I’m a regular blogger here at Exponent II but I’m posting this experience anonymously to avoid my parents stumbling across it, because I don’t want them to have to deal with my concerns on this topic. I just want them to be happy.
At the same time, I need somewhere to process all the feelings swirling inside me right now about the LDS church, its money, the poverty it sometimes ignores on its literal doorstep, and what it asks of its members. This is my story.
Very recently, my sister and I moved my aging parents from their house of over 42 years to an Assisted Living Center. It’s a very nice place, I think they will be happy there and feel very good about the move.
The local missionaries have helped my sister and I move a number of heavy items. I’m very grateful. They are nice boys.
They know we’re downsizing and when helping the last time they asked if my parents would be willing to donate any of their extra blankets to them, because their apartment was very cold and they didn’t have enough blankets to stay warm. My mom hesitated on a favorite quilt of hers for a moment (that she has no need for anymore), and my sister encouraged her by saying, “These young men need these blankets in the winter, and their mamas would be so happy to know someone is helping take care of them.”
I was inwardly uncomfortable, thinking, “Why are boys whose families are paying their own way to convert members to a church with hundreds of billions of dollars freezing and unable to afford enough blankets? Why do they need to beg blankets off of other elderly members living on social security checks?” I learned later that the missionaries live in a small apartment over a member’s garage, which is why it’s so cold. No matter how much they turn on their heater, the cold unheated air below them continues to freeze them out. In my own house I have a bonus room over our garage. It turns into an absolute ice box during these cold winter months. It’s not suitable for regular living. The church is paying zero dollars for these accommodations as they are donated, and the homeowners aren’t held to any legal standards like a real landlord receiving rent payments with a lease would be. Why is such an incredibly wealthy church not providing a real apartment for their missionaries who are literally paying the church for the opportunity to work 80-hour weeks for two years? Why do they not get at the very, very minimum a reasonable living space in the wintertime? (Shouldn’t it be the opposite – you come and serve for two years, so we’ll make sure you are comfortable and safe while doing so? If we saw another church (especially such a wealthy one) asking up to two years of uncompensated service from its young people but failing to even provide them a warm enough living situation, wouldn’t we be a little outraged on their behalf?)
I’m also taking over my aging parents’ finances and met with an Eldercare lawyer to pre-plan for them to be eligible for Medicaid in a few years. When I first sat down to write this blog post, I was trying to figure out if paying money to the church every month would disqualify them for benefits, and if we needed to pay one lump sum of tithing upfront now so that it wouldn’t interfere. Medicaid won’t cover someone’s medical care if the people applying for it are giving away large amounts of their money to their friends, family or charities.
My parents haven’t been to the temple since before the pandemic, and I doubt they’ll ever go again with their health issues. Regardless, they feel it’s spiritually necessary to keep paying hundreds of dollars every month to make sure they’re eligible to go. Trying to budget their life savings and have enough for them to live comfortably on until they eventually pass away means sending a significant chunk of their money to the church, even though the latter already has the financial means to last from here until forever. After a lifetime of service, tithing and dedication, I wish my mom and dad could finally rest. If you added up the wages for all the hours they served the church for free they’d have an extra million dollars in retirement. They don’t regret serving, and I’m sure they’d do it all over again. I just wish the church would say to them now, “Thank you for giving us your life. Now rest, and we’ll take care of *you* from here on out”.
As my parents set up their computer in the new apartment, the desktop image was a photograph of Russell M. Nelson smiling – a man I know doesn’t have to live off of meager social security checks. Under the circumstances, I felt deeply uncomfortable with him gazing off the screen into the bare living room that we were filling up with moving boxes.
Later that same evening, I sat on a couch across from the computer and remembered a news article from last year about the apostle Elder Gary E. Stevenson, who was posed to become a billionaire (not millionaire, BILLIONAIRE) as the company he sat on the board of was going public. I don’t have anything against people being successful and becoming wealthy, but I couldn’t help but contrast the vast difference between the leaders of a church worth hundreds of billions of dollars with a billionaire apostle, and the original Jesus I learned about in primary. He had nothing. He told his apostles to leave everything behind and not think about purse or script. If any of his apostles were in the top 0.00001 percent wealthiest percent of humans, would he be fine with that or would he tell them to sell it all and give it to the poor?
The temples that are exclusive to only the most faithful members are decorated with $100,000 chandeliers, gold leafed angels Moroni, and marble floors imported from Europe. The general authorities have mahogany wood desks, six figure incomes, and $2,000 suits to wear at general conference. I contrast them to my parents, on a fixed income, applying for Medicaid for an Assisted Living facility and ordering their clothes from catalogues.
The same evening that I wrote the first draft of this post, I came across this headline.
Man arrested for breaking into Provo temple, claiming he was just cold, police say
All of these issues were forefront in my mind as I read what sounded like a story from Biblical times in the news. Imagine this as a story about the Pharisees rather than the Provo temple.
The Pharisees thought they would be closer to God if they built a beautiful cathedral and spared no expense. They imported lavish marble floors from Italy, hung $100,000 chandeliers, and spared no expense on the artwork and furnishings inside. They opened this cathedral to the public and invited government officials, local celebrities, news stations and politicians to private VIP events where they showed them how impressive the building they’d built for God was. After these VIP events they gave tours to the public and invited everyone to come and see their very expensive holy building.
After several months of showing this building off to the rest of the world, the Pharisees closed the doors and told everyone that only those pronounced worthy by their priesthood council could enter anymore. Part of this worthiness included paying them a certain amount of money each month.
One night in the dead of winter, a man with no home was freezing on the streets. The church had built this enormous building for worshipping God, but they hadn’t built a shelter for the hungry, poor, addicted or mentally ill. This unhoused man might freeze to death on the streets, so he broke a window and entered the temple to stay warm during the night.
The Pharisees were angry when they saw what he had done and called the police to arrest this man and charged him for the damage he had done to their extremely expensive and empty building overnight.
And Jesus wept. The end.
I found another news story about the same incident where the reporter interviewed a business owner with a barber shop across the street from the Provo Temple. The barber said he was very sad to see it broken into because it was such a beautiful building, and he was sure they would’ve let him in if he’d just knocked. I thought to myself, this man is obviously not a member of the church. He thinks anyone can just knock on the temple doors and be let inside.
I read a number of comments online by members of the church who insisted he was trying to rob the temple but blamed it on being cold to try to get out of trouble. Perhaps this is true, but police say the only thing he took from the building was a bottle of water. In the end, he took nothing of value when he left.
A few days later I saw a different news story, this time about an Episcopalian church opening its doors to be used as a warming center:
The next day I saw yet another news story about five new deaths over the weekend. Shelters had been able to hold everyone coming to them in the prior months, but the dramatic drop in temperatures has brought them all to capacity.
I then found an article about the First United Methodist Church of Salt Lake City opening their building for overnight “movie nights” to get people inside and out of the cold during deadly freezing temperatures. They were actively driving around town and putting people on the streets into their vehicles and driving them to their church.
On January 12th, 2023, this news alert popped up on my phone:
It’s hard to read these articles and still take seriously all of the comments from last month that the unhoused man was just lying about the cold as an excuse to get out of trouble.
I am asking the LDS church to do better. Be better! We have such massive amounts of wealth it’s almost unimaginable, and yet we aren’t building hospitals and shelters and soup kitchens by the thousands. People are dying on the streets near the worldwide headquarters of our religion. Missionary families are paying the church money to serve but still freezing in apartments without adequate heating. Elderly people on limited incomes are sacrificing their medical care and well-being in order to pay tithing to attend a temple they can’t physically step inside of. I can’t imagine the Jesus that I am familiar with being okay with how these finances are being handled.
Finally, what would be the downside to using our money for these things? Amazing great publicity? A better public image of the church to outsiders? Fantastic missionary opportunities? Meaningful service missions for those who wish to serve but not proselytize? A Christ-like feeling of love for all of humankind? A better life for all of humanity? I cannot think of a single downside to trading in some of our repetitive work for dead people (as many temple workers have talked about recycling names for ordinances) for work that helps the living who are suffering right now. Let’s use our wealth to take care of those who have and are serving the church (like elderly members and missionaries), and the least of these in the world around us right now.
Oof. You’ve laid it out so clearly, and it’s devastating. The church does a lot of good in the world, certainly, but they could do so. much. more.
You make many many good points. And I’m happy to say there are people who agree with you!
We don’t have a temple in my town, but we do have a food bank where I volunteer weekly. Two months ago (and I’m quoting from the local paper here), the warehouse that keeps us stocked “received two truckloads of food and household supplies arranged by the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” By truckloads, they mean two fully loaded semis. It was the third donation to the warehouse in less than two years; to further quote the article, “Since 2020 the church has donated more than 176,000 pounds of high-quality food to [the food share program].” There are good things happening, although I agree we have the potential to do much more.
I appreciate the sentiment and agree completely.
One question, if your parents are living off retirement and social security, haven’t they already paid tithing on that income? If they have then aren’t they just paying tithing twice now? I ask this because my stepfather died in 2021 and my mom gets his pension each month, and I wondered the same thing then.
If the church can say they don’t use tithing dollars to pay for city creek, because the money came from the interest of tithing dollars, not tithing dollars themselves; then by that logic, social security income from earned money you’ve already paid tithing on should be exempt.
Personally, I paid tithing on my gross income so now that I’m retired, I don’t pay any.
We have ask three high up leaders in our stake about whether we needed to pay tithing in our retirement years and have been told three times that we do not need to pay tithing twice on income.
This is a really strong essay. I love the way the author connects their own personal accounts of their parents’ challenging financial situation and the missionaries’ unacceptable living conditions to the broader social conditions brought to the forefront by the unhoused man in the temple. I also love the specific call to action by comparison to how other churches in Utah used their resources for the poor.
I am, though, uncomfortable with the passage where “Pharisees” are used to reframe the Church’s response to the temple break-in. Jewish scholars and leaders generally agree that the way Christians often use “Pharisee” to illustrate self-centered, performative religious practice functions as an antisemitic slur that de-legitimizes Jewish rituals. I think it’s obvious that wasn’t the intent here, but I wonder if it would be possible to modify this post to de-emphasize or remove references to Pharisees, in consideration of the safety and feelings of our siblings?
Thanks for explaining this in this way, I don’t think I had fully considered it in that light. There are other parable options — I mean the rich man with a poor man dying at his gate is already a great example. I had other thoughts and my children are screaming and now I can’t think a darn thought. But thank you both OP and this commenter.
Yes, for Heaven’s sake, let’s serve and care for the living before we serve the dead! It hurts my heart to think about the elderly members, too. So many sacrifices.
I am very uncomfortable with the fact that my church has achieved the institutional equivalency of the 0.01% and bears little resemblance to what I have always believed Jesus’s directives are. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the poor… All of the needs implied in the 2nd commandment. Did the massive accumulation of wealth exempt us from this mission?
So we’ll said, and your examples are heart wrenching. I can only hope this essay gets in front of the eyes that need to see it. Have you considered an Op-Ed in a Utah newspaper?
As a child who grew up poor in an affluent LDS community, I figured out early on that 10% was a much higher sacrifice for those with incomes that couldn’t provide basic necessities. The sacrifice has always been lost on the privileged. They will never understand the stress and trauma of not having enough and the constant worry. The fallacy of prosperity gospel is harmful. 10% on certain incomes is an immoral ask. It’s not about faith. It never was.
It is hard to me that there is so little flexibility on how local congregations can use funds or even our facilities. We simply cannot use our buildings to house anyone, to offer warming centers, to really do much of any community care our outreach. Not without very high placed permission, which we won’t get. And unfortunately when we do offer outreach it is often absurdly burdensome to the members — namely the ask to help at the Bishop’s warehouse. You’re supposed to be there at 5am to lift heavy boxes on days that they tell you your ward has to be there. At least that is how mine works. I value the work that the Bishop’s storehouse does, and I know there are good reasons for the timing (allowing trucks to get all over the state delivering food). But what if we had the “sandwiches for the homeless” committee that oversaw an assembly line two saturday mornings a month? I dunno. I just feel worried that tithing isn’t actually building the kingdom of God at all. The kingdom of God is the poor, the lowly, the vulnerable. Christ was so clear about this.
Amen.
“Cash in thy shares, pocket the billion, and come and follow me.” I’m sure that’s what the scripture really should have said, right? It just got written down wrong?
So perfectly said! They can and should do so much more.
This blog post couldn’t have come at a better time. Here are just three of the several recent news stories about how the elderly homeless population is increasing:
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/01/19/no-one-should-spend-their-golden/
https://online.simmons.edu/blog/aging-on-the-streets-americas-growing-older-homeless-population/
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2023/01/09/what-happens-when-you-lose-your-home-at-72
We really should be doing so much more for the elderly, especially after all the years they spent sacrificing and serving in and outside the church. I agree they deserve to rest and be taken care of. Asking the elderly to spend their retirement and social security money on tithing is gross.
Powerful post. Thanks for sharing.
My wife and I have volunteered the past five years or so at a weekly “all comers” dinner — mostly food insecure or homeless folks — offered by a local church. I confess that at first I felt a little self-congratulatory — a lawyer whose time is valuable stooping to help the less fortunate. I soon realized it was a two-way process where I was both server and servee. I now realize that my less fortunate friends/brothers/sisters who attend each week give me a unjustified honor — the privilege (and it is absolutely a privilege) of accepting my service and letting me get to know them a bit. I know I have seen the savior somewhere in this hardscrabble bunch who constantly live on the edge. He has looked me square in the eye and said, “Thank you for your service. God bless you.” I feel so unworthy of the compliment. I’ve met multiple members of the Q-15, including LDS Church presidents. Usually well-intentioned men, no doubt, but never the same overpowering certainty of feeling the warmth of Christ’s smile through a homeless person. Better than any church or temple experience I ever had in 40 plus years of membership. The fact that there are no homeless shelters in Provo/Orem speaks volumes about priorities and where one’s heart lies.
This post is incredibly naive. It’s always easy to find the negative angle when that is all you’re looking for.
No one on earth is forcing your parents to pay tithing, they are doing so because they want to be right with the Lord. Your myopic view would spare your loving parents of a sacred display of devotion. Most people pay tithes, even when it’s a sacrifice to do so, because they believe they are pleasing God (remember the widow’s mite?). Yes, a full tithe is required for a temple recommend, but it’s also a commandment and a form of worship.
Also, the church donates substantially throughout the globe. They partner with global organizations to donate skills, money, and other resources. They cannot simply open our higher places of worship to anyone who claims they deserve a right to be there, that would be irresponsible. A man in Provo claimed he was cold and illegally trespassed. There was nowhere else he could have gone? Not a family member or even a ward building rather than the temple? You yourself said that there are churches not of the LDS faith that would have helped him. I wonder if those same churches are also giving food to starving nations or providing relief to those suffering from a natural disaster, educating millions across the globe, or helping people move?
You’re obviously concerned about the homeless, what have you done to help? Helping the needy is a commandment not only for the church, but for each of us. Have you tried to organize that endeavor or taken homeless into your home? Or are you just upset that those you think should, haven’t yet done so? And you’re bitter about not being as wealthy as others might be; are you so sure that with your tunnel vision you’d be a better steward of that wealth?
I just think it’s funny that those who are most ignorant of all the facts are always so quick to criticize and find fault with others. You might be the saint you believe you are, but I doubt it. You judge happiness and fulfillment solely by monetary wealth; you’d be surprised to find that those who are happiest don’t necessarily have money, just grateful hearts and a desire to give of themselves regardless of what their neighbor is doing.