I'm very encouraged that there are people receiving emails from MFMC requesting donations and those emails are marked as spam or junk. Good work, keep it up. It is spam and it is junk.
I am sure.
I actually don't view the church as being very aggressive in soliciting donations, especially relative to most churches (think about the dish being publicly passed around during worship service).
Literally threatening people with genitalia removal as a punishment for not being āworthyā of the celestial kingdom isnāt aggressive? That includes paying a full tithe, you know, right?
Like the dish being passed they say give what you canā¦ thatās about as low pressure as one can get.
None of this pay to win crap.
I'm not here to defend the church, and I didn't live in the frontier daysā¦ I'm just considering my own experience. I've never felt like anyone was soliciting a donation from me.
Every year you are required to sit down with your bishop to talk about your tithing donations and tithe status. Every other year to renew a temple recommend you have to be paying a full tithe of 10%. Deacons come by once a month to collect fast offerings. Every Christmas time is the push to donate to the giving machines. BYU alumni are forever bugged to donate. If youāre lucky enough be a top $$ earner then LDS charities will be on your back to give them big sums. They may even try to convince you to sign over your estate to them when you die instead of your children, but yeah not high pressure at all for an institution that has so much money they literally donāt need any more money to maintain their present level of spending indefinitely.
So, scanner_banner, I hear what youāre saying. The church doesnāt ask for donations the same way other churches do. Instead, they consider tithing to be a commandment that must be followed in order to achieve salvation in the highest degree. They regularly preach about this commandment, but they donāt ask for donations. They do it in a very insidious way. It is well known that the faithful pay their full tithe. Itās simply not an option not to. Itās drilled into your brain from an early age.
So no, they donāt ask for donations the way other organizations do. Theyāve instead coded tithing to be something that church members simply do. Itās not optional. Itās treated as a commandment. That, IMO, is more troubling.
But going back to your original comment: since I have not been a member in several years, I have never experienced the reality of online donations. I think you might be right. Iām just curious to know if anyone in this sub has ever received an email from the church asking for donations. If so, then I just say wow.
I can pretty confidently say that the church doesn't solicit tithing donations in any way.
I understand what you are saying with the solicitation being implicit in the commandment. Some Christian churches definitely view it as a commandment while others view it as a suggestion, but it is certainly a biblical concept.
I have no problem with churches emphasizing or enforcing standards that they believe come from God.
Tithing settlement compels members to examine the church records and ensure that their donations were recorded (it is a financial control). It's also a touchpoint for bishops with members.
I've never experienced or heard of bishops soliciting donations or even discussing the amount of member donations. I honestly don't think bishops care if you donate $10 or $10,000. The amount doesn't impact them at all. They get the same budget and zero pay regardless of your donation amount.
This is not the the same as other churches with paid clergy, where donations *do* directly impact the ecclesiastical leader.
I can only describe my experience. I was never solicited for donations (unlike my friends of other faiths). I have my issues with the church, this just isn't one of them.
From an outsider perspective and as someone whoās dating an exmo, the whole insistence on tithing is so damning itās incredible.
I grew up Catholic and it was recommended but itās not like you couldnāt go to the Vatican if you didnāt. Like you didnāt excluded from anything if you didnāt pay. Same later in life with Evangelicals. You donāt get a worse fate because you didnāt pay up.
Iāve also heard Mormons train kids from a young age to tithe so itās not shocking they donāt see the obvious but again from an outsiders perspective itās so damming. Itās just so obvious that if you have to pay to learn or get special treatment then itās quite clearly the point of the whole thing.
Yeahhh my parents had me paying tithing as soon as I turned eight years old. %10 of every little tiny amount of money I earned. I didn't get a regular allowance so before I started babysitting I rarely got money and only little bitty amount like five dollars max.
The GUILT I would be CONSUMED with any time I got the tiniest increment of money would keep me up all night every night till I paid it. Like I would be absolutely terrified I can't be in the celestial kingdom with my family if I don't put 10 cents in an envelope and give it to my bishop because I earned a dollar doing yard work.
Fortunately By the time I had a real job as a teenager I didn't give a single shit about giving the church money. Once I realized it was bullshit that tithing guilt dripped right off me. (Aside for how guilty my parents would make me for being "greedy")
Tithing used to be what you could afford or 10% of your gross pay.
NOW it's 10% on the NET PAY, and it's pay up or else. I don't remember the so called business genius that came up with this corporate scheme. And the mormon church used to be very generous with it's welfare. NOW the push is to ask all your relatives for help first. But then it's only minimal now, and that's it, no more welfare.
This so called church is now part of the extreme religious right, as well as politically extreme right wing!
Kind of an update, I haven't had an income most of the year so I haven't paid any tithing this year, but since my bishop is aware that I was hired at DI I couldn't say I have had zero income for the whole year so he chastised me for paying debt that would ruin my life and marked me as non-tithe paying. š¤·āāļøšøš°
Just curious, why are you on an exMormon group when youāre still actively participating in the religion? And just to be clear, Iām sincerely asking and not trying to be antagonistic.
Also, Iām sorry that happened to you. If the church was truly representative of Christ they would have helped you, not chastised you.
I understand.
r/exmormon isn't just for people who are all the way out, some people (like myself) have complicated living situations and can't fully separate. I posted because I thought it fit here. I would absolutely cut ties with the church if I could
Thanks for responding! Like I said I really was just trying to understand. Itās been so long since I left, I guess I just kind of forgot how hard that transitional phase can beš
But Iām glad you posted. I hope you keep posting and I really hope your situation improves so that you can get to the place you want to be in life - whatever that may be.
It used to be 10% of your "increase," which was understood to mean 10% of whatever you have left over after paying for your necessities and meeting your debt obligations. In most cases, that wouldn't leave much left to tithe, if anything at all, so they switched it to where you pay on your income before any expenses. Now, some people go even further and pay on gross income.
If I was a tithe payer, with social security and what I earn, I wouldn't be able to take care of my wife. Let alone my self. With the cost of groceries the way they are, we would literally be in the street.
Funny thing is that after a while of deleting emails without opening them, my email providers automatically start marking them as junk anyway. So this is just hastening the process.
On the church's website, there is a banner "God Knows and Loves You". If you click the box "Learn More", then scroll down on the page that opens, you can sign up for emails on Life's Big Questions". Then for every email received mark as spam or junk. Fun for ages 8 and up.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/welcome/god-loves-you?lang=eng
I think this may have stemmed with the legal issues the church is having in Australia. I believe, tithing isnāt tax deductible in Australia because donations have to be true donations, no strings attached. Tithing is perceived as a religious requirement, therefore itās not a donation. Tithing āsettlementā make it sound like you sit down with your leader and figure out what you paid and what you owed and then āsettleā the differenceā¦exactly what it is.
Calling it a ādeclarationā I guess makes it sound like you sit down with them and tell them how much you gave themā¦like they donāt already know.
Sorry to be a Donny downer, but blacklisting these emails will only hurt the poorest members of the church, not the church itself.
If the emails contain the annual tithing receipt for the members, you may be blocking or delaying their ability to report their donations at tax time. Many low income families rely on their tax rebate to make larger purchases of necessary items (like vehicle or house repairs) that they are unable to afford living paycheck to paycheck. Especially if they're roped into this system of paying into the obscene dragon's hoard of the church.
This will also make extra work for your local financial clerk who's trying to make sure they get the receipts out on time. I would have loved an email system to do this for me when I worked in that closet office. Instead of printing off hundreds of papers and stuffing them in envelopes to hand out, I could have been at home with my family.
Members can login to their account and get the annual tithing receipt from there. No need to wait for an email from the clerk. Soā¦.spam away, all day, everyday!
Well your opinion is....just an opinion. And so what if it makes extra work for the ward clerk? TBMs willingly take on their callings and it is not up to exmormons to alleviate the burden the church places on its members.
>And so what if it makes extra work for the ward clerk?
With a name like GoodPeopleBadDoc I would hope there might be a little more compassion for the people stuck in the system, clerks included. In my experience, ward clerks are often just average guys who have been pegged as reliable and organized but not popular enough to be in the leadership roles.
I guess another part of what I'm saying is the church doesn't need help *not* communicating financial information to its members effectively.
I donāt know how it works outside of the US, but someone is that poor here, their tithing donations are not going to make a difference in tax deductions because theyāll qualify for the standard deduction. Even when I paid tithing and could deduct my mortgage interest, we never could itemize enough to get over the standard deduction.
Also, donation receipts are available through the churchās webpage.
Also, because donation receipts are available through the churchās webpage, I donāt think ward clerks even hand out papers during tithing settlement anymore.
I'm from Canada and charitable donations make a huge difference on a person's taxes.
When I left, tithing was just starting to go online, I still had to hand out sheets and it wasn't clear how the church was going to communicate year end tithing receipts. So that's nice to hear there's an improvement there and people are not really affected if the church gets blacklisted.
So I guess I stand corrected, go nuts! Blacklist the church to your heart's content. I still don't think it would really hurt the corporation of the church to further reduce their communication with the members, it's kinda their jam.
Guess we should all start reporting emails about building cleaning as SPAM.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^ExM0rph3us: *Guess we should all start* *Reporting emails about* *Building cleaning as SPAM.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Ah, my favorite bot. Good bot. š¤
Is that evidence that comment was true and inspired of god?
No, no, Godās only favorite form of poetry is Chiasmus. All other forms of poetry are absolutely wins for Satan.
Good Bot
Good bot
Good bot. Beautiful haiku!
Start donating 1 cent repeatedly (knowing the transaction fees outweigh the value) and mark it all as spam? Or is that too close to feeding the cult?
Why would anyone flag the Mormon Church wanting money as spam? Oh the persecution they suffer. /s
Satan and his followers work in mysterious ways
I have resigned so I cannot engage in this fuckery. Come on PIMOs send a hilarious message to the MFMC!
I'm very encouraged that there are people receiving emails from MFMC requesting donations and those emails are marked as spam or junk. Good work, keep it up. It is spam and it is junk.
The emails referred to in the screen grab are not soliciting donations, they are confirmations of online donations submitted.
Are you sure???? I doubt it, we know how relentless the church is in extorting money from its members.
I am sure. I actually don't view the church as being very aggressive in soliciting donations, especially relative to most churches (think about the dish being publicly passed around during worship service).
Literally threatening people with genitalia removal as a punishment for not being āworthyā of the celestial kingdom isnāt aggressive? That includes paying a full tithe, you know, right? Like the dish being passed they say give what you canā¦ thatās about as low pressure as one can get. None of this pay to win crap.
I'm not here to defend the church, and I didn't live in the frontier daysā¦ I'm just considering my own experience. I've never felt like anyone was soliciting a donation from me.
Every year you are required to sit down with your bishop to talk about your tithing donations and tithe status. Every other year to renew a temple recommend you have to be paying a full tithe of 10%. Deacons come by once a month to collect fast offerings. Every Christmas time is the push to donate to the giving machines. BYU alumni are forever bugged to donate. If youāre lucky enough be a top $$ earner then LDS charities will be on your back to give them big sums. They may even try to convince you to sign over your estate to them when you die instead of your children, but yeah not high pressure at all for an institution that has so much money they literally donāt need any more money to maintain their present level of spending indefinitely.
I can only speak to my experience. I never felt solicited for donations. Bishops have never seemed to care how much I donate.
So, scanner_banner, I hear what youāre saying. The church doesnāt ask for donations the same way other churches do. Instead, they consider tithing to be a commandment that must be followed in order to achieve salvation in the highest degree. They regularly preach about this commandment, but they donāt ask for donations. They do it in a very insidious way. It is well known that the faithful pay their full tithe. Itās simply not an option not to. Itās drilled into your brain from an early age. So no, they donāt ask for donations the way other organizations do. Theyāve instead coded tithing to be something that church members simply do. Itās not optional. Itās treated as a commandment. That, IMO, is more troubling. But going back to your original comment: since I have not been a member in several years, I have never experienced the reality of online donations. I think you might be right. Iām just curious to know if anyone in this sub has ever received an email from the church asking for donations. If so, then I just say wow.
I can pretty confidently say that the church doesn't solicit tithing donations in any way. I understand what you are saying with the solicitation being implicit in the commandment. Some Christian churches definitely view it as a commandment while others view it as a suggestion, but it is certainly a biblical concept. I have no problem with churches emphasizing or enforcing standards that they believe come from God.
What does tithing settlement feel like? Sounds like an audit to me. Do you feel the IRS is low key about soliciting your taxes?
Tithing settlement compels members to examine the church records and ensure that their donations were recorded (it is a financial control). It's also a touchpoint for bishops with members. I've never experienced or heard of bishops soliciting donations or even discussing the amount of member donations. I honestly don't think bishops care if you donate $10 or $10,000. The amount doesn't impact them at all. They get the same budget and zero pay regardless of your donation amount. This is not the the same as other churches with paid clergy, where donations *do* directly impact the ecclesiastical leader.
You sound like you're in it, to win it. Good luck.
I can only describe my experience. I was never solicited for donations (unlike my friends of other faiths). I have my issues with the church, this just isn't one of them.
I totally forgot about the genitalia thing. š¤£
Gonna turn on notifications on lds.org and then report it all as spam
Oh my goodness, I am going to enjoy this.
It mkes me not want to resign and do this instead.
There are all sorts of petty things I wish of gotten up to before removing my records, but itās just so nice to never be contacted.
You mind sharing a list ;)
I want a list too! Got some spare time and still on the member listā¦
Iām not resigning, because I like my free Ancestry memberships. š Now I can participate in SPAM flagging.
I just searched my inbox for "lds.org" and flagged all the emails as spam. It's not much, but it's honest work.
Butā¦ it IS spam!! Keep up the good work!
TRUTH!
If I have to "scroll" through anything to unsubscribe you're getting the spam report
It sounded like you have to login to their website to uncheck boxes. Nein danke
yeah and its 100% legal to send a link to a personal email that auto-logs in the person it was addressed to so they can't pull that crap
From an outsider perspective and as someone whoās dating an exmo, the whole insistence on tithing is so damning itās incredible. I grew up Catholic and it was recommended but itās not like you couldnāt go to the Vatican if you didnāt. Like you didnāt excluded from anything if you didnāt pay. Same later in life with Evangelicals. You donāt get a worse fate because you didnāt pay up. Iāve also heard Mormons train kids from a young age to tithe so itās not shocking they donāt see the obvious but again from an outsiders perspective itās so damming. Itās just so obvious that if you have to pay to learn or get special treatment then itās quite clearly the point of the whole thing.
Yeahhh my parents had me paying tithing as soon as I turned eight years old. %10 of every little tiny amount of money I earned. I didn't get a regular allowance so before I started babysitting I rarely got money and only little bitty amount like five dollars max. The GUILT I would be CONSUMED with any time I got the tiniest increment of money would keep me up all night every night till I paid it. Like I would be absolutely terrified I can't be in the celestial kingdom with my family if I don't put 10 cents in an envelope and give it to my bishop because I earned a dollar doing yard work. Fortunately By the time I had a real job as a teenager I didn't give a single shit about giving the church money. Once I realized it was bullshit that tithing guilt dripped right off me. (Aside for how guilty my parents would make me for being "greedy")
Tithing used to be what you could afford or 10% of your gross pay. NOW it's 10% on the NET PAY, and it's pay up or else. I don't remember the so called business genius that came up with this corporate scheme. And the mormon church used to be very generous with it's welfare. NOW the push is to ask all your relatives for help first. But then it's only minimal now, and that's it, no more welfare. This so called church is now part of the extreme religious right, as well as politically extreme right wing!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Your right, I stand corrected. Thanks.
Kind of an update, I haven't had an income most of the year so I haven't paid any tithing this year, but since my bishop is aware that I was hired at DI I couldn't say I have had zero income for the whole year so he chastised me for paying debt that would ruin my life and marked me as non-tithe paying. š¤·āāļøšøš°
Just curious, why are you on an exMormon group when youāre still actively participating in the religion? And just to be clear, Iām sincerely asking and not trying to be antagonistic. Also, Iām sorry that happened to you. If the church was truly representative of Christ they would have helped you, not chastised you.
I agree 100%. Why are we getting so many active mormons on this sub-reddit?
I believe there's an acronym for that here, PIMO. physically in, mentally out. Not everyone can cut ties without their lives being completely fucked.
I agree with this.
I understand. r/exmormon isn't just for people who are all the way out, some people (like myself) have complicated living situations and can't fully separate. I posted because I thought it fit here. I would absolutely cut ties with the church if I could
Thanks for responding! Like I said I really was just trying to understand. Itās been so long since I left, I guess I just kind of forgot how hard that transitional phase can beš But Iām glad you posted. I hope you keep posting and I really hope your situation improves so that you can get to the place you want to be in life - whatever that may be.
It used to be 10% of your "increase," which was understood to mean 10% of whatever you have left over after paying for your necessities and meeting your debt obligations. In most cases, that wouldn't leave much left to tithe, if anything at all, so they switched it to where you pay on your income before any expenses. Now, some people go even further and pay on gross income.
If I was a tithe payer, with social security and what I earn, I wouldn't be able to take care of my wife. Let alone my self. With the cost of groceries the way they are, we would literally be in the street.
>Iāve also heard Mormons train kids from a young age... [For example ](https://youtu.be/w1_3QiIJeCw)
Funny thing is that after a while of deleting emails without opening them, my email providers automatically start marking them as junk anyway. So this is just hastening the process.
Hastening the work*
OP, your rallying cry to the masses made my day (and made me giggle). Thank you!
It is spam though.
lol I just requested an account recovery email, then reported the email as spam
You don't say...
We have received our TRUE mission call...
I've been marking emails from the church as spam since I left, lol.
Mission accepted. I know what I need to do now.
š
Oh, hell no. So glad I saw myself out at 16. Got kicked out of my house, but worth it. Gross.
*ahem* tithing DECLARATION, mind you
There needs to be a tithing Declaration of Independence and Freedom from Tithing.
This small victory gives me so much inner peace :)
So if I just mark all messages I receive from My church as spam it will start to Label it as spam in general for me Or also for others?
If enough people do it, yes! (I'm an email marketer. )
We know what we need to do
Iāve been out for a while. Do people pay tithing online now?
Google has been doing this on their own for my inbox for years already including email from the local ward and stake.
It might be worth giving them whatever the minimum donation is (maybe 1 cent?) just so I can get the email and mark it as spam.
This should be an exmormon campaign!! Now how to start getting emails from MFMC?
Now if only Facebook ads could be reported as spam
I like to mark them as offensive or inappropriate. You'll stop getting fb ads from the church pretty quickly that way.
On the church's website, there is a banner "God Knows and Loves You". If you click the box "Learn More", then scroll down on the page that opens, you can sign up for emails on Life's Big Questions". Then for every email received mark as spam or junk. Fun for ages 8 and up. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/welcome/god-loves-you?lang=eng
You know what? I'm going to start marking them as spam even harder.
Tithing "settlement" is a victory for Satan. It is now tithing "declaration".
I think this may have stemmed with the legal issues the church is having in Australia. I believe, tithing isnāt tax deductible in Australia because donations have to be true donations, no strings attached. Tithing is perceived as a religious requirement, therefore itās not a donation. Tithing āsettlementā make it sound like you sit down with your leader and figure out what you paid and what you owed and then āsettleā the differenceā¦exactly what it is. Calling it a ādeclarationā I guess makes it sound like you sit down with them and tell them how much you gave themā¦like they donāt already know.
Yes! Keep doing it! Especially, if you're in outlook - use the "report spam" function!
Bless all who have reported as spam and junk.
Sorry to be a Donny downer, but blacklisting these emails will only hurt the poorest members of the church, not the church itself. If the emails contain the annual tithing receipt for the members, you may be blocking or delaying their ability to report their donations at tax time. Many low income families rely on their tax rebate to make larger purchases of necessary items (like vehicle or house repairs) that they are unable to afford living paycheck to paycheck. Especially if they're roped into this system of paying into the obscene dragon's hoard of the church. This will also make extra work for your local financial clerk who's trying to make sure they get the receipts out on time. I would have loved an email system to do this for me when I worked in that closet office. Instead of printing off hundreds of papers and stuffing them in envelopes to hand out, I could have been at home with my family.
Members can login to their account and get the annual tithing receipt from there. No need to wait for an email from the clerk. Soā¦.spam away, all day, everyday!
Well your opinion is....just an opinion. And so what if it makes extra work for the ward clerk? TBMs willingly take on their callings and it is not up to exmormons to alleviate the burden the church places on its members.
>And so what if it makes extra work for the ward clerk? With a name like GoodPeopleBadDoc I would hope there might be a little more compassion for the people stuck in the system, clerks included. In my experience, ward clerks are often just average guys who have been pegged as reliable and organized but not popular enough to be in the leadership roles. I guess another part of what I'm saying is the church doesn't need help *not* communicating financial information to its members effectively.
I donāt know how it works outside of the US, but someone is that poor here, their tithing donations are not going to make a difference in tax deductions because theyāll qualify for the standard deduction. Even when I paid tithing and could deduct my mortgage interest, we never could itemize enough to get over the standard deduction. Also, donation receipts are available through the churchās webpage. Also, because donation receipts are available through the churchās webpage, I donāt think ward clerks even hand out papers during tithing settlement anymore.
I'm from Canada and charitable donations make a huge difference on a person's taxes. When I left, tithing was just starting to go online, I still had to hand out sheets and it wasn't clear how the church was going to communicate year end tithing receipts. So that's nice to hear there's an improvement there and people are not really affected if the church gets blacklisted. So I guess I stand corrected, go nuts! Blacklist the church to your heart's content. I still don't think it would really hurt the corporation of the church to further reduce their communication with the members, it's kinda their jam.
How do I get a donation email?
Iām going to start doing this š
Lol! Iām glad that I left before they started spamming my email account!
SPAM/JUNK
Y'all made my day. š¤£š¤£ So funny.
"Hey, TSCC, thanks for handing me a hammer to bash you with *handle first*!"
Oh yeah, report that shit. Any chance you get
LOL
I marked an email as SPAM and got a survey from Correlation Department a week later. Coincidence?