President Trump once famously said “”I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters”. The way I see this, there is a percentage of Trump supporters that this holds true. There is also a percentage of voters on the left that would not vote for Trump even if he brought permanent peace to the Middle East. Then there is that group in the middle, that looks at facts and tries to make a logical decision.
I see much the same panning out with the members of the church, and in particular with the recent revelation that the church has $100 billion in reserve (which they did not dispute in their commentary). I see a percentage of the church that wouldn’t care if it was $1 trillion, and Pres Nelson had a $1 Billion in his private bank account. The church can do no wrong, and this just proves it is true! Then there is another percentage of the population in general that thinks the church is an evil cult, and could not be persuaded otherwise even if Jesus himself appeared next to Pres Nelson in a press conference and asked everybody to listen to the missionaries.
Then there is the middle group, of which I think the readers of this blog belong. They try to avoid confirmation bias, and make a logical decision based on the facts.
I see the comments as such:
Group 1: It is great that the church has money saved for a raining day, the Lord has truly blessed us. The whistle-blower was just anti-Mormon garbage
Group 2: This just shows that the LDS is a corporation masquerading as a church. They need to help the poor and stop building the temples that are always empty
Group 3: Wow, that is a lot of money. Maybe if we knew what they were going to do with it there wouldn’t be such a surprise to members. Lets hope this brings more transparency so we can feel better about this.
What kinds of comments have you heard from other members or people in general? Do they fall in one of the three groups? Has anybody been asked about this from a non-member friend? What is the craziest thing you have heard from either side?
Wheat & Tares 
I have read polarized comments on each side. I have also read reasoned comments using scriptural support.
One of many scriptural examples is:
And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them. (Moses 7:18)
Building Zion is a common theme within the LDS Church. We even sing a hymn with the phrase “Come to Zion, Come to Zion.”
But we largely expect the poor to help themselves and become self-reliant. Self-reliance is a worthy goal, but many of these poor people live in third-world countries, where they lack clean water, sanitation and suffer from malaria and other diseases.
As a church with 100 billion dollars parked away, are we any better than the Rich Man who denied help to Lazarus in Luke 16?
The problem with Group 3 is that it is very hard to get past “Wow, that is a lot of money.” A few billion would have been eye-opening. A hundred billion is just beyond reasonable explanation.
How did it come to this? First, they’re a church, so there really isn’t that much they can spend the money on. Build more temples and more chapels, kick a few hundred million into the BYU budget … won’t make much of a dent in a hundred billion. Second, they just can’t bring themselves to lower tithing and let active members keep more of their money. If they won’t reduce the burden on members and can’t really spend the money, it’s just going to pile up. As is so often the case these days, it’s just a management failure. They didn’t plan to get here — they just ended up here.
I keep coming back to the GAs must be breathing a sigh of relief that they won’t have to face GC until April.
Sorry. I didn’t realize I had managed to send the first.
Please feel free to delete one of them.
Bishop Bill, it is my view that the truth, most often, from a spiritual perspective, can’t be found from only logic. An accurate eternal perspective is not easy to acquire but needed to be in a safe and spiritually compatible
place.
Alice, I deleted the duplicate comment.
I’m solid middle-way. I wasn’t hugely surprised by the hoarding of money. It goes right along with what I understand of the church’s view on frugality and savings. The total is higher than I would have guessed and higher than I think it should be (6-7 years operating expenses / $36-40 billion, seems more than enough to me). I also manage the finances for a non-profit with an endowment in the millions and I can absolutely see the wisdom of the church creating a safety net for itself, especially with the reality of decreasing numbers in western countries. I don’t see any fraud or bad intentions involved. I do see decision-making based on depression-era understanding.
I’m also grateful to the whistle blower for speaking out. I sincerely hope that the younger apostles get involved (if the story I read about only the 1st Pres knowing the account balance is true) who hopefully have a more nuanced vision of modern finance, and we do better. I’m hopeful this will lead to more transparency. I’m hopeful that this embarrassment will mean we refocus the purpose of our money into improving the peoples of our planets.
MB, what’s the “accurate eternal perspective” on a hundred billion dollars?
I’ve noticed a few enthusiastic and early comments from Group 1 types, as if the sooner you publicly reaffirm your faith in the brethren the more righteous you are. Some of their comments came across as blindly sucking up. Our culture is such that people in Groups 2 and 3 are usually selective with whom they express concern, but the few Group 3 types I’ve discussed the $100 billion matter with seemed troubled by it. In one case even appalled. As far as the question of more transparency is concerned, The Salt Lake Tribune ran an article this morning which reported that Boyd K. Packer, who was president of the Twelve at the time, didn’t know the full value of the assets under management at EPA. If it’s true that not even the Q12 has a full view of the Church’s finances, then I doubt it’s tithe payers have any hope of better transparency. So what can we do? Before I retired, one part of my responsibility was to evaluate donation requests my company received from non-profit organizations in Utah. It was standard procedure for these nonprofits to provide financial disclosure with each request. From that experience it became apparent to me that the humanitarian-based nonprofits exist on a hand-to-mouth basis, which means if we donate monies today, someone eats today. Because I was convinced the need was dire, I rerouted a portion of my tithing to some of these organizations. When it came time for tithing settlement I explained that I paid 10% but not all of it went to the Church. The bishop responded by saying that I was giving away the Lord’s money and that he couldn’t renew my temple recommend when the time came. I continued donating money to a food bank and to a women’s shelter and let my recommend lapse.
Dave B., excellent comment on the piling up (if we don’t lower the burden on membership or spend the $). I have crunched the simple exponential curve on this and it suggests that for the Ensign Peak Advisor’s overall balance to grow from 12 billion to 100 billion in just 22 years, it has averaged about 6.9% for the annual % rate. So rounding that to 7% and using the Rule of 72, we know that the funds will double about every 10 years. By 2029 they (we?) would have 200 billion and by 2039 400 billion in the kitty. When do we say “enough is enough?”
I move that we phase out tithing all together, much like we did with the quota for the annual ward budget we use to have to strive for as we would discuss in our bishop’s tithing settlement. Operating expenses and new facilities could easily be managed just on the 7% APR alone (since the whistle blower suggested the church needs only 6 billion annually to run programs).
Imagine how much more good each member of the church could do if they were in a position to spread that tithing out to other good causes around the world.
Did the church violate tax law as Lars Nielsen alleges? I doubt it. Tax law is notoriously full of grey areas and I’m pretty sure the church has only the best of accountants and lawyers managing its funds who will find a way to justify this money before the IRS if needed.
Is a $100 billion stash unethical? I think so. In a recent mass email addressing the recent leak, church leaders said that they have spent $2.2 billion since 1985 on humanitarian aid. That is nothing. $64 million a year. That divided by 16 million members is $4.00 a year per member on its records. The church could do so much more. I’m truly disappointed.
It’s time the church be fully transparent with how it spends tithing money in the same way that other churches are. It’s time that the church expand its humanitarian efforts. It’s current humanitarian outreach is done very well, it needs to grow. Isn’t humanitarianism a big part of what churches do? Wasn’t caring for the poor supposed to be the fourth mission of the church? Wasn’t humanitarianism one of Jesus Christ’s main messages? How about instead of announcing the construction of temples in some remote place of the world every year, the leaders also announce the construction of soup kitchens?
It’s very easy to be generous with other people’s money. There is always someone else to take care of the poor, that’s why we vote for leaders who will give away”free” stuff
I was personally appalled by the news of the 100 billion. I’d already decided for other reasons that I would no longer pay tithing though I still plan to pay fast offerings and make donations to other charities. I don’t like how tithing is calculated. Didn’t it used to be on our increase? And there are so many interpretations of what represents an increase. In some high tax rate countries tithing could actually represent close to 20 % of a persons gross income. At the moment I only receive a government pension so am dipping into savings to live on and am not happy at being expected to pay tithing on a pension when I already tithed on the income to creat that pension?
Here is a new comment twist. Some are claiming that even if the Church wanted to give a portion of that 100 billion dollars to charity it could not readily do so because it would take a great effort and cost just to hire the staff to administer the funding, verify the recipients, etc. I am calling Bravo Sierra on that. In the meantime, the Church can partially self fund itself on interest from the 100 billion. Let members count a portion of their tithing as donations they make to food banks, GoFundMe medical pleas, or other worthy causes. Members can do their own administration, due diligence, etc.
For those that are saying that 100B is too much, what do you make of this article by a BYU professor of non-profit management and ethics? https://publicsquaremag.org/editorials/the-100-billion-mormon-church-story-a-contextual-analysis/?fbclid=IwAR2esMr6KeXYqOTbdCFR1EsVlWbLKOkWwlIdMI_MGm2fPdey9vvCmT03YaE Miller makes several points, but the section that I am asking about is the third section headed “Is $1B dollars a year for a “rainy day” fund illegal or immoral?” In this section, explains that many non-profits who build up these endowment funds have funds that are valued between 10 and 20 years worth of expenditures. Based on the number Miller uses (fund valued at $100B and annual expenditures of $6B), the Church’s endowment fund is about valued at 16 years of expenses — well within the 10 to 20 years that he claims is typical for these kinds of non-profits.
Thoughts? Is Miller overstating the “normalcy” of this practice?
I live in a stake with 8 units, 4 meet in one ward sized building, the others meet outside the stake. We are told the church can’t afford to buy land in our stake to build. No longer credible.
In Australia we are having a climate event, incredible bush fires over 800 homes lost now. We had a combined christmas service for the 4 units in our building on Sunday, not a mention of australia in talks or prayers. Did mention how if we were obedient enough, we would be blessed, and possibly exalted. All about us. Not sure if we had money we’d want to share it?
I am square in the middle of the road here. I am OK with the church having an endowment. But I think we should know about it. Know what we do with it. I might even donate to it if I knew what it was for.
Tithing has become a bit of a sore point with me because I don’t think donating to the church should be used as a worthiness threshold. Ordinances shouldn’t have a price tag.
Tomirvine says, “Here is a new comment twist. Some are claiming that even if the Church wanted to give a portion of that 100 billion dollars to charity it could not readily do so because it would take a great effort and cost just to hire the staff to administer the funding, verify the recipients, etc. I am calling Bravo Sierra on that.”
I’m not sure what part of that is bring called BS. All charities have overhead costs, and the best ones are not necessarily the ones with the lowest administrative costs. I could create a charity to give to the homeless people of New York that takes donated money and just drops it on the streets of New York. It would be legal and have nearly zero administrative costs, but it would not be the best way to solve problems with homeless people in New York.
This is not to say the church can’t give money away, but it takes some work to do it right. Great charities typically have 10-20 percent of their costs go to administration. For the church to give away 10 billion in a year, they might need to spend a billion on staff and infrastructure. It can be done, but it takes some work and, perhaps more importantly, willingness to spend money to pay professionals rather than have amateur volunteers do everything. Or it might be easier to provide to money to other charities with a shared purpose.
Mrshorty, it sounds to me like endowments that want to last forever and don’t have a guaranteed income stream would want to exist primarily from their earnings off the investments, in which case having 20 years worth of money invested makes sense, or 10 years worth of income if they have a healthy donation stream coming in. I’m not an expert, but I think this is the way most scholarship and university endowments work.
Most members probably think that the church has a steady income stream from tithing, so having 20 years of funds in the kitty isn’t necessary. If the church has a goal to start operating from its investment earnings and relieve the tithing burden from members, then a 20 year reserve makes sense. I don’t think that is what members are expecting. A bit of transparency would answer a lot of questions.
Rockwell,
While saying charities have overhead costs is not BS, saying the Church could not give a portion of the $100 billion dollars due to overhead costs certainly doesn’t pass the smell test for me, and I think that’s Tomirvine’s point.
Dylan, I agree with that.
I realize the BYU professor MrShorty referred to used the word “endowment” in his article but given the secrecy around the $100 billion I doubt this professor would actually know under what structure the EPA assets are held. My understanding of an endowment is that only the income generated by the principal can be accessed but not the principal itself. It seems unlikely that the Church would accept such a restriction. I suspect the $100 billion is actually unrestricted assets managed by professional portfolio managers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this $100b story reminds me of the Gospel Topic Essays that the Church started producing in 2013. The Church produced these so that they could get ahead of the story (stories). The thought was, it’s better to creative a semi-official narrative than to remain silent and allow the critics to create the narratives. In the case of the$100b, the Church is once again not ahead of the story. There is NOT a decent official narrative. So I expect the Church to begin to open the books so to speak so that a more generous narrative can be created.
The essays did not solve all of the problems created by critics and doubters. But it may have helped. Likewise, there’s probably no real explanation possible that will pacify many members and critics about the $100b. But it’s a worth a try. Transparency is IN. Silence and “trust us” is OUT.
Geoff —Australia is actually on the net negative revenue end.
The real issue is that the Church overall is headed towards a negative revenue state as third world membership continues to grow.
From Quinn we know that England, Germany and a number of countries are significantly negative revenue.
The Philippines generate 2% of the cost to maintain the Church there.
On the other hand, they don’t need a new division to make charitable donations. They have one.
We know from prior posts and engagements here that due to refusal to pay sufficient bribes that less than half the projects they are willing to fund are approved by local governments in the end.
An interesting discussion is at:
Quoting a part (Quinn’s response):
I asked Mike Q. what he thought of the Wash. Post story, since he’s one of the top experts on LDS Church finances. Here is what he said.
From Mike–
“I think all the dollar-amounts estimated [in the article] are lower than the reality of LDS Church’s income, especially since a few years ago, the CEO of Ensign Peak Advisers stated that there are other investment houses managing different slices of the Church’s portfolio. One of those employees in Manhattan told me in the early 1970s that “several” of NYC’s investment companies had different portfolios from the LDS Church headquarters; he added that there were similar companies with different sizes of the main portfolio in each of America’s financial centers at the time, which he specified to me as Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco.
The annual reports during the 21st Century by the LDS Church in England, Canada, South Africa, Tonga, the Philippines, and Australia seem to indicate that the Church has similar portfolios managed by at least one investment company in every country outside the USA where it has significant membership.”
“The $100 billion investment fund being managed by EPA is what LDS headquarters has called its “reserve fund” — since the 1940s.
The Church gave nearly half a billion in cash during 2006 to the pay for the United Kingdom’s LDS expenses beyond what the UK’s tithing brings, So I think it is reasonable to conclude that LDS headquarters sends MANY BILLIONS of those subsidies to all developing countries, all of which receive at least 90 percent of the money for their annual expenses from LDS HQ in Salt Lake City.
Likewise, even industrial countries like the United Kingdom have been receiving an average of 60 percent of their annual expenses in subsidies.
In that context, $100 billion as a reserve fund for emergencies (including worldwide depression) might last only a FEW years if such a financial crash drastically reduced tithing income.”
Personally, I’m convinced that the day will come when society will have an opportunity to not only vigorously debate the merits of continuing to allow religious institutions to receive tax exempt status. And, as a result of this coming vigorous debate – citizens will have legislation upon which they can vote – which will once and for all remove this benefit from churches. When this happens, I will be the “first in line” to vote for such legislation. In my opinion, this exemption has been abused by many (including the LDS Church) for far too long. This latest revelation was the final straw for me; to hoard $100 Billion while so many of our brothers and sisters are suffering is simply unconscionable. Personally, I don’t think this is reflective of what Jesus Christ would do…or would want done.
I’m been trying to tip-toe closer to the Church this past year….but now, I’m not feeling it. The following is what I shared with my Stake President this last Sunday:
• Not One Dollar More Donated….
• Not One More Tithing Settlement (Year –End Shakedown) …..
• Not One More Cleaning Assignment….
• Not One Minute More of Free Labor….
• Not One More Tear of Faux Belief….
• Not One More Kow Tow to Self-Righteous Leaders…..
I’m disgusted with this Corporation which cloaks itself in the façade of a Church…..
When I read of those sort of disclosures I think it is simply additional evidence of the truth of the Book of Mormon. Mormon chapter 8, which Ezra T Benson confirmed was written about the church and its members in these days. says specifically in verses 36 and 37: ” your churches ,yea every one ,have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts (v36) For behold you love your money and your substance ,and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than you love the poor and the needy ,the sick and the afflicted (v37). Isn’t prophecy uttered by true prophets a wonderful thing .
If you look at the three groups described by OP, group three is kind of a temporary state, not a permanent home. They’re people who haven’t decided yet. The biggest difference between them and groups one and two is that the others have made up their minds.
So how did groups one and two make up their minds?
In my experience, group one decides what is true based on whether it affirms their feelings that the in-group (in this case the church) is good. If it casts doubt on the activities of the church, it’s bad and must be false. Members of group one stopped asking me to teach lessons in church after I bore my testimony of the importance of the sustaining vote, since I could’ve used it to raise concerns about a man who later got arrested for child molesting. But I didn’t at the time because I was scared and doubted myself.
Group two is prone to emotional bias as well, but is more open to new facts and evidence. That’s why they’re against the church. They read about stuff like electroshock therapy in BYU, bishops covering for child molesters, and church funds being used to fight court cases against abuse victims but not to help people they know are in need. They’re angry because to them, this reeks of injustice. If Jesus appeared and told them to listen to the missionaries, they’d tell Jesus where he could put this advice, and ask him whatever happened to “the least of these.” He’d have to call church leaders to repentance before they would listen to him.
Group two would change their minds if their concerns were addressed, and the people responsible for the injustices they see were to be held accountable. If they don’t seem to be satisfied by anything the church does, it’s because the church is really good at encouraging group one and being condescending to everyone else.
Group one has seen all the stuff that made group two change their mind, and decided that no, the church is the hill they die on. To hell with homeless gay kids, to hell with the Liahona Children’s Foundation, to hell with everyone who left no matter the reason. When they see the church commit acts of injustice and needless cruelty, it doesn’t shake them at all. Either they’re good at washing their hands of things, or they love injustice and cruelty, and aren’t ashamed to let everyone know.
Group three shrinks more and more every day.
“It’s very easy to be generous with other people’s money. There is always someone else to take care of the poor, that’s why we vote for leaders who will give away ‘free’ stuff”
Can’t tell what angle this argument is coming from, but let’s consider it from two different angles.
1) The government should play a greater role in taking care of the poor and we should be voting for leaders who will increase social safety nets.
2) We shouldn’t worry so much about the church giving to the poor because there are all already all sorts of organizations taking care of the poor, particularly the government who gives away “free stuff.”
If the comment is understood from the first angle, then yes, arguably the government should play a greater role in the safety net (especially in health care) for it is still lacking. Still churches can and should play an important role in alleviating poverty.
If the comment is understood from the second angle, the government is already largely controlled by people who want to slash benefits? And the argument of those who favor slashing benefits is that charity shouldn’t be a government responsibility, but one that is undertaken by civil society organizations such as churches. If understood from this angle, I can’t quite understand if this is taken to mean that neither the government nor the church should be heavily involved in alleviating poverty. Then that just seems like an anti-poor attitude.
Stephen I take issue with what you’re saying about the UK. Last time I looked we pretty near broke even in terms of outgoing and incoming moneys. Yes there was a sum labelled as coming in from SL. There was also a near equivalent sum labelled as going out to SL. Not sure what the back and forth was all about. But I don’t believe your 60% figure.
Hedgehog—I’m just quoting Dr. Quinn who put years into studying things.
You may be right that his research and book have massive and obvious flaws. You might want to write him and see where correspondence and dialog lead. He has made corrections in the past.
I probably was too accepting of his statements and conclusions.
Here is what Kathleen Flake had to say as a Methodist Scholar who studies the LDS:
https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.edu/2019/12/23/mormonism-and-its-money/
Unless she has changed faiths, Kathleen Flake is LDS. She was in my ward in Nashville, when she taught at Vanderbilt.
This is the charities commission page for the church in the uk: https://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=242451&subid=0
Under documents there are reports for the years ending 2014-2018.
I don’t recall which report I looked at previously, but the 2018 report lists donations on the first page of the financial statement total donations for 2018 from members as £36109 and for 2017 as £34812. Donations from the parent company (presumably salt lake) for those years are listed as £9267 and £3295 respectively, so higher in 2018 than 2017, possibly due to building extensions. One is mentioned in the 2018 text. I don’t have time to plough through the records further looking for transfers of funds to salt lake at the moment. But even without that it’s looking nothing like 60% support from salt lake.
I’m not an accountant, and I don’t have the book you mentioned. But might it be possible the author was looking at financial statements from a time where the Preston temple was in the process of being built? I strongly doubt any temple district is self sufficient in the funds for that kind of enterprise.
Mack, I made a mistake and you are right.
Stephen I think your were thinking of Margaret Barker a renown biblical scholar who is also a Methodist minister. Bellamy
BYU professor Miller’s publicsquare article contains two big inaccuracies….First the comparison to university endowments or charitable foundations, and thereby estimating the size of prudent reserves, ignores the fact the those entities fund operations and projects. But the Church funds its activities with tithing, which itself exceeds the budget. So the Church’s reserves are an infinite multiple of the required yearly budget. Second, he says the Church doesn’t need to provide financial transparency, because it’s accountable to its members. That is simply not true at all in any way and is, in fact, a laughable assertion.