From Talmage, a much more inspired tithe:
There, Talmage teaches very clearly that you pay your tithing on what is LEFT OVER AFTER you pay for food, shelter and clothing. THAT version of tithing is much more God-like and fair.
Instead of some poor mom paying $2500 on $25,000 of income, she gets to feed her family first, put a roof over their heads and clothe them. And THEN she pays tithing on what is left over. So, instead of her paying tithing on the $25,000, which would end up being much more than she has left over (but let's day it's $2,500), she would pay tithing on what was left over.
Let's say she pays $1000 in rent. $600 in food. $50 in clothing. Finally, $350 per month for health insurance. That equals $2,000 per month and $24,000 per year. She would have $1,000 left over.
In today's tithe, she would owe $2,500, which makes it very hard to feed, clothe and shelter her family.
In Talmage's tithe, she would owe $100, which would allow her to do her duty as a mother and take care of her family.
Big difference.
Overall, Talmadge doesn't have intellectual integrity and his writing doesn't really come off to me as "Mormon" or "LDS". He was more of a corporate schill just grinding the mill for what leadership wanted all along his way.
Of course, back in his day, most LDS folks were rather communal/communist Christian cooperative believers whose emphasis on everything was that they (the members) should take care of one another. That was a sort of generous culture, usually, though in the history of "United Orders" those outfits were economically repressive with ideas like everybody should wear the same coarse coveralls, no frills, and such.
So, imo, the idea of paying "tithes" to the corporate Church, needed some soft talk in that era. And of course the demand for 10% on gross wages has had a hard time cutting it's own way with folks whose brothers run businesses and deduct their costs while digging deep on every allowed IRS business deduction, including travel and food expenses for "business purposes".
Today, I consider the bishops' outlays to help with rent for very marginal unmotivated members who don't work much or make an effort to solve their problems as pretty outlandish. Lots of abuse on that side of it all.
In case you don't get my drift, generally, "tithing" in the OT times was for landowners with crops and valuable animals and actually didn't apply to mere "servants" or "laborers", and it was meant to support the clergy, per the instructions of the landless and jobless Levites.
Joseph's Smith's scathing rebuke against "Bishop" Edward Partridge in the D&C meant that in Josephs' mind, the idyllic agrarian utopia of the United Order was not in any way meant to accumulate all the real assets of the world into the hands of the Church, in legal ownership terms.
I think it might be a good thing for the Church Leaders to bear that in mind when mulling over their land holdings and businesses.
But in personal terms, I long ago determined that the criteria applied by Abraham, in giving a tithe of the spoils of war to the Patriarch/Priest of the age, "Melchizedek", the king of Salem (Jerusalem) was really just the old world patronage and nothing to do with "God". The stuff was given as a political bribe and to prevent retribution, of course. And the tithes in the Law of Moses were necessary because the Levites were given no land from the conquest, but were supposed to care for the rites/sacrifices/teaching of the people. It was more like paying your kids' teachers with produce.... There was no such thing as a corporate "Church".
But, in classic mammoth dysfunctional incongruity and bizarre cognitive dissonance, beyond all dispute, I have been blessed while paying tithes, and my mother who survived miraculously living that way, was better off than my father who died leaving millions to greedy lawyers who managed to make off into the sunset with all the loot after years of flattering the old man, while he himself never got the plaque on the wall of the new Science building at the college he kept above water through the Depression, by taking chickens and pigs and tomatoes for a salary.
nah, Green, you and the other critics in here would all do better just leaving the argument in the ditch and doing whatever you do to for the Church in God's hands. No way to figure how or what blessings you miss if you don't just put God first. Lots of little protestant/mainstream churches with struggling ministers living on a pittance who would benefit from your support, and who would serve the folks sincerely, if you just don't want to fund the Corporate Church.
I don't get to balance the books at Church headquarters, but I know the money in their hands is invested pretty good, and all the assets on the business side of the operation do essentially compose a reserve and a stabilizing economic program that does benefit the members. Nobody on the staff is overpaid. None of those assets are converted to personal wealth on the sly,
And God does bless you if your heart is right in helping the good work go along.
