Tithing Ends Poverty, and other bizarre prophetic statements

[Guest]

In the latest gig on his world tour (subject to itinerary changes) the Man Who Speaks To God said the following to some people in Kenya...

President Nelson also said tithing can break cycles of poverty in poor nations and families.

"We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation," he said. "That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing."

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900 ... cycle.html
If you’re poor, give the rich American Church that spent $1.5 billion on an upmarket shopping mall in downtown Salt Lake City because the area looked bad and was attracting homeless people, ten percent of your total income (gross, obviously). Boom, world poverty solved overnight.

The Man Who Speaks To God went on...

They received a message tailored for eastern Africa, where many tribes continue to insist that grooms or their families provide a dowry or pay a price for a bride.

"That's not the Lord's way," President Russell M. Nelson told about 2,000 Kenyans and other Africans Monday night inside a large, oval, wooden event center styled after traditional huts in Nairobi, Kenya. "The Lord's way is to be married in the temple, for time and all eternity, with your children sealed to you."

He added that if he'd had to pay for his wife, "I would have missed five children, because only with my last five was I out of debt."

So, forget your local cultural norms and traditions, because the American way is Gods way, and rack up debt to have kids instead. Brilliant. Because that’s what God wants.

All in 35 minutes of oratory.

The chaperone of The Man Who Speaks To God rams home the money drive message...

Another speaker on Monday night, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, also encouraged east Africans to prepare for the temple. He asked them to qualify, receive and carry the temple recommend required for entrance, even before the temple is built.

He also asked them to begin recording their family histories and to attend the temple in Johannesburg, South Africa "as often as the circumstances and the finances and transportation will allow."

"Nothing will bless you more," he said, "nothing will unite your family more, nothing will bless your children more, nothing will bless your ancestors more. Quite frankly, there is nothing that will bless you in any way more than your attendance at the temple, a place of peace, a place of revelation, a place of joy, a place of comfort, a place of purity, all the best things in life."

A Prophet makes the decision to travel half way round the world to visit Kenya. A country likely to get a personal visit from a Prophet once every couple of generations at best. And the one thing uppermost in Gods mind for His Prophet to tell the Kenyan members in person was, “give me ten percent of your income”.

So, Kenya, you’ll be a lot happier if you adopt American culture, scrap your cultural dowry system an instead go into debt to get married and have children, and give the Church ten percent of everything you earn.

Because God.

[_Dr Exiled]

I wonder when paying tithing to a church has ever broken a poverty cycle? Does Nelson have any real examples of this or just the magical thinking that has plagued church members since Joseph Smith's day? Let me see if I understand. Pay tithing and then only remember the times when something positive happens and credit the positive to paying tithing. Don't remember times when you went without or how your retirement savings are considerably less and voila, you have a tithing miracle brought to you by an american magician. It may not look like a miracle to rational people and may look fraudulent, but that's only satan trying to destroy you. Is this how the tithing trick goes?

People in S. America and the Philippines have been paying tithing for some time and are still poor. I wonder what they are doing wrong because their continued poverty couldn't be because Nelson and Holland are full of ______. It has to be the poor members' fault.

[_grindael]

So, the temple is a "place of peace". Ok, but how long in that "life" are people going to spend there? And what happens when they go back to the real world and have to deal with War Lords, etc.?

All the "best things in life" are in the temple? Really? How about having sex? That's one of the best things in life. How much of that is going on there? (Zero, I'm sure). So really, this thing about praising a building is just ludicrous. Life is lived OUTSIDE of their useless monuments to their corporate gods. The best things in life aren't in their white washed temples, but in men and women's hearts and minds that they share with those around them. Temples do nothing to change what happens in the real world. They money they cajole out of people could be used by them to help them have that better life.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.(Acts 17)

This is all simply idol worship as are their petty regulations to tithe, not eat or drink this or that, to somehow "qualify" to visit a building that God is not in. Temples (as taught by Jesus and his Apostles) are our bodies, which we should treat with common sense and not fall for (as Paul states), silly..."rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Colossians)

They are self righteous corporate clowns who want to control everyone under their sway. Ever pontificating but never able to grasp reality let alone prophecy about anything.

[_lemuel]

So I assume that all those people served by the Liahona Chiildren's Fund aren't keeping the law of tithing?

[_Craig Paxton]

Just my 2 cents: Paying $10 out of your $100 monthly income to some church in America who acts more like a corporation than a religious institution makes little sense. Even less so when you are trying to feed your family of 5 or 10. Add to this that this privilege of paying tithing qualifies you to buy temple garments that cost almost a weeks income makes even less sense. This said. The church does teach the value of education, self reliance, hard work and improving ones lot in life...all of these are valuable in helping to improve the lives of the churches African members. Like income tax the church should have a graduated tithing rate, pay 1% on income after ones basic needs of food shelter etc are meet and increasing that up as your income increases. But it is offensive for the church to seek tithing from families who are barely scraping by.

[_Dr Exiled]

Just my 2 cents: Paying $10 out of your $100 monthly income to some church in America who acts more like a corporation than a religious institution makes little sense. Even less so when you are trying to feed your family of 5 or 10. Add to this that this privilege of paying tithing qualifies you to buy temple garments that cost almost a weeks income makes even less sense. This said. The church does teach the value of education, self reliance, hard work and improving ones lot in life...all of these are valuable in helping to improve the lives of the churches African members. Like income tax the church should have a graduated tithing rate, pay 1% on income after ones basic needs of food shelter etc are meet and increasing that up as your income increases. But it is offensive for the church to seek tithing from families who are barely scraping by.

I think whatever benefit the church gives can be had elsewhere. Further, 10% plus time, plus money spent in travel for church, is too high a price for whatever benefit believing the church myth gives.

[_reflexzero]

Paying tithing breaks the poverty cycle [of the Church].

[_Mormonicious]

2 000 members in attendance, the average per capita income in Kenya $1,246, total tithing income to the Organization $1,246 x .10 x 1 000 (income per captia based on a family so, half in attendance should be spouses) = $124,600

Cost of the Trip of Mormon jesus' henchmen (and accompanying Commodities), private jet $50,000, motorcade $5,000, hotels and per diem $15,000

Net gain to the Organization $54,600

Poverty increase to the Members in Kenya $124,600

[_candygal]

You know what?? This tithing thing is a weird thing. If you are brought up in the church, your fear of not paying tithing is pure...fire. I have a cousin..quite old now...who is a member but has never believed or been active for almost 50 years...but he pays tithing..the fear is real. Sometimes it has nothing to do with blessings...just fear.

[_Res Ipsa]

If I hear any stories about Kenyans selling their gold fillings to pay tithing, I"m going to scream.