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GBSmith wrote:
… somebody is going to be upset about almost any financial move.
I can think of lots of places the church could put its money that would raise no eyebrows whatsoever, except perphaps amongst the truly wild-eyed. I am tempted to think that if I were in a position of power within the organization, I could have done a better job at it, but of course I’m not.I’m sure that the issue we’re talking about was discussed at some point amongst the decision makers, and they decided to move ahead in spite of the possible moral repurcussions of, at some level, being involved in the sale of things that the church tells its membership are objectionable. They want to make downtown SLC clean, safe, modern and cosmopolitan — in other words, a place that regular people want to go, and I think that by and large they have succeeded in a way that they would not have if they had turned the property into a welfare cannery or another museum, for instance.
Perhaps they see in their future a time when the church won’t feel the need to make such a sharp distinction between themselves and “the world”. If so, I wish they’d tell the rest of us about it.
Heber13 wrote:…
I’m also glad Pres Hinckley’s told the public on several occasions during the Olympics bars will be open and stores will stay open on Sunday for visitors coming to SLC.
:clap: more of that! More of that! Not less of that!I prefer those reasonable stands, and do not want my church to teach members to say “you should not eat coffee cake” or “we don’t want someone smelling like smoke in our chapels” or “store owners shoud not be given a choice on what to sell or what days they can operate”.
:thumbdown: I’d rather the church be more reasonable. I think it sets a precedence for members to start lightening up about some things too and be smart and reasonable, not so uptight and hung up on the principle of the matter.
So I guess I’m saying, I can see the point, they can’t preach over the pulpit one thing and do anything even closely resembling anything else…they should be held to the highest standard. It can be viewed as hypicritical. So I hope they stop saying such strong words over the pulpit and preach more reasonable and smart things the members should digest.
And let me digest my coffee cake!
:angel: Absolutely. If the church is going to blow 3 bil on a mall…using my tithing money…I damn well better be able to buy a beer if I want one.
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doug wrote:… I am tempted to think that if I were in a position of power within the organization, I could have done a better job at it, but of course I’m not….
The things I could to make the world a better place with 3 billion dollars?
A MALL?
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cwald wrote:doug wrote:… I am tempted to think that if I were in a position of power within the organization, I could have done a better job at it, but of course I’m not….
The things I could to make the world a better place with 3 billion dollars?A MALL?
Yeah… I still haven’t found how this mall is something Jesus would do… you know, since the mall was bought using his name, & all.How to make the world a better place with billions to spare?
Some ideas…
How about finding an effective humanitarian strategy to alleviate the chronic hunger suffered by almost 1 BILLION of our brothers and sisters…
How about helping to finance immunizations, so people are not dying needlessly?
How about educating people about the reality of torturous abortion murders – possibly saving thousands of innocent children’s lives?
How about providing clean water in countries (& not just the countries that show US &/or church potential profit in) that are in need?
How about building schools in areas where youth see no other choice but to earn a living by harming themselves &/or others?
There are many better ways to spend such money. Going by the parables of Jesus (including the parable of the talents & subsequent parable diving the sheep from the goats)… Jesus would use money to ease suffering as he taught in the parable of the good Samaritan & in many other scriptures. Jesus would not only live up to Deut 14:28-29 which states that 1/3 of tithes are to be given to the poor, he would give more than that. Jesus would never charge for worthiness, but would ask that the spirit of love be within each person’s heart & that they would keep love (God) as their only God… not materialism nor greed nor popularity.
As ForgottenCharity implied… we can only control ourselves… not others.
This is why I give my tithes directly to those in need.
The church has received more than enough from me over my lifetime.
Tithing is supposed to be based on interest/increase… NOT income.
There have been times, when I’ve gotten into debt to pay tithing, because I was mistakenly trying to obey church instruction & pay based on income, not increase.
Now, my tithes are at much better work & I feel it’s what God intends.
Quote:Jesus would use money to ease suffering as he taught in the parable of the good Samaritan & in many other scriptures. Jesus would not only live up to Deut 14:28-29 which states that 1/3 of tithes are to be given to the poor, he would give more than that.
Um, except that
we have no record of him doing that at any point in his ministry.Based on the scriptural descriptions we actually have:
Jesus would live off the money and charity of his followers. He wouldn’t work (unlike King Benjamin, for example), but would be a typical traveling preacher from the times of Joseph Smith. We probably would accuse him of priestcraft, if we didn’t accept him as a prophet and/or Christ.
Jesus would give nothing of monetary value to the poor – other than the healing of a few small number of them. He wouldn’t make their financial lives better in any measurable way, and only once (or twice) would he even feed them. He’d be the Joel Osteen of his time in our minds, if we didn’t accept him as a prophet and/or Christ.
Jesus would do nothing to alleviate the taxing of the poorest people. In fact, he would tell them to quit complaining and pay their taxes like good citizens.
I’m not trying to be combative in writing that, but I am trying to say that
much of what we tend to say Jesus would do isn’t supported by his actual ministry as it is described in our scriptures. Rather, it’s projecting our own sensitivities and interpretations of his teachings onto him in ways that often don’t reflect what is written. Also, I know when we talk about billions of dollars, nitpicking amounts probably is nitpicking amounts, but it wasn’t 3 billion dollars. If we’re going to use numbers, at least they should be as accurate as they can be – not 50% higher than the actual numbers. (I’d say the same things if someone said it was 1 billion, so that’s not a defense response. It’s a call for accuracy – nothing more.)
InquiringMind wrote:So I’m curious- for those who think that it’s OK for alcohol and tea to be sold at the City Creek Center, here’s my next question: If an LDS person buys and drinks alcohol and tea from the City Creek Center, are they still worthy to go to the temple?
I would not pass a TR interview if I didn’t keep the word of wisdom, regardless of where I bought it which is about consuming it.
I would be worthy to attend the temple if I worked at a restaurant that sold alcohol and tea.
They are not the same things…which is what Ray was pointing out, I believe.
Ray, You point out that Jesus wasn’t concerned with money.
He probably didn’t have businesses… so why does the Church of Jesus Christ have so many? This isn’t the only mall the church owns.
Jesus WAS about helping those in need… spiritually, & temporally.
His miracles of feeding the 5,000, of turning water to wine, of healing people…
His messages of hope, of improving distorted thinking, of loving others, as ourselves (which prioritize above “all the law and the prophets”).
No doubt he showed many more acts of compassion than are written.
I imagine that the money he had, was often given to the poor, since Judas argued with Jesus when a woman spilt expensive oil on him… that it could’ve been sold & profits given to the poor.
Of course Judas was interested in his own gain, not for the poor… but still – there is the implication that often times, Jesus DID give of what little money he had, to those in need.
I know you & others want to justify this… to stay LDS… to you, it means making sense of why leaders representing Jesus would spend sacred funds on a shopping mall, supporting business that contradicts everything they teach at the pulpit. It’s a stretch, don’t you think? But I think we can agree that the church & those in it are NOT perfect. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any good, but it’s not helpful to pretend what is really evil, is good.
Featherina, I am going to continue this simply because I personally believe it’s important to have the conversation – NOT because I’m trying to justify the building of the mall or trying to say our leaders never make mistakes. I believe everyone here knows that’s not my belief. I’m going to take your comment bit-by-bit, in order to try to illustrate what I’m saying:
Quote:You point out that Jesus wasn’t concerned with money.
No, I pointed out that there is next to nothing in the Gospels that indicates whether or not Jesus was concerned with money – except for a couple of instances where he lost it over merchants extorting people at the temple (over-charging [“den of thieves”] is the actual charge, not selling) and when he praised the widow for giving everything she had as her alms (not exactly a gesture of helping the poor in a financial way). What we have is someone who seems to have preached to and accepted the poor – but not someone who did anything whatsoever to alleviate their poverty generally.
He didn’t have to be concerned about it personally, since his followers appeared to have supported him financially.That dependence on others for a living is overlooked by most people, and that dependence on others changes any dispassionate, non-Messianic view of his ministry. Quote:He probably didn’t have businesses… so why does the Church of Jesus Christ have so many? This isn’t the only mall the church owns.
He wasn’t an organization that had to build and maintain meetinghouses, help feed and clothe its members, donate to humanitarian aid, etc. Comparing a preacher to a church is unrealistic in the extreme. They simply aren’t the same in any way.
Quote:Jesus WAS about helping those in need… spiritually, & temporally.
Spiritually, yes; temporally? We have NO proof of that at all in the Bible, except for the instances of physical healing. We have no proof he helped anyone financially in a direct, non-healing, non-self-serving way. When he miraculously got money from a fish . . .
in order to pay taxesit wasn’t to help the poor; it was to comply with a government mandate. When he told the fishermen to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, without the belief that it was miraculous, it wasn’t to help the poor; it was to help someone’s business who might have been a financial supporter of his, given his probable financial dependence on fishermen who were among his earliest followers. Quote:His miracles of feeding the 5,000, of turning water to wine, of healing people…
The first is the only instance we have where he helped people financially in some way – and it was a one time feeding of people who had followed him to hear him preach. Take out the symbolism that is imbued in the event, and what did he do? He gave them a meal. That’s all. Taken in context without the Messiah belief, and he provided a meal for people who were supporting his ministry. Turning water to wine was financial assistance of a selfish nature, if he isn’t seen as a prophet or Messiah. He used his powers to save his mom some money. We’d criticize that if one of our current leaders did it. Seriously, everyone here
(including you, probably louder than anyone else)would be blasting Joseph Smith if he’d done something like that. Quote:His messages of hope, of improving distorted thinking, of loving others, as ourselves (which prioritize above “all the law and the prophets”).
I agree that his messages are wonderful – but they didn’t help anyone financially in any way that is recorded in our scriptures (except for the healing I’ve already mentioned).
Quote:No doubt he showed many more acts of compassion than are written.
I agree – but compassion for individuals in that context has nothing to do with a discussion of the mall. Again, there is NO indication that Jesus EVER gave his own money to anyone else as part of his compassion. It simply isn’t in our record of his actions.
Quote:I imagine that the money he had, was often given to the poor, since Judas argued with Jesus when a woman spilt expensive oil on him… that it could’ve been sold & profits given to the poor.
“I imagine . . .” Enough said.
Quote:Of course Judas was interested in his own gain, not for the poor… but still – there is the implication that often times, Jesus DID give of what little money he had, to those in need.
There is no implication of that in the actual words of the Bible. There is no indication Jesus had any money of his own. The implication is that he lived off the generosity of others, like every other traveling preacher of his time.
Quote:I know you & others want to justify this… to stay LDS…
No, I don’t want to justify the mall in order to stay LDS. I want to make sure we aren’t making comparisons that just aren’t good comparisons – that we talk about it realistically and not in an emotional way that warps reality and distorts the issues. I honestly think your comparison to the life of Jesus totally warps the issue.
Quote:to you, it means making sense of why leaders representing Jesus would spend sacred funds on a shopping mall,
No, it doesn’t. I don’t see the money spent to build the mall as “sacred funds”. I see that money as business funds.
Quote:supporting business that contradicts everything they teach at the pulpit.
The businesses in the mall don’t contradict everything that the LDS Church teaches over the pulpit. There isn’t a brothel or a porn shop in the mall. That’s an extreme, hyperbolic statement that I have a hard time addressing seriously. I see it as so over-the-top that I have a hard time answering it.
Quote:It’s a stretch, don’t you think?
I understand why others see it as a stretch, but I don’t. If the primary focus is to revitalize the area immediately around the temple and keep that area from becoming an urban slum, that type of mall works, imo. A hospital wouldn’t, even as much as I’d like to see that amount of money spent to build a hospital.
Quote:But I think we can agree that the church & those in it are NOT perfect.
Yes, we agree totally about that.
Quote:That doesn’t mean there isn’t any good, but it’s not helpful to pretend what is really evil, is good.
The mall is not “evil” – and building it was not an evil act. That, to me, is the biggest over-statement in this thread so far.
Also, just so you know, it also probably is one of the most insulting things anyone has ever said to me here at StayLDS.com – that I pretend that evil is good – that I am supporting evil simply to feel better about myself and my church involvement. I’ve had some radically anti-Mormon acquaintances that have said something like that, but even they have told me they think I am deceived by the devil – not that I am pretending in some way. That is an incredibly damning charge, and I was stunned that you would make it – even concerning a topic about which you feel so passionately.
Old-Timer wrote:
Jesus would live off the money and charity of his followers. He wouldn’t work (unlike King Benjamin, for example), but would be a typical traveling preacher from the times of Joseph Smith. We probably would accuse him of priestcraft, if we didn’t accept him as a prophet and/or Christ.I believe this is true and not true. Jesus’ ministry was conducted in a specific cultural context, so whether he would be practically homeless in this day and age is probably speculation. In general he wouldn’t own much of anything of value, and thus wouldn’t be guilty of priestcraft because he wasn’t profiting from his ministry. Much like in New Testament times he would be this crazy guy wandering around the parks and in the camps under railroad bridges, and he would make people highly uncomfortable, but I don’t think he would accumulate enough to be guilty of priestcraft.
Old-Timer wrote:
Jesus would give nothing of monetary value to the poor – other than the healing of a few small number of them. He wouldn’t make their financial lives better in any measurable way, and only once (or twice) would he even feed them. He’d be the Joel Osteen of his time in our minds, if we didn’t accept him as a prophet and/or Christ.
This reflects my own limited exposure to Joel Osteen, but I see him as a snake oil salesman. Much of his preaching doesn’t even talk about God or Christ. It’s the soothing words people want to hear. I doubt Jesus ever uttered anything comparable to “your best life now”. In general I believe Osteen is a health and wealth preacher who tells people they can have it all, whereas Jesus told people to put God first, by which they would suffer trials and tribulations, but by so doing would live out their roles as God’s people.
For the most part Joel Osteen is a popular blow dried smiling pied piper, which is not at all who Jesus was.
Overall, though, I think your point is well taken that people project their own agendas onto Jesus. In general I think he would ignore the mall in specific while continuing to rail against the materialism that it’s a monument to, both among the people and among the LDS church leaders who built it.
Quote:In general I think he would ignore the mall in specific while continuing to rail against the materialism that it’s a monument to, both among the people and among the LDS church leaders who built it.
I agree that our record indicates that he would rail against materialism, but there is no indication he rejected the “malls” of his time – only those that groups and individuals who grossly over-charged the poor. He didn’t condemn tithing, for example, even of the poor; he condemned taking tithing and not providing welfare assistance when needed. In that sense, he probably would have objected to some of the businesses in the mall and some of the welfare decisions made within the Church – but that’s me projecting my own perspective onto him.
He wasn’t anti-establishment at heart; he was anti-rejection and exploitation of marginalized people. There is a difference, and it’s important.
Old-Timer wrote:…
Also, I know when we talk about billions of dollars, nitpicking amounts probably is nitpicking amounts,
but it wasn’t 3 billion dollars.If we’re going to use numbers, at least they should be as accurate as they can be – not 50% higher than the actual numbers. (I’d say the same things if someone said it was 1 billion, so that’s not a defense response. It’s a call for accuracy – nothing more.) It wasn’t? And how do you know?
I would love to be able to more accurately nitpick about the amount the church funneled into the project, but so far THE CHURCH has been hesitant to be transparent about their expenditures.
Do you have some concrete data that would demonstrate the 3 billion dollar estimate that came from church money, that has been stated in the papers, in not accurate?
Ok Guys, I have a question. If we assume the following criteria:
A) That the LDS Church is not personally led by Jesus Christ. (For example – if the Catholics spent a great sum of money on a similar redevelopment project in Rome.)
That you as an individual do not pay tithing. (This hopefully would take out the personal aspect of the issue.)Please help me understand if the City Creek Mall would still be upsetting to you. If so, please include your reasoning.
I’m trying to understand why this is upsetting to people and I’d like to explore more than what may be on the surface.
Yes Roy, it would. Church money should be used to build up the kingdom of god and to help the less fortunate. I think the catholic church should build churches, cathedrals, soup kitchens, housing, schools etc etc….
I don’t think they should build shopping malls…for the sole purpose of commerce.
cwald, 1) The Church is required to report on its expenditures for this project, since it was funded through the business wing of the organization. The total expenditures are a matter of public record.
2) Every story I’ve ever read (from multiple sources) puts the total cost of the development of the entire project (not just the mall itself) at $1.5-$2 billion dollars.
3) Saying the Church spent 3 billion dollars building a mall simply isn’t accurate, based on the published statements. They spent up to $2 billion for a project that included a mall, housing units, urban landscaping and other elements of a comprehensive neighborhood renovation plan.
Again, the overall amount of expense can be addressed, as can the choice of how to spend it, but the Church didn’t spend billions of dollars to finance the building of a mall. It simply didn’t do that. The mall was only on part of the overall project the Church funded.
Roy, I want to say that it wouldn’t bother me. If the Church isn’t “True” and has no power to increase my standing in the afterlife, and especially if there is no God and no afterlife, then it wouldn’t matter what was sold at the mall. At that point it wouldn’t matter if the Church openly ran a brothel in the basement of the Salt Lake Temple. Your logic is good. The idea of the mall selling forbidden substances bugs me because I’m still trying to find reasons why the Church is what it claims to be, because at this point the only good reason I can think of to stay in the Church is that the Church might be what it claims to be. The truth about me is that, even though I’ve been very active in the Church, I don’t particularly like the Church and I’ve been unhappy in it for awhile, but I’ve stayed because of the hope that it might be “True” with a capital “T.” But it doesn’t make any sense for me to stay in an organization that I don’t like and don’t believe in. In a way, I guess I was hoping that my original post would garner some responses that would offer compelling reasons why it’s OK for the mall to sell forbidden substances, and thus show me that I was wrong to object and I needn’t be concerned. But no compelling reasons (at least to my mind) have been offered, just as no compelling reasons for polyandry have been offered. If I do decide to become inactive in the Church, the City Creek Mall wouldn’t be my problem anymore. But I would still object to it on ethical grounds: an organization that has such a strong hold on the minds of millions ought to be consistent in its teachings and practices. I would still consider it inconsistent, if not immoral, for an organization to offer such confusing messages to its trusting and devout believers. But from a nihilistic point of view, if human consciousness does in fact end with the death of the brain, then it really doesn’t matter.
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