Uchtdorf violates Church policy on political neutrality

[Shulem]

Is it not true that it wasn’t Elder Uchtdorf who made the donations because, at least according to Elder Uchtdorf’s own official statement, it was someone in his family who made the donation, not him in particular.

As I understand it, Elder Uchtdorf says there is some sort of common account in the family that’s technically in his name but that another member of his family (I’m guessing it’s his wife) actually made the donations. It also must be said that it’s hard to believe Elder Uchtdorf would risk his standing in the Church, by violating a strict Church policy, for an inconsequential political donation of a measly couple of hundred bucks.

Somehow I'm not surprised to learn he is a Democrat.

It's interesting how political leanings impact how we see the gospel.

That he gave an explanation, it was satisfactory, it doesn't matter

My guess is 99% of the Church doesn't know and they don't care who he gave money to

Don't care in the slightest.

Joseph Smith ran for President for crying out loud. I'm not going to bat an eye at someone merely donating to a campaign.

The most parsimonious explanation is shared online banking with his wife, who isn’t under the same policy constraint.

I really think it is much ado about nothing

It would make more sense to me that it was his wife doing the donating rather than another member of the family. A lot of wives use their husbands’ names for things of this nature just to keep household accounting simpler. My guess is she didn’t realize this was violating any Church policy, and he understandably didn’t want to throw her under the bus by identifying her publicly.

I think it was most likely his wife and he used “family” as he wanted to spare her the negative attention (I can see her Facebook flooded with hate and love mail from extremists) as well as create distance between himself and the donation so as to not give the sense he personally supported such in order to abide as much as possible to the policy.

Gone should be the days when women had to account to their husbands if they wanted to buy anything.

[Shulem]

I'm guessing it will be swept under the carpet and Uchtdorf will never serve in a FP again.

The First Presidency will attempt to sweep it under the rug from a public point of view but rest assured that Uchtdorf will never serve in a First Presidency again and he and his wife will be severely reprimanded. They violated a sacred trust, broke a promise, and embarrassed the Church -- hence, they have damaged the reputation of the Church.

Way to go, silver fox!

[IHAQ]

I'm struggling to see anything other than Uchtdorfs bland and brief "sorry, it was an oversight" as an attempt to not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If he's so thoughtless about managing his own personal spending should he really be in a position of trust over hundreds of billions of dollars of donated funds?

Well, clearly "oversight" isn't the "whole truth." It's a conclusory, descriptive term and not a recitation of any facts. If I were to make a guess on the information we have alone, I'd guess that "oversight" is a face-saving term for "somebody made an embarrassingly stupid mistake." If I were an investigator, it's the kind of comment that would lead me to say "we need to take a look at the specifics on this." After all, one of the possibilities is that "oversight" seems to me to be a poor fitting term is my own idiosyncratic of what constitutes an "oversight."

As to your conclusion, it's based on unstated and unwarranted assumptions. We've got brains that evolved mainly on the plains of Africa. The part of our brain in which reasoning occurs is the newest part of the brain, and is very fragile. It is incredibly easy to distract or overload that part of the brain so that it doesn't function properly.

My conclusion is, as you point out, speculative and coloured by the lens through which I view the information. But it's not unreasonable speculation, given that Uchtdorf has deliberately chosen to withhold information that would enable people to understand what actually happened.

It's interesting that a number of members (as evidenced by Shulem and as seen in some of the comments sections of reports on this story) are quite comfortable with the situation being Uchtdorf himself making the donations even though it violates Church policy. One assumes that's because they view his actions through the lens of a democrat.

Donations were made to various Democrat campaign funds using an account in the name Dieter Uchtdorf.
Donations were spread over a number of months.
Seperately the donor registered themselves as Dieter Uchtdorf.
Dieter Uchtdorf is claiming to have not noticed these donations made from the account in his name.
Dieter is claiming someone else made them.

The questions that Dieter should have answered are:
Who made the donations? "Family" simply is a non answer which casts speculation across all his family, including his grandchildren and doesn't explicitly rule out himself.
Where did the money come from to make those donations? Is it from his stipend, does he receive private monies on top of his stipend etc?

Uchtdorf needs to practice what he preaches.

Prophets and apostles teach that trust and honesty are important in building strong families. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, stressed the importance of these principles as he taught about pressing forward with faith.

“To endure to the end, we need to trust our Father in Heaven and make wise choices,” President Uchtdorf said during an address to priesthood leaders. “

It means strength of character, selflessness, and humility; it means integrity and honesty to the Lord and our fellowmen

. It means making our homes strong places of defense and a refuge against worldly evils; it means loving and honoring our spouses and children.

“By doing our best to endure to the end, a beautiful refinement will come into our lives. We will learn to ‘do good to them that hate [us], and pray for them which despitefully use [us]’ (Matthew 5:44). The blessings that come to us from enduring to the end in this life are real and very significant, and for the life to come they are beyond our comprehension.”

If we constantly endeavor to instill these virtues of honesty and trust in our daily lives, President Uchtdorf said, we will come closer to Christ and the knowledge of His plan for us.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/pro ... y?lang=eng

My issue is not with the mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. It's how he is handling the mistake now that is problematic. Dieter needs to come clean regardless of the consequences. It's what he expects of members...

Lying is intentionally deceiving others. Bearing false witness is one form of lying. The Lord gave this commandment to the children of Israel: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). Jesus also taught this when He was on earth (see Matthew 19:18). There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.

The Lord is not pleased with such dishonesty, and we will have to account for our lies. Satan would have us believe it is all right to lie. He says, “Yea, lie a little; … there is no harm in this” (2 Nephi 28:8). Satan encourages us to justify our lies to ourselves. Honest people will recognize Satan’s temptations and will speak the whole truth, even if it seems to be to their disadvantage.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... y?lang=eng

Uchtdorf, as an Apostle, should be the epitome of that last sentence. I'm holding him to the standard he promotes to members, and at the moment he's failing to live up to it.

[Moksha]

The crime in many LDS eyes is not breaking the rules, they can rationalize that away in a heartbeat. What they have a problem with is being untrue to Trump.

[Shulem]

One thing that I'm afraid that everyone is forgetting is that Uchtdorf and his wife are PROFESSIONAL ministers employed by the Church and represent the Church on the highest levels. This is what they do, day in and day out, on a professional basis, year after year. They are experts in what they do and have top notch experience in working with the Church as paid professionals under contract in meeting their obligations -- in keeping with strict performance of those contracts. You can bet they constantly have meetings and review the policies and regulations of their craft as paid professionals of the ministry and fully know their responsibilities as EXECUTIVES of the organization.

The employment and position of the Uchtdorfs is conditional. They must abide by the covenants and meet their responsibilities and work within the rules they have agreed to keep. All of this is formal and in writing. It is a contractual agreement that has terms, definitions, rules, and expectations. It is a business arrangement. The Uchtdorfs are professionals and understand the business and the arrangement they serve under. There are no excuses for what has happened. Those payments were made intentionally and knowingly. They knew what they did and they fully were aware that it was a violation of Church policy and not in keeping with the agreement they are expected to maintain in order to continue in the good graces of their employment. They must conform to the agreement and keep all the rules or find themselves terminated.

It's all really that simple. The Uchtdorfs have profited and earned millions of dollars in the employ of the Church -- salary, benefits, perks, goods, and so forth.

[Moksha]

I say three cheers to the Uchtdorf family for trying to make their adopted country a better place. A regime based on white nationalism and a mountain of lies was a bad thing for the Church, even if most members were bamboozled by the rhetoric (or silenced by the fear of donor money turning tail and praying five times daily while facing Mar-a-Lago).

[The Stig]

If I had to reach a final conclusion on the facts we have, I think that's where I'd come out. To "harmless and honest" I'd also add "embarrassing."

Harmless and honest, my ass! What is wrong with you people? Where the hell is RFM? Consig, where the hell are YOU? It was a direct violation of the mandate they were committed to live by. They broke their covenants and will be answering to the First Presidency. The mandates were clear and precise and are something one doesn't just forget seeing they infringe on their basic rights as free citizens:

General Authorities and general officers of the Church and their spouses and other ecclesiastical leaders serving full-time should not:

1) personally participate in political campaigns
2) including promoting candidates
3) fundraising
4) speaking in behalf of or otherwise endorsing candidates
5) and making financial contributions

These are not commitments one simply forgets. It was in effect a contract in order to maintain their position in the Church. They violated their contract and broke a solemn trust.

They will be punished, rest assured.

Truly, Shulem is the Old Testament God of Ex-Mo-ism! Punish the wicked!

[huckelberry]

Bored posters hoping for a tempest in this teapot find that there is not enought heat to boil.

[Shulem]

I can’t speak for others, but in speculating that the donor was Sister Uchtdorf, I did NOT say he “white lied” about it. He said it was “family” who made the donations, and that would be true if the donations came from her. Declining to disclose a fact in detail is not the same as telling a lie, “white” or otherwise.

It would be like my telling you without providing a detailed ledger that I live within my means.

But, but, but:

We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.

From one who is unworthy of being a General Authority:

The vast majority of church members likely don’t care about it and the minority that do, most would probably accept an honest apology thinking ‘we all make mistakes’. The few that would hold it against him have more issues than breaking a church policy in a minor way ($2000 isn’t going to affect any political races outside of a small town I am guessing).

Mormons are such good liars:

Perhaps there were reasons to lie. I don't believe lying is always wrong. In fact there may be many situations where lying might be required. I believe that if someone wants to be told the truth, they need to be mature to handle it in the right way. If telling the truth might lead to danger, harm, injustice, ect, then lying is probably the best policy to keep the peace or maintain safety. Some people may not deserve to know the truth. They can't handle it.

Most likely nothing will happen. It is all about intent. If it was an innocent mistake, little will be done. Sort of like making mistakes on taxes. An innocent mistake will have minor consequence at best. Intentional stuff will get you in big trouble.

[Bought Yahoo]

The crime in many LDS eyes is not breaking the rules, they can rationalize that away in a heartbeat. What they have a problem with is being untrue to Trump.

The Deseret News has consistently come out against Trump. The DN recently published a long opinion by BYU Law Prof Gedecks (sp) who is the Church's Supreme Court counsel.

The DN has only once before in its history taken a position about a presidential candidate.