california boy

Do you have a better term that you prefer to describe those members that will defend the Church no matter what it does?

I get that you want to dismiss as much as possible. But you do realize this is exactly why the SEC fined the Church 5 million dollars right? It wasn't just about the location issue. The manager was signing the 13F form that was NOT "true, correct and complete". In fact, it was false.

Interesting thoughts. I wonder if Church leaders thought they were hiding what they were doing from God. Kinda like Jonah thinking he could hide from God. I have to confess I am fascinated by what the TBM have to say and their thought process. I believe they are completely sincere in how they feel about this. I know how important the Church is in their lives and how important it is to believe.

52 pages and what I have learned is that those that love the Church, want to trust the leaders to always do the right thing either figure out a way to justify what was done, or pass it off as just a traffic ticket or forgive and move on. Pretty much the rest feel like what the Church leaders did was very serious, a complete breach of trust, immoral, or worse. For some it has caused them to question if they should ever assume they can trust the leadership again. For others, it reinforces their already loss of trust in the leaders of the Church from past issues. Whatever position people have, I doubt anything could be said to change anyone's mind. And I doubt that any future bad behavior will change anyone's mind no matter how bad or good.

I think you are greatly exaggerating what people mean when asking for more transparency on financial matters.

Ok. I can agree with this. I just see no evidence of mirroring since 2019 as being a big enough issue to use it as an excuse to hide the Church's assets into shell companies. From what I have read, the reasons for hiding assets have been pretty clearly revealed.

Just curious why you didn't include the first part of my post which gives the actual reason for not finding any substance to your claim? Is it too hard for you to address? Here it is again in case you now want to address it.

Sorry, I didn't see your first post. From what I am seeing and hearing is that the church's wealth is a problem among some of the membership. Not a problem for others. I don't think anyone has any data on what those numbers are. What has been documented is the exiting of a lot of members because of past hiding of information about the history of the Church and not presenting an honest narrative. Trust is a factor for a lot of people. That we know. I am not ever sure what percentage of the Church even knows how much wealth the Church has. This current exposure of how Church leaders hid that wealth from the members just happened. How it will affect those in the Church? Guess we will soon see. I know there is a variety of reasons for people leaving the Church. I think this will only add to those numbers.

As I understand it, the Church's investment portfolio has now been made pubic since 2019. Have you seen wide spread issues with members knowing what stocks the Church owns? Is the problem bigger than the one the Church has created by hiding the true wealth of the Church? Or are some grasping at straws looking for any excuse it can come up with to rationalize the deception the Church was using to hide it's wealth from members. By putting out these baseless theories, it seems to me that it only exacerbates the problem. But as you say, to each his own i suppose.

Thanks for your response. I think that helps me understand where you are coming from. And it seems to be working for you. Not sure if it works for everyone though. I think Pogi makes some very valid points in why this is such a problem for him. I think others also have very valid points why just excusing bad behavior once again by Church leaders is a problem. For me, it is just one of a series of mistrust issues. Some had very serious consequences on my life and my families. I realize now that I was very naive in having an expectation of honesty. But I was 20 at the time, and until that point in my life, they had never give me a reason not to trust them. I certainly would have gone a different route and never automatically given them my trust. Maybe this is all a good thing. Maybe making it perfectly clear that members should not trust Church leaders, but to rely more on their own personal relationship with God is what should be expected. Maybe all this publicity around how Church leaders put this scheme into place is a blunt reminder that not everything Church leaders do is in sync with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So you don't think that anything I wrote has any merit? You don't think that people struggle when Church leaders do this kind of thing? And if they do then they don't really have a testimony? Trying to understand why you wrote what you wrote and why you so easily dismiss the concerns that some are having over this and other past issue as not being valid concerns.

I agree with what you wrote. It is not the role of the SEC to deal with the way members and others may feel about the reasons for the deceitful way the Church hid it's assets. The SEC's only interest is to get the Church into compliance. It is up to the Church to deal with the loss of trust that others have because of this incident. How the Church handles that loss of trust some feel is totally up to the Church. They may very well sweep it under the rug and never address it again. But make not mistake, how the Church handles itself will have a profound affect on some people who are no longer willing to give the Church blind loyalty it sometimes seems to demand when it makes these breaches of trust. Some people need at least an apology from the Church for their actions. Others will probably never accept any apology. They feel like they have forgiven the Church way too many times already for past bad behavior. I can tell you this. Those apologists who have defended the Church's actions to the extreme degree, not willing to even suggest that any wrong doing has occurred have not helped one iota those that feel a betrayal of trust. If anything, it has pushed them further down a rabbit hole.

I don't think you are right. But I am not going to make this a thread about gay marriage.

Maybe I am wrong. It was just a minor point that I thought might be relevant to the question being raised.

I really applaud your Stake getting involved in the community. It doesn't happen enough with church organizations IMO. I think it is a big part of why so many are leaving organized religion. They aren't seeing enough of this kind of work being done. They only see the self interest that religion seems to be only interested in general these days. Actions like this could change a lot of hearts and minds, especially on a local level. I am not saying it doesn't happen, I am only saying that it doesn't happen enough. Good for you guys.

I was refering not to the doctrine of it, but rather the fact that the Church did not act on becoming politically involved in gay marriage UNTIL it became legal in the U.S. Just because something is legal in other parts of the world, the Church seems, at times, to only start acting when it starts happening in the U.S. My only point.

There were plenty of places where gay marriage was legal. Why did the Church decide to make such a heavy handed commitment to take away. that right from California gay couples?

Yet you didn't know the basic difference between a civil case and a criminal case. You have been going on for literally pages about the Church being innocent until proven guilty. I think you even stated that it was a Constitutional right. In a civil case, that is not true. Something even I knew without being a lawyer Being a lawyer does not make you an expert on all legal matters any more than being an artist does not mean I am qualified to do restoration work on the Sistine Chapel. You might want to try and understand what Tribe is trying to tell you just a little more and stop having such a knee-jerk reaction to defend the Church at all costs making legal claims that are just not true. Do you know more about the law than I do? Yes of course you do. Do you know a lot about all the laws governing SEC issues? Probably not so much, yet you seem to be constantly speaking from a position of authority. ETA Looks like you have already admitted that you didn't know what you were talking about when ranting about the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. It is all I wanted to point out.

This is exactly how I feel about this issue. I don't think the seriousness of the findings is about the Church trying to hide its wealth. It is about the deception that took place in order to hide that wealth. I do admit I am triggered when it comes to dishonest actions by the Church. I can't just pass it off as being unimportant like some seem to be able to do given the seriousness of what I experienced and have seen repeatedly since leaving the Church. This isn't some one off deception.

You act as if your legal training gives you some superhuman insight unable to be achieved by us mere mortals that don't have a law degree to understand SEC rules and regulations. You are a foreclosure attorney for heavens sake. I am an artist and designer by profession. That hardly makes me qualified to do restoration work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I don't find any of the SEC report to be all that difficult to read. And Tribe has done a very good job of explaining the procedures. He actually seems to be very well qualified to clarify the proceedings. You on the other hand hid behind your law degree as if it is some special hammer while lobbing personal insults and far fetched analogies that even someone without a law degree can see are not relevant. You are welcome to your opinion of course. But please, pretending that a foreclosure attorney has special insights to how the SEC handles things is way overblown. Just make your arguments the best you can and quit with the I am an attorney, so I know more about this stuff than all you other people out there. And I won't claim to know how to do restoration work on the Sistine Chapel.

I wonder if the Church thinks its deceptive plan was worth it. Now the whole world knows about it. My. dad used to always say "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive". There are consequences for not being honest. Just some of the articles written about this

No probably not. It wouldn't have caused me to leave the Church either. But it may very well be that something may affect you personally where you do loose trust. And you will find that these issues that seem to regularly pop up are a pattern of not being honest that continually confirm why you left. In this case that is being discussed, I am seeing defense of the Church for behavior that is clearly pretty shady as if the Church did nothing wrong at all and should be expected behavior of the Church leaders. That is a bit disturbing from my point of view.

I have pretty much stayed out of this thread other than pointing out the absurdity of the excuse that the Church it its financial information to protect members from mirroring their investments. It seems like this thread is coming to a close. Both sides have made their positions repeatedly. Those that are defending the church insist that what the Church did was just a minor traffic ticket offense. Nothing to see here. Moving on. And the other side pointing out the hypocrisy of how the Church defines honesty and a pattern of not being truthful. I defended the Church for years and managed to ignore issues that didn't quite seem truthful. I weighed the overall good of the Church and literally excused them for wrong behavior. That is until the Church leaders lied to me to the extent that it changed the course of my life believing in that lie. When I stepped back from the Church and started not having an instant reflex reaction to defend the Church, I started to see many issues that I really could no longer defend. Many will keep defending the Church no matter what it does, until something happens in their own personal lives that causes them to no longer be able to defend the Church. For some, that point may never occur. But for those that experience that breaking point, they will start on a path where they see multiple situations of this repeated untrustworthy behavior. It gets to the point where you can no long have that instant reflex to defend the Church. For some, this issue may be that point. For most, their lives and their relationship with the Church will not change. The back and forth that happens on this thread will not make a difference to either side. I often used to say that even if the Church is not true, there is still so much good that it brings into my life, I would still be involved in the Church. It was only when there was more harm in my life than good that drove me to leaving the Church. I think that statement could be made about every critic that is on this board. For the most part, we were all faithful believers of the Church, regularly overlooking the imperfections and human frailties. It was not the human frailties that pushed us out of the Church, it was the fundamental dishonesty of Church leaders hiding truths and pushing narratives that were not true. If the Church is not able to be truthful to it's members, then how true can the Church be? That is a question each member has to ask. And each will have a different answer to that question. I watched the Oscar nominated film "Women Talking" a couple of weeks ago. I found it to be one of the most compelling films I saw all year. It is not a slick Hollywood production. In fact it is quite simple, filmed almost entirely in a barn, with women talking about a religion that they had committed their lives to. Sometimes seeing things from the outside makes things much clearer than being a part of it. I would strongly recommend this movie to everyone that wants a movie of substance and thought provoking questions. I am certainly not saying the same issues facing these women compare in any way to the Church, but how they deal with religious problems is very similar.

Along with criticisms for not giving enough to charity if people knew how much they had. Deeply troubling if this is an accurate quote from Roger Clarke. That seems more likely the case. This mirroring issue seems to be more an excuse than a problem.

Thanks for the information. It looks like they got that information from a 13F filing. Didn't the Church always file a 13F?? And haven't they been filing a 13F on all of their stock holdings since 2019? That would indicate to me that the Church has been revealing their investments for some time now. Is there a huge problem with Church members mirroring those investments since 2019?