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Paying tithing isn’t a requirement to be baptized, as far as I know. But I could be wrong about this. I know it’s a requirement to go to the temple. As far as the WofW is concerned, I’m actually surprised as well that it’s a requirement to be baptized. I thought it was summed up quite well when I did a blog post a while back about the WofW and a good friend of mine had this to say:
“To me, there is always the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law, and this especially applies to things like the Word of Wisdom.So what is the spirit in which the Word of Wisdom was intended? Well, if we actually read the scripture, it’s not even a commandment (“To be sent greeting; not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom”).
In fact, it wasn’t even adhered to by most members (including General Authorities) until the end of the 19th century. When Joseph Smith sent missionaries out in the early days of the Church, he used to tell them specifically not to adhere to the WOW too strictly, as it would turn off investigators offering them tea, coffee, or a drink.
Joseph Smith drank smuggled wine in the Carthage jail on the night he was assassinated by the mob, and his close friend and fellow member, Porter Rockwell, opened a bar in Joseph Smith’s mansion house in Nauvoo (until Emma Smith got upset and told Joseph she didn’t like crowd it attracted).
In reading early Church history books, they will often include letters between General Authorities talking (as if in passing…you know, like it was no big deal) about having coffee, tea, or alcohol being served at various meetings.
In Truman G. Madsen’s talks about the Presidents of the Church, he mentions David O. McKay giving Joseph Fielding Smith a hard time because he was such a stickler on the WOW and refused to drink decaffeinated coffee.
Anyway,I think the real point of the WOW is just as it says, “Given for a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints”. In other words, you can never become a drunkard or an addict if you simply avoid something entirely, and we really don’t have a way of knowing if we are “weak” in terms of becoming addicts until we actually become an addict or a drunkard, right?
The real danger in these substances, I believe, is intoxication, addiction, and harm to our health. When we consume something like non-alcoholic beer, which is not intoxicating (doing the math, you’d have to drink 16 non-alcoholic beers at 0.5% alcohol to equal one regular beer which has about 8%)is not addicting, and is only harmful in that it is high in calories (which may be a health advantage if you have a low caloric intake).
Unfortunately, the interpretation of the Word of Wisdom seems to have evolved with time, from Mormon doctrine to Mormon dogma. I personally know members that eat meat at every meal, and overindulge in those foods most detrimental to one’s health, but will stop talking to an individual for such “moral outrages” like seeing someone walk into a Starbucks (“One must avoid the appearance of evil!” is the usual argument). Talk about missing the mark!”
So great to see you here, MH! MH and I have become good friends, as we often see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. I really appreciate his courage to ask provocative questions and give honest, frank answers, and yet at the same time he is able to maintain a strong faith that has been a real example to me. So in that respect, I think he fits very well into StayLDS.
Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone. Heber, my family is pretty open and probably much more intellectually liberal than most Mormons. I’m very lucky that way. Even though they themselves don’t feel the need to “dig deeper,” they’ve never criticized me for doing so. My mom is the type of person who nothing shocks her and she follows my blog every day, even though she doesn’t feel “smart” enough to comment herself. My dad is more of the conservative type and my mom said that he once glanced at my blog but found it “depressing.” He’s never criticized me, but I think he’s scared to know all the “dirty details” of Mormon history and so he just doesn’t go there. And I respect that. I know he always had issues with the priesthood ban as well, but he’s been able to put them aside better than I have. I think it’s for the best that my family just go on doing what they’re doing — as long as they continue to respect me for doing what I’m doing.
Regarding polygamy, I haven’t done a real in-depth post about my personal feelings regarding polygamy, but Mormon Heretic did a post a while back which I can pretty much totally agree with. He and I really see eye-to-eye on some of these difficult issues. So check out his post on polygamy here:
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2009/05/17/my-perspective-on-polygamy/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.mormonheretic.org/2009/05/17/my-perspective-on-polygamy/ Also, if you’re in for a long read sometime, check out Mormon Heretic’s post about the priesthood ban. I don’t believe the priesthood ban was inspired and I think it was all the result of misinterpretations and downright racism on the part of Brigham Young and others of his time.
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2008/09/14/was-priesthood-ban-inspired/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.mormonheretic.org/2008/09/14/was-priesthood-ban-inspired/
