Temple recommend questions gone too far

[megainsworth]

My Bishop & a several Priesthood joined together in a conspiracy against Gospel & Church Doctrine that resulted in my feeling I had to go to the 1st Presidency to replort them. I was over £200 out of pocket over it. I was informed a few weeks later that Pres Monson told the St Pres to refund all of the money back. I gave all the receipts & the next thing I knew I was released from my calling & my Temple Recommend was taken away.  I was so humiliatef that I never went back to Church & want to move away so that I can go to another Ward. In my 31 yrs as a member I have never known anything like it. Is this right? 

[estradling75]

Ok I did an experiment with the whole electronic/autopay thing. Here is what happened

 

First of all I pay all my bills electronically... Tithing and Fast offerings were the only things I wrote checks for so I liked the idea of being able to take care of Tithing at the same time in the same manor.  It took just a few emails with the Church guy to get it set up.

 

At the end of the month I got an email from the Church showing my donations (Months of April and May in this case)  Things seemed to be working fine so a few weeks ago I asked my local ward clerk if he could check my donations.  He checked and he could see April and May.  I don't know if it updates in near real time or if it updates monthly but it did update to the local system.

 

Now I clearly have not had a chance to do tithing settlement yet, but since it is in the system I fully expect the Bishop to have my information when it comes about.

 

So in my opinion if you are looking to simply pay electronically it is simple to set up and works fine.  If for some reason you are looking for a way to keep the record of your contributions out of the hands of your bishop or the other local leaders who handle finances it does not work.  They have access, they can see it if they wish.

 

What it does do is remove your local congregation out of the loop in processing the donation.  If there is a gossip problem then the gossipers will have to look you up rather then see it as they handle it (although if your ward has a gossip problem here the local leaders need to step on it hard).  It also means less room for error being induced by them.  The flipside is, if there is a problem with your contributions your local clerks can't really help you run down the problem or fix it.  You have in a very real sense taken it out of their hands.

[omegaseamaster75]

Edited to add:

I found it online. It isn't black and white as I remember it but advises not to deviate from the outlined questions.

"Generally, do not deviate from the recommend interview questions. If, during an interview, an applicant asks about the propriety of specific conduct, do not pursue the matter. Merely suggest that if the applicant has enough anxiety about the propriety of the conduct to ask about it, the best course would be to discontinue it. If you are sensitive and wise, you usually can prevent those being interviewed from asking such explicit questions."

I still do not believe that Bishop was acting appropriately by pursuing a specific answer regarding tithing. It is either a yes or no. We have been told countless times that it is between us and the Lord.

 

 

 

They are asked not to deviate because the bishop often will not be conducting the temple recommend interview, often renewal interviews are conducted by his counselors. If you need clarification about tithing or the WOW you should not be sitting for a temple  recommend interview