How the Mormons Make Money | BusinessWeek.com

[_harmony]

Or Haiti...

i can think of a dozen places that need $5 billion spent on them more than downtown SLC. A hundred. A thousand!

Good grief! It is NOT the mission of the church to revitalize downtown Salt Lake City! Open the damn books!

[_Spektical]

This article really can get one's blood boiling.

[_Drifting]

Or Haiti...

i can think of a dozen places that need $5 billion spent on them more than downtown Salt Lake City. A hundred. A thousand!

Good grief! It is NOT the mission of the church to revitalize downtown Salt Lake City! Open the damn books!

As the spokesperson in the article said about City Creek; it is an integral part of the mission of the Church to make bad men good and good men better; it also takes care of the temporal needs of members because when they are impoverished they are less spiritual.

WTF?

How does City Creek help make bad men good?
Impoverished people are less spiritual?

Led by Christ? Not likely...

[_Drifting]

Chindo Khady cradles her dying son in her arms.

Two of her children have already died from malnutrition and she knows it will not be long until tiny, helpless Kinda joins them.

A drip dangles from his frail arm in a filthy, overcrowded hospital but for the seven-month-old baby, who at 11lbs weighs almost half of what he should, help has come too late.

Chindo Khady's son will become her third child to die in the drought that has hit west Africa

Waiting for death, Kinda lies in the filthy hospital with a drip attached to his fragile arm

He is a victim of the food crisis which is threatening 23 million people - almost a third of the population of Britain - in the Sahel region of West Africa within the next two months.

Severe drought, conflict and the decimation of crops by insects have combined to make the situation critical.

"Portrait of a tragedy: Mother's vigil for dying baby victim of west African famine that is threatening 23million with starvation"
By REBECCA EVANS IN SAHEL, BURKINA FASO
PUBLISHED: 17:01, 23 April 2012 | UPDATED: 20:37, 23 April 2012

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z20IOLOdVn

At last, the Church has improved the temporal needs of people like these in Africa by spending $5 billion on redeveloping a small part of Salt Lake City....

Christ led? Not likely...

[_son of Ishmael]

Or Haiti...

i can think of a dozen places that need $5 billion spent on them more than downtown Salt Lake City. A hundred. A thousand!

Good grief! It is NOT the mission of the church to revitalize downtown Salt Lake City! Open the damn books!

Think of the hospitals, clinics, schools etc that could have been built throughout the world. Think about how many people could have been helped with that money

It is a crime against humanity!

[_Chap]

Why is downtown Salt Lake City the recipient of the church's $5 billion clean up campaign?

What's wrong with spending that money in Paris? Or Hong Kong? Or Rio? Or heck... my hometown???

GDP per capita in the US is USD 48,387

GDP per capita in Hong Kong is 49,137

(IMF estimates 2010-11)

But I don't think your point was really about poverty - just about wondering why Salt Lake City needed improvement by Jesus's organization on earth more than anywhere else.

[_Kishkumen]

McMullin explains that City Creek exists to combat urban blight, not to fill church coffers. “Will there be a return?” he asks rhetorically. “Yes, but so modest that you would never have made such an investment—the real return comes in folks moving back downtown and the revitalization of businesses.” Pausing briefly, he adds with deliberation: “It’s for furthering the aim of the church to make, if you will, bad men good, and good men better.”

So shopping at Forever 21 and eating at the Cheesecake Factory makes us better men and women? Puuuhleease!

Oh and how about this:

Asked about the $1.3 billion estimate of the church’s humanitarian efforts over the last quarter-century, LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy writes in an e-mail, “Though the church’s monetary donations are significant, much of the ‘value’ of our service is not monetary, but in the hundreds of thousands of hours of service and the talent and expertise given by church members to help others around the world.”

So (outside of Fast Offering) the church has done little humanitarian aid comparatively to its overall income. But the real value is on the thousands of hours of service? Well did THE CHURCH really do the service? Nope. The members did and could do service without the church. Granted the church does encourage service but it does not do it. And how many of the hundreds of thousands of hours of service was serving in callings for the Church?

I have to say that I remain very troubled about all of this. Obviously I don't understand where the LDS Church is coming from when it comes to its business dealings. Of course, they give the average member so little to go on there. When you read stuff like this, you get the feeling that there is a whole other thing going on with Mormonism that seems to have little to do with Christian values as I have understood them.

The thing is, even if you can account this to my ignorance, I am not certain that I would be comfortable with being enlightened in this matter. When I think of the relative pittance that the LDS Church has given in humanitarian aid, I can't help but be struck by that tiny percentage of its wealth. It is a glaring contradiction. What can one say about it? If the LDS Church truly is the Kingdom of God, then God must be incredibly stingy with everyone outside of his realm, not to mention those within.

Obviously, I am missing something here. I am missing the value and good that this vast financial empire is doing for the world and for the members of the LDS Church.

Most of all, I find myself shaking my head at the fact that filthy lucre has apparently become the supreme deity. President George W. Bush taught me that shopping is a patriotic duty. Now the LDS Church is telling me that upscale shopping makes bad men good, and good men better, while its prophet performs the countdown to...

Sure, we can think about this in a more nuanced way, but should we even have to?

You can come down on me here as being little more than an anti-Mormon party pooper, but I find all of this genuinely concerning.

What happened to Zion? Zion is what inspired me as a missionary. It appears to me that its values have been turned on their head. Someone please help me make some sense out of this. When did "sufficient for our needs" become Tiffany & Co. and Porsche Design?

What am I missing here?

[_Chap]

...
Obviously, I am missing something here. I am missing the value and good that this vast financial empire is doing for the world and for the members of the LDS Church.

Most of all, I find myself shaking my head at the fact that filthy lucre has apparently become the supreme deity. President George W. Bush taught me that shopping is a patriotic duty. Now the LDS Church is telling me that upscale shopping makes bad men good, and good men better, while its prophet performs the countdown to...

Sure, we can think about this in a more nuanced way, but should we even have to?

You can come down on me here as being little more than an anti-Mormon party pooper, but I find all of this genuinely concerning.

What happened to Zion? Zion is what inspired me as a missionary. It appears to me that its values have been turned on their head. Someone please help me make some sense out of this. When did "sufficient for our needs" become Tiffany & Co. and Porsche Design?

What am I missing here?

What you are missing is two things:

1. You need to pray and read the scriptures more.

2. Stop ark steadying and remember that the church is guided by a living prophet.

After having read a lot of material contributed to message boards by TBMs, I really don't think there is much of a chance that you will get an answer essentially different from those.

[_Drifting]

Are there background moves afoot to prepare the way for a distancing of the Church from financial activities that took place in the decades culminating in the completion of City Creek?

I'm specifically thinking the timing of the City Creek completion; the release of the entire Presiding Bishopric; and the amendment to the tithing slip, cannot all be just a coincidence of timing.

I can see the Church preparing itself to pull another Priesthood Ban style "we don't know why" type of statement at a strategucally convenient time.

Perhaps even a change of name to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint Holdings inc. is in order...

[_Drifting]

...
Obviously, I am missing something here. I am missing the value and good that this vast financial empire is doing for the world and for the members of the LDS Church.

Most of all, I find myself shaking my head at the fact that filthy lucre has apparently become the supreme deity. President George W. Bush taught me that shopping is a patriotic duty. Now the LDS Church is telling me that upscale shopping makes bad men good, and good men better, while its prophet performs the countdown to...

Sure, we can think about this in a more nuanced way, but should we even have to?

You can come down on me here as being little more than an anti-Mormon party pooper, but I find all of this genuinely concerning.

What happened to Zion? Zion is what inspired me as a missionary. It appears to me that its values have been turned on their head. Someone please help me make some sense out of this. When did "sufficient for our needs" become Tiffany & Co. and Porsche Design?

What am I missing here?

What you are missing is two things:

1. You need to pray and read the scriptures more.

2. Stop ark steadying and remember that the church is guided by a living prophet.

After having read a lot of material contributed to message boards by TBMs, I really don't think there is much of a chance that you will get an answer essentially different from those.

Knowledge of Church financial matters is not essential to your eternal salvation...now cough up the dough...