Tonight I do a deep dive on how the LDS Church has misled its members to believe that top church leaders are not paid. Then we go into the January 2017 leak that blew the lid off this myth to the tune of six-figure base salaries for General Authorities.
The amazing thing is that, in spite of being exposed in front of the entire world, the LDS Church continues to peddle the story that there is no paid ministry!
That’s why I call this episode, “The Mormon Myth that Wouldn’t Die”!
Buckle your seatbelts! It’s going to be a bumpy night!
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Technically, Dallin Oaks was not lying when he said “There are no professionally trained AND salaried clergy in the church.” If he had so OR instead of AND then he would be lying. As a lawyer, he picks his words very carefully. You gotta watch this guy.
I wrote this before I listened to the end. The quote I was referring to was from a 2012 talk, I think. At the end of the episode there’s another Oaks quote where he technically IS lying.
I’m sure just like with polygamy, or celestial marriage, the church holds a secret definition of “clergy.” They probably claim they aren’t clergy or in the ministry. And they might be right. They do nothing a normal minister or clergyman would do. They are administrators. But they are portrayed as clergy and ministers as well so…
Rfm,
Oaks is a world leader and Nelson is a global faith leader to outsiders but to the members they are prophets seers and revelaters. Sure sounds like clergy to me.
A definition of clergy is.
The body of people ordained or recognized by a religious community as ritual or spiritual leaders.
Sometimes applied to the ecclesiastics, ministers, and priests of non-Christian religious systems.
A body of men set apart and consecrated by due ordination to the duties of public ministration in the Christian church; the body of ecclesiastics, in distinction from the laity.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
I posted this to the church utube site and am surprised they have not taken it down.
I find it frustrating how pres oaks said we have an unpaid clergy. For the most part that is true. Except the first presidency, Q12, and some of the Q70 are paid. Unless he is not clergy which I find problematic for an prophet,seer, and revelator. Bishop and stake pres should get the compensation package as well for the work they do.
The hiding of money ie ensign peak and the dishonesty of the church on its paid leadership is what broke my wife’s shelf. All of our marriage we were financially in debt and barely above water most of the time. Now that we have stopped paying tithing we have savings, vacation money for the family, and able to put money away for retirement. Plus after we stopped the blessings still kept coming as I have had several bonuses and been promoted twice. Either God is blessing me or I have become worldly after fame and fortune. People will use either depending on the narrative they want to support.
I don’t have an issue with the church leadership being paid they work hard full time for the church. For that matter they should pay the local clergy as I know every bishop works two full time jobs. What bothers me is the lack of honesty. Using legal wordsmithing to nuance the truth vs just admit it is what lawyers tried to do in Alma. In the end it comes down to why am I more honest that the church that taught me the principle. Proving the concept that the church is only as transparent as it is forced to be…that is the more accurate lords way.
We happily support and donate to your podcast. I will forever be grateful for you connecting the dots on the nov 15 policy and its significance for me. It was exactly what my soul needed.
I’m related to a GA. They aways had a high-high middle class home, as well as a cute cabin up in Park City. That’s when I realized, its good to be an LDS GA! There was no way his previous job could have provided all that.
Just as a comparison the 2020 medium household income in Utah is $74k.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/UT
For anyone who wants to dismiss “no paid clergy” as not being an “official church teaching,” you should know that it is in Preach My Gospel and therefore part of the curriculum taught to every new member of the church:
Soon after baptism new members receive from priesthood leaders the blessing of a responsibility to help in the Church. This is referred to as a calling. All of the work in the Church is voluntary. No one is paid for such service.”
Preach My Gospel, Lesson 5: Laws and Ordinances
It has also appeared recently in General Conference:
“So, in a very systematic manner, we started examining the Church by looking for those fruits with the eyes of our very rational minds. What did we see? Well, we saw[…] a church that does not have a paid clergy but one in which members themselves accept assignments and responsibilities.”
Elder Mathias Held, “Seeking Knowledge by the Spirit, April 2019 General Conference
In “The Church” there are two churches. One is a congregational church that has a lay ministry. The other is a corporate church that is salaried and full-time and in no way follows the principals of church leadership detailed in scripture.
Here’s the punchline: The corporate church relies on the congregational church doing what it does “for free” in order to give the corporate church financial flexibility to spread its corporate empire. So the corporate church officials preach the gospel of lay ministry and the evils of paid ministry, all the while they are paid!
It is pathological. It is dishonest and deceptive. The determination to persist the lie when any observant person knows it is a lie speaks volumes about the culture of dishonesty that pervades the corporate church.
Church officials have convinced themselves that sustaining the myth they are the “True Church” justifies any lie. And so we see the lies and contradictions of the corporate church and its apologists multiply and pile higher and deeper.
And remember, ALL church donations belong to the corporate church. But of course, they aren’t in it for the money …..