Mormon Church has misled members on $100B tax-exempt investment fund
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Many members take great pride in paying their tithing first, no matter what. What this article left out was that no tithe paying member would ever be allowed to have their power shut off or not have food or other important necessities.
The church has and will provide food and even pay important bills for members if they need it. I have worked in bookkeeping at our local Ward and personally seen large checks for mortgage parents, electric bills, and even medical bills for needy members or members that were otherwise just going through a financial rough spot.
I should also add that this aid is not predicated on paying tithing or not. But local leadership does have to make decisions about whether the request for help is sincere and I would imagine being a faithful tithe paying member makes you more likely to receive help.
As for the rest of the article, I think there are definitely some transparency issues and maybe even some misleading statements from some leaders about how tithe money is used. But I don't think anyone was led to believe that the church is spending most of what is taken in.
The church has always had grand expansion plans. I would expect any organization with such plans to stockpile a war chest.
I was merely pointing out that it isn't true that poor members are lacking basic necessities while being pressured to pay tithing.
And also have to tell your bishop, the most important and powerful member of your local community that you aren't going to pay in a private 1:1 meeting.
Clearly the portfolio adviser, who used his name no less and did not stay anonymous, doesn't have as much visibility to their charitable works managing a 100B portfolio as say you do bookkeeping for your local ward.
Merely stating something that essentially every Mormon knows and can be easily verified but was left out.
It's not really a pertinent fact to this issue of a huge investment fund. Except for the apparent editorial by the reporter that members are asked to pay tithing even when they can't afford it, which is misleading.
One does not just “not tithe” if they are poor in the Mormon religion.
The amount of welfare the church distributes via the bishop's storehouse is paltry compared to their overall holdings. It would also be extremely embarrassing to have to go to the leadership in your community and ask them to support you
You don't have to pay tithing to get access to the financial support of the church but you do in order to get a temple recommend and thus participate in basic and fundamental activities such as attending the marriage of a loved one, do all the temple work they always tell you to etc
It's basically a real estate company operating tax free.
One article on their land ownership I found that details some of it. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/30/from-book-to-...
I don't see this as a strike against religion but rather a return of religion to it's proper function: religion rather than business.
There are a lot of scams in religious organization and have been for some time. Removing some of the perverse incentives (i.e televangelists worth millions with private jets) may help with that and I don't think infringes on right to worship according to conscience in the least. As it sits now a lot of bad behavior gets a pass because "can't interfere with religion".