung by the label “they,” and hurt by the thought of not being able to save for my precious baby’s future, I asked her to please leave. 

Later, other moms gave me the same advice. Many individuals with developmental or other disabilities rely on social services, like job assistance, transportation assistance, and coordination of medical care, to remain independent in the community. These social services commonly are paid for, at least in part, with federal Medicaid dollars. As a result, individuals who require disability-related services often must qualify for Medicaid in order to receive them. Disability-related services typically are not covered by private health insurance, and in many parts of the country, it is difficult to purchase and coordinate these services privately.

Medicaid eligibility rules are strict. In order to qualify, individuals with disabilities must have very little income, and almost no assets. In many states, an individual cannot have more than $1,310 in earned income each month and no more than $2,000 of total savings. And gifts of money given by family and friends are treated as income, which jeopardizes the loved one’s eligibility. Furthermore, the Affordable Care Act did nothing to help people in this situation.   While a person with a disability may qualify for medical coverage under the Medicaid expansion, access to disability-related services is not included. For those services, a person must qualify under the older, more Draconian rules.

The Medicaid eligibility rules create obvious problems for individuals with disabilities who have the potential to work with the aid of disability-related services. Earning income means losing services, and losing services means getting fired. A less obvious problem, though, arises for individuals with disabilities who are unable to work. Even though these people may have no earned income, family inheritance may disqualify them from Medicaid. This problem affects not only the wealthy, but anyone who stands to inherit more than $2,000 upon the death of a loved one.

Until recently, parents and individuals with significant disabilities had two basic estate planning options to preserve Medicaid eligibility: the responsible sibling or the special needs trust. Leaving money with a responsible sibling is risky. It is exposed the sibling’s creditors. It can be lost in a divorce. If the sibling dies, it might be dispersed.   But putting money in a special needs trust isn’t much better. Although the money is protected from creditors, the Medicaid law requires that the trustee have absolute discretion over the money and that the money not be used for expenses that could be covered by government programs. In other words, an individual who is a beneficiary of a special needs trust can never demand money from the trust, and if the trustee decides to distribute money, the individual beneficiary cannot use it for ordinary adult expenses like rent, groceries, or even some utilities.

It was against this bleak backdrop that Congress passed the ABLE Act last December. It was a watershed moment for many individuals with serious disabilities.  The new law permits states to create tax-preferred savings programs similar to § 529 college savings programs.  To date, over thirty states have passed enabling legislation and several more have introduced bills. Importantly, contributions to the account, investment earnings inside of the account, and qualified distributions from the account are not counted against Medicaid eligibility. With an ABLE account, parents can save for a child’s future and adults can have meaningful employment without jeopardizing their eligibility for Medicaid.

An individual is eligible to open an ABLE account if she has a severe disability with an onset date prior to age 26.  Parents can also open the account on an individual’s behalf, even if that person is an adult. Each eligible beneficiary can have only one account. Deposits to the account are not deductible for federal income tax purposes, but investment earnings inside of the account are tax free. In addition, some states may provide tax deductions for contributions, similar to college savings contributions. The tax benefit isn’t the important part though. Rather, ABLE accounts allow beneficiaries to spend their own funds on costs that previously would have disqualified them from Medicaid, like groceries and rent.

Money in an ABLE account can be used for “qualified disability expenses,” which are defined broadly as “any expenses related to the eligible individual’s blindness or disability.”  They include education, housing, transportation, personal support, health & wellness expenses, and a number of other things.  According to the IRS, even everyday expenses may qualify.  For instance, a “smart phone” could be disability-related because it is “an effective and safe communication or navigation aid for a child with autism.” Of course, if an ABLE beneficiary uses money from the account for a non-approved expense, that money counts as income for purposes of determining Medicaid eligibility. It’s also subject to a 10% federal tax penalty. If any money remains in the account at the end of the beneficiary’s life, it goes first to repay Medicaid, and whatever is left over can go back to the family.

The ABLE Act is a huge improvement over the law prior to its passage.  It allows individuals with disabilities to cover their own expenses—something that was much more difficult under the old rules—and it helps them save.  I advocated for the law’s passage in my home state of Ohio, and I was thrilled when it passed.  But the law isn’t perfect, and Congress and the states could do more to help individuals with disabilities who are among the most vulnerable in our communities.  For instance, the new law does very little for families who have no spare cash to save. In addition, contribution limits on the account prevent parents and individuals with disabilities from saving as much money as they will need for retirement, which is troubling, since many will not significantly contribute to Social Security during their working lives. And because the account can only take relatively small amounts of money at any given time, parents in my position still have to disinherit their children, which sends a terrible message about how society values relationships of dependence among family members versus dependence on the government.

So what are the contribution limits? An ABLE account can accept no more than the federal gift tax exempt amount per year ($14,000 in 2015), and over the account’s lifetime, it can receive no more than the state’s applicable limit for college savings accounts (typically in the range of $300,000 – $400,000). Not only do these limitations cause problems when it comes to planning for the death of a parent, but they bear no relation to the cost of living one’s life with a disability.

Placing contribution limits on the ABLE account, which protects access to services needed for independence and work, makes very little sense in a society that values those things.  A better solution would have been to remove the account’s contribution limits. Since any money left in the account goes to repay Medicaid, Congress should want to encourage high balances in ABLE accounts, not limit them. Or better yet, Congress could allow everyone with a significant disability to have access to Medicaid’s coordination and discount buying power for disability-related services either without regard to income and savings, or through a buy-in program (which exists, but only to a very limited extent, in some states). Allowing greater access to disability-related services would go further toward inclusion of individuals with disabilities in the community and workplace, and it may even save the government money as individuals with disabilities rely less on the government and more on their own earnings and their own families.  So while the ABLE Act was a tremendous step forward for individuals with disabilities, more work remains to be done.

In the meantime, state treasurers’ offices are hard at work designing the very welcome addition of ABLE programs to their portfolio of services. If you are interested in opening an account, check your state treasurer’s website. Some states’ programs are expected to be up and running as early as the first quarter of 2016. In Ohio, George and I are waiting with joy.

For the last day or so, English-language media has been awash in news of a new-old Icelandic religion: Zuism.

Okay, maybe “awash” is the wrong word; still, Zuism has captured the media’s imagination.

What is Zuism? It’s a recent Icelandic religion that focuses on the worship of ancient Sumerian gods. Originally established in 2013, in 2014, it only had four registered members. Today, though, it appears to have roughly 3,000 members (or 1% of the Icelandic population), an explosive growth rate. What’s leading to that crazy growth?

If you believe the media, taxes. 

At this point, my post becomes a little bit tentative; I neither speak Icelandic nor have any significant familiarity with Icelandic tax law. Still, piecing together what I can from media reports, this is what it looks like:

Iceland has an established church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland. As an established church, the government supports it financially. But Iceland also has a strong tradition of religious freedom; as a result, it also supports other registered religions.

It doesn’t support religions through a dedicated church tax (like Germany’s, which I wrote about last year). Rather, the government includes the support of churches in its annual budget; it calls that support sóknargjald (which seems to be translated “parish fees” in most accounts). The sóknargjald a church receives in 2015 is 824 krona[fn1] (about US$6.38) per month for each registered member who is at least 16.

Because the funding for sóknargjald is just part of the general income tax that citizens owe, each Icelandic taxpayer supports religion whether or no she belongs to a religion; she can’t avoid paying her share merely by not registering with any religion.

Enter Zuism. Notwithstanding the ancient worship of Sumerian gods, Zuism is essentially a political protest, aiming to end the public support of religion. And joining may be a good financial move: the church has promised to refund to its members the amount of sóknargjald it receives from the government.

All of this leaves me with a couple questions. The big one is this: though news reports say that the government has budgeted about US$80 per taxpayer for the sóknargjald, because funding comes from the general income tax (a progressive income tax), each taxpayer is not paying US$80. Rather, higher-taxed taxpayers bear a larger portion of it than lower-taxed taxpayers. I assume Zuism isn’t going to ask members to share their tax returns and, from there, calculate how much to give each of them; administratively, it’s much easier to just pay it out pro rata. But it’s not 100% accurate to do it that way.

Also, apparently the sóknargjald related to individuals who are not registered with any religion goes to the University of Iceland. If that’s true, that adds a wrinkle to the claim that nonbelievers (or, at least, unregistered individuals) are bearing the cost of religion. [Update: I’ve been told in the comments that none of the sóknargjald goes to the University of Iceland anymore.] The governmental support of religion may be problematic, but in Iceland, at least, it may be more complicated than it initially appears.

Of course, like I said, I’m not an expert on anything Iceland; if you are, I’d love to hear where I’m wrong on this.

—

[fn1] The link is in Icelandic, but Google Translate is pretty cool.

Let’s take as a given that the essentials of any Christmas music collection are Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald, maybe Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, Vince Guaraldi. You add in some Mariah Carey and you’ve basically got an FM radio station’s all-Christmas-all-December playlist. And, in all honesty, all the Christmas music you need. I mean, if a musician releases a Christmas album that’s not at least as good as these albums, the album isn’t really all that necessary.[fn1]

And yet. Every now and then, I hear a Christmas album that does something new. Yesterday, for example, I heard Matt Wilson’s Christmas Tree-O. And then I listened to it again. And a third time.[fn2] 

The album isn’t really new—it was released in 2010. But it’s new to me. And it is a stunning Christmas album, a jazz trio sans piano that largely eschews jingle bells and other traditional signifiers of Christmas music in favor of melodic left turns, walls of sound, and unexpected but fortunate improvisational choices. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the musicians are clearly having a blast, and the songs are, as often as not, hilarious.

In listening, it helps to already be familiar with the melodies. It’s not that they’re missing or disguised, but this is definitely free jazz. And free jazz is not our traditional language of Christmas. But there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.

The album isn’t on Spotify, but you can hear the Tree-O’s version of “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch” here, and they play an NPR Tiny Desk Concert here. (I’m sad I can’t link to their version of “Mele Kalikimaka,” my favorite song on the album.)

So that’s my 2015 Christmas album discovery; what new (to you, at least) Christmas music have you been listening to this December?

—

[fn1] Cf. Jeffrey Steingarten, It Must’ve Been Something I Ate, discussing barely-edible chocolate chip cookies: “And yet the dilemma is so easily solved that it hardly deserves the name of dilemma. All you need do is go to the supermarket, wheel your cart to the Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Morsels aisle, grab hold of a happy yellow bag of Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Morsels, and let the recipe printed on the back—nearly unchanged for the past 68 years—guide the rest of your shopping and baking experience. Et viola—a perfectly nice chocolate-chip cookie, especially if you go light on the flour. Then how is it possible for anybody to bake an inferior specimen? That’s my point.”

[fn2] I should note that Matt Wilson’s 2014 album Gathering Call made my top-5-of-2014 list.

No.

I mean, I get why people think otherwise. Recently, people have been excommunicated, among other reasons, for advocating women’s ordination to the priesthood and for marrying the person they love.[fn1] Ammon and his cohort have adopted the grammar of Mormonism and Mormon scripture to justify their armed trespass (or sedition or terrorism or whatever—let’s just say their lawbreaking), a justification that the church forcefully and unequivocally rejected.[fn2] Their actions are a clear violation of the 12th Article of Faith and certainly do more harm, both socially and to the reputation of the church, than trying to get into the Priesthood session of Conference or marrying a same-sex partner, and it seems unfair that Bundy et al. won’t face any ecclesiastical consequences.[fn3]

But that doesn’t mean Bundy—or other participants—should be excommunicated. The disappointment that they don’t appear to be facing any church discipline parallels the disappointment many have expressed that the government is treating them with kid gloves. It’s not, I think, that anybody wants to see the FBI go in with guns blazing. But in recent high-profile cases, police haven’t exercised the same restraint around black men and women. That police would shoot a 12-year-old African-American boy with a fake gun, but not do anything about a dozen white men with real guns actually breaking the law, seems unjust and unfair.

But, as Jamelle Bouie convincingly lays out at Slate, “why won’t they shoot at armed white fanatics isn’t just the wrong question; it’s a bad one.” Going in violently against white criminals doesn’t reduce the chances that the police will go in violently against black criminals; rather, it legitimizes state violence.

Similarly, excommunicating Ammon Bundy wouldn’t do anything to help gay couples or advocates for women’s ordination. Instead, it would further legitimize excommunication as a tool for dealing with sinners and bad actors, and would move the church further into the space of a resort for saints, rather than a hospital for sinners. The problem is, that’s not what the church is for. Elder Wirthlin explained that

[t]he Church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father.

Excommunication shunts off some of those imperfect people, and its threat discourages other imperfect people from participating. And that hurts all of us.

So no, Ammon Bundy shouldn’t be excommunicated, as satisfying as that should be. The church, with its forceful denunciation of his acts and of their religious basis, responded perfectly, and I applaud that response. It’s a model of how the institutional church should react to members acting badly.

—

[fn1] I’d be thoroughly remiss if I didn’t point you to Mike Austin’s take on this, of course.

[fn2] Among other things, the church says that “[t]his armed occupation can in no way be justified on a scriptural basis. ”

[fn3] Of course, they’ll probably serve jail time, so there’s always that.

Today is David Bowie’s 69th birthday. Today David Bowie released ★ (“Blackstar”), his 26th studio album in his five decade-ish career. And Seattle’s KEXP has declared today Intergalactic Bowie Day.[fn]

I’m not part of the Bowie cognoscenti. I mean, I’m familiar with him in the way that anybody who’s part of American culture is familiar with him—I know about Ziggy Stardust, I’ve seen Labyrinth, I’m familiar with his classic rock radio staples, I laughed at Vanilla Ice’s claim that “Ice Ice Baby”‘s baseline differed in some substantial way from Queen and Bowie’s “Under Pressure,” but I never really dug in deeply to Bowie’s oeuvre.

But then, Tuesday night,  I read the New York Times’s article on the upcoming “Blackstar.” That Bowie, enamored of Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly,” had decided to use a jazz quartet as the center of his band. Intrigued, I listened to Donny McClasin’s “Casting For Gravity.” Over and over. McClasin and his band were really, really good—groove-based, but really outside.

Rock musicians playing with jazz musicians is nothing new, of course. Joni Mitchell worked with Charles Mingus and the musicians from Weather Report in the 1970s. When Sting went solo, half of his band came from Wynton Marsalis’s group.

“Blackstar” strikes me as different, though. It’s not a jazz album, but neither is it a traditional rock album. Bowie’s singing, for the most part, is simple, melodic, and calm. But underneath, the band skitters, enters, exits, grows, and shrinks. It’s harmonically interesting and rhythmically interesting. I don’t want to say the music contrasts with Bowie’s singing, because his singing integrates seamlessly with the music, but together, they create restless, uncentered world, a world that doesn’t land or stop, but just keeps moving.

I don’t know where exactly this fits into Bowie’s discography; I suspect (based on the many reviews I’ve read) that it’s a departure from anything he’s done before. But Bowie’s career seems to be constant progression, constant departure. And just because he’s 69, it appears, he hasn’t decided to comfortably land.

Know that the two catchiest songs on the album (“‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” and “Girl Loves Me”) are marked “Explicit” by Apple Music, and probably deserve it. (I mean, they’re not Kendrick Lamar, but there are some bad words).

But you really should celebrate Intergalactic Bowie Day by listening to “Blackstar.” It looks like you can stream it on Amazon Prime, Spotify, and Apple Music, at least. And once you’re done, go to KEXP.org to listen to other periods of Bowie’s work.

—

[fn] Yeah, there’s not really any Mormon connection here. But Bowie!

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two years ago, as part of the Mormon Lectionary Project, John offered us a remembrance of and a powerful sermon on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[fn1]

Today is, again, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And, while I can’t add to what John said, or make it more powerful, I can offer this quick reflection: 

My oldest daughter’s school has taken seriously the call to make today a day of service.[fn2] Its Friends of group has encouraged all of the kids to perform some kind of service today, take a picture of themselves, write up what they’ve done, and bring the picture and the write-up into school next week. The pictures will ultimately be incorporated into a work of art commemorating service and Dr. King’s legacy.[fn3]

Celebrating Dr. King’s legacy through serving has a particular resonance in Mormonism. Like all Christians, we have Jesus’ assurance that “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of theleast of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

And while that should be enough, lest there were any doubt, we also have King Benjamin, who tells us that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

So let’s celebrate Dr. King’s life and legacy today. And in part, let’s do it by joining my daughter’s school in serving our fellow beings, and thus, our God.

—

[fn1] In conclusion, John reminded us to

embrace that objective morality, accessible by all through human reason as illuminated by the Light of Christ (though regrettably ignored for many generations) and existing outside of and above temporally and geographically determined norms and opinions, which has always required the rejection of the subjugation, oppression, and mistreatment of others.

[fn2] The slogan is, “Make It a Day On, Not a Day Off.”

[fn3] I should say, as an aside, that I’m tremendously proud of my daughter, who planned and, together with her siblings, performed service this morning. I’m not trying to boast, so I’m not going to say what she did, except that, in planning and implementation, it was something within reach of an elementary school-aged child.

Okay, so this post isn’t actually about Ted Cruz; it’s more inspired by an article McKay Coppins posted today on recent Evangelical criticisms of Ted Cruz. In short, Cruz, a Baptist, is courting the Evangelical vote. But he’s facing pushback from some Evangelicals (including Mike Huckabee), who argue that his charitable giving (roughly 1% of his income) belies his claim of authentic Christianity which, according to them, demands a 10-percent tithe.

So tithing. As Mormons, we’re squarely in the 10-percent-(of-gross-or-net-or-something)-to-the-church camp. But is ten percent (a tithe, after all) to the church the inevitable conclusion for what represents appropriate religious giving? Not surprisingly, no.

Judaism features a number of different religious giving obligations; one is the maaser kesafim, which is pretty close to what we consider tithing. Certain Orthodox Jewish communities believe that if a poor person appears before you, you have a religious obligation to help that poor person. Maaser kesafim (which means “a tenth of the money”) is a way to set that money aside in advance. In harmony with its literal meaning, many rabbis believe that paying ten percent of your income meets the maaser kesafim obligation, though many see 20% as the ideal.[fn1]

Muslims pay zakat, which is the Third Pillar of Islam. Zakat is similar to maaser kesafim in that it is used to support the poor. Unlike maaser kesafim (and most Christian tithing), though, zakat is paid on wealth, not on income. Muslims are religiously obligated to pay 2.5% of their wealth in excess of an exclusion amount.[fn2]

Christians are split in a number of ways on tithing. Some believe that tithing (at least defined as one-tenth of one’s income) is an Old Testament law that was done away after Jesus came. Others believe that Christians need to pay 10% of their income, either to their churches or to their churches and other charities.[fn3]

Of course, that variation in Christian beliefs on tithing probably doesn’t get Ted Cruz off the hook in Evangelical circles; among the Christian religions that believe in a 10-percent tithe are Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism, and Cruz’s Southern Baptist Convention.[fn4]

Of course, even Mormonism hasn’t always believed in the 10-percent tithing thing. And I’m not just talking our flirtations with communitarianism. In 1837, Bishop Patridge defined “tithing” as two percent of one’s net worth. A year later, Joseph Smith received a revelation which defined tithing as an initial contribution of “all of their surplus,” and then ten percent of “interest” thereafter. In 1841, the Quorum of the Twelve pulled back a little, changing the initial contribution to ten percent of a person’s assets, and then 10 percent of “interest” going forward.[fn5]

The point? Just that tithing has been interpreted, within and without our religious tradition, in many different ways. This variation doesn’t affect the current Mormon practice and definition of tithing, but it does remind us that our version of religiously-motivated charitable giving is not the only version.

—

[fn1] See Adam Chodorow, “Maaser Kesafim and the Development of Tax Law,” Florida Tax Review 8 (2007), 155, 165-167.

[fn2] See Russell Powell, “Zakat: Drawing Insight for Legal Theory and Economic Policy From Islamic Jurisprudence,” Pittsburgh Tax Review 7 (2009), 43-44.

[fn3] Christianity Today polled its readers, and discovered that 36 percent of the 244 respondents believed that tithing meant paying 10 percent of a believer’s income to her church, and more than half believed that tithing required a believer to pay 10 percent of her income either to her church or to a religious charity. The poll was small and unscientific, but it gives anecdotal support to the idea that not all Christians believe in tithing in the form we believe in it. See “How Do You Interpret Tithing?,” Christianity Today, December 2012, 56.

[fn4] See Phillip B. Jones, Southern Baptist Congregations Today (Alpharetta, GA: North American Mission Board, SBC 2001), 42.

[fn5] See D. Michael Quinn, “LDS Church Finances from the 1830s to the 1990s,”
Sunstone, June 1996, 18.