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mercyngrace wrote:
And one from my own life. Our family was going through a soul-crushing period of adversity.
I was home with our children. My husband was awayMy family is out of town. Can I have FHE with you?knowmy address, He knew my broken heart. This good brother had a calling but that’s not how he ended up at my door. This was the most humble, genuinely charitable, and concerned bishop I’ve ever known. Not to derail a beautiful action by a caring bishop, but [sarcasm on] how could you let a man into your home when your own husband was out of town? What would the neighbors think? What does the bishop tell his wife he did for the evening (Hi honey, I went to sister Mercy’s house because her husband was out of town, and we had family night together!) [Sarcasm off]
Your bishop was living the spirit of the law, and not the Church Handbook of Instructions.
Curtis wrote:They talk as if they were objective, but they aren’t. There is no way for people to hear everything about a religion’s history before joining. Not even religions with much more extensive preparation than the LDS Church can do that. Every religion sets its own rules for being considered a member, and many of them are even less comprehensive than the LDS Church. I am all for slowing down in many cases before baptizing someone, but who is going to set an objective standard about what needs to be taught and what can be skipped – and how everything is presented? It’s an impossible standard – and they have to be smart enough to know that.
Very good argument against the lawsuit. You have summed up why it will not win very well.
mackay11 wrote:The church also encourages members to reduce tithing accordingly. So instead of paying £10 per £100, you pay £8 per £100, knowing the £2 will be paid by the government out of your own tax bill.
Does anybody else find this stange? UK members only pay 8% tithing if they do it through the HMRC?
I had a members while I was bishop whose employer would match dollar for dollar his charitable contribution up to 5% of his salary. So he would pay his 10%, and I’d get a check in the mail from the company for another 5%. He would joke that he could just pay 5% tithing, and the church would still get their 10%, but he never took it beyond a joke. Next time I see him, I’ll have to tell him the church would have approved his 5% as full tithe!
This just got a whole lot more messy. Curtis, don’t read this, it will just get you riled up again. The two people named as plaintiffs in the suit, Stephen Bloor and Chris Ralph put out a joint statement on why they did it. I’ll not link to the site, you’ll have to find it on your own. But here is the real meat of the letter
Quote:
“We are also anxious to see the church offer assurances about the position with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs of members and former members who now feel, as we do, that our tithing and other offerings were obtained by the church under false pretenses. For every pound paid to the church by LDS members in the UK who, (following leadership counsel), have availed themselves of Deeds of Covenant and Gift Aid, £0.20 has been added by the British Taxpayer to the church’s bank accounts. The sum paid out by HMRC in this connection must now amount to tens of millions of pounds. It is understood that in most cases the resulting tax rebates made to individuals, were handed over to the church at its request. We seek an assurance from the church therefore, that in the event that at some future time these payments made by HMRC will be deemed to have been fraudulently obtained, the LDS church will offer immunity to those individuals, and ensure that such sums as were rebated will be returned with the due interest to HMRC.”
In the UK members are encouraged to pay via Gift Aid. When they do that, for each pound of tithing they pay the church, the church claims 0.20p from the Government, because it’s a charity.
Basically if you pay £1 the government has pledged to pay the charity £0.20p which it would otherwise have taken as tax from the individual.
So they are claiming that the church has defrauded the British Government out of millions of dollars.
If the London Tabloids go with this angle, it will be a PR nightmare for the church.
It has reached the mainstream press. I’ll refrain from linking to the pages 
Below (from NOM) is an excellent analysis by a former federal prosecutor on why this lawsuit is stupid, and going nowhere.
Quote:
I’m a former federal prosecutor. I’ve been involved in a number of cases that involved getting both defendants and witnesses from overseas. I’ve worked both extradition and warrants of attachment for witnesses. So believe me (or don’t – it doesn’t really matter what any of us think, after all) when I say:TSM will never, ever see the inside of a British courtroom. He will not see the inside of a US courtroom. He will never see the inside of any nations’ courtroom. He will not be deposed by TP’s lawyers. There will be no document discovery given by the Church. These are pipe dreams. These things are so for these reasons:
In extradition from the US to Britain, the principle of reciprocity applies – if an offence is not an offence in the US, a US citizen will not be extradited to Britain. Therefore, getting TSM extradited from the US to Britain would require getting a Queen’s Magistrate to issue an arrest warrant, then the British Ministry of Justice presents the warrant to the British Foreign Affairs Office. Then the British Foreign Affairs Office presents the warrant to the U.S. Department of State. State then passes it to the US Department of Justice. Then a U.S. Attorney takes the warrant into a U.S federal district court to get a U.S. arrest warrant issued. Does anyone out there actually think any of that is going to happen? Getting a warrant for such a high-profile American citizen is as much political as it is legal, my friends. Harry Reid, Orrin Hatch et al would squash that like a bug in the very unlikely event this made it far enough to get to the US DOJ. However, if it made it through that impossible gauntlet, getting a US federal district court judge to agree that the filed information I read contains a violation of US law has as much chance of success as I do in becoming the next LDS prophet.
There will be no depositions, because this is a criminal case, not a civil case. In criminal cases, the defendant has the right to remain silent, which TSM would most certainly invoke.
There will be no document discovery for the same reason as above – this is a criminal case, not civil litigation. In order for the defendant to be ordered to turn over documents, the prosecution must secure the equivalent of a search warrant. As has been noted in above comments, this is a private prosecution, meaning no Crown Prosecutor thought this case was worth his/her time. The likelihood of TP convincing a British magistrate that the probable cause standard has been met for a document seizure, then getting that warrant enforced in the United States through the gauntlet I described above — again, there’s as much chance of all of that happening as there is of me becoming the Prophet.
A comment from another forum with a different take on the real motive (discovery) Quote:
As an attorney, I would be very surprised if Phillips’ legal team hasn’t already thought several more steps down the road. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t care what any church official said about whether they truly believed the church’s claims, or whether they claim the freedom of religious belief. That doesn’t matter. That wouldn’t be the goal. Document discovery would be the goal. This case involves claims of historical fact that are falsifiable. So the question would be, did the Brethren have access to internal information showing those claims to be false, or likely to be false? In a civil suit against a corporation, executives can claim ignorance, but that opens the door to internal records and communication to see whether the executives are being truthful, or whether they should have known of wrongdoing given the internal information that they had access to. This kind of discovery is done all the time.So what could they conceivably go for? Oh, just all of the First Presidency’s correspondence, meeting minutes, diary entries, archives, records, writings, studies, etc. Pretty much anything in the First Presidency’s vault. The argument to get access and make the church produce it is easy: there might be information showing either that a) Monson and the Brethren and their predecessors knew that the claims weren’t true, or b) should have known that their claims weren’t true, or c) withheld factual information that could have materially altered the decision-making of converts and members if that information had been disclosed. It’s obviously relevant to the question of what information they had through the years to either support or weaken their claims to the church’s veracity. At this moment, I can’t imagine a strong argument to protect it from discovery. I don’t see a relevant privilege at issue. The church could claim that it is sensitive material, but they would then have to explain why. The “why” would have to be an argument that the disclosure of such evidence might be embarrassing or damaging to the church or its membership, but that goes to the fraud claim (i.e., if there’s something so embarrassing or earth shattering that the First Presidency has been hiding because it could damage members’ belief in the enterprise, that is fraud by concealment). Moreover, the argument would be made that if the Brethren truly believe it all, then the material in their possession should support their belief and they should be happy to disclose it to the world.
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Curtis wrote:Serious question, Sheldon:
What, exactly, is your point – and I don’t mean to ask that aggressively or sarcastically or in any other negative way? I simply ask to understand.
I would like the church to come right out and say that the prophets can and will be wrong. They are trying to have it both ways. They publish essays that 80% of the members will never see, that say our prophets’ are fallible, and extremely influenced by their culture, and we can’t believe what they say when they speak like that. Then in GC we’ll get talk after talk of “follow the prophet” and “he’ll never lead us astray”. So which is it?
I would like a CG talk on the crutch of all these essays, given by TSM, where he says the past prophets have been wrong on very critical issues, and he and future Prophets will also be wrong, but they are doing the best they can.
I also realize that they probably can’t do the above with the current Q12. Too many vetoes.
Yes, I tend to come across flippant at times, and it probably does not help that you have to look at that snarky “Sheldon” in my avatar every time you read my posts. Thanks Curtis for being patience with me! I can’t talk like this at church, and this outlet helps me “Stay LDS”!
This is yet another essay that throws former prophets under the bus. The real question members should be asking today is what are the current beliefs that will be disavowed 100 years from now. Old-Timer wrote:Re-interpretation of the current policy, especially the consequences of not following that policy? Yeah, I could see that (although I’m not holding my breath for a change any time soon) – and I absolutely would like to see it happen.
Ray is exactly right (contrary to popular belief, Ray and I do agree on most subjects!)
The revelation in the D&C lets us drink beer, and a case for wine (not a strong drink) could also be made. They could also say that it was understood in Smith’s time that the temperature of the drink was a problem, and the use of Tea and Coffee is OK as long as it’s not really hot!
Something not mentioned in the article was Brigham Young’s assertion that one could NOT get into the Celestial Kingdom without plural marriage. In fact, the phrase “Celestial Marriage” as found in the D&C referred to plural marriage, as a monogamous marriage was in fact not “Celestial”. But to tackle that issue, the church would have had to again disavow something BY taught over the pulpit. Twice in two weeks might be a little too much for some to handle (Ray’s Flood theory at work here)
You have to believe that the scriptures are “The Word of God” to believe that God contradicts him/her self. But if you believe that most of what we call scriptures are faith promoting stories handed down through the millennia, and that God influenced their substance (i.e. good morals are taught), then “God” did not make any contradictions. Like I said in another thread, the only people outside of the Trib’s circulation area that would get flooded are us “so called intellectuals” that participate in internet forums. I would put that number at about 2% of the active members of the church. For everybody else they either don’t see it (most) or gloss over it and say “ya, I knew that” Old-Timer wrote:Quote:We can complain, or we can help spread the word. I’m sharing it with others.
You are right Ray, I didn’t mean to imply that it will stay hidden. My black friend will share it with the HC and SP. I’ll share it every time someone brings up Blacks and the priesthood. It will get out. I think the church did the best they could given the institutional baggage they carry.
