General Authorities??? Living expenses???


brown67
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LOL. Thank you Captain Literal ;)

That's pretty much me, I confess. I even have the cape to prove it. (Well, if I don't, I should.)

But in this case, I was not looking at the literal amount written, but rather stating that it seems pretty apparent that you have an agenda that goes well beyond noting that "[the Church leaders] might make different decisions knowing that people will be examining [their] expenditure." This is not about making a general observation of truth. Instead, it seems pretty obvious that you have an actual beef with those expenditures and think they should be done differently, including apparently the expenditure of stipends for General Authorities and mission presidents.

Though not stated directly at me, I'm wondering if you put my comments in the "gut level disgust with disloyalty to a worthy cause or group" category?

That is indeed the most reasonable way to interpret it. Believe it or not, that was actually not what I was intending to convey. I certainly do feel that such expressions as you have given are well into that spectrum of disloyalty; but as I reread what I wrote, I realize that the words implied something different from what I actually meant in the present case. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have done this.

But fundamentally my loyalty is to my own interpretation of God's will rather than to The Corporation of the President.

This point of view is entirely reasonable when taken within divine boundaries. But as D&C 88:34-35 points out, we must operate within divine law to reap the rewards of that law. If we operate outside it, we risk becoming a law unto ourselves. This is a very bad thing.

I'll take each scripture, statement or practice on its own merits. If I didn't have that viewpoint, I would have stayed Catholic. (I mean, come on, they've got an infallible pope and authority traced back to Peter!) ;)

From what I can tell, the Roman Catholic Church's lack of authority does not stem primarily from its apostate doctrines or deep neoplatonic influence. It stems, ultimately, from the withdrawal of the Priesthood. If the Priesthood lay with the Roman Catholic Church, you would do better to stay with that Church, apostate doctrines and all, than to go anywhere else.

The fact that the LDS Church may be less than perfect in some ways is irrelevant. It is the Church of Jesus Christ, which is really the only relevant thing.

(Though I can hardly resist pointing out that the evils the Church is so often accused of are mostly false. As Joseph Smith said of himself -- "although I do wrong, I do not the wrongs that I am charged with doing" -- the same can be said of the Church.)

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That's pretty much me, I confess. I even have the cape to prove it. (Well, if I don't, I should.)

It's a bird. It's a plane. (well obviously not literally)

This is not about making a general observation of truth. Instead, it seems pretty obvious that you have an actual beef with those expenditures and think they should be done differently, including apparently the expenditure of stipends for General Authorities and mission presidents.

So, I'll liken it to my own life. I'm on a board of directors for a professional group and every month we receive a treasurer's report, showing incomings and outgoings. We ask a couple of questions, discuss major expenditures and approve the report. Then once a year, we take a treasurer's report to our membership showing our annual financials. If all is well, we vote on accepting the report. Simple. No fuss. (And of course those figures are audited :) ) Everyone is in the light. And that's the way our church operated until 1958. Some speculate that the church had financial difficulties around that time and did not want to show a significant deficit to the church membership. In any case, that was the end of financial statements to the members, so I guess we'll never know for sure.

So my "beef", as you put it, is that I don't know what the church is doing with all the money we put into it. I don't want to micromanage any of its decisions. But I certainly would like to peruse the annual expenditure once a year. Now, I've heard many say "It's the Lord's money", "It's none of our business", etc, etc, but I simply don't subscribe to this view as it does not seem to be based in scripture.

And in my profession, I have witnessed what happens when there isn't adequate transparency. None of the general authorities, to my knowledge, have arisen to say that angelic messengers have delivered our annual list of spending priorities and that these instruction are sealed from the members. As far as I've witnessed, the Church runs similar to any corporation, with boards, committees, focus groups, etc etc, although of course no other corporation claims to have prophets at the head. (wait, does Apple count?)

From what I can tell, the Roman Catholic Church's lack of authority does not stem primarily from its apostate doctrines or deep neoplatonic influence. It stems, ultimately, from the withdrawal of the Priesthood. If the Priesthood lay with the Roman Catholic Church, you would do better to stay with that Church, apostate doctrines and all, than to go anywhere else.

Oops, as far as I could learn in the Catholic church, their "priesthood" organisational line goes all the way back to ancient times. I wonder if they'll have me back! For me, the office of the priesthood is meaningless unless the power of the priesthood is active in the holder.

I do like your reasoning, though.

The fact that the LDS Church may be less than perfect in some ways is irrelevant. It is the Church of Jesus Christ, which is really the only relevant thing.

Sort of agree, except to phrase it as WE are the Church of Jesus Christ, if we have come unto Christ through faith, repentance, baptism. And it is this spiritually based membership that also has us part of the 'kingdom of God'. The earthly based "organisation" exists to support our spiritual development, rather than *us* existing to support the earthly based organisation.

That's my 0.02

Roy

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In the end every apostate's argument/reasons for apostatizing can be summed up as "They (the church) would not do what I wanted them too." So when we find ourselves in that position, when we where see the church doing something we disagree with, we need to be very careful in how we approach it so we don't end up cutting ourselves off

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