Here is an example of where your tithing is spent...

[_maklelan]

Why would financial transparency and accountability endanger the sacred nature of tithing money? In practical experience, transparency tends to ensure ethical use of funds.

I never at all said that the sacred nature of tithing was a reason for the closed books. I said that the sacred nature of the tithing was the reason Hinckley thought first of the contributors when asked about the budget of the church. I explained that more than once. Please don't put words in my mouth just so you can try to score a rhetorical point or two.

[_Buffalo]

Why would financial transparency and accountability endanger the sacred nature of tithing money? In practical experience, transparency tends to ensure ethical use of funds.

Two words: Punitive Damages

The church pretty much has to keep the books closed because it has centralized EVERYTHING. Any trial which would assign punitive damages against the LDS church would need to penalize the church corporate, i.e. be proportional to the church's actual revenues. That's a ****load of money. This is also why the LDS church will never go to trial, because at some point their books would be open so that a judge/jury can make a fact based assignment of damages.

There are two solutions to this problem. One is to keep all budgets local. That way if a trial ever assigned punitive damages, the claim could only be made against a ward or at most a stake. The damages would be much smaller and would not cripple the whole church.

The second solution is to never open the books and ensure that you always settle before any legal action becomes an actual trial. The GA's have gone with this option.

That sounds like a great way to encourage frivolous lawsuits. You could probably make a living suing the LDS church. You don't need to even have a case, just file a lawsuit and they'll settle.

[_Buffalo]

Why would financial transparency and accountability endanger the sacred nature of tithing money? In practical experience, transparency tends to ensure ethical use of funds.

I never at all said that the sacred nature of tithing was a reason for the closed books. I said that the sacred nature of the tithing was the reason Hinckley thought first of the contributors when asked about the budget of the church. I explained that more than once. Please don't put words in my mouth just so you can try to score a rhetorical point or two.

Does not follow. How are the two concepts related?

[_maklelan]

Why would financial transparency and accountability endanger the sacred nature of tithing money? In practical experience, transparency tends to ensure ethical use of funds.

Two words: Punitive Damages

The church pretty much has to keep the books closed because it has centralized EVERYTHING. Any trial which would assign punitive damages against the LDS church would need to penalize the church corporate, i.e. be proportional to the church's actual revenues. That's a ****load of money. This is also why the LDS church will never go to trial, because at some point their books would be open so that a judge/jury can make a fact based assignment of damages.

There are two solutions to this problem. One is to keep all budgets local. That way if a trial ever assigned punitive damages, the claim could only be made against a ward or at most a stake. The damages would be much smaller and would not cripple the whole church.

The second solution is to never open the books and ensure that you always settle before any legal action becomes an actual trial. The GA's have gone with this option.

This is obviously a big reason for keeping the books closed. Keeping all the budgets locally would cause numerous very large headaches for the church, and keeping the books closed doesn't. The books originally closed, however, in the late 50s when the church was millions in debt but was still spending millions on new construction.

[_Aristotle Smith]

That sounds like a great way to encourage frivolous lawsuits. You could probably make a living suing the LDS church. You don't need to even have a case, just file a lawsuit and they'll settle.

What's worse is that the members have no way of knowing if the lawsuits are frivolous or not. They always settle. The amounts are never disclosed. It is always sealed with some non-disclosure agreement. And since there is never a trial, who knows what the actual facts in the case are?

If someone can point to a case where the LDS church was sued and did not settle pre-trial, I would be willing to reconsider my reasoning.

[_Joseph]

mukluk & co - do you really think Jesus would be passing everything by lawyers and committees?

[_Aristotle Smith]

This is obviously a big reason for keeping the books closed. Keeping all the budgets locally would cause numerous very large headaches for the church, and keeping the books closed doesn't. The books originally closed, however, in the late 50s when the church was millions in debt but was still spending millions on new construction.

I disagree that it would be a big headache. Pretty much every church in the USA operates locally. Even the Catholic church follows this, thus you can't actually sue the Catholic Church, only an individual diocese. I fail to see how this is intractable, or even headache inducing, for the LDS church but not for dozens of other churches.

[_maklelan]

Does not follow. How are the two concepts related?

No, it does follow, and I already explained this multiple times. Please see here. When you talk about the church's budget to someone who oversees how its money is spent that person thinks first of tithing as sacred funds. They think of their responsibility to be good stewards over those funds. The first questions they ask when requests for funds come in is whether or not it is a responsible expenditure of sacred funds. Given this view of the church's budget, it comes as absolutely no surprise to me that Hinckley thought first of the budget as the sum of contributions from church membership. He responded in kind. I know this is not how you think of the church's budget, but that really has nothing to do with how he thought about it.

[_Joseph]

mukluk wrote: "First, the question wasn't about "financial accounting," it was about the church's budget. As I said, that word means different things to different people, depending on the context and their understanding of the word."

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Now I understand. "it all depends on what the meaning of is, is".

So you are saying Bill Clinton and TubbyTommyMonson are on the same wavelength as far as 'truth' goes, right?

[_Buffalo]

Does not follow. How are the two concepts related?

No, it does follow, and I already explained this multiple times. Please see here. When you talk about the church's budget to someone who oversees how its money is spent that person thinks first of tithing as sacred funds. They think of their responsibility to be good stewards over those funds. The first questions they ask when requests for funds come in is whether or not it is a responsible expenditure of sacred funds. Given this view of the church's budget, it comes as absolutely no surprise to me that Hinckley thought first of the budget as the sum of contributions from church membership. He responded in kind. I know this is not how you think of the church's budget, but that really has nothing to do with how he thought about it.

What does good stewardship have to do with hiding the numbers from everyone, members and non-members alike?