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Roy started a thread on moral obligations. One particular moral/ethical question that hit me was similar to “Does the church have a moral obligation to fight urban blight?”. I would like to open up a thread on this here to provide focus, and to change the nature of the discussion a bit. Ethics is a tricky subject because it provides general principles from which every person draw their own conclusions — particularly on issues that are not black and white, such as cold-blooded murder, for example.
So, I would like to approach this from an organizational management perspective. Some would call it a strategic management perspective. Strategic management theory says that companies need a clear vision and mission statement that guides their decision-making. The vision is a long-range picture of what should happen. The mission focuses on the larger benefits to its target group. The operational strategy describes the day to day focus of the organization.
These three elements guide where the leaders and members put their time and money. Because there are SO MANY good causes a church can pursue, you need the vision, mission and strategy to make sure you don’t get distracted into projects that don’t further the organization’s purpose.
So, a discussion of the appropriateness of a particular project/investment needs to answer the question “Is this initiative in harmony with our larger vision, mission and strategy?”.
We know the 3 or 4 fold mission — Perfect the Saints, Redeem the Dead, Proclaim the Gospel, Help the Poor and Needy. I think we could also argue that on a more specific level, the church’s vision is to “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man “. On a day to day basis (the specific operational strategy), this happens through through training, saving ordinances, lifelong worthiness and service.
Quote:I would like to ask — does a huge investment in a shopping mall in downtown SLC support this overall vision, mission, and operational strategy?
I’m not very familiar with the issue, I don’t know what has and hasn’t been done so consider my opinions very uninformed. 1) Building an expensive mall in a decaying section of town doesn’t fix urban blight, it just shifts it to some other location.
2) If the church is committed to addressing the problem of urban blight I would hope that mission extends beyond the borders of the mormon corridor.
1) We had a very long thread about the SLC project, and it ended up having to be shut down because it got so contentious. Let’s not let that happen again with this thread. 2) The project was NOT a mall; it was a much more comprehensive urban project. It also was done after long consultation with the city management people. It was not solely a church project; it was a community project in very real terms.
3) The development occurred around the Church’s headquarters, including the SLC temple, in an area that was beginning to get quite run down. That area is one of Utah’s largest tourist attractions, so there was a strong local and state desire to not let it decay and become a stereotypical urban blight site.
4) The LDS Church has done something very similar in Philadelphia with the construction of the temple there. It wanted the temple to be more centrally located than has happened in the past (with most previous temples being built outside major cities in the suburbs). The Philadelphia temple is in urban Philadelphia, and it includes a similar commitment to enhancing the economic and business infrastructure of the city. The SLC project served as a model for the Philadelphia project and was a large reason why Philadelphia leaders approved the building of a temple in an urban area.
I wouldn’t argue that the Church has an obligation to flight blight around the world, but I certainly believe it needs to do everything it can to ensure that its temples are not in high risk, decaying locations – but I also don’t want temple to exist only in the suburbs, for numerous reasons. I think projects to build temples in urban areas and to make those areas non-blight locations are a good thing.
I’m not sure I clearly understand what’s being asked, but I’ll take a stab at answering. I think the church is and should be much more about spiritual well being than temporal well being. That being the case, I would have to say no, that building a mall does not meet the objectives of the church. I think I know why they did it, but I don’t think they should do it elsewhere or again in Utah. President Hinckley would think so. He was the master mind behind the Salt Lake City Downtown Upgrade. He began with the hotel Utah, much to everyone’s dismay and kept going. Had he lived the mall would have been part of it, too. Though I doubt it would have racked up the dollar amount it did. He believed in presentation and thrift. Salt Lake City is not the only proving ground for this, when the Winter Quarters Temple was dedicated President Hinckley specifically called on the LDS community to clean up the area around the temple site. (I am trying to find a quote but I can’t right now). I think SD you are partially correct.
Matthew 25 35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
I would say yes, any organization that claims to be Christian has an obligation to fight blight. I think it is part of caring for others.
Temple square is ground zero for the church. I think it was then necessary to maintain the surrounding area. From a humanitarian perspective it may have not been the most judicious use of funds, but it was needed from perhaps a missionary perspective. I am responding here to keep the posts consolidated into one thread. SilentDawning wrote:He (Mills) said the morality of an action can be assessed by determining whether it produces the greatest good for the greatest number
I think I understand what you are saying SD. Utilitarianism does ask us to consider the action that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Unfortunately I believe this breaks down in that nobody really operates this way. The US does not build dams in impoverished countries because it will benefit a large amount of people and the cost is relatively small because it is not in its interest to do so.
I therefore feel that we need to be able to define the stakeholders involved and who the church is beholden to – you seem to have done this somewhat intuitively by mentioning expanding MEMBER’S access to social services as an alternative. One might argue that the church should seek to bless all people’s lives as children of God. As altruistic as that approach may be that is simply not how the church operates.
There is also the difficulty of calculating ROI for the different competing projects. The mall project is a business project and is projected to make money in addition to fighting the blight. The money may then be used to fund other worthy causes. It is more difficult to gauge the ROI of social programs.
Blight also tends to spead as stakeholders with money tend to depart the blighted area one by one. It would seem reasonable that the church felt that there was a limited window of opportunity to intervene before.
I like what Ray said about this being a truly community project – with the church, the city, and businesses acting as partners. Perhaps if the blight continued unchecked for too long it would have been harder for the church to find partners.
While I agree that this project might not create the maximum benefit for the maximum # of individuals, I do not think anyone would argue that this project does not create net good without imposing undue harm on anyone.
I think John Mill’s greatest good for the greatest number needs to be qualified. It’s too expansive as he puts it. One needs to narrow the definition of the “number”. For this, one has to look at the mission and strategy and target audience of the church. This provides parameters for the John Stuart Mill analysis. In this case, I do think the members are the primary stakeholders, and non-members second. I don’t think the City Creek project supports the mission or stakeholders very well — it benefits the local members to some extent with shopping choices and jobs, and perhaps the missionary effort indirectly. I don’t agree that generating funds that can be used for greater good is adequate justification for the mall. The fact taht they partnered with others also doesn’t seem to matter, as its the direct support of the mission and benefits to the church’s primary stakeholders — the members, matters the most. .
If you use this line of reasoning (that profits can be used for good), you could argue that unethical businesses are also justifiable, because the funds could be used to help others. Further, there is Ghandi’s statement that charitable organizations should get all of their money from their members — otherwise, they lose accountability to them (not that we have accountability, anyway).
For me, it fails the JSM Utility test.
For those of you that do not know us well – SD and I are friends that are comfortable exploring our differences of opinion. :thumbup: I agree with you on many points SD. And I am even OK with the mall failing the John Stuart Mills Utilitarian test as JSM is only one approach to morality (and not even the one most beloved by Judeo-Christian thinkers).
Quote:If you use this line of reasoning (that profits can be used for good), you could argue that unethical businesses are also justifiable, because the funds could be used to help others. Further, there is Ghandi’s statement that charitable organizations should get all of their money from their members — otherwise, they lose accountability to them (not that we have accountability, anyway).
For good or for ill the church has gone through some very lean times and this seems to shape some of their thinking towards investments. I believe that they are determined for the church to be more or less independent/ self sufficent. As we have discussed in the past “self-sufficiency” is a virtue of sorts. To become completely 100% beholden to the membership for tithing funds for each year’s operations would make it very difficult to budget. If tithing funds fell precipitously (because of a recession) the church might even need to make dire decisions – such as closing underperforming temples or universities. There are certain benefits to having a church with significant resources to weather financial storms.
Now one of my other questions is about how much surplus resources could be morally justifiable. Is there ever a point where a church can have too large of a stockpile? I think that there is. However engaging in projects such as the mall could be seen as putting some of the church resources to good use rather than simply hoarding the cash for a rainy day.
There are many angles to approach each issue.
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