News Artlcle On LDS Land Holdings

The problem the DAMU will have with this information, is the idea that the church is continually asking for more and more donations, under the auspice of not having funds to keep the programs going.

…and then they write out a check for half billion dollars to purchase land as an investment to put their excess cash.

That doesn’t go over well for many.

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I guess we’ve visited this question a few times….but after renewed reflection, after forgetting about the issue of church/money for a while, I feel its somehow wrong to leave so many programs on the ecclesiastical side so poorly funded — particularly when the entities related to the church are so awash in cash on the business side. This hurts the members’ experience. Cases in point at the grass roots level:

a) could not get an appointment with LDS Social services when i was suffering with depression triggered by church experiences. This was due to lack of capacity at LDS Social Services.

b) Budgets for adult Ward programs are paltry (HPGL budget was $50/year when I was serving in that position — for the entire year).

c) Bishop would not fund letters to less actives we could not reach personally, but would send money back to Salt Lake City at the end of the year from his budget.

d) GBH announced he wasn’t funding any expansion of the LDS university system because the programs are so expensive

e) Church refuses transparency, while justifies its focus on tithing claiming the church buildings are costly to maintain — ignoring the fact that each ward is a profit center with its own revenue stream that contribute to the costs of running the buildings.

f) And then, there was the SP who told me to stay home from a mission when I was a new member, underemployed, no support from non-member parents, baptized as a young adult etcetera — due to lack of missionary funds in the Stake coffers, my lack of support from non-member parents.

g) Bishop would not fund a $200 unauthorized expense one of my assistants spent on a service project (building materials) for a local non-profit renovation he organized. I know he spent the money without approval, but this was a good brother who was serving others. The Bishop could’ve slapped his wrist and paid it, but he wouldn’t. This really ticked off this assistant of mine at the time.

Anyway, I know people don’t agree with me on this, but in my heart of hearts, I feel the members shoulder very heavy burdens that the church could lighten in so many ways if they took a more charitable view of their own wealth. Simply claiming that it is money spent on the “business side” and that “no tithing funds were used” doesn’t cut it for me when the overall church experience could be made so much better with looser purse strings on the business side of things.

And by the way, the seed money on the business side had to come from somewhere — in the beginning, the church owned everything, I understsand, and I believe there certainly was mingling of tithing and other funds in the beginning of our history. Perhaps this was the seed for the business side we see that is apparently flourishing right now?

mackay11, I agree that they ought to be helped, but I also know they will be helped. The Church is going to send extensive aid to the Phillipines, and part of their ability to do so is because they own food-producing land (including ranches) on which they can grow products for a pittance compared to what it would cost to buy those products from others.

I understand totally concerns over things like the expenditure for the SLC renovation project, but I see this very differently. The result of this purchase will be an increased ability to provide assistance to people who need it. I am completely fine with that.

That depends on how you define those who need it most. If you include members and things like churches, temples (which are central to the theology), educational subsidies, temporary welfare assistance to members, the cost to produce, manage and distribute that assistance, etc., as well as direct humanitarian aid and the costs to produce, manage and distribute that aid, it’s a whole lot higher percent than most people calculate.

Even if you look only at humanitarian aid to non-members, the LDS Church provides exponentially more in actual dollar amount than any other Christian denomination even close to its size. The Methodist Church has been used in some places to claim that the LDS Church is miserly in terms of total revenue vs. humanitarian giving (calculate as a percentage), but that argument ignores the fact that the LDS Church gave approximately 15 times more in actual aid for the year being compared than the Methodist Church did. (I know, since I did the research when the claim was made in order to make sure I understood for myself and wasn’t relying on claims from either side.) The total baptized membership figures are very close; the total humanitarian giving is 15 times higher from the LDS Church.

If the church doesn’t want to be questioned, second guessed and criticized about how they spend their money, they can always open up the books and be more transparent, like most other churches and non profit organizations do.

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I agree with that, cwald, but this is a case where it is obvious how the money has been spent – and exactly how much is being spent. That can be said about all purchases of the for-profit side, which have to be reported just like all for-profit endeavors, so it doesn’t fit the transparency issue.

Really? Where did the money come from? How do you know no tithing was used?

Until you have transparency, people are going to accuse the church of a cover up and question this type of transactions.

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Wade is one of the people that I’ve learned to ignore. It saves a lot of pain.

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