For Mormons - How Much Do You Really Know About Joseph Smith?

[zaffiroborant]

I find it encouraging to see so much volunteer work, and not a negative. I can’t think of a better way for members to be active in their Church. I recall helping my mother with both funeral dinners and her regular shift on our parish soup kitchen. They both are living their faith.

What your mother did was lovely, I see this in my parish too. What I haven’t seen is firing those who raise families and buy homes by caring for the building and grounds. Then the church keeping the money from salaries and benefits saved by drumming up free labor among the parishioners. And it’s not that parishioners don’t volunteer at their own church, they’ve planted gardens, installed fountains, painted buildings and fences, installed playground equipment. These are projects I remember off the top of my head that parishioners have done here in my parish. What they haven’t done is un-employ a family or in the case of the LDS church, thousands of families.

This is just me but I don’t view time spent doing work for your parish as Christian service, I see it as I would doing work for my parents, siblings, children, as participating in my family. It’s the same way I view my offering at church, it’s not Christian charity, it’s doing my part to maintain my church home financially. I certainly don’t see it as service to put someone out of a job.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Gnostic STREAK?? OK… Actually, belief in pre-Christian Christianity can be found in Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings (he was a real nutcase), and in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

My senior English teacher refused to teach Paradise Lost, because it presents bad theology. She also regretted that she couldn’t teach Geoffrey of Monmouth’s * History of the Kings of England* because it was originally written in Latin. She was a good Catholic lady, and methinks she might have led me to some of my findings.

I lost my internet connection for a while, and am back to writing. Just started feeling frustrated, so took a shower to add humidity to my cave.

Welcome back to the Internet.

A streak can be narrow, hardly noticeable, or a dominant trait.

Some people take typologies literally.

 

[Theo520]

What your mother did was lovely, I see this in my parish too. What I haven’t seen is firing those who raise families and buy homes by caring for the building and grounds. Then the church keeping the money from salaries and benefits saved by drumming up free labor among the parishioners. And it’s not that parishioners don’t volunteer at their own church, they’ve planted gardens, installed fountains, painted buildings and fences, installed playground equipment. These are projects I remember off the top of my head that parishioners have done here in my parish. What they haven’t done is un-employ a family or in the case of the LDS church, thousands of families.

This is just me but I don’t view time spent doing work for your parish as Christian service, I see it as I would doing work for my parents, siblings, children, as participating in my family. It’s the same way I view my offering at church, it’s not Christian charity, it’s doing my part to maintain my church home financially. I certainly don’t see it as service to put someone out of a job.

I think the spirit of service applies whether it’s for your local parish or a random person on the street, the more the better.

Please provide a news reference they fired their maintenance staff and switched to volunteer labor. To be candid, it sounds more like gossip.

Whispered Innuendo

These subtle insinuations can mislead others into thinking wrong thoughts, especially if the conclusions are based on gossipy hunches. Here’s an example: It’s interesting how he was “out of town” the night she was murdered.

Proverbs 26:30 tells us, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, And where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down.”

And a warning from the bible: “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs” (Luke 12:3).

 

[RebeccaJ]

What your mother did was lovely, I see this in my parish too. What I haven’t seen is firing those who raise families and buy homes by caring for the building and grounds. Then the church keeping the money from salaries and benefits saved by drumming up free labor among the parishioners. And it’s not that parishioners don’t volunteer at their own church, they’ve planted gardens, installed fountains, painted buildings and fences, installed playground equipment. These are projects I remember off the top of my head that parishioners have done here in my parish. What they haven’t done is un-employ a family or in the case of the LDS church, thousands of families.

This is just me but I don’t view time spent doing work for your parish as Christian service, I see it as I would doing work for my parents, siblings, children, as participating in my family. It’s the same way I view my offering at church, it’s not Christian charity, it’s doing my part to maintain my church home financially. I certainly don’t see it as service to put someone out of a job.

Yeah, my now deceased father in law found employment as a Mormon church janitor, after more than 30 years as union laborer, that ultimately was the cause of his death. I don’t know what my husband’s family would have done without the employment he had for the Mormons. Mormon theology and some of what they do can drive me crazy, but they used to consider employment of their own as important. Now it’s whatever is good for the Organization, and milk as much free labor from members as they can.

 

[RebeccaJ]

I think the spirit of service applies whether it’s for your local parish or a random person on the street, the more the better.

Please provide a news reference they fired their maintenance staff and switched to volunteer labor. To be candid, it sounds more like gossip.

It was about 2010, when the LDS Church fired all of their church building janitors and asked the members to take over cleaning their buildings for free. It isn’t exactly voluntary, families are assigned cleaning days. The change wasn’t reported in the news, but was read in letters to congregations while at church.

ldsliving.com/story/3504-the-added-responsibility-of-members-to-clean-meetinghouses

 

[kimg901]

I think the spirit of service applies whether it’s for your local parish or a random person on the street, the more the better.

Please provide a news reference they fired their maintenance staff and switched to volunteer labor. To be candid, it sounds more like gossip.

The LDS church is very quiet about what it does.

 

[iepuras]

I think the spirit of service applies whether it’s for your local parish or a random person on the street, the more the better.

Please provide a news reference they fired their maintenance staff and switched to volunteer labor. To be candid, it sounds more like gossip.

When your mother cooked funeral meals and worked in the soup kitchen did she do it because she decided to do it of her own free will or did the pastor assign her to do this “volunteer” service?

In the LDS church, members serve in various positions to help the congregation run. This in and of itself is not too different from Christian churches. Here is the difference. In the LDS church, members are brought into the bishop’s office and asked to accept the calling to a particular assignment. While sometimes the person says no, the expected answer is yes. It is quite bad form in LDS culture to ever turn down a calling or other assignment. The person has no choice as to what the calling is. It is at the bishop’s discretion. Want to help in the office with accounting? Tough beans if the bishop calls you to teach teenagers Sunday school and you cannot stand teenagers. “Service opportunities” such as cleaning the church building are done by assignment. The members are told when they are supposed to show up to clean. The last building I attended the LDS church in was so nasty because the members did all the “cleaning”, there were constant problems with ants and the stench in the bathrooms was unbearable.

Just because no press release was issued about the laying off of church-employed janitors and pushing the work onto the members doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I was sitting in church when the letter about the change was read. I experienced the change from having a professionally cleaned church building to being assigned to clean a perpetually dirty and stinking building. That isn’t gossip or innuendo. Of course, you are free to not believe eye-witness testimony.

Financial scandals? I find the construction of a multi-billion dollar shopping mall with luxury condos in downtown Salt Lake scandalous enough.

 

[Theo520]

The LDS church is very quiet about what it does.

If they fired thousands of breadwinners as claimed, it would have been reported.

 

[zaffiroborant]

If they fired thousands of breadwinners as claimed, it would have been reported.

Why would it have been reported, is it really news worthy when janitors are fired?

 

[kimg901]

If they fired thousands of breadwinners as claimed, it would have been reported.

Do you live in Utah? What happens here is kept real quiet. There is a lot of things that don’t make the news here because its the mecca of Mormonism. Cant have bad press!

 

[twopekinguys]

If they fired thousands of breadwinners as claimed, it would have been reported.

Does this help? This letter was sent to all from the leadership.

You will notice they are no longer utilizing the professional cleaning employees. i.e. fired them. Worldwide I might add.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Brandon_Cal]

Of all the criticisms I’ve seen of the LDS Church on this website, this janitorial issue has got to rank among some of the stupidest.

Churches (or any organization for that matter) are not morally obligated to provide employment to people, and when the need or economic expediency for a particular labor no longer justifies the employing of people said organizations are free to terminate their relationships with those whom they employed.

 

[twopekinguys]

Of all the criticisms I’ve seen of the LDS Church on this website, this janitorial issue has got to rank among some of the stupidest.

Churches (or any organization for that matter) are not morally obligated to provide employment to people, and when the need or economic expediency for a particular labor no longer justifies the employing of people said organizations are free to terminate their relationships with those whom they employed.

Yes, the economic expediency for a high end mall, in one small geographical area, definitely outweighs the moral value of offering employment to individuals world wide.

I see your point.

 

[iepuras]

In post #430, OctobersOwn stated:

No one is really stating this (since most study about Mormonism is done by Mormons) but this religion is falling apart.

For them to post articles (albeit quietly) about all the inconsistencies, mistakes and more bizarre beliefs (all while avoiding blame, since that would mean prophets can’t speak for God) indicates that they’re dealing with a sinking ship.

The membership levels are treading water. The ACTIVE memberships are shrinking much more than a 90,000 army of young men around the world can sustain. The internet is the greatest tool against convincing a person that the Church was “restored” to a 19th century con-man and manipulator.

As someone who has worked in corporate America for 15+ years and dealt with the ups and downs of the economy, I see the janitor issue as evidence of the LDS church having problems. If, as Marlin K. Jensen has stated, members of the LDS church are “leaving in droves” due to the historical and doctrinal issues we perpetually discuss on this board, the LDS church would also be hit with fewer tithing dollars coming in. The laying off of the janitors is, to me, evidence of a cash flow problem.

In my community, I have seen churches shut their doors because of the loss of members or because members have been hit hard by the tough economy who simply cannot give as they used to. It would be foolish to think that the LDS church is also not facing the same reality.

I also find the laying off of janitors and, to a lesser extent other workers in CES or at the Church Office Building, problematic because the LDS church has prided itself that it helps the poor help themselves through honest work.

Those of us who were born and raised in the LDS church know well how much time and energy the LDS church asks of its membership (in addition to tithing). I think it is a bit much to ask people who spend a lot of time preparing lessons and voluntarily doing everything else to run a ward to also spend precious time cleaning the church building, especially given the fact that so many members of the LDS church are faithful tithe payers. The least the LDS church can do is pay janitors to clean the buildings so they don’t have ant problems or stinky bathrooms. I have noticed this and other cost cutting measures at the ward level the last 5-10 years.

 

[RebeccaJ]

The LDS Church is one of the largest employers in Utah. Sure, like any employer they are not obligated to employ anyone, but they have claimed to have an obligation towards the Salt Lake and Utah community. They used that reason for a $2 billion renovation of 2+ city blocks in downtown SLC. The same reason is given for getting politically involved in SSM legal issues and state laws that control the sales of alcohol.The same reason was given when the church took a block in the heart of downtown SLC, closed it to traffic, and turned the street into a plaza.

It would be hypocritical to then take a stance that the employment or not of 1000 people or more is not a community concern.

But then the LDS church does use Orwellian doublespeak at times in its communications to its members and the community at large.

 

[zaffiroborant]

Yes, the economic expediency for a high end mall, in one small geographical area, definitely outweighs the moral value of offering employment to individuals world wide.

I see your point.

And a big commercial venture in Philadelphia, and 562 million spent on purchasing land in FL. So strapped for money, I can see that they just HAD to fire all the cleaning staff.

 

[gh4]

When I attended the local parish here in my small desert town, we had a gal who came in one day a week and cleaned the church and the priest’s house and office. When we heard that she was going to quit, I went to our priest and asked him if he would consider letting me have the job (it paid very well) of cleaning the church and his house. He told me that we wouldn’t be paying anyone to clean, that the members of the parish would be taking that responsibility and volunteering. Same with the outside, they rely on parish members to cut the grass and clean the grounds, plant and water flowers and bushes etc. fix broken things and do all maintenance.
So, it’s not just the LDS who are relying on church members to clean and maintain buildings and grounds, it’s also the Catholic Church.

 

[twopekinguys]

When I attended the local parish here in my small desert town, we had a gal who came in one day a week and cleaned the church and the priest’s house and office. When we heard that she was going to quit, I went to our priest and asked him if he would consider letting me have the job (it paid very well) of cleaning the church and his house. He told me that we wouldn’t be paying anyone to clean, that the members of the parish would be taking that responsibility and volunteering. Same with the outside, they rely on parish members to cut the grass and clean the grounds, plant and water flowers and bushes etc. fix broken things and do all maintenance.
So, it’s not just the LDS who are relying on church members to clean and maintain buildings and grounds, it’s also the Catholic Church.

This is true, but, with the Catholic Church, it varies by parish. Some can afford it, others cannot. With the lds, it was world wide, across the board, every single facility.

Big difference.

 

[Theo520]

This is true, but, with the Catholic Church, it varies by parish. Some can afford it, others cannot. With the lds, it was world wide, across the board, every single facility.

Big difference.

I think it has nothing to do with whether they can ‘afford it’

Increased service work by members is the very smart route for all churches.
When I was a child, my parents could afford a dishwasher yet they decided it was the job of their children, we rotated in shifts. They felt there were benefits of this serve work that far outweighed time saved and simplicity of just using a dishwasher.

They bought the dishwasher when I went off to college

 

[twopekinguys]

I think it has nothing to do with whether they can ‘afford it’

Increased service work by members is the very smart route for all churches.
When I was a child, my parents could afford a dishwasher yet they decided it was the job of their children, we rotated in shifts. They felt there were benefits of this serve work that far outweighed time saved and simplicity of just using a dishwasher.

They bought the dishwasher when I went off to college

Apples and oranges I am afraid.

There is a difference between teaching a child to be self sufficient, and eliminating income from the bread winner of a family.