Two comments.
[1] The Mormon church is a corporation sole, meaning presently Nelson is the sole controller of all assets. He could reasonably set up his family for life with beneficial contacts and contracts. That is worth more than (now probably expired) intellectual property associated with open-heart surgery.
[2] The leadership of the Mormon church tends to come from the same set of Utah-based families. Not 100%, but certainly a high representation. It's a social network that has been extractive on the work and labor of their membership for over a century, benefiting these few families greatly. This doesn't mean the organization hasn't done good -- it has. It's just that good doesn't blot out bad, nefarious, negligence, or other societal negatives.
[0] https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds-apostles...
I’m sure it happens as it does in any family (hello Biden!) but I’m not convinced it’s more prevalent in the Church than any other organization of people. It’s an interesting thought, but I’m not sure how prevalent it is.
I have met several general authorities in various capacities (including Bishop Waddell who was quoted in the article). They are humans and suspect to all the frailties that entails, but they have all been serious minded people who take their roles as stewards seriously. I’m sure some amount of fraud or nepotism happens, but I also have a religious view that suggests that whatever wrong is acquired in this life will be corrected in the next.
I have known people who have done things with Church money that they shouldn’t have. All of them were excommunicated for the same. The Church takes its financial stewardship seriously with required audits at all levels.
I agree with the first half of [2] but not the complaint that follows. It was only recently that more members of the Church lived outside the US. As the Church has grown out of Utah and throughout the US (and outside world) they have done a better job of calling people from more areas.
I think this is part of human behavior as well. It can be frustrating, but it’s hard for someone in Salt Lake to know I could serve in capacity X without knowing me personally. Again, it’s getting better as genera leaders travel more and get to know local leaders, but it’s always easiest to think of the person you know.
This happens in business as well: a new CEO brings “his/her team” — I’d like to see less of it (and fully expect to as the Church continues to grow globally).
You used the ellipse cleverly but I’ve been pretty respectful even when others have spoken poorly of some of my deepest beliefs. The least you could do is be cordial in response even if you hold the opposite view.
The church claims that since they are a non-profit that they are therefore a charity (they have also claimed that the purpose for stockpiling $124B was for the second coming of Jesus). While they might be able to make this claim legally... it was obviously not the intention of the members who invested the money. If members intended to fund the church directly, they could have simply paid their tithing or even over-paid their tithing (as many members choose to do) as usual. But they chose specifically to donate to charity, which implies someone other than the church.
Since I am assuming you are a member, you are familiar with the tithing slip. That extra line at the bottom that says "charity:_____" yep, that money never went to charity. It went into this fund that the church kept for themselves. Very honest and Christlike.
Obviously one would expect the charity to report yearly on their endeavors - since no aid may be going out at all - however, reporting on each dollar would be a tad difficult to track. So not sure what would be required here.
Emptying out said donations all in one go (to avoid the perception of hoarding say all 100 billion) may not be good either since problems today may be more bearable than problems tomorrow. So not sure what would be required here either.
Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them.
And the best recourse for people who spent significant sums of money donating to a charity that misrepresented their charitable actions and has acted more like a for profit business would be to initiate a class action suit for fraud and to remove the fake charity's tax exempt status.
Meanwhile, people want grand government projects to "help the middle class" but won't give Yang's UBI a shot.
There are people who will criticise churches regardless, but there seem to be a lot of reasonable people who look at the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church and determine their wealth is inconsistent with their teachings.
Mormons could probably further their message by selling their golden ornaments and using it to shelter the homeless, for instance.
But as someone on the inside, I’ll say this: local congregations have very strict budgets allotted to them, but the welfare component of the budget is essentially unlimited. Local leaders are encouraged (and it is part of their mandate) to “seek out the poor”. Most individual welfare happens at the local level, and local leaders are not expected to limit their assistance to the money the local unit pulls in. This is a simplification of the process, but welfare assistance is one of the few places where local leaders are not given explicit caps.
For a very centralized organization they give a lot of leeway to local leaders to let assess local needs.
As a percentage of their revenue, that is monstrously pathetic. I have a better chance of feeding the poor by giving my money to a Fyre Festival who will take 95% of the money and skip town but pay 5% to a local vendor who buys shitty bread from a local company who employs a poor person for minimum wage.
At least then I wouldn't have felt swindled when I found out that all that money I spent on tithing while working 80 hours a week as a truck driver to pay my way though college was actually just sitting in an investment fund making a handful of people rich. I would have known from the beginning that that was where my money was going, and I would have no room to complain.
I see you're admitting the church is a business.
Also, as far as the church spending time teaching its members all the different ways it invests would be quite tangential to a Sunday class. People don't go to church to understand how the church operates but rather why. As far as the church employing individuals who have studied finance and know how to make the church financially sound is logical and right. The church itself encourages higher studies. Employing those who have studied to further the work is being a wise steward.
Now if they are only using the money to make individuals rich, that would go counter to teachings. What handful of people are you referring to?
You don't have to spend time talking about it in church. Publish an audited yearly financial report, and send it to members in the mail.
And yes it does matter. The church operates like a business. Members literally think of tithing as a form of giving to charity. They should have some expectations and understanding of how that money is spent. Would tithing receipts be the same as they currently are if everybody knew the church had hundreds of billions of assets, 15 years of tithing on reserve, and spent less than a percent of it actually helping those that are in need of charity?
At the end of the day, and as unpopular as it is, I believe Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son. Other things are details. I’m not a naive or ignorant person, but I honestly have no issue with how the Church handles its finances (as an organization). Given that we do not believe that anyone is infallible (including the Prophet) I will stop short of absolute statements of any one particular person. But, as an organization, they handle their finances prudently.
Which I appreciate and respect.
Later I learned that it hasn't always been this way. The church has deliberately misrepresented its own doctrine to extract everything they can from these people.
In 1899 the Church was almost bankrupt. President Lorenzo Snow and the GAs went around Utah shaking the members down. The 1899 General Conference was "the tithing conference" and where Lorenzo gave pivotal instruction about tithing - which defined the church in relation to tithing going forward.
Lorenzo Snow said in the 1899 Conference Address
"...I plead with you in the name of the Lord, and I pray that every man, woman and child WHO HAS MEANS shall pay one tenth of their income as a tithing..."
Conference Report Oct 1899 page 28 (3/5th way down column 2 on page 28) [http://archive.org/stream/conferencereport1899sa/conferencer...
However, in the 2011 Lesson Manual, in Lesson 12- Tithing, the Church quote this talk as:
"....I plead with you in the name of the Lord, and I pray that every man, woman and child ... shall pay one tenth of their income as a tithing...."
Teachings of Lorenzo Snow manual, page 160 [https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-ch...]
THE HISTORICAL IDEA THAT YOU ONLY TITHED IF YOU HAD MEANS HAS BEEN REDUCED TO AN ELIPSES.
So yeah...the broke church from the past only asked for tithing from those who had means, but the "prudent" multibillion dollar corporation of the present expects it from people whose children will only grow to 5 feet tall as an adult because their diet consists of rice and yucca and parasite-infected water.
The church is a wealthy corporation today. Sure they manage their finances well. But their coercive tithing policies that are misrepresented by their own modern literature are extremely burdensome to a huge portion of their membership. They don't need their money, and they should stop asking for it and pretending like their salvation depends on it. And if it really is the case that their financial secrecy is hiding their personal enrichment off the backs of those experiencing poverty, I really hope that a hell exists that is as bad as they deserve.
Also church policy has changed over time too - the word of wisdom is a prime example of this.
If you want to find reasons to hate the church, you can. I guarantee it. If you believe God doesn't reward tithing, then yeah, it's scummy.
Personally, I believe and don't think it's scummy.
Personally, given what the church claims that they do with the money, I think it's a very simple and pure case of fraud, and I would like my money back.
When the thread was active, a critical comment was on top the entire time. No one can tell me this is happening without a coordinated effort.
There is always a tension in “what do you spend now and what do you invest for later” but I honesty feel like the Church cannot win this argument. Those who are distrustful of organized religion can win if the church is poor (“why didn’t their ‘prophet’ know better”); if they’re rich (“why don’t they give to X”); or if they do nothing (“they teach their own members to save but don’t practice that themselves—the hypocrites”).
I’m a believer so my view is not disinterested, but where is the conversation that they are conservative in their investments; won’t make money from industries they teach against; etc.
There are very few people in the ecclesiastical arm of the church who work full-time and are provided a living stipend. And many of those people were very successful before leaving their professional lives.
The current President (Russel Nelson) was a pioneer in open heart surgery. I’m pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry.
To me this article is interesting but the reaction is predictable. People will read into the confirmation of whatever biases they had to begin with.
For my part, I’d rather the church invest wisely than poorly...