Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU tithing police fiasco

In a 2011 issue of Sunstone magazine, Gary James Bergera has a very interesting article, “The Monitoring of BYU Faculty Tithing Payments, 1957-1963,” that involves yet another historical nugget of mirth created by the university’s late president, Ernest D. Wilkinson. Wilkinson, upon assuming the presidency of BYU in the 1950s, was outraged that some BYU professors paid only a partial tithing, and some paid none at all.

(I digress here to admit that I too, was surprised that there were/are tithing shortfalls among BYU professors. I would have that “giving the Lord 10 percent” was something that one wouldn’t have to worry about at the Lord’s University. But it was, and had been for most of the 20th Century. Wilkinson was determined “to use an individual’s tithing history to help determine raises, promotions, and even continuing employment,” writes Bergera.

At one point, Wilkinson told LDS Church President David O. McKay that 27 percent of BYU faculty were either part tithing payers or paid no tithing at all. Wilkinson’s efforts, though, to get detailed reports of faculty tithing records descended into J. Edgar Hoover spoof when he encountered opposition from local bishoprics and stake presidencies. They understood better than Wilkinson the ethical aspects of the Law of Tithing, that taught that it was a private matter between a church member and his ecclesiastical leader. Eventually, Wilkinson was able to get the names of partial and non-tithe payers, but was stymied in his efforts to get specific details.

Wilkinson also received considerable opposition from faculty at BYU, who balked at having their academic credentials be determined by how much tithing they paid. Many faculty members, including department heads, resigned over the rule. At one point Wilkinson groused in his journal that it was primarily “English, political science and history” departments that were in opposition.

One faculty member who found himself in Wilkinson’s aim was Kent Fielding, a BYU instructor who had admitted he no longer had “a testimony of the Gospel.” When asked how he been approved to teach at BYU, Fielding replied that in his interview, apostle (and future LDS President) Harold B. Lee had asked only two questions: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?; and, “Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?”

Wilkinson confronted Lee on Fielding’s claim that his testimony had not been probed during his interview, and Bergera reports, using Wilkinson’s own notes, that it led fiery words between the BYU president and the LDS apostle.

Wilkinson wrote, “… I had told Brother Lee about this at the time, and Brother Lee, whose main weakness as far as I can see is that he cannot accept criticism, had interpreted it as serious criticism on my part of him…” Lee, according to Wilkinson’s recollections, sneered that the BYU president was “naive” if he was unaware that many BYU faculty did not have testimonies of the Gospel. Wilkinson further wrote, “He (Lee) was smarting very much under what I thought was my criticism of him for not having properly interrogated Brother Fielding.”

Fielding, after refusing to pay tithing and answer questions as a protest against Wilkinson’s policy, eventually had his employment terminated.

The policy that Wilkinson eventually crafted and tried to follow was that partial tithe payers would have their raises decreased by the amount they owed on a full tithing. For example, if Wilkinson determined that a professor had robbed the Lord of $600 in his tithing payments, a $1,000 raise for said professor would be decreased to $400. Professors not paying any tithing would be in danger of losing their employment at BYU. Wilkinson insisted more than once that no one was “forced” to pay tithing, while also insisting that any BYU professor who wanted to teach there would pay his tithing.

The policy prompted panicky attempts by some BYU faculty to try to turn back the clock. As Bergera reports, Wilkinson noted in his writings that one professor insisted in his interview that he had paid a full tithing.

When Wilkinson had the matter looked at, he discovered that the professor had gone to his bishop after the New Year and — much to the Bishop’s confusion — had begged that his tithe payment be applied retroactively.

Bergera estimates that over eight years, at least “two dozen (probably more) teachers were dismissed or resigned” due to church problems that had their genesis with Wilkinson’s tithing crackdown.

The BYU leader left the university in 1963 to run a failed U.S. Senate campaign. When he returned, he discovered a church leadership more resistant to the tactics he had advocated during his first term at BYU. As Bergera notes, “current BYU policy strictly prohibits the release of faculty tithing information to university administrators.”

Although I oppose any Wilkinsonian efforts to force tithing payments on any faculty, I am, I confess, surprised that anyone employed by the LDS Church (and that is the employer of BYU faculty) does not pay a full tithe. Maybe it’s because I’m a “born in the baptismal font member,” but before I read Bergera’s piece, I just assumed BYU workers were tithe payers the LDS Church Presiding Bishopric didn’t have to worry about.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs.

A weekly bath was part of the spiritual cleansing of 1856 Utah

I wanted to share this list of questions that Mormon Church leaders — in the middle of the Mormon Reformation — asked Utah members. The information comes from historian David Bigley’s invaluable book, “Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896.”

Bishops were instructed by the LDS church hierarchy to ask the following questions in every home. Apostle Jedediah Grant, the firebrand who was a fervent initiator of the Reformation, told bishops that any unsatisfactory answers from members must lead to “their names be written down and let the offence and place of residence be written against the name, that we may know who are living in sin, where they live and what their offenses are.”

The questions are as follows. Except for a few, and the fact that answers were not private, they’re not much different — except for the times differences– from questions members get today. From Bigler’s book:

Have you committed adultery?

Have you ever spoken evil of Authorities or anointed of the Lord?

Have you ever betrayed your brethren?

Have you ever stolen or taken anything that was not your own?

Have you ever took (sic) the name of God in vain?

Have you ever been drunk?

Have you ever taken any poles from the big field or fences or taken your brothers hay?

Have you ever picked up anything that did not belong to you and kept it without seeking to find the owner?

Have you made promises and not performed them?

Do you pay all your Tithing?

Do you labor Faithfully and diligently for your employer?

Do you preside over your Family as a servant of God or are they subject to you?

Do you teach your children the gospel?

Do you attend your Ward meetings?

Do you pray in your families night and morning?

Do you pray in Secret?

Do you wash your bodies once a week?

In a humorous sidenote, Brigham Young, Bigler recounts, had a problem with washing his body once a week. He did admit he had tried it, but “was well aware that this was not for everybody.”

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Mormon Doctrine enjoyed a long, controversial history

This article was originally published at StandardBlogs in 2010.

“Mormon Doctrine” is finally going out of print. The late apostle Bruce R. McConkie’s interpretation of LDS theology was a common sight in the homes of active Mormons for decades. Even today, it’s often seen in the homes of older Mormons. In fact, it will likely be decades before the book becomes difficult to find in used bookstores or ebay, etc.

Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote an excellent article about the “popular but polarizing” “Mormon Doctrine.” McConkie’s book was written as an authoritative index of beliefs, but in truth it caused much controversy; in fact as much from outside critics as within the hierarchy of the Mormon Church. The first edition of “Mormon Doctrine” — and a copy of that must be considered rare — prompted the LDS leadership to propose more than 1,000 changes. Eventually, in the early 1960s, McConkie revised “Mormon Doctrine” and it was re-published with the clear idea that it was just McConkie’s opinion.

Nevertheless, as an active Mormon who grew up in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, I can attest that the many times I or others had a dispute on theology, “Mormon Doctrine” was the first place we went to check and see who was “right.”

According to Fletcher Stack’s article, a key problem with the first edition was severe attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. Later problems with the book were its content regarding blacks. In early editions, McConkie had stated a reversal of denying the priesthood to blacks would never occur. And “even in the most recent edition … McConkie wrote that God cursed Cain with ‘a mark of dark skin, and he became the ancestor of the black race,’” writes Fletcher Stack.

In recent years, the Mormon Church has become public relations conscious. Although McConkie is regarded as a beloved late apostle, — his last public address, as he was dying, has been sold for years and he wrote chapter headings in LDS scripture — once-popular books such as “Mormon Doctrine” are being phased out, particularly those that say politically incorrect things about blacks.

The recent battle over Proposition 8 in California has made the need for a more enlightened church more necessary. This is a simple reality, and it is not meant to imply that official church doctrines are changing today, only that a softer stick is preferred and more care has been taken between what the church believes and what one man’s specific opinions are.

“Mormon Doctrine” was to many 20th century Mormons what Parley P. Pratt’s “The Key to Science of Theology” was to late 19th century Mormons, a book on many coffee tables. No doubt another LDS book will one day rise in this century and enjoy decades of influence.

-- Doug Gibson

American Polygamy history focuses on fundamentalist Mormons

Review by Doug Gibson

I wonder how many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are aware of a statement in 1886, preserved in writing, from LDS Prophet John Taylor. In part it reads, "Thus sayeth the Lord: All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority, and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant, for I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever."

I had never heard of that statement by Taylor before reading "American Polygamy: A History of Fundamentalist Mormon Faith," by Craig L. Foster and Marianne T. Watson, The History Press, 2019. (Buy it here or via Amazon here.) The authors have diverse backgrounds. Foster is an LDS historian. Watson, also an historian, is wife in a polygamous family. With others plural marriage wives, she was a contributor to the book, "Voices In Harmony."

Taylor's words, uttered 134 years ago in Centerville, Utah, is a foundation of polygamists' argument for maintaining an earthly belief long shed by the LDS Church. Within polygamous circles it's regarded as a revelation. To the LDS Church it's not a revelation. To the owner of the home where it occurred, John Woolley, it was a revelation. Both he and his son, Lorin, were prominent leaders and advocates of polygamy, an ordinance believers regard as essential to achieve the highest glory in the afterlife. As Foster and Watson note, the Woolleys claimed that both Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ were with Taylor when he was given that counsel.

Just before John Woolley died in 1928, his son Lorin claimed that both he and his father met with resurrected beings Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith Sr., Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, John Taylor and Joseph F. Smith. Shortly after that event, a "Priesthood Council" was formed of prominent polygamists, designed to preside over continuation of the movement. As the others note, these presiding councils oversaw polygamous groups lived and tried to keep the safe from law enforcement.

American Polygamy covers a lot of ground in -- allowing for photos and footnotes -- about 200 pages of text. I recommend it. It is a fascinating -- and often sympathetic -- account of roughly 130 years of fundamentalist polygamy. Despite the 1890 Manifesto, polygamy continued for at least a generation within the LDS Church, with opposition to the practice slowly getting more serious by church leaders. Foster and Watson include accounts of patriarchs and apostles eventually being kicked out of the church for continuing to participate in plural marriage ordinances after its became a liability within the LDS Church. By the time of President Heber J. Grant's leadership, LDS church officials actively assisted law enforcement in tracking down polygamists.

The 1944 law enforcement raids on polygamous groups in Utah and Short Creek, Arizona (1944) and Short Creek in 1953, are covered in detail by the authors. Whatever revulsion readers may personally feel for polygamy, those affected were badly mistreated, having their constitutional rights abused. Families were forced apart. On anecdote recalls how trauma over the raids led to the death of an 84-year-old fundamentalist.

The raids, coordinated for maximum press coverage, boomeranged for law enforcement. Even 50 years later, the authors note, the Texas raids on a polygamous community was also predicated on incorrect intelligence, although later information uncovered resulted in FLDS leader Warren Jeffs being convicted of child sex crimes that will keep him in prison for life.

There's sadness in the history of fundamentalist Mormonism. The personal accounts of their suffering, both social and legal, men thrown in jail and prison, children separated from parents, one can't read these accounts without being affected. We should regret the institutional efforts against modern polygamists as much as we do those same efforts against early members of the LDS Church.

Yet, fundamentalist Mormonism also has a history of dysfunction, exploitation and other criminal behavior. The authors devote considerable space to the crimes and continued poisoned legacies of mass murderer Ervil LeBaron and pedophile and sadist Warren Jeffs. They are the two main "villains" of the book. But they are also extreme examples of significant problems that still plague fundamentalist Mormonism..

Polygamy by necessity has been isolated, with its followers pursued by law enforcement and forced to rely to a fault on either a council of leaders, or a sole leader. Foster and Watson note that disagreement within modern polygamous movements often focused on the amount of control male leaders, or a single male leader, had over the agency of followers. Control can be so pervasive that marriages are arranged. That's another debate that can occur in polygamy -- are spouses allowed to find each other? In some instances they are not allowed any say in marriage, or forced into marriage as children. This leads to tragic, criminal actions where, as noted in the book, 13-year-old girls are raped and another teenager is beaten by her father because she doesn't want to be forced to marry her uncle and have regular sex with him. One can't help wondering how much of this type of abuse still goes unpunished.

Not surprisingly, the movement has split into different factions, some with thousands, some with large single-family units. Today there is polygamy mass entertainment in the form of reality shows, talk shows, or fictionalized television. In recent years, the authors note the irony of same-sex marriage acceptance helping polygamy become less of a taboo and more accepted. Consenting adults should not be denied the right to live within polygamy. Society is moving that way.

The biggest strength of American Polygamy is it provides a human face to the sacrifices, suffering, and re-appraisals of those who sincerely believe in what is often called "The Principle." And it addresses openly some of the dysfunction of polygamy. More important than the histories of major families, Woolley, Barlow, Johnson, Allred, Jessop, Jeffs, Kingston, etc., are the personal accounts of followers, including woman and children. One may never accept polygamy as a principle but still respect the faith and commitment of those who live a still-shunned lifestyle with humility and charity.

It's interesting to wonder if fundamentalist Mormonism will stay at consistent numbers through this century or dissipate to near extinction by 2100. Author Watson provides optimistic anecdotal evidence that young polygamist women will stay in the faith. But I think all religions face skepticism from large percentages of young adults. Fundamentalist Mormonism, still tethered to 19th century mores and doctrines, has its work cut out to remain attractive to ensuing generations.