This Sunday, I'm going to teach my Primary class about the Law of Consecration, which I think might be difficult. The main problem with the Law of Consecration is its apparent similarity to other systems, which are infamously terrible. I don't fully understand Communism or Socialism (or the Law of Consecration, for that matter), and I certainly don't know all the differences between them. I'm not sure why I should be okay with the Law of Consecration when I'm pretty sure I'm not okay with Communism or Socialism. However, I am okay with Tithing for one important reason and one less-important reason.
The less-important reason I'm okay with Tithing is that the Law of Tithing only requires 10% of one's income, not 100% of one's, well, everything. It's fortunate that this is the less-important reason because, as I understand it, the Law of Consecration requires one to "consecrate" all of their time, talents, and anything else they may have, including all their possessions, which would certainly be terrible, paramount to slavery, if not for one thing: Agency.
The more-important reason I'm okay with the Law of Tithing is that it's not the kind of "law" anybody actually enforces. It's completely voluntary. And the only penalties for not paying tithing is missing out on the blessings you would get from paying it. For example, you can't enter the temple unless you're a full tithes-payer, but calling exclusion from the temple a penalty is like saying that being barred from the movie theater is the penalty of not buying a movie ticket. It's not exactly the kind of punishment one might expect to receive for having broken a law.
Hopefully, the Law of Consecration will be handled in a similar way. If we obey the Law of Consecration, we'll get blessings for it, and if we don't obey, we'll miss out on those blessings. As long as that is the only penalty, I don't think I'll have a problem with the Law of Consecration. As long as it's voluntary, and people won't face death or imprisonment for opting out, the Law of Consecration could actually be okay.
Of course, there are other considerations. The contributions will have to be handled, stored, and distributed wisely and fairly, so we'll definitely need the people managing the system not to be greedy or corrupt (which, I hear, is one of the problems with Communism), but here, too, we already have a working model. Our Fast Offerings, which are also completely voluntary, support the Bishop's Storehouse, which stores food, cleaning supplies, and other items, and distributes it to those in need. Those who receive goods from the Storehouse have to talk to the Bishop first, to establish that their need is genuine and that they're not just freeloading on the generosity of others (another common problem of other systems), but as long as people are being honest, and as long as there are honest people helping others stay honest, I can imagine a Consecration-based system working just as well as the Bishop's Storehouse works.
Still, I don't know all the details. I have a lot of questions about the Law of Consecration that the lesson manual just doesn't answer. Further study may answer some of these questions and help put my mind at ease. In the meantime, I can only hope that the Law of Consecration was and will be just a larger-scaled version of the system the church has now, with voluntary contributions being dispensed to the needy as their needs require. It could be a fairly idealistic system, as long as it avoids the pitfalls that plague other seemingly-similar systems.
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