What if the LDS Church was COMPLETELY transparent. Everything is known.
- All finances: income, expenditures, etc
- Membership: activity rates, number of people resigning, etc
- Wages that GA’s earn, plus all other salaries of Church employees
- Temple attendance numbers
Could the Church survive? Would it continue growing, or would it fade from relevance?
What if the Church had no choice, and the above information was hacked and published to the world? From Wired Magazine (May/June 2025)
One day soon, at a research lab near Santa Barbara or Seattle or a secret facility in the Chinese mountains, it will begin: the sudden unlocking of the world’s secrets. Your secrets
Cybersecurity analysts call this Q-Day, the day someone builds a quantum computer that can crack the most widely used form of encryption. These math problems have kept humanity’s intimate date sate for decades, but on Q-Day, everything could become vulnerable, for everyone: emails, text messages, anonymous posts, location histories, bitcoin wallets, police reports, hospital records, power stations, the entire global financial system.
(I know you are all thrilled that Bishop Bill did another post on quantum mechanics!)
The Wired article quoted experts that gave a 15% change this will happen by 2035. Lots of people are working to come up with a new encryption scheme that will be “q-day safe”. If that does not happen, we’ll be back to the old way of keeping secrets: You write it on a piece of paper and hand deliver it to the recipient.
While church secrets getting out will be the least of anybody’s worries, let explore what would happen if as I state in the beginning of the post, all the online church secrets are exposed. There is the possibility that the Church’s internal financial system is “air gapped” from the internet, but for this post lets assume that the Church’s financial, membership and statistical numbers are all online, and would be exposed on Q-Day. How would that effect the members?
My guess is the Q15 think it would have a profound effect on the Church’s mission to save souls (I had soles, my bad), and that is why they keep it so locked down. But I don’t think it would make much of a difference. Do you really think that somebody in Africa is not going to join the Church because they have $200 billion? This may even be an incentive to join! Why would prospective member be concerned with the true activity rates? Only 20% active, so what? I feel the spirit!
What do you think? Any major repercussions from the truth coming out?
Bonus question: do you think the Church will evert be completely transparent, or are they being “as transparent as they know how”?
Wheat & Tares 
I don’t think the things you listed would make much difference to most faithful members. Perhaps for those on a teetering shelf, these facts could tip the balance, much like the SEC scandal did for many. That said, there is already a lot of much more damaging information available, yet a surprising number of members are unaware of any of it. If it doesn’t come straight from SLC, they are completely unaware because they’ve been conditioned to not look at any other source.
For a church that claims as one of its tenets “we believe in being honest”, they frequently are not. They’ll be “honest” but withhold information that will change the narrative; we’re not lying, just omitting key facts. They’ll publish carefully constructed gospel essays that sort of tell the truth, but not fully, and they’ll hide them so well that most will never find them. If the facts came out from a q-day event, it would only be spun as signs of the times – so many of the elect have been deceived. Is the church even a big enough blip to catch the interest of hackers? Their assets say yes, but their membership numbers say no.
200 plus billion (closer to 300 billion) seems like it would attract people, but try and get a penny out of them and you’ll soon change your tune – whether it is a ward budget or a desperate need for food, financial aid isn’t a hallmark of the church.
I am going through the motions as a member but will soon let my temple recommend expire (forever). OTOH my wife is fully invested but recently and basically told me she wishes to remain ignorant of “the truth” as it pertains to the Church.
PS soles could be saved if less walking was done by missionaries in their efforts to save souls (-;
Good morning, WT community
Thank you BBill for introducing to us new concepts, I had never heard of Q-day.
I really, really do not want to make this political. If you look back at all my comments over all the years, I have never strayed into the topic. (Apologies to MAGA) However, this quote is the only way to make my point. When Trump stated, “”I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,”
The Church may loose some members who combine a major traumatic life experience with a simultaneous church news bombshell, but for the most part most members will keep moseying along doing as they are told without leaving the 3rd stage of life; despite of the churches obvious flaws and multiple coverups. How many bombshells, have we already experienced the past 10 years, alone? The church will greatly limit new converts except for Africans paying fees on each GB download. (Wait until more of Africa has unlimited data). However, for lifetime members, little would change, and the younger crowd would tell the old-timers you misunderstood what was being taught, or it is your fault because you took it too seriously.
Personal opinion/take – the reason the Q15 fear transparency isn’t because of the actual (currently secret) details, it’s because of what those details would imply if known…..that they are just 15 random dudes with their own biases and strongly held opinions. It would further expose that the church is really all about the institution and especially the senior leaders of it. Many people see that already but the details all being on the table would push some of the current faithful into the disbelief camp.
The silence of the Q15 on Mike Lee and concentration camp in Florida is all the transparency anyone needs
Religion and spirituality are far greater than the religious institutions which house them. I honestly don’t know too many intelligent LDS who are not already in some way “nuanced.”
Yes to those saying that it wouldn’t make any major difference. Each time a problem comes up, the church may lose a few members over it, but so far no mass exodus. People have to be at a certain point in their life for any problems the church has to make any difference. We have had so many testimony destroying problems, and 99% of active members ignore them.
I asked my husband the theoretical question of “If I found something that proves the church is untrue, would you want me to tell you about it?” He said no. Most members are like that. See, when someone is happy with their beliefs, they don’t want to know something that will upset their whole world view. Just like Trump fans have to be personally hurt to take a second look at dear leader. They personally have to be the one shot on 5th avenue or they just don’t want to change their view of the world. Trump understands his followers are not basing their love of him on logic, or political views. No, it is a cult, so Faith above didn’t make apolitical comment because Trump followers are not politically motivated. It is a religion for many of them. They will ignore all of Trumps crimes, his violation of the constitution, as long as he doesn’t force his followers to give up their worship of him by hurting them personally. (Yes, of course that is going to happen)
People have to have a motivation to change their world view. It has to *hurt* them enough to make them get out of their comfort zone of beliefs and examine why they are in pain honestly. As long as it is just discomfort, they will believe obvious lies, make excuses, or simply disbelieve the fact making them uncomfortable. That is how cognitive dissonance works. The human brain tries very hard to deny reality and maintain the world view the person is comfortable with. So, unless a person is educated enough in critical thinking, or the psychology of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias and stuff like that, they WANT to stay in their comfortable beliefs even if those beliefs get uncomfortable. I mean, you can be smart enough to challenge your own belief system, but you have to have a good enough reason to turn your world upside down.
And the more often you accept crap from your dear cult and convince yourself, the harder it gets to reverse because you are digging your brain in deeper and deeper. So, convincing yourself of, well the church must really need this money, so I will somehow keep the car running and we will live off rice and beans and the kids don’t really need new clothes, we’ll pick up school clothes at DI. Or, convince yourself the election really was stolen by Biden in 2020, so Jan 6 was defending the constitution, and the deportation of US citizens is not violating the constitution and other countries will pay for tariffs just like Mexico paid for the wall. All those times you justify what your cult does, you dig yourself deeper into cult beliefs. Each of those times you convince yourself, has a cost and so you sink more and more of yourself into your belief system. It is like sacrificing for something makes it more important to you, even if you are sacrificing your own integrity. It is how cults work. I am not saying the Mormon church is a cult, but if it quacks like a duck…
So, Faith rest assured that bringing up Trump’s cult is not talking politics, but religion, because only a cult leader could shoot someone and his followers fool themselves into believing it is good.
All religion is somewhat this way, or somewhat a cult, or it wouldn’t survive as a religion.
Religions are based on feelings, not logic and so they cannot be fought with logic unless the person wants a reason to stop believing.
In an age replete with misinformation and disinformation, people often don’t know what to believe. So they migrate to echo chambers that confirm their biases over and over and remain there.
Trump’s supporters have shown us repeatedly that no matter how many facts that you show them they will dismiss them and keep believing lies. The church will persist no matter how much damning information is revealed about it and its leaders. People want well-packages information that’s easy to digest. They don’t want to feel confused.
The church has experimented with transparency. Most members have no clue it even happened or that there was an issue. On the church website are explanations about Mountain Meadows, Blacks, and the Priesthood, and I think even the investments the church has. I’ve looked at them, but members I talk to haven’t.
I think most members are like my mother. Pay tithing, go to the temple, sing in the choir, and attend single adult family home evening are all she wants to do or even know about. She doesn’t want to hear about Mike Lee’s crazy statements or a woman asking to have the priesthood. I think for most TBMs, they don’t want to think about it because they have so many family members who don’t want to think about it, and if they did, they wouldn’t want to leave their friends. I think sometimes friends become more important than family members who have left the church.
Why do so many put such trust in “prophets” who say “It’s wrong to criticize the leaders, even if the criticism is true”. The same is true of Trump: Criticism is Dangerous!
I am unable to think of a single reliable policy or doctrine that is or was actually prophetic, instead of just a very delayed reaction to cultural and scientific norms, or a correction of previous Egregious doctrine or practices. The COJCOLDS has and is Always Behind science and good scholarship (Michael Quinn, Lowell Bennion, etc).
I’d sooner listen to the prophetic voice of Bob Dylan.
It wouldn’t affect those who already believe, but it might decrease the number of potential converts that *might* believe in the future. It also might change how governments view and accept the church.
I’m another vote for the “it wouldn’t matter” consensus. Super rich? yay the Church is being blessed! Low activity rates? Even the very elect shall be deceived. There’s a response for everything. Anna was correct when she said that, for many people, the Church is true unless it hurts them personally. I was in that category. Sure, I had nuanced beliefs, but I loved the social aspect and fitting in.
Trevor Holladay makes a good point. Bad publicity could scare off future converts and make missionary work harder. But are riches really bad publicity? Does any church have high retention and activity rates? All the info about polygamy and racism is already out there. I’m not sure that the info dumps Bishop Bill talks about would really do too much more damage than what’s already out there.
Most faithful members of the church are on the road that leads to eternal life. More transparency with regard to the mundane aspects of the Kingdom is not a high priority to them.
I do think more transparency would make a positive difference. I think hiding things is wrong and is acting in fear. I think the church should behave in an honest, open and direct way. To me it isn’t the actual information that is the crux of the problem. We each have a relationship with the church. Relationships are ruined by secrets and betrayal. The church, like any spouse that is hiding something, needs to apologize and come clean to it’s members on multiple issues. The president needs to do this in general conference, not on a back page of the library app. Then they need to include the actual historical information in Sunday School class instead of supporting the faithful narrative.
While they are at it they can stop excommunicating people who speak the truth and apologize for that. Some people would leave the church when they came clean. Others would endure and they would become wiser more flexible members who would bend instead of easily break in the face of future problems. This honesty would lead to better emotional and spiritual health for all members.
lws329 has a really good point because some people leave when they find out the church is lying to them about some things. Some people leave, not because the church had racial doctrine that they changed, but they leave over the lack of apology and honesty that it was based on racism and harmed people. Some people leave over the dishonesty. If the church was transparent and stopped lying to members they would keep the members who are bothered by the fact that they feel the church leaders are a bunch of lying crooks. It isn’t the history, or polygamy, or hoards of money that these people leave over so much as it is the betrayal of being lied to about how stinking rich the church is.
After I was harmed and in pain from the church, THEN I looked into all the lies the church promotes and that was the confirmation that the problem that hurt me was not me and my lack of faith, nor was it the mistakes of a few human leaders. The rotten lying by church leaders confirmed for me that the church itself is the problem. It is systemic, rotten to the core, bad all the way up to the prophet. So, lack of transparency was the final straw that convinced me to vow to never go back.
Back to the idea that the coverup is worse than the crime.
BUT, what if the church is hiding things that are worse than what we know about. What if they are covering up proof of things like Joseph Smith made his concubines get abortions to hide polygamy? What if they have proof that Joseph plagiarized the whole Book of Mormon and they are sitting on the copy of the transcript of that missing manuscript from Spaulding? What if it is something worse than we can even guess?
On the other hand, I go back to my original post that people will not believe what they don’t want to believe. So, I really do not think there is anything that can’t be ignored by members who don’t want it to be true so they refuse to consider what it means. It is like one Trump follower I argued with because I was under the delusion he was smarter than to follow someone so dishonest. He readily agreed that Trump lies all the time about everything. Then he would argue about some issue and it was very clear he believed the lies. I would point that out. He says, “Yeah, I know.” Then argued another topic where it became clear he believed Trumps lies. I would point out facts and he agreed, with yeah Trump lied about that and then he would go off again. Half his brain knew that he was being lied to and the other half firmly believed the lies. My mind got so boggled that he believed what he knew was false. Some Mormons are that way. We even have some posters here like that. When church leaders say things like we shouldn’t criticize leader even if the criticism is true, it proves to me they know in one half of their brain something major is wrong with the church, but the other half of their brain just *can’t* go there.
Given “the Church’s” vast dragon hoard – the organization will most likely survive for a long, long time. As for having any credibility – or the ability to “feed souls” – that was sacrificed long, long ago!
Most former members of the church (including yours truly) are on the road that leads to the nearest honky-tonk and a cold glass of beer. Less transparency with regard to window coverings in such an establishment is not a high priority to them.
Someone asked me a while back how is it that members believe this stuff when it’s so easily debunked or so ridiculous-sounding or whatever. I don’t recall exactly how it was phrased, but it’s a question I’ve literally been asked hundreds of times throughout my life because of how often I’ve been in the extreme minority. There are a few things I’ve always said in response to this type of question because you never know which unsavory thing they are saying is the thing that makes the church obviously false. Joseph Smith’s character? Polygamy? The Book of Mormon? There are so many options to choose from.
I just pointed out that to someone raised in a religion, the religion makes sense. It’s what they know, and it’s what they have been taught from a young age, and that’s true in every religion. There is honestly no difference between the ridiculousness of one and the ridiculousness of another except that it’s familiar and you have good experiences with the one you know.
Is it any less ridiculous that Catholics were taught literal demons could burn your furniture with their hot little hands? Are the Catholic sex abuse scandals less problematic than polygamy? Basically all churches suck if you look too closely because all people do sucky things. That’s not an excuse for lack of transparency, which is itself a problem to be reckoned with. Maybe churches get a pass partly because they are all terrible in similar ways (corruption, exploitation, misogyny, judgmentalism, superstition), just as powerful men get a pass for things like rape and lying. They are only acting in character, after all. I realize that cynicism is the end of that path, but it’s one reason nobody believes in institutions anymore. They are all lying to you, and worse, to themselves.
lws329 makes an important point – if the lds church systematically adopted more honest and transparent practices, the church would become a healthier environment. Choosing to practice “by common consent” would add even more.
We have lots of areas for meaningful improvement: sexual assault vs coverups (not elevating male confessions above the safety of children, women, and men), racism that is ever present, accepting lgbtq+, finances, ward budgets, equitable tithing for those who can afford it (feed your children first, become financially stable, prepare to fund your retirement years), making space for faith transitions (11th AofF, anyone?) . . .
The Community of Christ is a good model for this.
I was listening to an interesting interview with Greg Prince on Inside Out. He made an interesting observation that the gospel topics essays had to be scaled in terms of clear honesty because of the risk of disrupting the orthodox. So essentially, it appears the institution is just waiting for the old generation to die off and taking the long game by changing how they “inoculate” the youth.
IMO, nothing changes unless something changes. The church is very risk averse, which makes it a completely benign organization from a moral perspective. I don’t know about the rest of you, but relationships come with risk. Honesty comes with risks. Yet, everyone in a relationship is better when honesty is the foundation. When one party screws up badly, it may be rough for a bit, but with honesty, all parties end up stronger in the end because trust becomes stronger. I do think there would be a difference if the church started by offering public apologies in GC for the harm it has caused. I do think transparency would initially be rough, but I think it would have a positive impact. If people leave because their personal dogmas can’t bear that, I view that as infection being removed. It the church could establish itself as safe place to critique itself, that would be huge.
I just wonder if honesty and transparency were core tenants before everything else, if the other issues wouldn’t be so high stakes. I think the lack of safety (emotional or otherwise) and the lack of honesty about that (and a lot of other things) raise the stakes for everything else. With core tenants of transparency and honesty, leadership roulette would not be a problem because the standard would be open and honest discussion/critique over conformance to specific beliefs. Even if there were parts of our past we didn’t like, at least we could safely talk about those things. I do think that would be huge. That would really be belonging.