SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Friday that members may now fulfill the law of tithing by giving 10% of their income directly to their poor neighbors.
Church officials also issued guidance to help members recognize poverty in their own neighborhoods. Possible signs include driving the previous-generation Kia Carnival, having only a two-car garage, parking a boat in the driveway because there is nowhere else to put it, still having builder-grade “boob lights” in visible areas of the home, or vacationing in St. George more often than Hawaii.
Members were reminded not to assume everything is fine simply because a struggling family still owns a Traeger, a side-by-side, or a home valued at $850,000.
For years, allowing members to direct their own tithing was viewed as a gateway charity to inactivity, with concern that helping a neighbor directly could eventually progress into increasingly unsupervised acts of generosity and, in severe cases, missing church altogether.
Leaders said they are now comfortable taking that risk and expect members to faithfully continue setting aside exactly 10% of their income every month, seek out struggling families on their own, and quietly hand them thousands of dollars with absolutely nobody checking whether they did it.
Church officials anticipate the program will be extremely popular.
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