Retract of the earlier post

That's why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is adamant about not having anyone in their organization paid to be there.

Well, I guess at the very least I have gotten you to shift away from your first statement above, and that payment of some kind is in fact made to many people within the LDS organization.

I have no idea whether or how much General Authorities are paid... Since you said you haven't been through the temple, I suspect you're not a member of the church, and thus probably don't know said fact either. If you can find me a current source indicating that, I'd like it. As far as I know those who financially need it are given jobs as church-owned companies.

No, like you I have no idea how much the General Authorities are paid. However, it has been acknowledged by the LDS Church from time to time that living allowances are paid.

"Because the Church has no professional clergy, it is administered at every level through LAY PARTICIPATION AND LEADERSHIP, and officials other than the General Authorities contribute their time and talents without remuneration. … Because the General Authorities are obliged to leave their regular employment for full-time Church service, they receive a modest living allowance provided from income on Church investments." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, p.510) quasi-official documentation

The Salt Lake Tribune once published that a high-ranking leader also receives a home. Reportedly some of these are worth over a million dollars, but I have seen evidence that other apostles live in more modest homes than that.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Nov. 9, 1983 that the salary given to a Seventy was reported to be $40,000. If this was true, the amounts paid would probably be much greater today. I have seen speculation that the living allowance for an Apostle is at least twice as much as that of a Seventy. I agree with you that if we take the size and financial worth of the LDS Church and put this in perspective, an Apostle of Seventy would be equivalent to senior executives being paid more the estimates cited. On the other hand compared to the average income of an American worker, I think you could also term it generous.

I have seen speculation that for Apostles the "living allowance" today is in the 6 figures....I honestly do not know and I doubt the persons speculating that figure do either. Nobody outside of insiders in SLC probably have any idea how much the General Authorities are paid, since the LDS Church basically stands alone among major religions in not providing a public accounting of finances. It is a closely guarded secret leading to such speculation as above.

While she attempts to be objective, one can argue that Sandra Tanner is not unbiased on LDS subjects. She has written:

"The LDS Church boasts of not having a paid clergy. Many of them believe that when a man receives a salary from a particular group it compromises his integrity. LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer explained, 'In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is no paid ministry, no professional clergy, as is common in other churches.'

Even though their leaders on the local level receive no pay for their services, this is not true of their top leadership. Many of the Mormons are not aware that their Prophet, Apostles and Seventies receive a salary. In the Encyclopedia of Mormonism we read:

'Because the Church has no professional clergy, it is administered at every level through LAY PARTICIPATION AND LEADERSHIP, and officials other than the General Authorities contribute their time and talents without remuneration. … Because the General Authorities are obliged to leave their regular employment for full-time Church service, they receive a modest living allowance provided from income on Church investments.' (p.510)

Since the amount paid to the leaders is never divulged one is left to wonder what constitutes a modest living allowance."

And I have a hard time believing their pay is "generous," since guaranteed it's still way less than most of them make on the open market.

Of course they are not paid salaries in the open market. If you are talking about what they made when they held regular professions, I am sure that some commanded or could command more than their living allowance now pays them. I would guess that some others would not be paid as well, since their skills were not originally in a field that paid all that well and they had not risen to any great level of success before being called to serve as full time religious leaders. But I didn't mention the fact that senior Mormon leaders also are allowed to publish books and keep the proceeds from the sales. The amounts made in this pursuit can be considerable, with some of the books becoming relative best sellers among Mormons. For instance, Paul H. Dunn sold great numbers of books and tapes.

Still, being in charge of a million people, they should have a clean house with an alarm system. Again, if you have a current source on whether anyone actually in the clergical line is paid, I'd like to see it. And whether that money is enough to encourage doctrinal compromise, or capitalistic aspirations, is a worthy question.

I personally do not hold to the thought that being well paid would necessarily compromise any of the doctrine. Brigham Young had vast wealth, and I do not think it influenced his thoughts along this line. I detect a drift in your posts about money and its influence i.e. other church's lawyers attacking the LDS Church to make a profit that is quite new to me.

However, I guess money matters can cause trouble. Regarding another Mormon General Authority, a Seventy, The Wall Street Journal states (Nov. 9, 1983) "...Paul H. Dunn... whose church salary is $40,000 a year, was a director of Afco Enterprises, a real-estate venture until 1978. Afco collapsed four years later; and its owner, Grant C. Affleck, was recently indicted for mail fraud, securities fraud and bankruptcy fraud. Despite Mr. Dunn's 1978 resignation, records in the U. S. District Court civil suit here show that he continued to have ties with Afco until it entered bankruptcy proceedings in 1982.... and gave advice to directors after he resigned.... A few days before Afco entered bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Dunn wrote a disgruntled Afco investor a letter calling Mr. Affleck, a fellow Mormon, 'fair and Christlike.' U. S. Attorney Brent Ward... says that about 650 investors lost over $20 million through Afco investments."

If you come to a Mormon church, there is no man whose job it is to preach from the pulpit--everyone in the congregation takes turns giving each week's lesson. The Bishop is the man who can perform marriages, hear confessions, and ask people to do stuff; but neither he, nor anyone else in the ward, is a full-time employee of the church, whose job it is to metonymically represent and promote the church to the congregation and the public. No one sits around all day studying the scriptures and writing speeches for a living. That's what I would call the street definition of "clergy."

Well, by your own definition the Apostles, Seventies, Presiding Bishopric, every Mission President and several others all would be "clergy" since they function "full time" and have religious duties including preaching.

Clergy as defined in a Cambridge dictionary:

clergy (plural noun) the religious leaders whose job is serving the needs of their religion and its followers; priests, ministers, rabbis, etc.

I don't see anything here about "full time" or "paid" or even "employee"....I think that bishops, stake presidents, and even Elder's Q. presidents would qualify as clergy under most definitions. Members of a Stake High Council basically roam and preach in various wards within a stake.

When I was a missionary, I was paid nothing, so in the end my own living expenses cost ME basically $10,000 for the two years. Needless to say, at under $5000 per year, I lived in complete poverty relative to the US standard. When I taught at a Seminary, I was paid $7.50 an hour--not an amount that gave anyone influence over what I said. If you go onto http://www.lds.org/employment, you'll see that the pay the church offers, for jobs where it is reasonable to be paid at all, is not commensurate with the private sector. They pay enough to get good workers and to keep them happy, but that's still very little relative to what ANY of these people would be paid in the real world.

Nobody disputes that the vast majority of the leadership of the Mormon Church is not paid anything for their service. You started out by saying that nobody in the LDS church organization was paid anything, but you now supply an official LDS site for employment positions. Yes, I would bet that some similar positions outside the LDS Church might pay more.

However, a position for a Senior Paralegal from the site you provided pays $2670 - $3337 per month depending on experience. The average for paralegals in many states is about $3,100 a month. This would be in the middle of the LDS position's range. It would appear that they are offering pretty much the same as non-LDS employers.

Shall we add the teaching positions at BYU and other LDS church schools ? The faculty and staff of BYU must be "temple worthy" and pass through religious worthiness as well as other academic qualifications. The faculty of BYU is paid pretty much the same as faculty in similar universities.

Institute Directors are paid positions (LDS institutes of religion). I had a friend once who thought about this option as a career. I always assumed that although not paid all that well, that they would be in the range of high school teachers, etc. Below are some thoughts from such a teacher.

"I made a pretty good income with CES. My base salary had been approximately $62,500, plus an extra $8,000 to $10,000 in summer income. We had grown used to living pretty well because in addition to my salary, Teresa worked as part-time as a Registered Nurse. We were comfortable financially but it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

My training and work experience for 27 years was in a narrow field. Working in CES is all about teaching religion with a Mormon slant, being clever and delivering the party-line to kids who come to with questions—follow the prophet. It doesn’t hurt if you are really good at sports and ping-pong either."

I would give the url for the site except for the fact that there are off-subject topics discussed.

Our church is entirely run by volunteers, who have nothing stopping them from leaving if they want.

You also said that the LDS organization was entirely run by "volunteers"...which is not really an accurate assessment of how bishops, etc. are "called" or selected in my opinion. Leaving a church calling, or the LDS church itself, is also not as easy as is implied in your statement in my opinion, or that of many others.

But back to the real subject of this thread. You posted earlier.

Having a review of this film is irrelevant. To me it's a beautiful sacred experience, but not because of its cinematography or acting.

And then later admitted.

And, as a disclamatory addendum, I never saw the 1969 temple film, so have no idea whether what the previous writer wrote was true--just that it didn't seem like it would actively deflate bias and contention, or actively bring souls to Christ. If the temple video changes with technology, so be it (I believe it's now run straight off a hard drive), but I don't know if script changes affect whether modern personal and public revelation is real.

So on what basis have you decided "it's a beautiful sacred experience, but not because of its cinematography or acting" ? Is it not possible that the cinematography and acting aided whatever experience people got from watching it ? Perhaps these aspects also detracted from it ? I heard from somebody that did see the film that many people thought that the actress that portrayed Eve was too sexy, that this distracted their thoughts and that the film was changed as a result. Is that true ?

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