But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Moses 3:17)

I am intrigued by that phrase “It is given unto thee,” specifically because of that IT. What does “it” refer to?

The meaning that I originally ascribed to that “it” was that it referred to agency, as though it were saying, “thou mayest choose for thyself, for choice is given unto thee.” This reading reinforces the principle that the Lord gives us our agency to choose, even to choose things that He forbids.

Another different meaning has come to me in the last year, one that says, “thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for the tree [of knowledge of good and evil] is given unto thee.”  This reading shows us that Heavenly Father provides us with circumstances where both good and evil are present, and He warns us where the evil is so that we can make informed choices that have real consequences. Our God is a God of good gifts, powerful gifts, sometimes dangerous gifts. There is righteousness not just in choosing good, but refraining from the bad.

Do you see any additional ways to read it that you can share?

Throughout 2020, when many cities were effectively closed and individuals were hunkered down at home to avoid the COVID-19 virus, research showed an “unprecedented increase in internet use and consumption of online pornography.” Despite the growing body of research on pornography, the American Psychological Association insists that its impact is “mixed,” and it is still hard to get a straight answer from a secular source about whether viewing pornography is simply a matter of personal preference. 

Enter Money Shot: The PornHub Story, a Netflix documentary exploring the pornography industry and, in particular, PornHub, the world’s most popular and recognizable pornography website, and its parent company Mindgeek. The very-not-safe-for-work film begins with porn performers and fans waxing nostalgic about their first time viewing explicit material—an HBO late-night special at a sleepover, a nude magazine in the home of a relative, a curious visit to PornHub when their parents were away. One woman describes the experience as “something special,” while a man explains that porn was central to discovering his core identity. Then the filmmakers attempted to provide a “balanced look” at the porn industry and PornHub, including the perspectives of individuals working in the industry and anti-pornography advocates.

It’s unlikely that anyone will be satisfied with the doc—the pornography performers and writers interviewed have already spoken out that the film gives too much credulity to anti-porn activists, while those who oppose pornography will likely take issue with the fact that they are painted with a broad brush as homophobic, right-wing evangelical extremists. But there is a much more important argument to be made against the film. Pornography causes significant harm in ways the film simply glosses over. 

The filmmakers did not include the perspective of any former pornography performers, many of whom have gone on to speak out against the industry and even become anti-pornography advocates. Vanessa Belmond has discussed contracting chlamydia “three, four times or more,” as well as gonorrhea and “a lot” of bacterial infections during her time working in porn (in 2016 California rejected a proposition to require all pornography performers to use condoms, no exceptions). She said that in some scenes, she had to take painkillers because the pain was so bad, and she also experienced vaginal and anal tearing. Even Pamela Anderson, perhaps the most recognizable sex-symbol of the past 30 years, has written about the harms of pornography, saying, “I do believe that internet porn is addictive, getting weirder and weirder, and darker, and I think it does lead to violence against women.” 

The performers interviewed in this film are clearly wealthy and successful, and likely do have a great deal of control over the content they create. In fact, that seems to be the point—to depict pornography as just another form of online content like toy unboxing videos or family vlogs, and its performers as happy, willing participants. In reality, this is not the case for many adult performers and other sex workers. Many pornography performers are victims of human trafficking—according to cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, pornography was the 2nd most common form of sex trafficking, behind only escort services. Last year, Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who operated the company GirlsDoPorn, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking for a scheme that recruited women to perform in pornography under false pretenses. The women were told they would be “modeling,” then once told they would actually be performing in pornography, they were told that the videos would only be distributed through DVDs overseas (they were distributed online). The women were forced to sign contracts they weren’t allowed to read while they were intoxicated. Wolfe will serve a maximum of 12 years in prison. Girls Do Porn founder Michael James Pratt, who has been on the run for the last four years, was finally apprehended in December and is yet to face trial. 

The filmmakers did not interview any individuals (primarily women) who have been victims of “revenge porn”—a practice where intimate partners or former intimate partners of the victim upload sexual videos or images of the victim to the internet. Many working in the adult industry pushed for years for protections that would minimize this sort of content online, such as a verification process for those who upload content to major porn sites. PornHub finally instituted a verification process in 2021, but unfortunately, revenge porn still pops up on other sites, including social media sites. Young girls and women in the dating world have to deal with a culture of “just the impossibility of escaping from harassment, revenge pornography, deepfake porn—just a whole bombardment,” feminist writer Laurel Bates says. “I was talking to a 14-year-old girl at a book event the other day. She said 10 boys had messaged her, pressuring her to send them nude pictures in a single night. That landscape of what teenage girls are navigating is completely new.” 

The filmmakers also left out any victims whose rapes or sexual assaults were uploaded to the internet. Instead, the film interviews New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, whose 2020 exposé on the porn industry led to the aforementioned verification process. While PornHub has made efforts to minimize such content, they still bear responsibility for the proliferation of pornography which has contributed to such a culture. 

The filmmakers did not speak to any victims whose intimate partners’ minds have been addled by increasingly more degrading and violent pornography and who demand more cruel and violent sex acts. One of the porn industry workers interviewed in the film, in fact, describes the first pornography she watched as a gang bang—that is, a film depicting “the successive rape of one person by a group of people.” Popular pornography often features vile racist and sexist language and stereotypes—such as Asian women being described as “Dragon Ladies” or “Lotus Blossoms,” the N-word being used to describe black men partnered with white women in porn films, and black women being portrayed as hypersexual and animalistic. Horrifying categories such as “teen porn,” “refugee porn,” “rape porn,” and “war porn” cannot possibly go without having some impact on the humanity of the viewer. And in fact, it is becoming apparent that the sexual culture is becoming more extreme among teens and young adults, with nearly 40% of 18-29 year olds reporting having choked or been choked during sex.

Under the guise of a “balanced” documentary, Netflix’s newest series, unfortunately, normalizes pornography by presenting it as just another issue that has two sides while dramatically underreporting the breadth of the harm it perpetuates.

Those on the pro-pornography side of the debate repeatedly frame the issue as one of censorship—should pornography be legal? And while compelling arguments have been made in favor of an outright porn ban, there are other questions we can ask ourselves: is pornography ethical? Is it healthy? Is pornography consumption a behavior that we should “normalize”? Or is it acceptable to stigmatize behavior that is contributing to a very sick and sad sexual culture?

The post Money Shot: A Free Pass Given to an Ugly Industry appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

[Editor’s note: Latter-day Saint Charities just released their 2019 Annual Report, available here.]

FairMormon has a service where questions can be submitted and they are answered by volunteers. If you have a question, you can submit it at http://www.fairmormon.org/contact. We will occasionally publish answers here for questions that are commonly asked, or are on topics that are receiving a lot of attention. The question below has been edited for brevity.

Question:

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal said that Ensign Peak Advisors has amassed about 100 billion dollars for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the years because of prudent investment. I applaud the fact that the Church is fiscally conservative and stays out of debt, however “hoarding” 100 billion dollars seems very excessive given the fact that there is so much poverty in the world. I am concerned that too little (percentage wise compared to the overall revenue) is being given to the poor and needy.

Answer from FairMormon Volunteer Sarah Quan:

Frankly, we don’t know enough about Ensign Peak as a general populace to really say one way or another. The issue is nuanced, and a single whistleblower report is not enough for us to draw a good conclusion about the church’s financial situation or intentions. In response to the WSJ article, Bishop Waddell commented that the budget for humanitarian aid has increased to close to a billion dollars in welfare per year.[1] Here are four doctrinal considerations to help us better understand the church’s position.  

1 – The principle of self-reliance: donating large amounts of aid without the infrastructure to support and organize aid distribution often contributes to aid-reliance instead of self-reliance.

The mindset of church leaders about charitable donations can be summarized through this insight by Elder Wilford W. Andersen: “The greater the distance between the giver and the receiver, the more the receiver develops a sense of entitlement.” Elder Renlund expands on this: “This principle underlies the Church’s welfare system. When members are not able to meet their own needs, they turn first to their families. Thereafter, if necessary, they can also turn to their local Church leaders for assistance with their temporal needs. Family members and local Church leaders are closest to those in need, frequently have faced similar circumstances, and understand best how to help. Because of their proximity to the givers, recipients who receive help according to this pattern are grateful and less likely to feel entitled.”

One of the biggest tenets of the church is temporal and spiritual self-reliance, or “the ability, commitment, and effort to provide for the spiritual and temporal well-being of ourselves and of our families.”[2] Part of the reason the church seems conservative in its donations is they try to not donate to causes that would violate principles of self-reliance that the church teaches. 

Critics of aid go so far as to argue that “sowing horror to reap aid, and reaping aid to sow horror…is the logic of the humanitarian era.”[3] I don’t think church leaders are that pessimistic, but I would imagine church leaders argue donating money takes away local job opportunities and potentially harms the economies of the places we are trying to serve by creating aid reliance instead of self-reliance. Pouring billions of dollars into charitable aid could create more havoc than it relieves. For instance, if you donate $100 to “poor children in x country,” some of that goes to corruption, and perhaps part of that goes to an aid organization factory that creates clothing or shoes. This can put local salespeople out of business because people get these goods from the charity instead of local businesses. Thus, the economy is harmed and greater aid reliance is created. 

2 – The sacred nature of tithing funds

The church takes the injunction of carefully using the “widow’s mite” very seriously and wants to hold every dollar accountable and go directly to those in need.[4] Oftentimes, this results in careful monetary distribution and increased amounts of time donated. 

The church views all donations as extremely sacred and won’t put money towards anything where they think waste might happen. The church may have the monetary means to make large changes, but perhaps does not have adequate manpower to ensure the aid is used wisely. Often, aid tends to be given to countries which have weaker institutions and consequently are more corrupt. People often take charitable donations for themselves and because the church views the funds as sacred, the church tries not to donate to anything that has the potential for corruption which results in the church holding onto much more money than it otherwise would.[5] One recent example is a not yet published World Bank paper that shows that after aid to a country increases, funds in offshore bank accounts in Switzerland also increase (by around 5%), indicating the money intended to help people does not reach its intended recipients.[6] One of the most recent high profile examples was in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. After the earthquake, millions of shocked onlookers donated money, donating around $13 billion, yet conditions in Haiti have barely improved, contributing to mass protests because conditions are still so poor.[7] Most of that money clearly never went to the people it was intended to go to. 

To ensure the integrity of donation use, the church tries their hardest to hold every dollar accountable and donate directly to the people in need. This is much harder than simply giving large monetary donations. For instance, in some cases, the church donates trees instead of just giving money or food that can be stolen. 

3 – Planning for the continuing restoration

Church leaders have overwhelming confidence and faith in the future of the church. The church’s financial planning is extremely long term and the church is planning far beyond next quarters’ earnings, this “presidency,” or even this generation. The prophets plan for the church to stick around past the Second Coming and saving funds shows they are serious about future growth of the church. The church is budgeting for when Israel is being gathered at a pace that far exceeds what we are doing today. President Nelson is often quoted as saying “it is much easier to build a temple than to build a people prepared for a temple.”[8] As we become a populace prepared for more temples and even more ready to serve and as the church expands in countries where the church’s financial demands exceed tithing donations, those tithing funds will become a much needed resource. 

Bishop Waddell put it well when he said, “There will come a time when all of these resources, reserves, will be necessary. We don’t know when, we don’t know exactly in what form, but you think of the (Bible story of the) seven fat years and the seven lean years, there’s so many examples in the scriptures that we strive to follow, whether it’s the parable of the talents and not to bury the talent. We saw what the Lord did to that individual. We want to be ready for any contingency.”[9]

4 – Purpose of tithing

All this being said, tithing is not meant for charitable donations to the poor and needy. It is meant to build temples and meetinghouses, sustain the missionary program, etc.–at least as far as is revealed to us today. Maybe President Nelson will receive revelation that the tithing is to be used a different way, but as of right now the church is acting in accordance with revelation as far as we know. 

Best,

Sarah

[1] https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/2/14/21133740/mormon-church-finances-billions-presiding-bishopric-ensign-peak-tithing-donations-byu-real-estate

[2] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/self-reliance?lang=eng

[3] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/11/alms-dealers

[4] https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/use-of-the-lords-sacred-funds

[5] Of course, this issue is much more nuanced than this. There are many forms of corruption and some would argue some corruption is inevitable and some abuse probably still occurs with church donations.

[6] https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/02/17/1581940412000/The-World-Bank-paper-at-the-centre-of-a-controversy/

[7] https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief

[8] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/10/57nelson?lang=eng

[9] https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/2/14/21133740/mormon-church-finances-billions-presiding-bishopric-ensign-peak-tithing-donations-byu-real-estate

The post FairMormon Questions: Is the church excessively “hoarding” money that should be given to charities? appeared first on FairMormon.

I realized today that quote and the scriptural quote about marrying are saying the same thing.  There are always signs of an impending catastrophe, but they are only signs.  There are also plenty of elements of normalcy still around. Right up to the end, in the middle of incredible degradation, folks are still doing routine stuff.  When the social capital is completely run out, the catastrophe is upon you, and its too late to take stock.

Concentration camp commandants had birthday parties.  Late-term abortionists pay taxes and have commutes.  I spent some time this twilight watching the moon play on the ripples of a river.  All was calm.  Someone could have been being murdered a few hundred yards away and thrown into the water–I would not have known.  My own killer could have been coming down the walk.

All arguments to remnant normalcy boil down to “the catastrophe has not happened yet, so it will not happen.”  They boil down to denials of calculus.

General Conference talks to be given in languages other than English is a post from: The Millennial Star

"When we were set apart for this calling, Elder [Richard G.] Scott of the [Council] of the Twelve Apostles taught us many important lessons. He spoke from personal experience when he was a mission president in Argentina. One message that he shared with us is this: 'At times, during your mission, you will be awakened in the middle of the night or the early morning hours with thoughts of specific things you should do for certain missionaries. Do not ignore these thoughts. They are promptings from the Holy Ghost who will communicate with you in the stillness of the night or the peace of the early morning hours. He will speak to you then because that is when you are still enough to hear.' Elder Scott further instructed us to keep a notebook beside our bed so that we could record these precious promptings. He said that by the next morning, we would be likely to forget the promptings if we didn't write them down.

"We have been astonished at the fulfillment of Elder Scott's prophetic words. We have received many promptings in the exact manner that Elder Scott described. We are so thankful that Elder Scott taught us how to recognize and act upon these precious promptings. Had he not taught us, we may not have given these promptings the attention they require.

"Nearly two and one half weeks [before the earthquake], I was awakened at around 4 a.m. by just such a prompting. I did not hear a voice, but the thought was as clear as if it had been in the form of spoken words: 'There is going to be an earthquake. Prepare your missionaries.' I sat up in bed and immediately remembered Elder Scott's counsel. That morning I told Larry what had happened. He immediately set to work organizing our missionaries to prepare for an earthquake.

"In talking with our office missionaries to arrange for them to put together a list of everything we would need to prepare...in both Spanish and English...we discovered that the Lord had also let two of our office missionaries know of the possibility of an earthquake (in the form of dreams) and the need to prepare our mission. We set a goal and arranged our schedule so that we could visit every apartment in the mission to check for safety and to review with our missionaries what to do in case of an earthquake. What a wonderful experience we have had as we have met with them and shared scriptures with them about being spiritually and physically prepared. '...if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear' (D&C 38:30). We instructed every missionary to have a "go-bag" (36 hour kit). We reviewed our emergency action plan with them of where to go and what to do if they had phone service and in case they did not. We gave everyone a paper with all instructions in English and Spanish, and we reminded them that 'this life is the time to prepare to meet God' (Alma 34:32-34). We shared with them our thoughts and feelings about the need for spiritual and physical safety. Some of them became frightened and asked us if we knew something they didn't know. We smiled and repeated '...if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.' We didn't want to unduly alarm them, but we did want to impress upon them the need to be prepared. We tearfully reminded them of our recent transfer conference where we had shared our feelings about our dear Elder McKay Burrows who was unexpectedly called home in January while serving his mission in Romania...how he was prepared in every way to meet God. We reissued our challenge to 'be prepared' in every way. Then we knelt with them in their apartment and dedicated each apartment, asking for a blessing of safety and security to be upon every apartment.

"When the earthquake came, we were prepared. We did not experience the panic that many felt. We knew we were prepared. Because of the words of the Lord's chosen apostle, Elder Scott, we had listened and heeded the quiet, but clear promptings of the Holy Ghost. We were blessed with peace in the midst of chaos. We learned an important lesson: our preparation helped us to avoid panic and fear, but the Lord, in His wisdom, allowed us to experience enough discomfort to know that He has all power. He is in charge. We are nothing without Him. We are dependent upon Him for every breath we take. Only He can save us from death and destruction. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is our perfect example. If we follow Him, we will be saved through obedience to the laws and ordinances of His Gospel.

"As the earthquake became more violent, the mission home groaned and wailed. The power died, so the whole city was black. The windows made a hideous screeching sound, and flying objects banged against swaying walls. The printer/fax machine, books, book ends, and fifty-pound television burst from the entertainment center and crashed to the floor, cabinets emptied, drawers flew open, the refrigerator moved, water sloshed out of the toilets, the floor jolted up and down as we ran across it trying to hold onto the walls to keep from falling down, and the piano toppled over like a small toy. As we made our way to the back yard, I remember thinking, 'God is all-powerful. He is our only refuge from this horrible mess.' I prayed and prayed for Him to still the earth. When we reached the back yard, we watched in terror. By the light of the moon we could see the swimming pool water form giant waves and crash out onto the rocks. House and car alarms screamed into the night...some from being crushed by falling debris and others I guess from the bizarre movement of the earth. I am not sure if the intense rumbling sounds came from the earth itself or from everything else that was shaking so violently. Finally, it stopped. When the calm came, we had to sit down because our legs were weak and unstable. My legs stayed wobbly all day and night yesterday. Today (Feb. 28) the muscles in my legs hurt like I ran a marathon. The aftershocks have been extremely unsettling. Each one begins like the one last night started. We just close our eyes and wait to see if it escalates or dies down. I have never experienced anything like this!