DiscussMormonism.com

My wife and I were recently informed that our class activities budget for the year 2020 is $250. We have 6 total in our class - this comes out to approx. 83 cents per boy per week. This is what is supposed to replace scouting. Meanwhile, $124 billion sits in an Ensign Peak Advisors account.

Quit.

Mormon 8 wrote:My wife and I were recently informed that our class activities budget for the year 2020 is $250. We have 6 total in our class - this comes out to approx. 83 cents per boy per week. This is what is supposed to replace scouting. Meanwhile, $100 billion sits in an Ensign Peak Advisors account.

Meanwhile, tithing dollars pour into Ensign Peak.

Dear member,

Please sign up to wash toilets because we are too cheap to hire a proper janitor. Remember also to send in your check for the "class activities budget." If you do not send in a check, your child will be unable to participate in activities and may be suspected of sin by his peers.

Signed,

Corporation of the First Presidency

LOL!!!!

Um, yeah.

What's next?

Dear new bishop:

Thank you for volunteering to serve the Lord in the Flappydoodah Ward in the Fippitydippity Stake of Zion. Please be advised that you are required to buy the materials necessary to fulfill your calling. Call now for a 10% discount on tithing slips, office furniture, and recommends. Act now as this discount only lasts for the first 30 days of an anticipated 5 years of service in this blessed calling.

In Christ,

Corporation of the First Presidency

You're not doing enough. You need to double your fast offerings, donate generously to the humanitarian fund, perform chapel cleaning maintenance, and memorize the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3.

Don't forget to pay your tithing.

Get busy.

Yeah, I think it is pretty obvious how people will increasingly respond to this kind of stuff. Pay tithing, pay fast offerings, pay activity fees, buy scriptures, buy temple clothing, buy garments, buy kitschy Mormon art, buy vapid GA books from Deseret Book . . . .

Mormon 8 wrote:My wife and I were recently informed that our class activities budget for the year 2020 is $250. We have 6 total in our class - this comes out to approx. 83 cents per boy per week. This is what is supposed to replace scouting. Meanwhile, $100 billion sits in an Ensign Peak Advisors account.

Which class is it, and what are the activities you are supposed to do?

There are, what, 30,000 congregations? Suppose every congregation has 4 youth or scout groups that each get 250, that’s 30 k x 1 k = 30 million oh noes! So much money, right?

Actually, that is less than one day’s interest on Ensign’s 125 billion portfolio. Not counting the incoming tithing. And the income from other for profit and nonprofit businesses. And fast offerings. And humanitarian donations. And contributed labor that the cojcolds writes off to decrease taxable income. Etc, etc, etc.

Kishkumen wrote:

Mormon 8 wrote:My wife and I were recently informed that our class activities budget for the year 2020 is $250. We have 6 total in our class - this comes out to approx. 83 cents per boy per week. This is what is supposed to replace scouting. Meanwhile, $100 billion sits in an Ensign Peak Advisors account.

Meanwhile, tithing dollars pour into Ensign Peak.

I am not offended, and frankly don't think anyone should be, that the Church amasses wealth (provided it is in accordance with the law), and I don't question people's sincere feelings on the issue when I question the depth of their statements about the Church's humanitarian spending (how much should be spent, and on what projects? Why not on others? And how will effectiveness be measured? What percentage should the Church hold in reserve, and for how long? What is the exact definition of "poor"? etc. etc. etc. etc.). It is very easy to criticize the Church for not living up to a standard that is no more exact than "spend money on the poor"—so easy, in fact, that I don't think it's a serious criticism.

But it is another thing entirely to criticize the Church for not supporting its members with funds that the member themselves have entrusted to the Church precisely for the benefit of the members!

$250/year?

I fail to see how that can suffice for a few months of even something like camping. Jesus Christ, reserving spaces on a campground aren't free. No, but of course: they expect the members to pay for their own camping, as they expect them to do their own cleaning.

I have said more than a few times that the Church's culture always felt like a non-violent Stalinism (or, in other words, the political style of the post-Stalin USSR). There is a very soviet-ish quality to everything they do: a gerontocratic leadership, connected by marriage and blood and living more comfortably, if not lavishly, than the masses upon whose labor they profit and to whom they send down commands in the form of quotas and plans and expectations of obedience, providing very little in return beyond somnolent meetings, humorless speeches flavored with schmaltzy kitsch, and hostility to outsiders and dissenters.

But Joseph Smith couldn't have known about 15th century verbal syntax!

I remember in 2007 the Bishop sheepishly handing me the paper with my $30.00 Elders Quorum budget.

A few years later I was trying to make a $180.00 Cub Scout budget work for 12 boys.

I also had area authority training on church finances around that point, (I was a stake auditor) and the incredible emphasis on controlling money and ensuring money is going to the church was one of the final straws for me.

Members are a revenue stream, and not much more.

Are any activities that cost money planned for the boys?