How to Succeed in a Mormon Mission Without Really Trying Part II

“Open wide,” the bishop said.  “And tell me, are you going on a mission?” Ethan garbled some incomprehensible response. The bishop removed his hands from his mouth. The bishop was also Ethan’s dentist. Positions of prominence in the Church were unpaid; the only reward came from vanity and power. “You are going, correct?”

Every prospective missionary was interviewed by their respective bishop to ensure chastity and worthiness. Apparently, this was the pre-interview. “I’m seriously considering it,” Ethan drooling all over his vivid butterfly bib.

“Do you pay your tithing?” he asked, throwing a softball to start.

“I don’t have any income,” Ethan said.

“But didn’t you work last summer?” The bishop feigned surprise but knew all the details of young Ethan’s life, having recently worked on mom’s teeth in this very chair. “I didn’t see any tithing come in from you for August.”

“They didn’t pay me for August.”

“Ethan,” the bishop said forlornly with crafted anguish in his overbearing, ignited, powder blue eyes. “It’s 10% of earned income, not net.”

Ethan felt confused and foiled. He sighed resolutely and with great disillusionment. “They didn’t pay me,” he repeated.

“But you worked.”

“I worked but didn’t get paid.”

The bishop leaned back on the swivel stool, which squeaked shrilly, and he shrugged his shoulders one time with exaggerated limpness. “They take a lot of taxes out of my paycheck. If I only had to pay tithing on the net amount of my paycheck, I’d be a rich man. But tithing is based on total earned. So, I’m poor. We all have to make sacrifices.”

“I sacrificed,” Ethan pleaded. “I worked hard labor for twelve hours a day in the scorching sun and didn’t get paid for it. How much more am I supposed to sacrifice?”

“10%.”

Of course. Ethan smacked his forehead with a sweaty palm. He wished he understood taxes and tithing better to evade both debts efficiently and deviously like a normal, mature adult, but he fell short like he always did when cultivating self-improvement. He lamented his lack of financial finesse and mourned his inept initiative and the dismal, baseless grudge he had against education. But that didn’t dishearten his desire to remain intransigent. “I didn’t get paid for the work. This should be illegal.”

“It is illegal. They have to pay you for work completed. Otherwise, it’s wage theft.”

“I’m talking about tithing on earned income vs. net.”

“Well, son, that’s legally binding with God if you want to get into heaven.”

Ethan pondered his dilemma, searching the shallow, swampy waters of his mind for a purely logical argument that didn’t require education or expertise. Ethan snapped his fingers harshly when a suitable compromise came to light that might still allow him to get into heaven. “I’ll go after the company. For wage theft. It’s not my fault they went bankrupt. Once they pay me, I’ll pay tithing on earned income instead of net.”

“They went bankrupt?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, then it’s perfectly legal not to pay you.”

“How can it be legal?”

“Capitalism,” the bishop said in a balletic, patriotic tone. “Bankruptcy provides a structured process for businesses to navigate financial difficulties and potentially regain economic stability. It allows for an orderly discharge of debts, and you were one of those debts, my friend. A focus on profit and economic growth characterizes capitalism. Why do you think we pay tithing?”

“I thought we paid tithing to build more churches and temples and to help the poor.”

“No, no. Don’t be ridiculous. Tithing is used for something much better.”

“What?”

“Investment,” he explained in a dutiful pitch with gluttonous admiration radiating from his face. “The church puts all the tithes into stocks and bonds that increase in value over time. Each fund they invest in pays dividends as the value increases, which are a cash reward for shareholders on a per-share basis.”

“And then they use the cash from dividends to build more churches and temples and to help the poor?”

“No. Then they reinvest the cash from dividends to make more money.”

Ethan was still confused and wondered if the church was making a profit on the law of chastity, also. He now understood the law of tithing and how it benefited the church, which is why he became determined, in that moment, never to pay tithing again, and wished he understood the law of chastity better, just enough to disregard it with the same disdain he now had for tithing, so that he could become equally determined to have sex with every willing woman he could get his hands on. But he knew nobody could explain it properly, otherwise every young man in the church would be having sex with every willing woman they could get their hands on. Ethan sat morose in the dental chair, shifting uncomfortably, agonizing over inscrutable church doctrine that he would somehow have to teach other people as a missionary. “Aren’t religions supposed to be nonprofit organizations?”

The bishop let out a lusty, curtailed laugh, trailing off to a light snigger. “Don’t they teach you about capitalism in school?”

“Does the government tax the church on all its profits?” Ethan asked, sincerely trying to fully understand tithing to strengthen his resolve never to pay it again. “Nobody goes after money owed like the government. Except maybe the mafia. And the church.”

“Why would the government tax the church on all the profit it makes?” the bishop asked in befuddled amusement. “The church is a nonprofit organization.”

Ethan became incensed. How could the church be this greedy? “Why don’t we get any of the profit? It’s our money.”

“Was our money until we gave it to the church. The church would go bankrupt if they gave us all a piece of the profit. That’s just bad business.”

“We should get something.”

“We do get something,” the bishop opened his arms broadly and with reverential flair, as if delivering a door prize. “A golden ticket into heaven,” he explained gracefully, bolstered by a feeble simper.

Ethan sneered in guarded vehemence. “I’d prefer the money.”

“Well, that’s just being greedy, Ethan.”