GoodK wrote:Hi Mudcat. Are you talking about CARM? Or LDS.Net?
MADB actually. I posted at CARMS a while back, but really wasn't to crazy about the place.... Lots of rhetoric but not enough substantive discussion for the most part.
Well, they must have thought it was a big issue because they insisted they didn't get paid for their work for a long time.
The problem isn't getting paid for your work, it's pretending like you don't get paid when you do - and then when it's discovered that you do get paid, you pretend like you get paid so little it's funny - and then when it's discovered that your account said you were paid $20,000 one year, you pretend like that is ridiculous and then start libeling the accountant - and on and on and on.
That is the issue.
Emphasis mine. Well I agree that on a personal level. If someone asks you if you get paid to do this or that and you don't want to disclose the information a more appropriate response would be, "It's none of your business."
That aside, its personal income of a private citizen. I don't think what I get paid to do what I do, is anyone's business either.
On a deductive side note, I doubt they get paid bookoos of cash. Here is why.
If we take DCP for instance, and I am speculating of course. We all know he is published, college professor. No doubt he receives a salary commensurate for such work. However, I am also of the opinion that the CoJCoLDS is about as tight as Dick's hat band with their money. So it is also my guess his salary is on the low end of that spectrum.
He writes lots of books. But who buys his books?
I have a copy of one. I only know a few other LDS in my area, but I have noticed that DCP isn't in their reading cue, nor do they own any of his books. Apologetics material isn't necessarily the sort of 'warm and fuzzy' faith promoting sort of stuff. Its typically analytical jargon that is put forth to defend issues, also in my opinion the audience for this sort of material is pretty small. Combining this with the fact that there are about 4 million active LDS and we also assume most of these folks are just every day rank and file citizens, the potential reader group for this literature is pretty small. I just don't see an LDS apologist making wads of cash for their authorship.
I suppose there are speaking engagements, debates, etc... that might receive payment as well. But given the small audience for this sort of thing I don't see that as a huge cash cow either.
In short, I am of the opinion that a fellow like DCP most likely makes a respectable living, if you stack him against the average American income. But I think if stacked him against a published professor in a different field (a law professor for instance) who had written as much as DCP and spoken as much as DCP. I doubt DCP would stack up near so well.
Whatever DCP makes for doing what he does isn't my business.
Well, considering the fact that virtually every active latter day saint believes that their church leaders don't get paid (while the president of the church lives in a multimillion dollar SLC penthouse) and they refuse to disclose their finances to the public, and they command their members to give 10% of their income to them -- I say yes, emphatically, it does matter how they spend it.
This is obviously a little different issue here. Mopoligists aren't 'Church Leaders' like I might think of the Quorum, Seventies, FP.... Not only can non-LDS not determine what the CoJCoLDS is doing with all those billions of dollars it has, but neither can its general membership. Regardless if what actually happens with all this cash, it leaves folks with a negative impression and gives plenty of room for speculation.
I suppose I don't see them as commanding membership to give 10% though. Simply because they have no real legal authority to do so. If a member had a big problem with it, they could always leave the organization.