Church Finance (via Truth Hurts)

The following is an extremely well researched four-part posting by Truth Hurts (who’s an active member of the Church, yet highly critical – a paradox that I can’t quite yet grasp) on the topic of Church finance. As I’ve noticed for quite a while now, the Church is much more a business corporation (with tax-excempt status) than it is a religious organization set on saving souls.

It’s a long read, with a few tangent thoughts sprinkled throughout, but it makes for a very interesting and informative (and well-documented) read. Here are the links to all four parts (I found parts 1 & 3 to be the most interesting):

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

As general conference approaches, members across the world will once again convene in front of TV sets, internet connections and in other meeting houses far and wide to hear counsel from church leaders.  Every spring general conference these same members are treated to the report from the Church Auditing Department on the financial status of the Church ™.  These reports are generally banal beyond description, with no specifics given as to the fin … Read More

via Truth Hurts

Rape Apology and Joseph Smith (via Molly Muses . . .)

It always amazes me how Mormons can turn a blind eye to their founder’s sexual “transgressions” (aka. rape) while then taking the stance that all sexual sin is second only to murder (as per Boyd K. Packer’s April 2011 talk, “Guided by the Holy Spirit“) Although I plan to address this topic in greater detail in the future, I thought I’d pass along this blog post by Molly Muses, who has worded things better that I could have done.

What would you say if I told you the story of a man who declared himself to be God’s messenger, published and circulated a document threatening his legal wife with death if she did not allow him to have sex with other women, told his male followers that their teenage daughters or legal wives needed to become his sexual partners or they would all be shut out of heaven, had sex with teenage girls living in his home as wards, and allowed his best fr … Read More

via Molly Muses . . .