Was Tithing Used to Fund City Creek?

[cinepro]

Here is what FairMormon says in response to the question "Was the Church-funded redevelopment project in downtown Salt Lake City known as City Creek Center funded using tithing?"

Quote

The Church has repeatedly stated that no tithing money is being used for construction of City Creek Center

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mormonism_and_church_integrity/City_Creek_Center_Mall_in_Salt_Lake_City#Question:_Was_the_Church-funded_redevelopment_project_in_downtown_Salt_Lake_City_known_as_City_Creek_Center_funded_using_tithing.3F

Further supporting quotes are given, including this one:

Quote

Money for the project is not coming from LDS Church members' tithing donations. City Creek Center is being developed by Property Reserve Inc., the church's real-estate development arm, and its money comes from other real-estate ventures.
- Doug Smeath, "Downtown renovation project", Deseret News March 27, 2007.

 

Now, we have the recent statement from the Church, based on Presiding Bishop Causse's article, which says:

Quote

Church members are taught to “gradually build a financial reserve by regularly saving [a portion of their income]” (Providing in the Lord’s Way: Summary of a Leader’s Guide to Welfare [booklet, 2009], 2). The Church applies this same principle in its own savings and investments. In addition to food and emergency supplies, the Church also sets aside funds each year for future needs. These funds are added to Church reserves, which include stocks and bonds, taxable businesses, agricultural interests and commercial and residential property. Investments can be accessed in times of hardship or to meet the emerging needs of a growing, global faith in its mission to preach the gospel to all nations and prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (see Gérald Caussé, “In the Lord’s Way: The Spiritual Foundations of Church Financial Self-Reliance,” Mormon Newsroom, Mar. 2, 2018).

Some investments serve a dual purpose. For example, Church President Gordon B. Hinckley stated that “we have felt that good farms, over a long period, represent a safe investment where the assets of the Church may be preserved and enhanced, while at the same time they are available as an agricultural resource to feed people should there come a time of need” (“The State of the Church,” Ensign, May 1991, 54). Another example is the Church’s participation in the development of downtown Salt Lake City. With its investment in the City Creek Center (a mixed-use development that includes retail space, residential units, office space and parking), the Church enhanced the environs of Temple Square and underscored a commitment to Salt Lake City, Utah, where it is headquartered. The investment increased local economic activity during a financial downturn and attracted visitors and residents to Salt Lake City’s historic downtown.

(Emphasis added)

Are the first two sentences in the first paragraph referring to tithing money being "set aside" as a reserve?  If so, can we confidently (and boldly) say that "no tithing money is being used for construction of City Creek Center"?

 

[ksfisher]

[rongo]

In my book, yes, tithing was used.

Also in my book, it doesn't matter. I understand the fungibility/non-fungibility viewpoints, and I see where people who are upset are coming from. But I don't feel the upset at all. 

I think the "no tithing was used for XYZ" PR talking point the Church set up at some point is a rake of the Church's own making, which it keeps stepping on afresh. Why even parse what is and is not tithing money? That just makes this an issue. 

[cinepro]

6 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Is that a "yes" or a "no"?  Because if the recent article is saying that excess tithing funds were used to fund City Creek, that would be new news, as far as I can tell.

If it was previously acknowledged and FairMormon and I missed it, just let me know where.

 

[smac97]

Here:

Quote

Did the LDS church use tithing money to build the City Creek Center?

Colin Jensen, fmr missionary, Latin, Greek, wife does Hebrew and workd on the Dead Sea Scrolls

Updated Nov 23, 2012 · Author has 3.2k answers and 4.6m answer views

 

 

No.  That is a reasonable concern, since people who donate to the church expect that money to be used to build the church.  For that reason, in numerous reports in many newspapers, it is explicitly stated that no tithing money was used to build or operate the City Creek Center (which for those of you who don't know, is the mall owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that sits across the street from the Salt Lake Temple and opened in 2012.)  
 

Money for the project is not coming from LDS Church members' tithing donations. City Creek Center is being developed by Property Reserve Inc., the church's real-estate development arm, and its money comes from other real-estate ventures.
                     - from Downtown renovation project

And here:

Quote

What About The Church’s Other Businesses?

Here comes a bigger sticking point: does the Church really need all these other businesses?

This is a point where reasonable people can disagree. I believe all the businesses, or at least virtually all of them, were started back in the day when the Saints could only rely upon themselves. Many are good organizations and can be used to help others (i.e. Deseret Industries, Orange Farms out in Florida, etc.). Some are designed more as Public Relations item than anything else. The biggest example of that latter point is the $1.5 billion mall in Salt Lake City. Was it necessary? I don’t know. What I do know is that downtown Salt Lake City represents the LDS Church in many people’s mind, and if it’s run down, dingy affair, many will see the Church as run down, dingy affair. It may not be fair and it may not be right, but that is the way it is.

Back to the point, are these business necessary? My guess would be “no.” It’s not really related to this transparency conversation, but as long as they’re not losing money or distracting from the missions of the LDS Church, it seems unnecessary to jettison them. Besides, selling them off and giving all the money to the poor might be a nice one year boondoggle, but if you run the business so you can continually help people, it seems like it’s all the better.

Like Jesus said, we have the poor always with us, even if we give out a Scrooge McDuck-worthy pile of money (he might not have said that last part).

I had my dad read through this article before posting since he has a lot of experience with finances, and he made another good point that should be added here. Like many charitable groups or scholarship funds, the Church prefers to invest its cash and run operations off generated interest. It’s a good way to run things when you want to be conservative (small c) with your operations and more or less guarantee a set amount of money to keep things going every year.

So how do you invest that money? Well, you could buy real estate, you could invest in stocks and bonds, or you could put the money in the bank. Each one of those has a downside (real estate market could crash, company could be caught up in a scandal or release a caffeinated drink, etc.). The safest, of course, is a bank, but the funds are only insured up to $250,000, and they don’t pay very much in interest (a little over a percent right now).

And what will the bank do with the money? Invest it in real estate and stocks and bonds, taking a large percentage of the interest generated for their time and efforts.

Why not invest the money yourself, which removes the bank’s portion, giving you more to help with your goals? That’s basically what the Church did with the City Creek Mall, with the added bonus of giving them control over the downtown area. Plus helping generate jobs for those hired by the mall isn’t a bad benefit, either.

Thanks,

-Smac

[readstoomuch]

At some point, even if in the distant past, the business operations originated from tithing.  Maybe your question is whether recent tithing dollars were used.  Tithing probably is the main cash flow, perhaps tithing money is put in escrow to pay for immediate corporate needs until corporate revenues can cover the tithing dollars.  I don't know.  I want the money to be used wisely.  I think the Church does.  I wish the US Government did as well as the Church does.  Quinn`s recent book puts a lot of this discussion in perspective.  How about that as a possible thread topic.  "The Church uses their money wisely."  You would never make any progressive LDS happy with releasing all of the expenditures.  After all, we have our agendas, including me.  

[e-eye]

9 minutes ago, readstoomuch said:

At some point, even if in the distant past, the business operations originated from tithing.  Maybe your question is whether recent tithing dollars were used.  Tithing probably is the main cash flow, perhaps tithing money is put in escrow to pay for immediate corporate needs until corporate revenues can cover the tithing dollars.  I don't know.  I want the money to be used wisely.  I think the Church does.  I wish the US Government did as well as the Church does.  Quinn`s recent book puts a lot of this discussion in perspective.  How about that as a possible thread topic.  "The Church uses their money wisely."  You would never make any progressive LDS happy with releasing all of the expenditures.  After all, we have our agendas, including me.  

This could possibly be true but people also donate to the church and it's not tithing.  I have heard of people leaving large amounts of money in their wills and just donating land, stocks, etc to the church.  

It could be something like the perpetual education fund where they obtained enough money from other sources and then build that money by smart investing.  

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Are the first two sentences in the first paragraph referring to tithing money being "set aside" as a reserve?  If so, can we confidently (and boldly) say that "no tithing money is being used for construction of City Creek Center"?

The word "used" is pretty ambiguous in this context.

The church could honestly claim, "We didn't spend tithing money on City Creek--we invested tithing money in City Creek." I think that is what they really meant.

The apologetic speculation that tithing money never funds commercial endeavors in any way should now be put to rest.

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Are the first two sentences in the first paragraph referring to tithing money being "set aside" as a reserve?  If so, can we confidently (and boldly) say that "no tithing money is being used for construction of City Creek Center"?

Its a good question, and I think the most recent article definitely brings those earlier statements into question.  My suspicion is that the church tracks tithing donations in the year they are received and labels them as tithing.  After these donations are invested in instruments like stocks and bonds the church no longer tracks the source of those investments and no longer labels the funds and their increased value as tithing dollars.  I suspect that the church used these investment funds to fund the City Creek center project. 

The source of most of those investment funds was originally tithing dollars, but I imagine this is how they can technically get away with saying tithing wasn't used to fund the City Creek project.  No tithing dollars were funneled directly from tithing into City Creek, but they had at least one stop along the way by going into a stock or bond fund and then later getting taken out of that fund and invested into City Creek.  This is my theory without having any inside knowledge.  

 

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

In my book, yes, tithing was used.

Also in my book, it doesn't matter. I understand the fungibility/non-fungibility viewpoints, and I see where people who are upset are coming from. But I don't feel the upset at all. 

I think the "no tithing was used for XYZ" PR talking point the Church set up at some point is a rake of the Church's own making, which it keeps stepping on afresh. Why even parse what is and is not tithing money? That just makes this an issue. 

The problem for most of us Mormons is that we are taught to tell the whole truth in Sunday School, and not partial truths, but it seems the statements about no tithing being used are only partial truths.  

[cinepro]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Its a good question, and I think the most recent article definitely brings those earlier statements into question.  My suspicion is that the church tracks tithing donations in the year they are received and labels them as tithing.  After these donations are invested in instruments like stocks and bonds the church no longer tracks the source of those investments and no longer labels the funds and their increased value as tithing dollars.  I suspect that the church used these investment funds to fund the City Creek center project. 

The source of most of those investment funds was originally tithing dollars, but I imagine this is how they can technically get away with saying tithing wasn't used to fund the City Creek project.  No tithing dollars were funneled directly from tithing into City Creek, but they had at least one stop along the way by going into a stock or bond fund and then later getting taken out of that fund and invested into City Creek.  This is my theory without having any inside knowledge.  

 

I think you just described celestial money laundering.

Edited May 24, 2018 by cinepro

[MorningStar]

No.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I thought this topic was banned. Someone ban it. I beg of you! 

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, cinepro said:

Here is what FairMormon says in response to the question "Was the Church-funded redevelopment project in downtown Salt Lake City known as City Creek Center funded using tithing?"

Further supporting quotes are given, including this one:

Now, we have the recent statement from the Church, based on Presiding Bishop Causse's article, which says:

Are the first two sentences in the first paragraph referring to tithing money being "set aside" as a reserve?  If so, can we confidently (and boldly) say that "no tithing money is being used for construction of City Creek Center"?

Since the monies and property held by the LDS Church likely all go back ultimately to tithing contributions, all that means is that current tithing contributions are not being used for such real estate investment.  However, if the Lord gives some talents to a guy (as in the parable of the talents), and he invests them and expands their value (which the Lord praises), then the original talents have now been exceeded.  Even though such monies are fungible, it is also true that no actual tithing monies were used to invest in the City Creek project.

The statement that tithing money was set aside as a reserve is simply a way of saying that it was invested and thus expanded in value.  The LDS Church no doubt has billions in such reserves, although I haven't read Mike Quinn's recent book on LDS Church finances.  Since the Lord himself praises such investment strategies, the Brethren are very wise to create such reserves so that they can then expand them still further.

[Calm]

Quote

In addition to food and emergency supplies, the Church also sets aside funds each year for future needs. These funds are added to Church reserves, which include stocks and bonds, taxable businesses, agricultural interests and commercial and residential property.

While it is certainly possible and even likely the "funds" spoken of here come from tithing, it is not specified as far as I saw (lying on my back so not reading with close attention).  I have no problem with people assuming it is tithing given the rest of the information ( vast majority of financial resources comes from tithes and offerings, for example), I am still inclined to reserve any conclusion on this unless more info is provided.

I don't consider "interest" to be the same as the original though****, so if City Creek was/is paid for with interest money off of investments even if the original funds the interest is calculated with was tithing, I consider 'not paid with tithing' as accurate myself.

****A loan from a bank consists of a set amount of money that I get to spend (the principal).  That is what I consider is the loan, the interest is the fee I pay for the use of that money, not the principal itself.  I get that some see the combination as one thing as one doesn't send in two separate payments to two separate accounts, but the bank itself takes care of that by the way they automatically apply the payment.  Otoh, it then calculates the next interest due based on the total amount of principal and interest accrued, so I can see both approaches as reasonable and accurate.

For me, bottomline is even if tithing is sitting in a bank or whatever earning interest and the amount of the interest is used to buy and build real estate, if the full amount of tithing money put in can be pulled out and used for one of the Church missions within a short time at any time, it has not been used.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Calm

[tulip]

The problem is that the church is competing against private individuals and companies.   If you owned a store and the church built one right next to your store would that be good?   No, they would put you out of business since they have financial clout.   

[Scott Lloyd]

So, if anything, it is the invested tithing funds that benefit from City Creek, not the other way around. President Hinckley was truthful in his assurances to the Church membership. 

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, rongo said:

In my book, yes, tithing was used.

Also in my book, it doesn't matter. I understand the fungibility/non-fungibility viewpoints, and I see where people who are upset are coming from. But I don't feel the upset at all. 

I think the "no tithing was used for XYZ" PR talking point the Church set up at some point is a rake of the Church's own making, which it keeps stepping on afresh. Why even parse what is and is not tithing money? That just makes this an issue. 

I agree with you that it seems that tithing was used. What is disturbing is the previous press releases quoted above seem to be misleading.  Not the best move for an organization that is not transparent and seems to want members just to trust them.

[jpv]

4 hours ago, MorningStar said:

No.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I thought this topic was banned. Someone ban it. I beg of you! 

Wasn't a misleading thread label, so what are you doing here?

[Calm]

2 hours ago, tulip said:

The problem is that the church is competing against private individuals and companies.   If you owned a store and the church built one right next to your store would that be good?   No, they would put you out of business since they have financial clout.   

In the case of City Creek, was anyone else bidding to buy the property?  Are the stores in City Creek undercutting any local competition?

[sunstoned]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So, if anything, it is the invested tithing funds that benefit from City Creek, not the other way around. President Hinckley was truthful in his assurances to the Church membership. 

Everyone has an opinion, and without facts,  all we have is opinions.  In 2002, brother Hinckley was asked by German reporter Helmut Nemetchek why the church was not financially transparent.  Here is a portion of that transcript:

Helmut Nemetchek:       ‘In my country, we say the people’s Churches–the Protestants, the Catholics–they publish all their budgets, to all the public. ‘

Hinckley:  ‘Yeah. Yeah. ‘

Helmut Nemetschek:     ‘Why is it impossible for your Church? ‘

Hinckley:   ‘Well, we simply think that that information belongs to those who made the contribution, and not to the world. That’s the only thing. Yes. ‘”

(bolding mine)

Technically brother Hinckley said nothing that was untrue.  However, the message that was conveyed and the intent are questionable.  At best, this was a dodge.

Reference: 

Gordon B. Hinckley Interview – ZDF German Television

Salt Lake City, Utah January 29, 2002 Conducted by Helmut Nemetschek at 47 East South Temple

Edited May 25, 2018 by sunstoned

[strappinglad]

My Grandmother gives me $1000 for my education. I take that money and invest in hog futures and clean up with a profit of $9000 over 3 years. I then spend $ 5000 on my tuition and leave the rest to grow. I have not touched the original and yet I have. I have more than the original $1000 and I take $ 1000 and put it in a safe bank account. Did I use grandma's gift for my education. One could argue that I did. Then again one could argue that my education was paid for by a whole bunch of other people and grandma's gift is sitting safe.

[The Nehor]

Fine, I gave the church all the money for City Creek. It was me. You can all sleep easy at night. I got drunk on cough syrup, wrote a massive check, and tried to write **** Creek in the Other category as a joke. I probably misspelled it due to my drunken non-coughing state and they felt it necessary to honor my stated donation purpose (despite the caveat allowing them to move funds if necessary) and built a massive mall.

I am not proud of it. I had planned to use that money to cure cancer but here we are. You no longer have to worry any of your Tithing money was taken. It was all me. We never have to have this discussion again......ever.....

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, rongo said:

In my book, yes, tithing was used.

Also in my book, it doesn't matter. I understand the fungibility/non-fungibility viewpoints, and I see where people who are upset are coming from. But I don't feel the upset at all. 

I think the "no tithing was used for XYZ" PR talking point the Church set up at some point is a rake of the Church's own making, which it keeps stepping on afresh. Why even parse what is and is not tithing money? That just makes this an issue. 

I HOPE tithing was used.

It shows intelligent stewardship in producing income for other projects

All my money is in real estate, be cause I know it is a good income producer, you get the tax advantages of depreciation and then it generally appreciates.

Plus you can 1031 up to avoid capital gains

That's the trifecta. You can't do much better!

 

Edited May 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[6EQUJ5]

10 hours ago, smac97 said:

Here:

And here:

Thanks,

-Smac

Where did the original money come from, smac?  Tithing. It is a flat out lie that tithing money was not used to build City Creak.  EVERYTHING the Church has built or will ever build will be paid for with tithing.

It does not matter that the dollar spent today may be the results of a tithing investment in 1877.  It is still tithing.  Full stop.

Or perhaps you can cite a scripture that states the increase on investments is to be treated differently than the original capital.

[6EQUJ5]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I HOPE tithing was used.

I agree.  Tithing was used and that is perfectly fine.  That's the purpose tithing.  City Creek furthers the work of the Church.  That is what tithing is supposed to do.

What I have a problem with is the Church playing word games and lying that these funds spent were not tithing funds.