Reconciling Money and the Church

You are bringing up some great subjects. Yes, I regret that the church has become so overwhelmingly “brick and mortar” with all that entails. Much is lost in going from gospel to church.

What do I do about it? Well, at one stage of growth, one option is to put your tenth elsewhere, somewhere you think is a better steward in line with your beliefs, and call that tithing. At another stage, an option is to stop the practice of tithe-ing in protest or redefine tithing to minimize the error. At another stage of growth, an option is to let go both of the money and your care for how it’s spent.

I think all those options above share the understanding that the LDS Church is not God’s special treasury. But the response varies according to my values and attitude at the moment.

How does that seem to you?

You are bringing up some great subjects.

Thanks. I didn’t want to appear anti-Mormon or antagonistic, so it was with some trepidation that I wrote that opening post. I’m glad some see it as a valid question. I didn’t want to put it in the Tithing Question thread either as the question is more about reconciliation fo the two concepts than about the historical or doctrinal meaning of tithing.

What do I do about it? Well, at one stage of growth, one option is to put your tenth elsewhere, somewhere you think is a better steward in line with your beliefs, and call that tithing.

I think that’s pushing it a bit because at tithing settlement, they ask “Does that represent 10%”. It’s not clear “of what”, but to give it all to other organizations would make me think I wasn’t worthy of a temple recommend.

At another stage, an option is to stop the practice of tithe-ing in protest or redefine tithing to minimize the error.

I’m in the process of redefining what tithing means to me, the Tithing Question thread shows my reasoning.

I dont’ think one can ever protest in the Church however. It’s perceived as apostasy.

My wife once wrote to the Prophet about something against my advice. She got an impersonal letter back akin to the letters you get from Members of Congress. A response, but general, watered-down, and apparently, meant to avoid liability or committing to anything. It only disturbed us.

At another stage of growth, an option is to let go both of the money and your care for how it’s spent.

I can’t do that anymore. When I sit in Church during a tithing talk, or tithing lesson, I hear things like “One must not have their heart set on money; one must be willing to give everything to the Lord; money is not important; paying tithing is one way of making sure our heart is not set on the things of the world” etcetera. But then, I reflect on the experiences I’ve had with the Church on matters of money, and how closely financial matters are held to the vest in the Church. Money IS very important to the Church. The behavior I’ve seen from church leaders over money makes it glaringly clear. The paradox is hard for me to grapple.

I think about the very long hours I put into my work and how taxing it is, and I find it unsettling that it doesn’t seem to show in my ability to achieve personal financial goals of self-reliance, and, that I don’t even know where my funds donated are going!

I think all those options above share the understanding that the LDS Church is not God’s special treasury. But the response varies according to my values and attitude at the moment. How does that seem to you?

Reasonable — when I returned from my mission, I wanted to pay tithing. All the teaching and training of others instilled this desire. Also, my lack of life experience at the time made it easy; I’d not yet seen the business side of the Church in full force. But since then, my life experiences with the disbursement of fast offerings, a conversation I had with a contractor who built a facility for the Church, as well as the apparently significant commercial assets of the Church, and other things have brouught the opening question to my mind many times.

Yes, some will say that the Church invests a lot of money in books, materials, maintenance of buildings, temples, etcetera, but it appears to me there are huge surpluses when you look at the Church as a whole — how they can drop the huge sums on commercial enterprises is a case in point. And I believe much could be done to strengthen the programs in Wards if more funds were available at the Ward level.

…people were expressing their difficulty reconciling the perceived and probable wealth of the Church, with the constant reminders about tithing — and with the mandate that you pay the Lord first, even when you don’t have enough for your basic needs…there was no budget to get the air conditioning working in a chapel until the new fiscal year (6 months in the future), but the Church had purchased huge quantities of land…another was concerned about the Church’s purchase of a mall…another chimed in that Wards will attract $200,000 in donations, yet only 5% of this amount goes back to the Wards to fund their programs….How do you reconcile these two ideas — the wealth of the Church, yet the continued emphasis on significat sacrifice from its members?

I reconcile this question the same way I reconcile all apparent contradictions and inconsistencies with the Church by simply recognizing the fact that the LDS prophets and apostles are mere mortals not God or Jesus. For me, as soon as I started to look at the LDS Church as basically an imperfect human organization rather than some kind of kingdom of God on earth everything about it suddenly made a lot more sense than it did before. I’m not saying that more TBMs should become closet apostates like me but I think slightly more realistic expectations would go a long way towards dealing with some of the most questionable aspects of the Church in a positive way.

Personally, I don’t believe that this tithing policy is particularly inspired or even planned out this way. I think it’s just a case where Lorenzo Snow started asking for more money using the Bible and D&C to justify it at a time when the Church was in debt and really needed money but now the Church has grown significantly and faithful members are wealthier on average than they were before so the Church doesn’t really need this much money to operate anymore. In my opinion, they still ask for it mostly because that’s the tradition they were taught and that’s what we have always done as long as people can remember similar to the WoW. Even with polygamy and racial discrimination, it took quite a bit of external pressure to finally get them to reverse their same old policies.

As far as the way they use the extra money to invest in land, businesses, stocks, etc. I don’t see it necessarily as them being particularly greedy as much as simply trying to protect and maximize their assets because of inflation, lawsuits, and whatever else they need to deal with. Maybe they think they will need this money down the road in case the Church experiences some unexpected hardships. Do I personally think they should give more back to poor and needy members or other humanitarian efforts? Absolutely, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for this change to take place given their track record.

Ray, it’s not the BoM action figures that bother me, it’s crockery etc that does. At least the action figures tie in with scripture.

Thanks for all the differing perspectives. A number of things resonate here. I like the historical entrenchment concept — where the policy started under Lorenzo Snow and has continued in practice in spite of the need not being as pressing as it was when the Church was heavily in debt.

I disagree that the idea of all these public corporations are a “good balance” however — we don’t know what the balance is.

Frankly, I like the advice of Ghandi who had this philosophy — organizations that act for the good of man should have only enough money as they need to fund their operations, and all this money should come from their membership. He was opposed to donated monies invested in corporations and private enterprises that throw off cash. This is because the organization eventually loses its accountability to its members because it’s no longer dependent on them for their income. In fact, financial independence may well lessen their willingness to listen to and respond to the needs of their members.

I know our Church doesn’t seem to believe in accountability to the members — leaders view it as the Lord’s Church, and that He knows best — that we are indebted to Him for our salvation etcetera — so we have absolutely no claim.

However, we also believe in common consent — it appears that common consent stops at issues of doctrine and staffing — not on the use of funds.

Just be careful of speculation. I understand it’s a natural result of not knowing, but still . . .

Also, I don’t want common consent with regard to expenditures. I think that would be disastrous – and I chose that word carefully.

As I’ve said, the church already does disclose funds, in at least one part of the world, so what’s the problem? And yes, I do think the Red Cross should disclose expenditure… it’s a matter of transparency and prevents corruption.