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Can you imagine the criticism if the investment arm was losing money? The Church does amazing work providing resources during crises. I’ve personally cut trees

Can you imagine the criticism if the investment arm was losing money? The Church does amazing work providing resources during crises. I’ve personally cut trees off of people’s houses with chainsaws provided by the Church and given buckets of sanitation supplies when hurricanes swept through Florida. There is always a tension in “what do you spend now and what do you invest for later” but I honesty feel like the Church cannot win this argument. Those who are distrustful of organized religion can win if the church is poor (“why didn’t their ‘prophet’ know better”); if they’re rich (“why don’t they give to X”); or if they do nothing (“they teach their own members to save but don’t practice that themselves—the hypocrites”). I’m a believer so my view is not disinterested, but where is the conversation that they are conservative in their investments; won’t make money from industries they teach against; etc. There are very few people in the ecclesiastical arm of the church who work full-time and are provided a living stipend. And many of those people were very successful before leaving their professional lives. The current President (Russel Nelson) was a pioneer in open heart surgery. I’m pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry. To me this article is interesting but the reaction is predictable. People will read into the confirmation of whatever biases they had to begin with. For my part, I’d rather the church invest wisely than poorly...

tomrod 7y ago
> I’m pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry. Two comments. [1] The Mormon church is a corporation sole, meaning presently Nelson is the sole controller of all assets. He could reasonably set up his family for life with beneficial contacts and contracts. That is worth more than (now probably expired) intellectual property associated with open-heart surgery. [2] The leadership of the Mormon church tends to come from the same set of Utah-based families. Not 100%, but certainly a high representation. It's a social network that has been extractive on the work and labor of their membership for over a century, benefiting these few families greatly. This doesn't mean the organization hasn't done good -- it has. It's just that good doesn't blot out bad, nefarious, negligence, or other societal negatives.
- starskublue 7y ago
  [1] Yet no one has alleged that anything like that has happened. Also if I was 90 years old and had plenty of money I would much rather live a comfortable retired life than work at the pace he works at.
  - tomrod 7y ago
    People have, it just doesn't hit home like seeing the $100B figure.[0] [0] https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds-apostles-and-prophet-thomas-s.html https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds-apostles...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- sturgill 7y ago
  I don’t know enough about the legal structure of [1] to have an informed opinion. Contacts and contracts are always the gift to children of connected parents. I hope to give the same to my kids... ;) I’m sure it happens as it does in any family (hello Biden!) but I’m not convinced it’s more prevalent in the Church than any other organization of people. It’s an interesting thought, but I’m not sure how prevalent it is. I have met several general authorities in various capacities (including Bishop Waddell who was quoted in the article). They are humans and suspect to all the frailties that entails, but they have all been serious minded people who take their roles as stewards seriously. I’m sure some amount of fraud or nepotism happens, but I also have a religious view that suggests that whatever wrong is acquired in this life will be corrected in the next. I have known people who have done things with Church money that they shouldn’t have. All of them were excommunicated for the same. The Church takes its financial stewardship seriously with required audits at all levels. I agree with the first half of [2] but not the complaint that follows. It was only recently that more members of the Church lived outside the US. As the Church has grown out of Utah and throughout the US (and outside world) they have done a better job of calling people from more areas. I think this is part of human behavior as well. It can be frustrating, but it’s hard for someone in Salt Lake to know I could serve in capacity X without knowing me personally. Again, it’s getting better as genera leaders travel more and get to know local leaders, but it’s always easiest to think of the person you know. This happens in business as well: a new CEO brings “his/her team” — I’d like to see less of it (and fully expect to as the Church continues to grow globally).
01100011 7y ago
I think the criticism comes from them amassing so much wealth when there is still so much suffering. There are people who will criticise churches regardless, but there seem to be a lot of reasonable people who look at the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church and determine their wealth is inconsistent with their teachings. Mormons could probably further their message by selling their golden ornaments and using it to shelter the homeless, for instance.
- sturgill 7y ago
  There’s a reasonable conversation to be had about when to spend and when to save. I don’t pretend to have all the answers there. But as someone on the inside, I’ll say this: local congregations have very strict budgets allotted to them, but the welfare component of the budget is essentially unlimited. Local leaders are encouraged (and it is part of their mandate) to “seek out the poor”. Most individual welfare happens at the local level, and local leaders are not expected to limit their assistance to the money the local unit pulls in. This is a simplification of the process, but welfare assistance is one of the few places where local leaders are not given explicit caps. For a very centralized organization they give a lot of leeway to local leaders to let assess local needs.
  - darksaints 7y ago
    And yet, with no explicit cap on welfare spending, the church only claims about $40 million per year on charitable giving. As a percentage of their revenue, that is monstrously pathetic. I have a better chance of feeding the poor by giving my money to a Fyre Festival who will take 95% of the money and skip town but pay 5% to a local vendor who buys shitty bread from a local company who employs a poor person for minimum wage.
    - sturgill 7y ago
      Bad comparison when you’re skeptical of an entity investing money in businesses who employ lots of people...
jacurtis 7y ago
One part that was left out of the WSJ article but was released by the whistleblower was the source of these funds. When members asked to donate money to charity, the church said they would happily donate it on behalf of the members. It was then taken from the members and funneled into this investment fund instead of redirected to charity (as they promised). The church claims that since they are a non-profit that they are therefore a charity (they have also claimed that the purpose for stockpiling $124B was for the second coming of Jesus). While they might be able to make this claim legally... it was obviously not the intention of the members who invested the money. If members intended to fund the church directly, they could have simply paid their tithing or even over-paid their tithing (as many members choose to do) as usual. But they chose specifically to donate to charity, which implies someone other than the church. Since I am assuming you are a member, you are familiar with the tithing slip. That extra line at the bottom that says "charity:_____" yep, that money never went to charity. It went into this fund that the church kept for themselves. Very honest and Christlike.
- alanwreath 7y ago
  If you want your assistance to go straight to those who need it - then walk right to that person and give it to them. If you want someone who is experienced in making said assistance stretch further than just to that one family, ask someone experienced. Complaining seems like you don't trust the person to whom you just put in charge of using your donation wisely. So why was the donation made again? Obviously one would expect the charity to report yearly on their endeavors - since no aid may be going out at all - however, reporting on each dollar would be a tad difficult to track. So not sure what would be required here. Emptying out said donations all in one go (to avoid the perception of hoarding say all 100 billion) may not be good either since problems today may be more bearable than problems tomorrow. So not sure what would be required here either. Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them.
  - darksaints 7y ago
    > Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them. And the best recourse for people who spent significant sums of money donating to a charity that misrepresented their charitable actions and has acted more like a for profit business would be to initiate a class action suit for fraud and to remove the fake charity's tax exempt status.
1lLAIW 7y ago
The whole thread has been rearranged according to doctrine. When the thread was active, a critical comment was on top the entire time. No one can tell me this is happening without a coordinated effort.

tomrod 7y ago

> I’m pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry. Two comments. [1] The Mormon church is a corporation sole, meaning presently Nelson is the sole controller of all assets. He could reasonably set up his family for life with beneficial contacts and contracts. That is worth more than (now probably expired) intellectual property associated with open-heart surgery. [2] The leadership of the Mormon church tends to come from the same set of Utah-based families. Not 100%, but certainly a high representation. It's a social network that has been extractive on the work and labor of their membership for over a century, benefiting these few families greatly. This doesn't mean the organization hasn't done good -- it has. It's just that good doesn't blot out bad, nefarious, negligence, or other societal negatives.

starskublue 7y ago
[1] Yet no one has alleged that anything like that has happened. Also if I was 90 years old and had plenty of money I would much rather live a comfortable retired life than work at the pace he works at.
- tomrod 7y ago
  People have, it just doesn't hit home like seeing the $100B figure.[0] [0] https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds-apostles-and-prophet-thomas-s.html https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds-apostles...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
sturgill 7y ago
I don’t know enough about the legal structure of [1] to have an informed opinion. Contacts and contracts are always the gift to children of connected parents. I hope to give the same to my kids... ;) I’m sure it happens as it does in any family (hello Biden!) but I’m not convinced it’s more prevalent in the Church than any other organization of people. It’s an interesting thought, but I’m not sure how prevalent it is. I have met several general authorities in various capacities (including Bishop Waddell who was quoted in the article). They are humans and suspect to all the frailties that entails, but they have all been serious minded people who take their roles as stewards seriously. I’m sure some amount of fraud or nepotism happens, but I also have a religious view that suggests that whatever wrong is acquired in this life will be corrected in the next. I have known people who have done things with Church money that they shouldn’t have. All of them were excommunicated for the same. The Church takes its financial stewardship seriously with required audits at all levels. I agree with the first half of [2] but not the complaint that follows. It was only recently that more members of the Church lived outside the US. As the Church has grown out of Utah and throughout the US (and outside world) they have done a better job of calling people from more areas. I think this is part of human behavior as well. It can be frustrating, but it’s hard for someone in Salt Lake to know I could serve in capacity X without knowing me personally. Again, it’s getting better as genera leaders travel more and get to know local leaders, but it’s always easiest to think of the person you know. This happens in business as well: a new CEO brings “his/her team” — I’d like to see less of it (and fully expect to as the Church continues to grow globally).

01100011 7y ago

I think the criticism comes from them amassing so much wealth when there is still so much suffering. There are people who will criticise churches regardless, but there seem to be a lot of reasonable people who look at the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church and determine their wealth is inconsistent with their teachings. Mormons could probably further their message by selling their golden ornaments and using it to shelter the homeless, for instance.

sturgill 7y ago
There’s a reasonable conversation to be had about when to spend and when to save. I don’t pretend to have all the answers there. But as someone on the inside, I’ll say this: local congregations have very strict budgets allotted to them, but the welfare component of the budget is essentially unlimited. Local leaders are encouraged (and it is part of their mandate) to “seek out the poor”. Most individual welfare happens at the local level, and local leaders are not expected to limit their assistance to the money the local unit pulls in. This is a simplification of the process, but welfare assistance is one of the few places where local leaders are not given explicit caps. For a very centralized organization they give a lot of leeway to local leaders to let assess local needs.
- darksaints 7y ago
  And yet, with no explicit cap on welfare spending, the church only claims about $40 million per year on charitable giving. As a percentage of their revenue, that is monstrously pathetic. I have a better chance of feeding the poor by giving my money to a Fyre Festival who will take 95% of the money and skip town but pay 5% to a local vendor who buys shitty bread from a local company who employs a poor person for minimum wage.
  - sturgill 7y ago
    Bad comparison when you’re skeptical of an entity investing money in businesses who employ lots of people...

jacurtis 7y ago

One part that was left out of the WSJ article but was released by the whistleblower was the source of these funds. When members asked to donate money to charity, the church said they would happily donate it on behalf of the members. It was then taken from the members and funneled into this investment fund instead of redirected to charity (as they promised). The church claims that since they are a non-profit that they are therefore a charity (they have also claimed that the purpose for stockpiling $124B was for the second coming of Jesus). While they might be able to make this claim legally... it was obviously not the intention of the members who invested the money. If members intended to fund the church directly, they could have simply paid their tithing or even over-paid their tithing (as many members choose to do) as usual. But they chose specifically to donate to charity, which implies someone other than the church. Since I am assuming you are a member, you are familiar with the tithing slip. That extra line at the bottom that says "charity:_____" yep, that money never went to charity. It went into this fund that the church kept for themselves. Very honest and Christlike.

alanwreath 7y ago
If you want your assistance to go straight to those who need it - then walk right to that person and give it to them. If you want someone who is experienced in making said assistance stretch further than just to that one family, ask someone experienced. Complaining seems like you don't trust the person to whom you just put in charge of using your donation wisely. So why was the donation made again? Obviously one would expect the charity to report yearly on their endeavors - since no aid may be going out at all - however, reporting on each dollar would be a tad difficult to track. So not sure what would be required here. Emptying out said donations all in one go (to avoid the perception of hoarding say all 100 billion) may not be good either since problems today may be more bearable than problems tomorrow. So not sure what would be required here either. Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them.
- darksaints 7y ago
  > Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them. And the best recourse for people who spent significant sums of money donating to a charity that misrepresented their charitable actions and has acted more like a for profit business would be to initiate a class action suit for fraud and to remove the fake charity's tax exempt status.

1lLAIW 7y ago

The whole thread has been rearranged according to doctrine. When the thread was active, a critical comment was on top the entire time. No one can tell me this is happening without a coordinated effort.