here is one of those tidbits of info I just learned, I can't post under my current name since my job is at risk.

A key person in a postion to know let slip that the church is cutting budgets across the board by 10%.

ironic, tithing must be down by, you guessed it 10%...

I can affirm that I've heard this too.

There will be heavy cuts in the COB, starting this Friday.

My guess is they aren't down on income - they are just cheap.

They are both cheap and taking a hit on income.

Middle class people are not going to be staying in the church as much as they used to... and if they do they are not paying tithing as freely.

perhaps 10% of the cult membership realized that if the church was true, the holy ghost wouldn't have testified to them the the white house would be safely white and delightsome again this month...

Isn't it awful that bad news for others can make me so friggin happy?

The Germans have a word for that.. Schadenfruede

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCQGQ5qBQTA

Well, what do you know????
Can't wait to see what else comes along. I know their humanitaian aid can't be up. Maybe they could sell a cattle ranch or two....

Perhaps that is why they built the grand City Creek Mall. They are in need of another revenue source.

here's my take, I used to be a tithe payer, not for almost two years now. it becomes pointless to support a fraud. Even though for a while I payed and declared how I wanted, interpreting the 10% of increase as I saw fit.

the Church is facing a exodus of middle class people that think and reason for themselves. it is a tide that can't be stemmed.

I was with a TBM coworker when these beans were spilt (conididentally with cuts to our business, as if that justifies it) I asked him later if that bugged him that our boss would use the church like that, and it did, got us to talking about faith, his comment to me was that his own faith was already in a precarious state. Thing is he is a smart but fooled person, once he digs just a little deeper there goes another chunk o money for the church. (his kids have already seen the light and he is in justification mode that they are sinners and won't humble themselves)

question for anointed one, once you get the second anoiting, the whole gist of that is you really can't sin anymore, IE pecadillos are automatically forgiven. are you still required to pay tithing?

I am still attending (family concern) but haven't paid tithing in 2 years and no one seems to have caught on. I will need to open up soon as my Temple rec. is comming due and there is no way I will lie and answer those questions as required. Recession, standard of living losses and probably higher taxes and less charitable deductions will have more members open to finding out the truth about Mormonism. With such a big payroll the church has to worry about less adult non-third world country converts!

I predict that missionaries will be pressed to get more affluent converts.

that will be hard for them because anyone with a little cash has the internet these days. Expect a big push stateside.

you will probably hear conference talks about it too.

That would backfire horribly.

If the church ever explicitly targeted potential converts because of their financial worth, or even couched such a goal in vague terms, word of this would spread rapidly among members and would leak out to the media.

The church would get a public reputation as being interested chiefly in money, which would not only kill any prospect of converting well to do people, but would disgust enough current tithepayers that it would further degrade tithing revenues.

It would be a horrible strategy. But that doesn't mean that the church doesn't encourage its missionaries to target proxies of financial worth, such as "entire families" (including the breadwinner) and people with "leadership qualities" such as doctors and lawyers. Of course, it's rare these days that mormon missionaries are successful in converting professionals or whole families. The missionary effort has crumbled and the church is surviving by place ever heavier burdens on the current membership. I really feel for my TBM relatives.

They wouldn't phrase it in those terms, though. On my mission, we'd teach whomever would listen since Spain isn't rushing to convert to Mormonism. One bishop called my companion and I into his office and told us to drop the single woman we were teaching. She came from a very poor family who wasn't interested in the church but liked us and didn't mind that their unemployed, living at home, 20 something daughter was taking the lessons. The bishop told us to drop her and start teaching some "nice" families who would be an asset to the ward. He also said that he didn't think the missionaries needed referrals from ward members, since he had gone door to door as a missionary when Spain was first opened to Mormonism in the 70s. What was good enough for him was good enough for us. This also extended to dinner invitations - there hadn't been any members to feed him back in the day so why should he encourage members to invite us to dinner?

Anyway, my point is that they will find some way to make "affluent" equal "spiritual" like putting more missionaries in wealthy areas or stereotyping a certain type of likely member, without mentioning that money plays a roll.

They would love to target richer people - but most wealthy people will not join Mormonism because they are doing their "due diligence".

Even back in the 1800s, when you had to take Mormon claims on faith alone, few rich people were dumb enough to join.

Maybe this is the ghost of Henry D. Moyle returning. He overextended the church in the early sixties. They had to call in N. Eldon Tanner to fix things.

Today it's the Main Street Plaza. The Conference Center. The failure of Beneficial Life. The City Creek Mall. The (poor-selling) condos, and all the New Temples everywhere...

Furthermore, all of this may be coming to a head in an extended recession.

The membership is being pushed too far anyway. They are down to cleaning toilets to save money -- in addition, those members now have to worry about mission funds for BOTH their SONS and their DAUGHTERS!

The cost of missions could easily double for many families.

If only the GA's really were "Prophets, Seers, and Revelators" maybe none of this would have happened (That is: happened again).

I don't work for the church but I'm afraid I'm going to get $#!†canned... maybe as soon as this week. I think they'll fire me instead of laying me off just so I won't get unemployment.

So I don't really give a $#!† about the church!

You are eligible for unemployment if you are fired. You are NOT eligible for unemployment if you quit.

No. If you are fired (for cause), then you can not receive unemployment benefits.

Often in my life I have found myself making a decision that turns out to parallel the same line of thinking among lots of other people at about the same time.

I stopped paying tithing about a year ago. I'm middle class and have moved into free thought, secularism and agnosticism. I have been studying religion as a human phenomenon. Cognitive psychology, anthropology, history. I bet lots of reflective people are doing the same thing. Mormonism is just to stultifying for me. I think too much to stand it as a worldview.

rationalguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>I have been studying
> religion as a human phenomenon. Cognitive
> psychology, anthropology, history. I bet lots of
> reflective people are doing the same thing.
> Mormonism is just to stultifying for me. I think
> too much to stand it as a worldview.


Yeah, when you start studying Mormonism as a human phenomenon the game is up. Prior to leaving I had begun to read in history, psychology, sociology, and mythology and out of that I realized the Mormon Church is not unique or special, and I developed explanations for its existence and activities other than the ones the church gives. That was very powerful. I also participated in a long period of counseling to deal with the psychological and emotional injuries that brought me to Mormonism and kept me there to begin with and with my anxiety about leaving. I don't believe people need counseling to leave--unless they do--but I do recommended educating oneself in other ways of thinking and seeing the world.

I've personally known 14 families in the last 3 years that have stopped paying tithing. They also left the church.

I live in an area where there aren't very many mormons to begin with. There are others that I think have stayed, but no longer pay. It's become too much of a financial burden, with no pay off.

Great: my brother at the COB may take a pay cut, then he'll REALLY want his inheritance before my mother dies....

I don't know about everyone else, but I was unpleasantly surprised to see my first paycheck of 2013 had a lot more taken out for social security. I plan my budget very carefully and am scratching my head what I will have to cut back on to stay afloat. Really irritates me I had no warning social security was going up.

I stopped paying tithing in 2012. Have ALWAYS paid previously. $12k+ that will be for the benefit of my family, not the church. Currently 2 years into my study of actual church history.

10% less! So now you clean the tiolets, manage 3 callings, drive your kids to church during the week, AND pay 10% of your gross income. This with higher taxes just now starting to be felt. I think a lot of folks outside Utah-Idaho are about to reevaluate the church. I think that during the economic hard times of the late 70's early 80's the church offered more in sense of community than it does today i.e. bake sales, road shows, etc. Now, correlation (sp?) has poured a big bucket of bleach over everything to the point that obedience has to be stressed at every opportunity (see Dec or Jan Ensign article on tithing). This double down on squeezing the members more will cause more folks to leave the church behind. It will continue but in ever decreasing numbers. I feel for my TBM extended family as they will be brow beaten for not getting me back to church so I can pay my 10%. I wish they'd see the church for the business that it is and maybe now they will. Then again, maybe not.

from 1990 to present where internet started to kick ass with facts.

So the massive media attention LDS, Inc as gotten over the last year has resulted in declining revenues?

Can't be. Just can't be. </snark>

My sympathies to all those at COB who are about to lose their jobs. That's never easy, especially in this economy.

Looks like an economy based on fraudsters, those financial consultants that seem to propagate everywhere in Utah. Perhaps a unsustainable and economy based on corruption and fraud can't sustain itself.

And that's probably why they lowered the mishie ages... It indoctrinates them sooner and they end up with people paying $$ for their missions.

I feel no sympathy for them. Maybe a blessing will conjure up a job for them. LOL. I can't wait to see the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I only hope the people who lose their church jobs after they paid, prayed and obeyed, open their eyes and see the church for the fraud that it is.

Before the Berlin Wall fell most communist citizens were quiet and suppressed. Then, almost overnight, the mass realized they no longer needed to be afraid. Suddenly everyone was in the streets!

It happened fast, and it spread fast from Poland across Eastern Europe.

The Mormon Church may find itself in the same authoritarian collapse. The Mormon leadership (like the Communist leadership) has been in a bubble for generations and they have been too arrogant to realize it.

Soon members may start sending subtle messages to each other that it is now Ok not to show up to church!

Good comparison--let's hope it collapses lik a dam burst. The cracks and trickles are there, Bain Boy lost, protracted economic decline, insane doctrines and hidden history.

Kablaam!!! Dam burst, Mormons go back to being that weird little insular group in Utah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2013 02:44PM by gentlestrength.

A bishop told me that the Church keeps 3 years worth of income in reserve. If that is true, then a 10% cut in expenditures for 2013 would reflect a 10% drop in tithing in 2008 (just before the financial bubble burst).