Physician, Heal Thy Footnote: Fact Checking The Afore

[Everybody Wang Chung]

In his latest offering, the Afore cites an article by Keith Erekson in a lame attempt to justify the church's vast accumulation of wealth. Ironically, the article is titled “A Model for Rigorous Faithful Inquiry.” Quoting Erekson, the Afore writes:

During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, nobody even blinked when the church simply secured airfare to transport nearly eighty thousand missionaries to their home countries in a time of stress, scarcity, and high costs. (11)

The irony of the "Rigorous Inquiry" label becomes immediately apparent when you follow the trail. In the original BYU Studies Journal piece, Erekson supports this claim with footnote 27, not footnote 11. It appears the Afore may have intentionally swapped the citation. While the Afore's footnote 11 leads to a completely unrelated article, Keith's original footnote 27 leads to an official Church Newsroom report from June 2020, which clarifies the actual scale of the operation:

“We have moved about 26,000 missionaries, all of them to their home countries,” said Elder Brent Nielson.

It is troubling enough that Erekson’s figures are off by more than 200%, but it is even more disturbing to consider that the Afore may have altered the footnote to prevent his gentle readers from fact-checking the math.

Whether this is a case of the Afore’s signature sloppy scholarship or another deliberate attempt to inflate the church's humanitarian image, the math is revealing. If we estimate a cost of $500 per one way ticket for the actual 26,000 missionaries, the total bill is roughly $13 million.

To the average member, $13 million is a fortune, but to the church, it’s just a Tuesday morning. With the Ensign Peak fund alone generating an estimated $80 million per day in returns, the entire airlift cost less than four hours of investment interest. This doesn’t even factor in money tithing, fast offerings, or the revenue from the church's massive portfolio of ranches, farms, and real estate holdings.

In the end, the only thing lacking transparency is the Afore's citation trail. So, we must ask, was this merely another lapse in academic rigor, or a calculated effort to mislead? The ball is in your court, Afore.

https://byustudies.BYU.edu/article/answ ... ul-inquiry

[drumdude]

I for one think we should include this missionary airlift amongst the LDS’s church’s humanitarian and charitable efforts.

It’ll help pad out the Hitchens file a bit and really twist the knife in the old gadfly’s legacy.

[Tom]

I believe the Proprietor intended “5” and “11” to be citations to page numbers in the journal article. The first quotation does appear on page 5 of the article, but the second quotation does not appear on page 11 of the article. Also, his link to the article is faulty: it leads to a Patheos page. I guess that none of his regular readers noticed the problem.

During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, nobody even blinked when the church simply secured airfare to transport nearly eighty thousand missionaries to their home countries in a time of stress, scarcity, and high costs.

Erekson seems to believe that all of the church’s missionaries at the time were serving outside their home countries. That’s obviously wrong.

Posted from Twilla, Utah

[Kishkumen]

Leaving aside any errors in the blog post, I am glad the LDS Church will use its resources to keep its missionaries safe in a pandemic. To me that is the most important thing to gleen from this report.

[Marcus]

The problem is that the lds church is just putting a shine on their errors. I followed that story of sending missionaries home; the lds church waited way too long to take action and put many people in the way of serious harm. Then, they were lucky enough to fall into a situation where there were seats available. It was a pile of errors and as usual, the lds church is putting a spin on the story to try to make themselves look good.

[I Have Questions]

The question should be “Why didn’t the Church that has a Prophet, Seer, & Revelator at the helm see the problem ahead of time and organise the moves at that point?” Why instead does it look like a reactive, hastily put together ad hoc set of actions?

[Mag’ladroth]

Let’s just be honest here. Wouldn’t Priestcraft also be lying about income to shield billions in profit so alleged prophets, seers, and revelators can own multimillion dollar ranches in Utah?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Let’s just be honest here. Wouldn’t Priestcraft also be lying about income to shield billions in profit so alleged prophets, seers, and revelators can own multimillion dollar ranches in Utah?

Man, if the truth were important to MAGA Mormons, they wouldn’t be in the cult.