Last week I messed up with my wife. The details are not important, but suffice to say I was in the dog house for breaking a household rule. Me being in trouble is not an unusual situation in the Bishop Bill household, and when I do apologize, my long suffering wife will say something like “That’s what you said last time, but you keep doing it!”
I knew I needed something better in my apology. So I looked around, and decided to follow the example set by the Church Jesus Christ [1] After reading the official Newsroom article about the SEC debacle, I was ready with my wife!
I told her that I affirm my commitment to comply with the household rules, regret mistakes were made, and now consider the case closed.
Needless to say, I did not reach resolution with the SEC wife. In fact it made matters worse! How could this be? I was being as transparent as I knew how, and I never tried to hide anything from anybody!
I regrouped, went back to my wife, and said “I’m so sorry, I was wrong, I’m sorry you lost trust in me, and I will try to regain that trust by my future actions”. While my wife was still upset, she thanked me for a “real” apology, and we have moved on.
Have any of you readers tried to follow the Church’s example on how to apologize? How did they turn out for you?
[1] Talk by Elder Kevin Hamilton: Elder Hamilton continued to explain that he will sometimes hear members say they do not support certain Church policies or do not agree with the way the Church does something. “Could I suggest an alternative approach?” he asked. “Substitute the word ‘Savior’ or ‘Lord’ or ‘Jesus Christ’ in place of ‘the Church.’ … For me, personally, that seems to put a very different perspective on things.”
Wheat & Tares 
My wife handles our finances. And a couple of months ago when we were going over some details involving payments and so forth I learned some things that I wasn’t aware of before–details having to do with how she set up our accounts and transferred funds between them and so forth. She owed me no apology for not disclosing that information to me sooner than she did. I trust her implicitly. (Of course, if I had thought that there was something out of line with the way things were set up I would have made my concerns known to her.) But even so, if we had to pay a fine to the bank for some infraction that amounted to .005% of our savings we’d both say “oops” and try not to let that happen again.
My wife also handles our finances. And a couple months when we were going over some details involving payments, it turned out she had flat-out broken the law. And had way more money than me, the size of which she had been trying to hide from me. And she was neither sharing that money with me nor giving it to the poor like she’d always preached. And still expected me to clean the house myself. And just kidding, my wife doesn’t handle any of the finances at all, cause she’s a woman. Anyways, we’re so fabulously wealthy that we can burn $5 million and call it a slap on the wrist. But anyways, we consider this matter closed!
Honestly, the Church news release troubles me at least as much as the actual actions prior to it. I mean, lying in conference and saying that they were following the rules when the Church’s own audition department had warned them they were out of line is awful; asking members to lie for the Church by signing forms claiming said members had sole discretion when they had zero is awful. But then, when the actions are made public, to respond with the passive voice (‘mistakes were made’) and the implication that it wasn’t coordinated, intentional deception is the sign of a pathological lies, pride, and contempt for members. I just can’t anymore.
Years ago, my husband was handling the family finances. I was also working hard every day at a government office. My mother worked when I was a teenager, and I always planned on working. I had put my new baby in daycare, but I missed him terribly every day. I wanted to be at home with him. Every day I would cry in the car all the way to work.
I asked my husband if I could quit my job and be home with my baby. All his sisters did not work and stayed home with their babies. My mother stayed home with her babies. My church taught me that being a mother was the most important thing and I felt that it was.
I loved nursing my baby but it was hard to nurse while working. I had to pump in a closet at work with no lock on the door, just a sign asking people not to come in. I couldn’t get enough milk, and when we tried formula my baby had a severe allergic reaction. I would have to get up in the middle of the night, and try to pump while nursing him to make up the milk.
I kept asking if I could be home with my baby but my husband just kept saying we couldn’t afford it. I prayed and prayed to find a way to be home with my baby.
When he was 2 years old he was sick all the time from the daycare. I still longed to be home with him. I wasn’t comfortable with some things happening at the daycare. I kept asking to be at home, but still he said we couldn’t afford it.
I had a powerful dream one night that told me to quit my job and stay home with my son. I felt like God had told me to do this. I told my husband. He let me quit my job.
But eventually he revealed that he had taken out seven different credit cards and mailed them to his work so I wouldn’t know. He had ordered expensive computer parts and other things he wanted without discussing it with me at all. He had huge balances and had got to a point we couldn’t buy food if we made minimum payments. I felt very betrayed and lied to.
I took over handling the money. I refused to go back to work. I managed the bills carefully and paid them off. If I ever go back to work, I will have my own account. My husband will not get the chance to mismanage my money, while making me struggle to be a working mom, again.
He still struggles to manage his money. But he doesn’t hide it from me anymore, or lie to me about why I have to work or do without. After many years of marriage he has regained my trust in some ways. But as I said, I will never put money I earn in a joint account again.
I am not sure if I can pay anything to the church again. I loved paying tithing. I had many experiences that I felt that tithing helped us manage our money. Now I only want to pay fast offerings, but I found out they don’t stay with the local church and can end up in the investment fund.
I have special needs children that will need help all their lives. If I had money to invest, I would invest it for them. I can’t trust that the church will help my children when they need help. A self reliance class can’t necessarily make them self reliant.
I don’t know if I can pay the church anything again. It hurts my heart to feel this way about my beloved church. My trust has been broken financially. I don’t want to clean the church and feel resentful. I don’t know if my heart will heal.
My whole story is real, and not pretend. Lying about finances long term for years and years betrays trust. To regain that trust, a person or institution has to listen to the people they have injured, rather than saying the matter is closed.
Church leaders have been using the term “the Church” instead of “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” for a while now. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just different.
No one can say definitively what exactly the church did that was so awful. We only have the SEC report to which the church admits nothing–nor denies. What terrible thing has the church done with its funds except to try to keep a low profile with its finances? And why shouldn’t they want to protect those funds — especially if they’re being kept for a sacred purpose — when there are so many folks who’d love to get their hands on it.
This is my fear: that some good folks may jump ship only to learn that the church had been preparing to move the work forward in new and exciting ways–perhaps among the poor in Africa (as has been mentioned by others) or in other countries with large poor populations. Wouldn’t that be a marvelous irony–that we should judge the church because of its seeming lack of concern for the poor when in reality it had been preparing along to help the poorest of the poor! And to add irony upon irony–that our poor judgment was based on a misunderstanding of the *procedural* elements involved in managing large sums of money because, in the end, we were to learn that the church never intended to be dishonest or cause any harm.
Please, stay put my friends. Don’t leave. There are wonderful things happening in the church even as we speak–and even greater things to come in the near future.
In high school, I worked at a CVS Pharmacy. I learned from my manager that CVS stands for “Convenience. Value. Service.” One day in the storeroom, I tried to save time by walking across a row of cardboard boxes filled with paper products. Anybody who has seen me in person knows, Jake should never attempt walking on top of cardboard boxes filled with anything. Inevitably, I damaged a box and the manager began to scold me. I looked at him and said, “Sorry, boss. I guess I was thinking of Convenience instead of Value and Service.” Hardly a sincere apology, but it allowed me to admit wrongdoing and for both of us to laugh our way to my forgiveness.
What the Church offered as quoted above is no apology. Nor is it prophetic or holy. It is not a revelation the Savior or the Holy Ghost whispered into President Nelson’s ear. It is a well-paid attorney whispering in the Brethren’s ears: “Admit no deliberate wrongdoing.” My admittedly limited understanding is that what has happened here is a tap dance often done between two obscenely wealthy institutions who find themselves to be at odds, in this case the U.S. government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sorry, poor and destitute masses, it turns out folks with billions are every bit as afraid of a rainy day as me without an umbrella.
Jack, I understood your point of view, and thought that way many years ago. I am not here to argue. However I was told the same tatic of misunderstanding of the *procedural* elements. I saw 2 years of ecclesiastical abuse and lies on my mission, and was later told “you just had a Rouge MP”. I have seen the same lies and deceptive with 7 different SPs in 3 different states. I used to think I lost the local leadership lottery. Then finally I had had enough after decades of abuse and realized the entire church is not what it states it is. The LDS church on many levels asks its members to do things the decision makers would never do. This financial disclosure is only 1 of dozens, if not hundreds of lies I have been told by the instuition. The definition of “work moving forward” changes every 10 years. I regret having my kids grow up being Mormon and the long term effects on them.
When one learns to trust in themselves and ones inner conscious, we find the better path that one chooses and not be told what do to like a 6 year old child.
While the hoarding of billions could be an issue–and is, to many–that is not the most concerning aspect of the entire SEC situation. Even if one is willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the Church’s financial minions in terms of how they organized and managed the funds (and many are not willing to do that), the hypocrisy is what troubles even many TBMs.
When we hear over the pulpit in conference, for example, that we should be exact in our obedience, when we are told that it is good to obey the laws even at 4:00am at a red light, when obedience is held up as the single most important virtue, and when we are taught to be completely above reproach and avoid even the appearance of evil by frequenting Starbucks….that makes this situation nearly intolerable.
My TBM spouse said today that–for the first time–she had second thoughts about paying tithing this month because of these disclosures. That is a pretty clear indication to me that the Church is facing a crisis of trust and needs to do something other than consider the matter closed. Repairing that breach is going to take some work.
Jake C., I think you boiled the whole thing down to its bare essentials with this line: “My admittedly limited understanding is that what has happened here is a tap dance often done between two obscenely wealthy institutions who find themselves to be at odds, in this case the U.S. government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” This issue is not something a less wealthy church will ever face!
I have a TBM friend, and while I was going thru some rough stuff with Church, I talked to her about it because she was a listening ear and I needed a hug. Nearly every issue I brought up, she expressed her sadness that that had happened, and then said, “that’s not what Church is about!” After a while, I stopped turning to her for comfort because … she’s wrong. That’s exactly what Church is about. You can only say it’s a mistake or a rogue person (as Faith points out) so many times before you have to judge the Church by what it actually says and does. It wanted to keep its riches a secret.
The Church has lost its credibility in financial honesty. Some people won’t care (like Jack and that’s his choice). I’ve worked in finance long enough to believe that following any and all disclosure laws is vital to the honesty of the system as a whole. A big part of my job is making sure people follow disclosure rules, and every single time that I made an exception because I wanted to give someone the benefit of the doubt (aww, they meant well, or they should get another chance, or they’ve got a good reason), I’ve gotten burned. I don’t make exceptions anymore. You can’t make exceptions without giving corruption a way to wedge the door open.
lws329 – thanks for sharing that story. What a difficult experience!
Jack, my understanding is that the church stipulated to dismissal after having read (and perhaps negotiated around) the order. If the church materially disagreed with the facts in the order, which are damning, it was a liberty to challenge them. What’s more, some of the material allegations have been independently corroborated. For example, two of the shell LLC managers resigned their manager positions after the ruse started to become public. I’ve read your posts now for over a year and am confident there are no set of facts that would cause you to doubt the leadership and doctrinal infallibility of church leadership. I’m so glad that brings you comfort, but perhaps you could acknowledge how troubling it is for others when their assumptions and things they’ve been taught begin to move beneath their feet. That the church used an illegal scheme to hide its wealth is troubling for many many people and generally writing this story off without engaging with the allegations make the church look worse (as least to me).
Jesse,
I think one of the problems with these sorts of arguments is that depending on where you’re doing the arguing you may only get one side of the story. I know for a fact that there are some really well informed lawyers, judges, financiers, etc. that have absolutely no problem with what the church was trying to do–at least with respect to the morality of the situation. And some even go so far as to suggest that the procedural aspect of the whole thing was a common and rather benign business practice in the world of high finance. They’d tell you that paying the SEC is just the price of doing business at that level.
Having said that, I don’t know if I could agree that the church did absolutely nothing wrong. Even the church itself admits that mistakes were made at some level of the operation. But even so, I don’t believe that the church did anything deeply immoral. There are many good reasons for the church wanting to keep a low profile on its surplus.
As to negotiating with the SEC before they agreed to the order: I assume there was as fair amount of negotiation *and* compromise. But we have to remember that those compromises were measured against the costs of going up against the SEC in court–which (IMO) would have been a long and painful process played out in a fishbowl for all the world to see.
The first presidency and the presiding bishopric knowingly lied (not simply erred) every quarter for about 20 years with the purpose of hiding assets from membership knowledge. I can’t decide which is worse – that 3 different first presidencies lied (including our beloved Pres Uchtdorf) – or that they don’t trust their own members with the truth. It frankly makes me wonder what they’re doing with the money. I mean what motivates them to so extensively mislead us? If I were making *only* their annual $120k stipend I would not work so hard with such high risk. There is more lurking under the surface I believe.
The monetary penalty is paltry compared to the damning SEC report itself. Anyone wondering why this is so bad should read the SEC statement.
I’ve made plenty of stupid mistakes in my 26 year marriage. I once tried to hide a mountain bike purchase. I went for a weekend trip w family while my wife was home with a newborn. I prioritized church over family many many times. The irony is that if I’d had an honest conversation with my wife each of those would have turned out differently and almost certainly better.
My wife handles our finances. She does a fabulous job, is scrupulously honest and open with me . I think if the Church had a woman like my wife handle their finances they would be better off.
Am I the only one who is VERY EXCITED for the moment in next month’s General Conference when the Church audit rep gets up and says “hey we looked at everything and its all good”? This is a must see moment.
Many people, like Jack, will go out of their way to dismiss the SEC business as just the normal questionable ethics that all big businesses participate in. That $5 million is a paltry fine. Then the Church News will publish an article lauding a $5 million donation to a charity cause as if it’s a big deal. It’s the whiplash that gets so incredibly tiresome. Is $5 million a lot or a little? Are the brethren fully aware and overseeing every dollar own by the church, or are they relying on questionable legal counsel? Can we actually suggest that leaders may have made mistakes (and have now fixed them) or do we need to keep pretending that leaders are inerrant and had prophetic foresight in every action, even illegal ones?
When the Church auditing department claims in April that the Church acted responsibly with its funds, should we now just assume that it means there may have been questionable actions, but church leaders have weighed all the risks and decided any potential fines for misconduct can be covered by petty cash?
Apologetic arguments often do more damage than whatever unpleasant act apologists are trying to excuse. The Church dismissing this is bad. Apologists seeking to frame the Church’s admitted misdeeds as actually good is worse.
This was only alluded to tangentially in church today by anyone.. a comment to the effect that there’s been bad press about the church but how they’d listened to a podcast by members about how we shouldn’t let people who aren’t perfect and make mistakes get in the way of our relationship with Christ. And I am sat there thinking, I don’t disagree, but there are lots of churches teaching about Christ, at what point do we decide that this church is not the one and only conduit?
I have the impression that general conference talks are prepared months in advance. I wonder if any preplanned talks have themes of honesty and whether these talks will be modified. (See Articles of Faith 12 & 13 for example.) Or maybe instead we will have “circle the wagons” talks because “Satan and the Church’s enemies are upon us.” IMHO, President Nelson should give a forthright address on the SEC matter including remedial actions, such as setting up checks-and-balances, a proper legal compliance department, financial transparency, etc. But this is wishful thinking.
There’s no point in debating topics of morality with TBMs. They have created and embraced a paradigm in which everything the church and Q15 do is correct and sanctioned by God. Lowly members who question or feel uneasy are “myopic.” It’s at the core of Mormonism. In fact it plays out in the opening chapters of the Book of Mormon with Nephi killing a momentarily incapacitated man and deceiving another man to get the plates. Ignore the facts and details—it was necessary to advance the Lord’s work.
“I know for a fact that there are some really well informed lawyers, judges, financiers, etc. that have absolutely no problem with what the church was trying to do–at least with respect to the morality of the situation.”
Jack, have any of these folks gone on the record? I’ve read a fair amount on this and don’t recall anyone being willing to associate their name with this proposition. As I noted above, at least two Ensign Peak managers resigned their manager roles when this started to leak out.
” And some even go so far as to suggest that the procedural aspect of the whole thing was a common and rather benign business practice in the world of high finance.”
Is high finance really the right measuring stick against which to measure the apostles’ honesty? I asked this over on P.S. and there were crickets. What other churches have been fined by the SEC? I would guess, in that sense, this fine is uncommon.
Mistakes were made. I consider the matter closed = death knell to many healthy relationships. Perhaps more than my concern about the SEC report is the Church’s official response, especially in our era of “exact obedience”. Thank you Bishop Bill for the creative parody, and lws329 for your vulnerable honesty, reminding us of the real world consequences being in a relationship with someone financially dishonest. And to those curious about the upcoming General Conference, I have learned by sad experience that these types of events are not deemed worthy of mention, but we’ll likely hear about how wicked the outside world is.
As a CPA practicing with a multinational audit firm, we are required to be independent in fact and appearance. Independence in fact is great; independence in appearance is a huge challenge. I don’t even bother investing in the stock market as the rules are just too complex. And yet we try our best. And although I practice corporate tax my personal tax return (which is not my focus area) has to be perfect. Any issue could taint my entire practice. I follow the rules to the best of my ability, am frank with my clients about what I can and cannot sign off on, consult daily internally about tax positions we can advocate. I would never advise a client to do what the church did. I would not sign off on such a practice. Eighteen years corporate tax experience make what the church did 100% wrong in my eyes. In a world with 50 shades of gray, this is as dark as it comes. It’s just not up for debate in my mind.
That being said, not everyone will share my view. Not everyone has my background. For many church members, they don’t understand the issue. For others, their theology has colored the way they view authority. If Nephi gets a pass for a grisly murder (did he really need to chop off the guy’s head?), if Joseph Smith gets a break for infidelity, if Brigham Young gets away with racism (product of his time), then I suppose it seems logical to give the establishment the benefit of the doubt for committing willful acts of non-disclosure.
But here’s what I’m observing at the end of the day: Jack will be Jack, Chadwick will be Chadwick. But there are members in-between the Jacks and the Chadwicks. And for a handful of them, the SEC order will be the catalyst that moves them out. So the church may have won the battle of hiding information for 20 years, but they will lose the war when a handful of families walk away for good. As they say in Hamilton “who lives, who dies, who tells your story.”
When I hear people’s take on the situation, I just try to listen. I had already previously decided the church was not worthy of my excess. Others feel differently. And what’s it to me, really? Their choice does not harm me and vice versa. But those members that continue to gaslight and pound their keyboard that viewing the SEC order as troubling is the highest degree of insubordination will have their reward. They will also play their part in pushing people out. Because when you protest that much, it normally has the opposite effect. I mean, didn’t we all learn about reverse psychology from Michael Scott fifteen years ago anyway?
Just for clarity–I realize that we can easily talk past each other on these hot topics because of the momentum that we bring into the conversation. We tend to talk in extremes as we banter back and forth rather than in measured tones–and I include myself in that criticism. Even so, I just want to state for the record that I’ve never said the church did absolutely nothing wrong. The church admits that it made mistakes. My defense of the church has more to do with the morality of the situation than with the procedures involved. In fact, it’s my belief that if the SEC truly believed that there was a serious breach of ethics on the part of the church they would have imposed a fine that amounts to a whole lot more than a mere .005% of the pot.
That said, what I find rather disconcerting is the quick rush to judgment when we really know very little about the situation. We talk a lot about *what* the church did without knowing *why* the church did what it did. We talk a lot about how much money the church has without know what it plans to do with that money. We talk a lot about the allegations in the SEC’s order without knowing the church’s side of the story. And on and on. There’s a *lot* that we don’t know.
For my own part–after hearing all kinds of opinions from smart people — opinions that range all over the moral spectrum — I must give the church the benefit of the doubt because of its overall track record. I’m guessing that more information will be made available in the days ahead and that we’ll be able to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the church’s intentions vis-a-vis its funds and its plans for the future.
Jack, yes there is a lot we don’t know, but it’s because the church considers this matter closed.
Jack, you’re right. There is a lot we don’t know. If the facts were as favorable for the church, it would be highlighting them. If it acted honorably, they would be transparent. Instead they claim mistakes were made and fail to acknowledge their role.
And because the church considers the matter closed, don’t hold your breath for better information from the church. As far as the SEC goes, they also consider the matter closed, fine paid, church admitted wrong doing, even if the church did try to muddy the waters about if they got bad legal advice or were too dishonest to follow the good legal advice. So, anyway, don’t expect to hear more from either source.
There’s the error. And the forced acknowledgement (but non-apology) for the error. What other “mistakes were made” that lurk behind the secrecy that is the Church? This is, likely, not a one-off thing. Trust is easy to lose, but very difficult to regain.
Jack, I’ve no doubt that whoever initiated the deceptive practices felt they were acting in the best interests of the institutional church. You can take a look at Dallin H. Oaks’ landmark address “Gospel Teachings About Lying” for any number of noble reasons for not revealing “the whole truth.” Unfortunately, I’m not as optimistic as you that any more details will be forthcoming. https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/clarkmemorandum/15/
Jack – you’ve been an active participant on this topic in a lot of discussions. The Church has been really up-front about why it did what it did. It wanted to avoid the publicity of being that wealthy. That’s been in the news, in the SEC order, and in the press release from the Church newsroom. I linked to all of those sources in the post I wrote on this topic, if you need links. The “why” has definitely been answered. That IS the Church’s side of the story. It knew the size of its wealth would attract attention and it chose to do what it did to avoid that attention.
The church has a rather stringent policy regarding discretion in certain situations. One example is the way it handles information regarding disciplinary councils. You rarely hear the church’s side of the story. And so if the facts of a particular council do come to light it will usually be because the person who was disciplined chooses to share his side of the story–while the church remains silent for the most part. Even when the wildest stories arise about why the church disciplined such and such a person–it will usually remain silent.
And that kind of discretion is typical in many different areas of the church–whether it be the timing involved in announcing new callings or programs; or protecting the private information of its members such as confessions or donations and so forth; or the content of disciplinary councils; or its financial dealings at *all* levels of the church. The church has a general pattern of exercising discretion–so much so that it’s efforts to keep a low profile on its finances really shouldn’t be surprising.
That said — in response to Janey’s comment — I wouldn’t say that the church’s admission that they “wanted to avoid the publicity of being that wealthy” is a full disclosure. Exactly why would they not want to be known for that kind of wealth–would be a better question, IMO. And I can think of a lot good reasons for church’s efforts to keep as low a profile as possible.
The illegal, dishonest activities of the institution that manages the Church, do not bother me as much as the on-record stated justification for crime—namely, that financial transparency of a $100 billion dollar reserve might have discourage LDS from paying tithing.
O ye leadership of little faith!
To disqualify the goodness and faith of the congregation is a self-confession of the faithlessness of the culture of the institution itself. What Freudian Slip!
The SEC issues at hand are minor compared to the implication that non-profit insulation has been misused for corporate profiteering. This would put the aggregate wealth of the Church in jeopardy—over greed, lack of insight, and the faithlessness of those who advise LDS leadership like sorcerers. The very Elect are foretold to be deceived. The middle management that runs the bureaucracy of the institution is our Achille’s Heel: Pharisees and Gadiantons combined.
Ya’ll, if I were you I’d stop responding to Jack.
This is not really a post about whether or not the Church broke the law and in any event Jack had presented his view of the matter on multiple other posts.
It’s a post about apologies. It’s a hilarious post and made me laugh out loud. But then I got grouchy seeing the ridiculous apologetics come in.
Jack, if it’s possible for you to hold space to assume for the sake of argument that what the Church did was wrong and THEN weigh in on the apology / response, which is the point of this post, fine. But I don’t know if that is possible for you and you are just totally off topic and wrecking Bishop Bill’s vibe.
The uber-cynical side of me wonders if the mistakes that the Church regrets include the rookie error of not springing a buck per month for domain privacy protection when they bought the LLC domain names. I mean, seriously, after all the expense and effort that they put into setting up untraceable shell companies in several different states, they then register the domain names without redacting the name Intellectual Reserve, Inc.? Even smalltime operations like wheatandtarges.org know better than that (see https://www.whois.com/whois/wheatandtares.org).
You and I are very much on the same page, BBill. Just yesterday I said to my husband that the part I struggled with the most about this whole thing was “we consider this matter closed.”
The analogy I used was one of a husband admitting to his wife that, unknownst to her, he’d been unfaithful for 20 years, but he’d stopped the affair 2 years ago, he admitted he was wrong…. and he expected her to never discuss the matter with him again.
The question I keep coming back to is: Is the Church’s PR firm THAT incompetent that they don’t realize how awful the phrase “we consider the matter closed” sounds? Or are they desperately trying to help and leaders are too stubborn to take their advice?
There have been so many missteps these last few years I’m genuinely wondering. Sometimes commenters here hint of knowledge about some of the inner workings of the Q15, or Kirton McConkie. Has anyone heard anything about why the Newsroom is so frequently tone-deaf?
@margot, I have no personal knowledge whatsoever. My two guesses are:
(1) the PR folks are totally incompetent, or
(2) everything they write gets rewritten by DHO or RMN or some other general authority who doesn’t understand PR, the PR professionals are frustrated with this, but don’t have any choice.
My money’s on (2). Based on somewhat inside knowledge I have of *other* functions (their survey folks and their technology teams) this seems to be how it works. They hire good people but the Priesthood authorities always have unchallengeable veto and revision power.
Terrible way to run an org. But not totally uncommon as I’ve seen the same thing happen in companies.
@bishop bill – always brilliant.
I no longer tune in to GC but I’m seriously interested to hear of any possible explanation to the church body. If anyone I’d think DHO but I’m not holding my breath. After all “we regret and the matter is now closed”. I’m just curious as to how they hold their heads high after this one.
Nice post Bishop Bill. I just started reading through the SEC order again replacing any mention of the Church with “Savior” or “Lord” or “Jesus.” Elder Hamilton was right… it really “seems to put a very different perspective on things.” Its down right heretical when you read it that way. In my mind, the question now is whether or not Jesus himself really considers the matter closed. I had a mission president tell me once that the church had forgiven me, but I still had a lot of work to do to gain forgiveness from the Savior. Funny how that works.
Here is a story from when I was a bishop. Part of our wardhouse was locked up by the facilities people because it did not meet code and it was not in the budget to bring it up to code (would require re-doing some stairs to make them wider, major work). I think that using that part of the building when it was not up to code carried too much legal risk in case of a fire, etc, so the choice to lock that part of the building up was rational. Legally of course, the building belongs to the church and not the members. The members were incensed. But what is really interesting is that in this little ward in the middle of nowhere very far from SLC, no fewer than six members of the ward approached me and said they had contacts among the Q15 and they could call in and ask for a favor and get the choice of the facilities people overridden. However, realistically, in my opinion no Q15 member would do what the members wanted and the members did not actually call in their favor because, well….. I have my ideas why.
This was the first time I realized that the relationship we have with the church leadership is usually inferred on our side and the church doesn’t have the same view of the relationship. The funniest example of this is that there were some posts on BCC where they included themselves as stakeholders in a church framework they were making up, when in fact Russell Nelson has specifically dissed the bloggernacle.
For those of us with betrayal trauma, the root cause of the very real pain is that we have inferred a relationship that didn’t and doesn’t exist. For example, voting no at general conference only gets you referred to your stake president. The church wrote an amicus brief to the Supreme Court stating they are not responsible for what bishops do (motivated by their sexual abuse liability model). If you are excommunicated (“membership removed”), you can’t send your appeal directly to church HQ, but you have to give the appeal to the Stake President, who can even choose not to file it. For the SEC fine and Ensign Peak adventures, it states on the tithing slip that they can do whatever they want with the money. The audit report says that the church did whatever it wanted with the money.
For me the deconstruction process involves repeatedly recognizing that there isn’t a relationship there on their side and my betrayal trauma and anger is my brain doing what it does in real relationships with people I know in real life when I feel hurt. Anger is a secondary emotion, and a when I am angry or hurt, a challenging discussion usually leads to some type of reconciliation and repair of the relationship. This is totally impossible with the church, so the best thing to do is to leave and to acknowledge that they never take responsibility or reconcile. They don’t acknowledge a relationship model based on normal human nature, even if you are sweet talked from time to time. Another common thing to do is to defend the institution and one’s imaginary ideas about one’s relationship to the institution. That can work too, but there is a price to be paid for doing that because one gives up the right to have healthy boundaries, since one feels bound to defend them no matter what they do.
Paul- I completely agree. I’ve been trying to formulate into words those very thoughts for about a week. I listened to the Latter Day Struggles podcast about this issue and I immediately thought- it’s only us that think we’re in a relationship. The church has never been in a relationship with us. I committed to the church when I went to the temple. I promised everything (which I always hated and felt tricked into saying “yes”). The church has NEVER promised to give anything to me. The church never said it would be honest with me, love me, sacrifice for me like in a marriage relationship. The church has never told me where tithing is going for sure. It’s given ideas of where it MIGHT go (buildings, temples, etc) but it was always me assuming it was going to used for good. I was swindled but I was giving money to an organization who has secret finances- that’s just plain stupid on my end. So WHY am I comparing the church to a relationship?? It’s only in my head. There is no relationship and I think we’ve got a bunch of people waking up to that fact. I’m learning to grow up and differentiate which feels good.
Paul: Spot on. What has been reiterated to me over the last two decades is that the institutional church is not amenable to the hopes and concerns of the membership. It is not a friendly institution anymore. The church does not have an “I-Thou” relationship with members, even though many longtime members expect this. It has an “I-it” relationship with the general membership. The church throws the membership a “cookie” once in a while, like a shorter Sunday meeting block, but it honestly is not about building communities and families, lifting and edifying individuals spiritually or providing humanitarian relief. It is about preserving the institutional church economically and politically. If that realization makes one’s blood run cold, well, from the church’s perspective that is just too bad. Leadership believes they hold all the cards. It puzzles me that the institution would not possess even a few leaders who would not realize that the safety of the Church relies almost exclusively on the hearts of the members. Perhaps there are too many business leaders in the church? Wealth can quickly become a liability. A church that is loved is a church that will be sustained and expand and grow. For far too many, the church is not that lovable at this point.
Very very astute Paul. While I think you are correct I cannot function in any other way than a relationship way.
The paradigm of how the church sees the relationship is all hierarchical patriarchal authority. They are the ones in charge and we are to submit and obey. The matter is closed.
For my emotional health I cannot function in that way. I have my own personal authority to decide my own actions, regardless of what the church may or may not choose to do or say.
I keep thinking about the obligation of a battered woman or other victim, to stand up to the dominant partner in the relationship and communicate that their partner’s behavior is not okay with them. While it can be very difficult or even impossible for a submissive partner to communicate their situation to their victimizer, it’s intrinsically essential to emotional health to try. To comply to a point that the victim is completely silenced enables the perpetrator to believe that their behavior hurts no one. If a victim speaks up, this may not be heard by the perpetrator, but it relieves the victim of any small part of continued responsibility for the perpetrator’s continued behavior. It allows other submissive partners to consider that the dominant partner’s behavior is not as benign as they believe it to be. It is an essential part of changing the relationship if possible.
For me, refusing to submit to unethical, incorrect, victimizing, hurtful, behavior, never pretending or justifying wrong behavior as right, refusing to comply
with wrong direction and be silent, even if such responses go unheard, even if not part of an actual relationship, is necessary to maintain my relationship with myself, my feelings of integrity, my feeling of connection with God (very very separate from the church thank you). I can’t find any other choice or way to function, even knowing the relationship is mostly inferred on my part.
Paul, I appreciate your comment. Can you share the case info for the amicus brief you mentioned? I would like to read it.
Love the OP, Bishop Bill, and lots of the comments.
That said, it occurred to me after some thinking that the press release that considers the matter closed is not the best analogous situation to an apology to a spouse. It is a public press release for friends and frenemies alike, more analogous to a teen explaining to their peers or perhaps parents why they got detention without wanting to give the details.
To better approximate the spousal apology, we should look to what the church communicates directly to the members. This can be easily done by reading statements or letters to congregations, spamming emails, or ultimately conference talks. With conference coming up they have the perfect opportunity to say something. If nothing is said on the topic the crickets might be louder than the tabernacle choir.
Speaking of general conference, has anyone gone back and counted all the times over the last 20 years that the church audit report stated that the church was engaging in potentially illegal acts to hide or obfuscate its investments? I suspect it was fewer than the number of years that the church actually did engage in such practices.
To Elisa’s point and to specifically address the OP:
The church has been “dealing” with this LLC play for almost 30 years. Perhaps Oaks and Nelson are a bit new to the table, but the other members of the FP including Stephenson who was in the presiding bishopric and Uchtdorf who was in the FP have known about this for a long time. Eyring in particular.
The rest of us just found out about it. So I can see why from their perspective the matter is closed. They’ve been dealing with it for years and have come to a resolution. But for the rest of us lay members, including the Q12, we just learned of this. We are still processing. The matter cannot be considered closed the first time we hear about. Even for believing members who will choose to give the benefit of the doubt, I would still think there may be unanswered questions that still need to be considered.
The matter is far from closed.
The matter is closed to Jack, and that’s who they are speaking to. If you’re upset by the abrupt, disrespectful “I’m not talking any more about the thing I did that causes you pain” tone of the release, then you haven’t fully bought into the idea that church leaders speak for Christ, even when they contradict what Christ said in the gospels. Breaking up is hard to do and painful, but eventually the one being left has to come to terms with the fact the other half of the relationship doesn’t really care about them, especially when the gaslighting starts. Vote with your feet.
Hi ji, here is a link to the brief I mentioned: https://www.scribd.com/doc/40342262/Amicus-Brief-of-Mormon-Church-in-Ramani-v-Segelstein#
Hi ji, the blog software took my previous comment. So hopefully this one goes through. Good luck assembling the parts of the link to the amicus brief.
www. scribd. com/ doc/ 40342262/ Amicus-Brief-of-Mormon-Church-in-Ramani-v-Segelstein#
After scrolling the comments, I went back and reread Bishop Bill’s post. So witty, so brief, and so on target. JB’s comment (#2) brought a needed balance quickly, and lws (#4) added some authority to the metaphor of abused trust of a spouse that cracked open my heart.
Paul’s comment and lws’s reply showed why pronouncing “the matter closed” is the opposite of rebuilding trust, and for all members who care for their mental health, unworkable— impossible to just accept and go forward as usual. Also, the matter is not closed, but will reverberate through the future. I can’t predict how, only that is will continue to show up and plague us, until the Q15 makes the necessary changes.
In relationships, one correspondent losing trust in the other is as serious as it gets. What one of them is lying (or obfuscating) about is never the worst, the deceit is. It can kill the relationship, unless trust is rebuilt, and that never happens on the same foundation of opaque and hidden information. The abused party needs a lot of dialogue— confession of past gaslighting, discussion to settle questions that come up and to decide what changes are needed to move forward, and it only works if the deceit and lying (or obfuscating) stops so the underlying conflicts may be addressed. It’s very difficult and also very rarely successful. My heart hurts for members who are feeling the painful experience of discovery. And so I’m reluctant to pile on the church.
And yet, for myself I need to call it how I see it, so I have some questions of my own. Here’s one: since this settlement agreement between the SEC and the 1st Presidency/EPA is the culmination of the SEC investigation in response to the Ensign Peak whistleblower, wasn’t the church deceiving the SEC as much as the members for the first 16 years of the fake LLC’s? And the SEC would’ve been none the wiser except for the fellow who leaked the information? And does that speak to the motives of the Church, keeping both the membership and the government in the dark?
I would like it if someone like Chadwick, with the experience and the scruples, could weigh in and tell me if this is valid or just another molehill.
And yeah, many of us have moved past this news item, and it’s unnecessary to cover the same ground again. Except for people in the throes of betrayal trauma. They need to ask whatever is bothering them, whenever it bothers them, for whatever they want clarity. That’s why rebuilt trust is so hard and so rare. Most offenders in a power position won’t tolerate the process.
“The matter is closed to Jack…”
Not completely. I still haven’t heard the full story from my wife’s perspective. But even so, because I trust her implicitly I’ll accept her truncated explanation of the facts for now–and wait until she’s ready to give me a full account of her side of the story at the time and place of her choosing. It’s the least I can do for the one who has given me the key to eternal happiness.
@MDearest,
I’m a corporate tax CPA and not a securities lawyer or day trader. But here goes: While Roger Clarke, head of Ensign Peak, notes that the Church’s motive was to keep members faithfully paying tithing and therefore the motive was to hide the funds from the members, the clearly secondary impact is that investors would not have the most accurate information as well.
To keep a complex conversation simple, technically investors could see from the individual 13F filings what was technically required to be reported (that is, trading activity in these separate companies). But what’s missing is that the 13 filings were connected to the same investor. That information may or may not have influenced other analyst decisions, so yes I believe the church was dishonest to both church members and the investing public.
It’s possible I’ve stated some things incorrectly above and I hope commenters will go easy on me, but this is my general understanding of the situation.
Thanks for the post. It really got me laughing and that felt great! I like wife smackdown stories when husbands do stupid. I like to think of bishops’ wives sustaining their husbands by calling them out when they do the stupid. I like to feel we are sustaining church leaders when we call them out.
Chadwick,
While I can’t pretend to know as much as you do about the world of finance I do want to challenge your assumption about the church’s motive for creating the shell companies–and I’ll try
to go easy on you. 😀
The articles that I’ve looked at wherein Roger Clarke is quoted on the issue of tithing don’t complete the narrative with his own words–which are obviously cherry-picked. There’s a lot of interjection. At least the WSJ (if I remember correctly) was good enough to include another quote from Clarke wherein is says one of the reasons for their strategy was to keep people form parroting them. And my guess for that particular motive is that they want to avoid a repeat of anything that might resemble the Kirtland Safety Society debacle.
That said, it’s difficult to put together a coherent narrative with what little we get from these articles–and maybe you have access to better sources than the ones I have at my fingertips. But with what I’ve been able to look at there’s not enough information to know for certain what all of the reasons may have been for setting up the shell companies nor what can be tied directly to the concerns of the First Presidency.
JFC, Jack, the reporting law exists so that other investors have accurate information and can parrot them if they want to. It is NOT a viable defense to say that we disobeyed the law because we wanted to do what the law is designed to prevent. Also, how much do you think the SEC potentially cares that the church has this troubling historical episode that explains certain decisions. “Oh, well if we’d known you had lingering institutional trauma from the early 19th century, we never would have fined you,” said no one at the SEC.
Elisa’s advice to just ignore your comments is wise, and I wanted to follow it, but I just can’t find the restraint sometimes …
jaredsbrother,
However that may be, the purpose of my response to Chadwick was to challenge what I believe to be a false assumption–or at least a hasty assumption without enough proof to substantiate it. And that assumption is: some folks believe that the church’s motive for setting up the shell companies (which was to keep the saints from believing that the payment of tithing was no longer necessary) is a *known quantity*. My contention is that “motive” is a production of slick journalism–and that we really don’t know all of the reasons for the church’s financial strategies.
Thanks for your response Chadwick, which was well said without leaping to conclusions that aren’t supported by public information. I feel like my understanding is better informed. But it’s not our doing that there’s also gray area enough that some of us, for whatever reasons, are unsure of what the moral implications are, and need more clarity to reach conclusions. I believe this is one of the reasons for the statement that the matter is closed— that’s a hallmark of an abusive party caught in discovery, to clam up lest they reveal any more duplicity. And to deny the party feeling the shock of betrayal a statement of clarity is automatically a relationship killer. But, so often the betrayed party can’t see that disregard for what it is, and cling to the remnants of a once healthy relationship long after it’s withered away. Either way, it’s a blow to the equilibrium. And being off balance waiting for clarity is not good for one’s mental health.
Jack, of I posted this on BCC, but to your point about not knowing the facts of the case: apparently the Church was willing to go far enough in their discussions and negotiations with the SEC to settle on the current SEC Order, which is entirely damning to the Church. And yet they accepted it. For a ‘slap on the wrist’ fine, as you call it. So, yeah, either the Church knows that the facts of the SEC Order hold up or, somehow, the Church didn’t have either the resources (impossible) or the wherewithal to clear its name (which, given the how terrible it is, any reasonable organization would have done if the facts were not true). Your understanding of a settlement process is basic and misleading. And it’s the only thing you have going for you.
Jack, finally, there is absolutely no reason to think that the Church, who argues that they consider the matter closed, hasn’t already done their best to spin this in the best possible light they could. They you keep suggesting they haven’t and that more will be coming, you are ignoring (as always) inconvenient facts for you. In this case, that the Church has stated they consider the matter closed. Time to get over yourself and stop being such a troll.
I agree that the church considers the matter closed–insofar as the SEC’s order is concerned. But that’s not to say that there will never be more light shed on the church’s intentions with regard to its finances–generally speaking. Learning a little more about the church’s goals and plans for the future could change the entire moral landscape surrounding the whys and wherefores of its financial strategies. Even so, it may require some patience for those intentions to come to light as they’re likely to unfold as the future rolls forward.
Re: Being a Troll: I’ve been trolling the bloggernacle for nigh on twenty years. Too late for change.
I agree that the church considers the matter closed–insofar as the SEC’s order is concerned. But that’s not to say that there will never be more light shed on the church’s intentions with regard to its finances–generally speaking. Learning a little more about the church’s goals and plans for the future could change the entire moral landscape surrounding the whys and wherefores of its financial strategies. Even so, it may require some patience for those intentions to come to light as they’re likely to unfold as the future rolls forward.
Re: Being a Troll: I’ve been trolling the bloggernacle for nigh on twenty years. Too late for change.
Edit: This is my second attempt at posting this comment. So it may appear twice.
The church, the church, the church, the church. The church, or corporation, or the Savior, as some seem to think the church is now, or whatever it is, didn’t make these decisions. Men did. Men who want blind obedience from the members. Men who want the members to never question them or be labeled an apostate. Men that have shown themselves to be liars. This wasn’t a mistake. It was intentional decisions to deceive made by the leaders of the “church”. They lied, for decades. Disgusting. They did things that they’d excommunicate others for. Even for less. Then after it was brought into the light, they continue to lie. I’ve maintained since this was first revealed that the corporation, church, whatever it is, is more afraid of a true audit than anything else. You can’t have $100 billion, or whatever the amount is, around without accountants and their attorneys trying to do something with it. Even the halo wearing, harp strummers in SLC. An audit will reveal what is truly going on. Be a lotta fatcats from SLC’s names pop up in some real questionable loans and other schemes. Only way to fix this is to come clean. But after over 20 years of one lie after another, that won’t happen. They’ll have renlund give a talk in conference about how Christlike it is to lie. Dark days ahead.
Meh, a more apt analogy would be if you stopped doing what you were doing several years ago, admitted to your making a mistake to your wife, and then said you would like to move on.