Would have been more accurately titled, , 1957-1963."
Here we have exactly the opposite problem of the Penn State admin issue. Instead of a laissez faire hands-off approach to cracking down, you get an FBI surveillance of personal tithing records of professors to see if they are financially supporting "Zion" [the Mormon church]...And look out when these professors didn't! [Some fired; others had raises confiscated]
From the article: ...Wilkinson, upon assuming the presidency of BYU in the 1950s, was outraged that some BYU professors paid only a partial tithing, and some paid none at all...At one point, Wilkinson told LDS Church President David O. McKay that 27 percent of BYU faculty were either part tithing payers or paid no tithing at all. Wilkinson’s efforts, though, to get detailed reports of faculty tithing records descended into J. Edgar Hoover spoof when he encountered opposition from local bishoprics and stake presidencies.
From the article: Wilkinson also received considerable opposition from faculty at BYU, who balked at having their academic credentials be determined by how much tithing they paid. Many faculty members, including department heads, resigned over the rule. At one point Wilkinson groused in his journal that it was primarily “English, political science and history” departments that were in opposition.
From the article: One faculty member who found himself in Wilkinson’s aim was Kent Fielding, a BYU instructor who had admitted he no longer had “a testimony of the Gospel.” Fielding, after refusing to pay tithing and answer questions as a protest against Wilkinson’s policy, eventually had his employment terminated...Bergera estimates that over eight years, at least “two dozen (probably more) teachers were dismissed or resigned” due to church problems that had their genesis with Wilkinson’s tithing crackdown.
The sheer legalism of Mormonism!
This sounds like more than a tit-for-tat confiscation. Why? Because raises each year are predicated upon a base level that rises accumulatively.
If $1,000 raises were reduced to $400, that would not only impact the ensuing year but years forever down the line!
According to Mormon writings, what makes you "worthy?" Your perfection (3 Nephi 12:48; Mt. 5:48)
[Whereas, in contrast, a good definition of a "Christian" is someone already perfect in the Father's eyes thru Jesus sacrificial death (Heb. 10:14) -- where His perfect righteousness is substituted for our imperfect righteousness. (1 Cor. 1:30). Heb. 10:14 ...because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.]
Just to be sure, I looked up "worthiness" (a key Lds concept) in the 1977 "Topical Guide to the Scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" published by church-owned Deseret Publishers.
I found verses like Doctrine & Covenants 59:4: "And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above, yea, and with commandments not a few, and with revelations in their time--they that are faithful and diligent before me."
"Commandments not a few"? -- sounds like a long checklist to me.
I then looked at the 1979 "Topical Guide" in the Lds version of its KJV -- and turned to the "worthiness" entry there: It tells me right up top its related to the concept of "qualifying for" & then proceeds to verses like D&C 31:5: "Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live."
Ah. There it is: The Mormon "strategy." Don't "trust" for your salvation, "thrust in your sickle"
So it sounds like the Mormon god wants plenty of soul labor -- paid labor -- spiritual hirelings -- earned labor for salvation. No free gifts here. No grace here. Just follow the rules, ma'am.
Indeed, the LDS are the "rules oriented" ones: The purity and perfection we seek is unattainable without this subjection of unworthy, ungodlike urges and the corresponding encouragement of their opposites. We certainly cannot expect the rules to be easier for us than for the Son of God... (Lds "prophet" Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 28)
Just look @ all the "rule extensions" Lds have imposed upon their followers in order to make it to the highest degree of afterlife:
(1) You have to be obedient to all the commandments & ordinances of the Mormon god
(2) You HAVE TO TITHE -- what Lds reference as the "Law of consecration"
(3) You have to obey the "Word of Wisdom" -- not drink coffee, etc.
(4) You have to get married -- sorry, no never-married single people allowed
(5) You have to have as many children as possible
(6) You have to perform temple work for the dead
(7) You have to perform endowments essential for this highest degree of salvation
(8) You have to be a member of the right church (Lds)
(9) You have to receive & perform the rites and ordinances established by that church
(10)You have to have Joseph Smith's consent to enter into your highest afterlife
That is 19th-20th-21st century legalism!
Any counter-campaigns pointing out that God's truth is "the concept of free and full forgiveness through Christ" rather than the "earned forgiveness taught in Mormonism" are needed!
Why?
What was so provocative about religious legalism to Jesus?
Let us to look at some of his words on the subject:
* Matt. 15:9: But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
* Matt. 16:12: ...guard against the yeast...against the TEACHING of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
* Luke 11:52: ...you have taken away the key to knowledge.
* John 8:44,47: You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies…The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.
* Mark 7:6-8,13: He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”…13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
* Matthew 23:2-7, 13-15; 23-34 : 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. 5 “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
Here's the apostle Paul on the same subject:
* 1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? 4 Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? 5 So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is EVERYONE who does not continue to do EVERYTHING written in the Book of the Law.” (Gal. 3:1-6, 10)
Are/were there non-Mormon faculty and staff at BYU? Do/did they have to pay the tithe?
Wait a minute. We were just told on another thread that lds do not require tithes, and no one checks your income.
If that’s true then why is there an issue?
(hum, apparently the men of lds do care and find out how much you make otherwise there would not be a statement “not full tithe payers”, because if it were not required to prove your income no one would know one way or the other) - just saying