LDS Church kept the lid on its $100B fund for fear tithing receipts would fall, account boss tells Wall Street Journal

[Bought Yahoo]

FAIR is not the church. Most folks who contribute to FAIR are uneducated volunteers who are self-taught but can't sift evidence, or have ever published anything. For example, Bill Reel, without an education or communication skills, was a FAIR contributor.

FAIR's theory about the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica being the focus of the Book of Mormon events it wrong and misguided, and the Church does not endorse it.

FAIR's theory about the use of Church funds is speculative.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

One thing we know for sure, is the cojcolds (the j is silent) have been hounding members for money since the earliest days:

[ajax18]

This used to be a difficult issue for me. After seeing many financial abuses in my mission, how we and most members lived, how the brethren lived, I started to think that the Church was a money marking scheme.

But that view neglects the entire spiritual part of everything. I didn't snap out of it immediately. I went back to church at the behest of a determined bishop. It's funny that I even listened to him given he was a Romney Mormon and I was and still am and will forever be a Trumpian. I spoke in Church. I talked about the spirit world, the afterlife, and above all having an eternal perspective. Nobody disagreed with a thing I said. There were no lectures on this being the lowest form of obedience. I started to realize that the LDS church was where I belonged. I still wasn't convinced about tithing. But after accepting a calling and serving alongside some truly great people, watching them give up their little time off work and give up a big hunk of money as well, I started to realize that the church for these people had nothing to do with worldly advancement in socioeconomic status at all. I also saw what they had achieved in their careers. I saw how few of them had suffered through divorces and remembered how important an eternal perspective was to being able to be a good husband and father. These are all spiritual things. To the natural man it's foolishness.

I pay my tithing faithfully and in spite of knowing I'll always have to work 6 day weeks as long as I can sit up straight and spin dials and I'm happy to pay it because I know I'll blessed in eternity and to me that's the best investment one could ever make. How it is spent, doesn't matter one bit if I gave it in good faith of my own free will. But it is spent to build up the kingdom and I for one am glad it's not just immediately and entirely consumed being doled out to a culture of generational welfare. A wealthy church can ultimately help those in need better than a bankrupt church. It truly is a community of givers. The takers don't stick around to long.

[thechair]

Latter-day Saint officials acknowledged that it used Ensign {tithing} funds to underwrite construction of City Creek Center mall in downtown Salt Lake City

This Washington Post piece from 12/17/19 in conjunction with IHAQ's links establish that significant tithing funds indeed have flowed into Ensign Peak, and thereby helped underwrite City Creek and the insurance thing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investig ... story.html

The church typically collects about $7 billion each year in contributions from members, according to the complaint. Mormons, like members of some other faith groups, are asked to contribute 10 percent of their income to the church, a practice known as tithing.

While about $6 billion of that income is used to cover annual operating costs, the remaining $1 billion or so is transferred to Ensign, which plows some into an investment portfolio to generate returns, according to the complaint.

Code: Select all

thechair

[IHAQ]

FAIR is not the church. Most folks who contribute to FAIR are uneducated volunteers who are self-taught but can't sift evidence, or have ever published anything. For example, Bill Reel, without an education or communication skills, was a FAIR contributor.

FAIR's theory about the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica being the focus of the Book of Mormon events it wrong and misguided, and the Church does not endorse it.

FAIR's theory about the use of Church funds is speculative.

So here^ you're arguing that FAIR is a very unreliable source of information.

Yet just 2 days earlier on a different thread you said...

I've been a member a long time and have never heard "put it on the shelf" as advice. My experience with bishops, stake presidents and the general authorities I know is that they don't have answers. Maybe there are some general authorities who have answers, but I've not encountered them.

But advising a member with questions to ignore them -- that's not official doctrine. Websites like FAIR and the Interpreter try to answer the questions and, in my experience, succeed about 90 percent of the time.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=243

You seem to be contradicting yourself.

[IHAQ]

I pay my tithing faithfully and in spite of knowing I'll always have to work 6 day weeks as long as I can sit up straight and spin dials and I'm happy to pay it because I know I'll blessed in eternity and to me that's the best investment one could ever make. How it is spent, doesn't matter one bit if I gave it in good faith of my own free will. But it is spent to build up the kingdom and I for one am glad it's not just immediately and entirely consumed being doled out to a culture of generational welfare. A wealthy church can ultimately help those in need better than a bankrupt church. It truly is a community of givers. The takers don't stick around to long.

It's interesting to watch how believers reframe the evidence in order to maintain belief.

When it was believed that the Church wasn't a wealthy Church, that was deemed by believers as proof that the Church was true - see, we don't amass huge financial wealth, tithing isn't used for commercial purposes etc those are just anti-Mormon lies. Once those anti-Mormon lies are shown unquestionably to have bee completely accurate believers reframe their position 180 degrees - it's great that we amass huge financial reserves and don't use it on the poor and the needy, because it's for the future.

This type of psychology is well covered in Black Box Thinking by Mathew Syed - I highly recommend it.

Amongst other things he gives an example of a doomsday cult whose leader had predicted the end of the world. Those believers were adamant he was right, sold their houses, gave up careers etc to be prepared for the day predicted. When that day came and went those believers were interviewed about the fact their prophet had been wrong etc They simply reframed the evidence and discounted what had actually happened.

That's what 'ajax' just did with City Creek and Hinckley's lie.

[Meadowchik]

I personally think that the financial information has encouraged some victims to pursue damages as well. There are likely plenty who are still believing members who would be reluctant to sue the church if they believed the compensation would prevent the poor from getting help from the church.

[Bought Yahoo]

FAIR is not the church. Most folks who contribute to FAIR are uneducated volunteers who are self-taught but can't sift evidence, or have ever published anything. For example, Bill Reel, without an education or communication skills, was a FAIR contributor.

FAIR's theory about the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica being the focus of the Book of Mormon events it wrong and misguided, and the Church does not endorse it.

FAIR's theory about the use of Church funds is speculative.

So here^ you're arguing that FAIR is a very unreliable source of information.

Yet just 2 days earlier on a different thread you said...

I've been a member a long time and have never heard "put it on the shelf" as advice. My experience with bishops, stake presidents and the general authorities I know is that they don't have answers. Maybe there are some general authorities who have answers, but I've not encountered them.

But advising a member with questions to ignore them -- that's not official doctrine. Websites like FAIR and the Interpreter try to answer the questions and, in my experience, succeed about 90 percent of the time.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=243

You seem to be contradicting yourself.

No I am not. FAIR is a good resource for most questions. But the more knotty questions, no.

[Lem]

One thing we know for sure, is the cojcolds (the j is silent) have been hounding members for money since the earliest days:

Wow. For a minute there I thought grindael was back! Nice find, Doc.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Grindael...

I miss him. He was a treasure trove and living repository of Mormon history. I wonder if Dr. Shades could transfer his content over to this board. It'd be a real sin to lose it all to the memory hole.

- Doc