Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

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Doctor Scratch
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Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by Doctor Scratch »

A very interesting and rather slimy post has appeared on “Sic et Non”:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... idays.html

Once again, Dr. Peterson is asking for money, but this time around, his asking is encroaching upon deeply problematic grounds. The very wise poster called Tavares Stanfield raises an important point:
I would suggest that donating to the Fast Offering funds of the Church is a more useful donation. We've been under the thumb of a worldwide pandemic for 18+ month. Certainly underprivileged Saints are more deserving of our charity. And the donation is tax deductible.
Yes—why give to a garbage pile like Interpreter when you could give to the LDS Church, which, despite its many problems, at least does *some* charitable work? Dr. Peterson’s answer is stunning:
DCP wrote: At any time, whether now or pre-pandemic, a case can be made that the poor should be a higher priority for charitable donations than, say, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Opera, Ballet West, the Interpreter Foundation, or your alma mater.

But it would be really sad if art museums, opera companies, private colleges, conservation groups, ballet troupes, Shakespeare festivals, archaeological digs, and the like were to perish for lack of support.

Of course, what the Interpreter Foundation needs in order to function and flourish is a relative pittance. (And, yes, tax deductible. We're a 501(c)3 organization.) Interpreter certainly doesn't ask that people neglect the poor in their charitable giving, let alone that they omit their fast offerings. My wife and I haven't done either of those things, and we won't.

And then there's this intriguing passage, from the twelfth chapter of the gospel of John:

"2 So they made him a supper there: and Martha served; but Lazarus was one of them that sat at meat with him. 3 Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, which should betray him, saith, 5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6 Now this he said, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put therein."

"For," says Jesus in the story as told at Matthew 14 (specifically, verse 7), "the poor ye have always with you."
Where to begin? First of all: yes, it would be sad if operas, archaeological digs and so forth were to go away. But Interpreter? Would the world really be worse off if the Mopologetic flagship bit the dust?

And then there is the comparison of donating to Interpreter with the anointing of Jesus, to which I can only say: wow. Either this is extreme—blasphemous even—disrespect, or DCP thinks he’s being “funny”—blowing the sort of “dog whistle” that his pals think is funny.

But the key issue is the one that Stanfield very rightly raised: Interpreter, in effect, is “competing” with the Church for donations. And when you consider the premium that the Church places on money, then you really have to see Interpreter’s aggressive fundraising as far more of a “threat” to the Church than Jonathan Neville and the Heartlanders. It’s one thing to say that the Brethren are wrong about doctrine. It’s quite another to steal money out of their pockets.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by ¥akaSteelhead »

Problem is - re fast offerings it states right on the donation slip that the utilization of the donation is wholly the discretion of the church and there is no way to know what % of the donation will actually make it to the poor. Better to donate to one of the charities where it is known that the large percentage of the donation is going to those in need.
drumdude
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by drumdude »

The Interpreter’s most recent 990 tax filing is from 2019:

Total Revenue
$1,183,636
Total Functional Expenses $1,090,769
Net income $92,867

It’s good business. You just can’t say anything negative about a certain Orange politician.
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by drumdude »

Something seems off with Interpreter's financial reporting. Every quarter they publish expenses like this:
disbursment.jpg
disbursment.jpg (51.12 KiB) Viewed 1358 times
Here are the totals:
totals.jpg
totals.jpg (53.69 KiB) Viewed 1358 times
And here is their 990:
990.jpg
990.jpg (177.2 KiB) Viewed 1358 times

I'm not a tax expert, I'm sure it's all above board.
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Doctor Scratch
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by Doctor Scratch »

I wish there was a clear explanation as to why the numbers on Interpreter’s website don’t match up with the IRS filings. It’s a matter of Mopologetic historical fact that tax document “irregularities” have been commonplace. The tax forms from FARMS from 1999 and 1998 show that Dr. Peterson was paid more than $20,0000 to serve as “Chair of FARMS”: something that he has lied about repeatedly. And as for these newer numbers? Well, obviously there’s a discrepancy. And DCP has gone on an awful lot of free cruises.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
IHAQ
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by IHAQ »

I suppose the question is, what charitable donations or personal expenses should rank lower than one to Interpreter in the mind of Interpreters donor seeker? Should you donate to a film maker and publisher of apologetic “white noise” before, say, an art gallery? What about donating to Interpreter instead of to a homeless shelter or food bank?
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by Kishkumen »

Maybe it is better, after all, to give money to the Interpreter Foundation. At least then you will know where and to whom your money is going. With the LDS Church there is really no telling what they will do with the money. Will it feed the poor? Maybe. Will it buy stocks and bonds? Maybe. Who knows?

Furthermore, there is just something a bit galling about being told that your money is "the Lord's" and that "the Lord" wants you to help the poor, and then you find out that men who claim to represent "the Lord" are directing your money to fighting gay marriage or investing in the stocks of defense contractors. At least with Interpreter Foundation, I can more readily imagine my money going to buying Lou Midgley lunch or something. I mean, someone needs to buy Lou Midgley lunch, after all.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Marcus
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by Marcus »

:lol: if the only choices are the lds church or the interpreter foundation I'm asking for a re-set. Midgley is perfectly happy to steal fruit out of people's yards whilst enlisting his wife to drive the getaway car, so I'm ok leaving him to his own devices for lunch.

And money to the interpreter goes to produce those godawful, badly written, edited by a monkey with a banana, logically unsound papers, right? So no to the interpreter, and no to contributing to the lds church hoard. And especially no to their 'giving machines'. Through those machines the lds church collects money from anyone, but they state it is from their members and they claim credit. It's just another sneaky way to hide that they mis-use tax-exempt donations.

Under the circumstances, things like food pantries and water for Zimbabwe seem far better choices.
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Kishkumen
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by Kishkumen »

Marcus wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 4:44 pm
:lol: if the only choices are the lds church or the interpreter foundation I'm asking for a re-set. Midgley is perfectly happy to steal fruit out of people's yards whilst enlisting his wife to drive the getaway car, so I'm ok leaving him to his own devices for lunch.

And money to the interpreter goes to produce those godawful, badly written, edited by a monkey with a banana, logically unsound papers, right? So no to the interpreter, and no to contributing to the lds church hoard. And especially no to their 'giving machines'. Through those machines the lds church collects money from anyone, but they state it is from their members and they claim credit. It's just another sneaky way to hide that they mis-use tax-exempt donations.

Under the circumstances, things like food pantries and water for Zimbabwe seem far better choices.
Sure food pantries and water for Zimbabwe are better choices. That’s obvious. But those are not the parameters of the choice as I was jokingly setting it. On the one side we have the LDS Church, which *may* send your money to a good cause but may also pay off a GA’s mortgage or invest in Blackwater. On the other hand you can invest in Interpreter, thus keeping a senior citizen from climbing a fence to steal a neighbor’s fruit and facilitating all kinds of wacky publications edited in hilariously bad ways. Oh, and you might even fund a movie about three guys’ barely subconscious gay crushes on Joseph Smith.

I am practically talking myself into donating to Interpreter here!
Last edited by Kishkumen on Mon Nov 22, 2021 1:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Marcus
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Re: Should You Donate to Interpreter? Or Should You Donate to the Church?

Post by Marcus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:07 pm
Marcus wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 4:44 pm
:lol: if the only choices are the lds church or the interpreter foundation I'm asking for a re-set. Midgley is perfectly happy to steal fruit out of people's yards whilst enlisting his wife to drive the getaway car, so I'm ok leaving him to his own devices for lunch.

And money to the interpreter goes to produce those godawful, badly written, edited by a monkey with a banana, logically unsound papers, right? So no to the interpreter, and no to contributing to the lds church hoard. And especially no to their 'giving machines'. Through those machines the lds church collects money from anyone, but they state it is from their members and they claim credit. It's just another sneaky way to hide that they mis-use tax-exempt donations.

Under the circumstances, things like food pantries and water for Zimbabwe seem far better choices.
Sure food pantries and water for Zimbabwe are better choices. That’s obvious. But those are not the parameters of the choice as I was jokingly setting it. On the one side we have the LDS Church, which *may* send your money to a good cause but may also pay of a GA’s mortgage or invest in Blackwater. On the other hand you can invest in Interpreter, thus keeping a senior citizen from climbing a fence to steal a neighbor’s fruit and facilitating all kinds of wacky publications edited in hilariously bad ways. Oh, and you might even fund a movie about three guys’ barely subconscious gay crushes on Joseph Smith.

I am practically talking myself into donating to Interpreter here!
I'm convinced. who can resist a pitch like that? :lol:
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