Mormons and materialism.

[jimmy eat jazz]

Interesting that the article makes no mentions of the hundreds of millions of dollars the church has spent on charity. The article also makes the assumption that the way to take care of the poor is through the government. Why not take a look at how much money Romney gives to charity?

I'm of the opinion that society is better off when we take care of each other, not when we tax each other and have the government take care of us. It used to be that when you were in trouble you went to your family, your church, the Salvation Army, the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary Club, your neighbors... nowadays we are supposed to go to the government. And government is heartless, because you are knocking on the door of a bureaucrat.


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Sure there are some LDS people that are rich, but before you criticize Jon Huntsman for buying someone a suit, why don't you look up on the noth eastern hills of Salt Lake City? Mormon Welfare works better than Federal Welfare. Mormon Charities respond faster than FEMA. Why doesn't the article mention this???



P.S. Thanks for sharing the article, I LOVED it. There are WAY too many LDS people that are materialistic and need the message. I'm posting it on my facebook wall to throw a middle finger at all my Tea party friends that think being a true latter day saint means being a member of the Tea Party.

For what it's worth, while the absolute value of LDS Church contributions on charity appears large, relative to its income/assets, it's actually pretty small. (I don't have the numbers here, it's something I looked up some time ago. I'm not inclined to go look it up again, so feel free to disregard.) Plus, the lion's share of it goes to members, not that this is necessarily bad, but it may be important to some.

One of my biggest issues with how the Church chooses to spend its resources is the grossly disproportionate amount it invests in the welfare of the Dead. I understand issues surrounding the Church's doctrine in this area, but with so much suffering and need among the living, this strikes me as a colossal misallocation of priorities.

Edit to add: I don't think Brigham Young would feel out of place in today's LDS Church. He certainly didn't live an aesthetic lifestyle and by all appearances, enjoyed a good amount of wealth and comfort.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

I have no problem with the LDS Chruch being filthy rich. Owning possesions is not a sin. Letting them affect your pride is. The LDS Church does many, many wonderful things. Charities, employment programs, humanitarian aid, training...with their wealth.

When I was young, I used to fret about this. Now that I'm older, I don't care. I have nothing wrong with wealth, presuming it was earned honestly. The fact of the matter is, large religious organizations like the LDS Church needs lots of money to run its world-wide operations and programs. The Biblical image of poor itinerant preachers giving no thought about what to wear or eat is quaint but has little relevance to the actual world, or at least I think so.

I do think there's a line that can be crossed into inappropriately conspicuous and selfish consumption, but I'm hesitant to specify just where that line is in any general sense, although on a case by case basis I think it can cross the line. (If you ever saw that reality show on TV about the Sweet 16 parties, that's an example of crossing the line, I think.)

I would expect to see, however, that a wealth religious organization claiming the mantel of Jesus to use a good share of its wealth for charitable causes.

 

[colton]

For what it's worth, while the absolute value of LDS Church contributions on charity appears large, relative to its income/assets, it's actually pretty small.

Keep in mind most of the assets are income *consuming*, not income producing. That is, they are things like church buildings and temples which require maintenance and don't generate income.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

Keep in mind most of the assets are income *consuming*, not income producing. That is, they are things like church buildings and temples which require maintenance and don't generate income.

That's true. Again, I don't have the figures in front of me, I'm just going off of my memory. To me, a more relevant measure would be how the LDS church compares to other large religions, whether it's a percentage of assets, income, or whatever. If it were to live up to it's claim to carry the mantel of Jesus, I would expect it to compare favorably (not necessarily at the top). I can't say where it would land in this comparison.

 

[Mr. McGibblets]

Keep in mind most of the assets are income *consuming*, not income producing. That is, they are things like church buildings and temples which require maintenance and don't generate income.

No way. Most of the church's assets are income producing and I will get to that in a second. But even church buildings and temples are income producing in an indirect way. When temples are built in an area, then tithing funds increase dramatically among the members of that area because there is a greater push for current temple recommends and temple worthiness. There is a great incentive, (both social and you could argue spiritual), for members to pay tithing when there is a temple in their area. Plus, a lot of the funds for temples come from members of that area to begin with. And the cleaning and maintenance at churches is done by volunteers. Even some of the engineers at the smaller temples are volunteers.

Now, as for the church's assets, they own hundreds of corporations and many of them are privately held companies and produce income. I know of at least 5 different Real Estate Investment companies that the church has that handles the church-owned real estate around the world. Many of these are stealth companies that people would not realize are actually owned by the LDS church. These properties are not empty lots. The church develops them and then leases out commercial office space, etc. The church also retains mineral rights on any piece of property that passes through the church's hands. Meaning, even though they might sell some land, they retain mineral rights which also has led to some lucrative income throughout the world.

In addition to real estate and just temples/churches, there are also private corporations that the church owns a large percentage of due to rich members donating shares in lieu of cash for their tithing. For example, one of the Bain partners who donated nearly $2MM of Burger King shares to the church in 2008 alone. Who knows how much they own in other publicly traded companies which brings dividends and other capital gains if later sold.

To argue that most of the assets are income consuming is not very accurate if you look at the totality of the church's investments (which nobody can really do because of the secrecy of it all). However, even just according to facts available semi-publicly, it's clear the church has made some major money due to donations just given to them over time.

 

[Beantown]

I'm just a Mormon boy living in a Material world.