Amulek Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 28 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said: Can you point to the scripture and verse where it gives the period of time when tithing is due? Is it immediate? Monthly, quarterly, annually? I thought you used to be a member. Surely you know that tithing is to be reconciled annually. D&C 119:3-4 3 And this shall be the beginning of the tithing of my people. 4 And after that, those who have thus been tithed shall pay one-tenth of all their interest annually; and this shall be a standing law unto them forever, for my holy priesthood, saith the Lord. Quote From my perspective, the scheme I laid out is morally wrong unless I give the whole fund to the Church at the end. The scheme you laid out does not involve paying an honest tithe because you are not giving the Lord one-tenth of your income annually for any year - with the possible exception of the one year at the end in which you actually give something to the Lord. If you tried to pull a scheme like that with your income tax, you would be in jail. 1
bsjkki Posted February 12, 2020 Posted February 12, 2020 My friends first reaction to this story was interesting. She had not really followed it and I mentioned the WSJ story. She was afraid for the missionaries. If wealth of the church is well known, are the missionaries more in danger from kidnapping schemes. I had not thought of that. 1
rockpond Posted February 12, 2020 Posted February 12, 2020 6 minutes ago, bsjkki said: My friends first reaction to this story was interesting. She had not really followed it and I mentioned the WSJ story. She was afraid for the missionaries. If wealth of the church is well known, are the missionaries more in danger from kidnapping schemes. I had not thought of that. The wealth of the church has been widely known for decades. I was on my South American mission in 1990-1992 and comments were made then. Time’s “Mormons, Inc” article was published in 1997 and began to put numbers to it. Has there been a significant rise in missionary kidnapping and ransom demands in those 22 years? Any uptick in the past couple months? 1
Popular Post Stormin' Mormon Posted February 14, 2020 Popular Post Posted February 14, 2020 On 2/11/2020 at 1:46 PM, Calm said: There is tithing and there is money consecrated to the Lord. Tithing is what people sacrifice, no one is sacrificing by paying interest...that is a financial business transaction. It doesn't make the interest received any less sacred than the tithing imo as it is the Lord's. Thank you. I was going to emerge from my years-long lurk to make this very point. Tithing is not a dollar, but an act. It is an act of will, of intention, of faith, and of sacrifice. A dollar that is tithed to the Lord is one that has first come to the hands of a believer, and then that believer has passed the dollar to the Lord in a pro-active and willful act of faith. Dollars that come to the church through a passive, automatic process do not pass through hands of faith, and do not come to the church via sacrifice and will. Those passive, automatic funds still belong to the Lord, they are still consecrated. But to call them tithing cheapens the act and sacrifice of the believer. 12
JAHS Posted February 14, 2020 Posted February 14, 2020 A pretty good article today on what the church is doing regarding finances: Church finances: Presiding Bishopric offers unique look inside financial operations of growing faith 3
Popular Post Hamba Tuhan Posted February 15, 2020 Popular Post Posted February 15, 2020 2 hours ago, JAHS said: A pretty good article today on what the church is doing regarding finances: Exactly. I like how the Presiding Bishopric gently point out how journalists have reported only part of what they’ve been told. As a senior adviser to a member of parliament, I know firsthand how often that occurs! I doubt it’s even conscious most of the time. People just have a preexisting narrative in their heads and mostly only hear what slots neatly into that narrative. 7
smac97 Posted February 16, 2020 Posted February 16, 2020 On 2/14/2020 at 6:18 PM, Hamba Tuhan said: Exactly. I like how the Presiding Bishopric gently point out how journalists have reported only part of what they’ve been told. As a senior adviser to a member of parliament, I know firsthand how often that occurs! I doubt it’s even conscious most of the time. People just have a preexisting narrative in their heads and mostly only hear what slots neatly into that narrative. This article, unlike so many we have seen on this story during the last few months, is based on first-hand, percipient knowledge. It will therefore be interesting to see whether, or if, those same journalists who essentially passed along hearsay will not update their readers with the information in this much more reliable article. Given the state of journalism today, I'm not going to hold my breath. Thanks, -Smac 4
Thinking Posted February 16, 2020 Posted February 16, 2020 1 hour ago, smac97 said: This article, unlike so many we have seen on this story during the last few months, is based on first-hand, percipient knowledge. It will therefore be interesting to see whether, or if, those same journalists who essentially passed along hearsay will not update their readers with the information in this much more reliable article. In the past, humanitarian aid was reported separate from welfare assistance. In this article the two are now combined. Quote The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doubled its humanitarian spending over the past five years and now annually provides nearly $1 billion in combined humanitarian and welfare aid ... The figure includes all humanitarian and welfare expenditures, including fast offering aid. Emphasis mine. What is missing from the article is the amount the Church takes in from fast offerings. That amount would complete the picture. In every article that I could find previous to this one, the figure that accompanied humanitarian aid was $2+ billion since 1984. Here's one. Quote The church’s humanitarian outreach started in 1984 when a church-wide fast raised $6.4 million for people suffering from a drought in Ethiopia. Since then, Latter-day Saint Charities has contributed more than $2 billion to humanitarian aid. President Nelson explains why the church has given more than $2 billion to humanitarian aid worldwide 1984 to 2018 is 35 years. $2+ billion/35 years = $57+ million per year. Certainly the amount has increased over time. I'll be generous and estimate that the amount grew to about $100 million in 2018. $100 million is nearly $900 million short of nearly $1 billion. IMO it's unfair to criticize journalists for not reporting all the facts when the Church doesn't release all the data. 1
Kenngo1969 Posted February 16, 2020 Posted February 16, 2020 35 minutes ago, Thinking said: ... IMO it's unfair to criticize journalists for not reporting all the facts when the Church doesn't release all the data. Still, journalists can report all of the facts made available to them. If they don't do that, and if it results in a particular story having a particular "slant," then they open themselves up to [completely fair and legitimate, in my view] accusations of bias. 4
Thinking Posted February 16, 2020 Posted February 16, 2020 3 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said: Still, journalists can report all of the facts made available to them. If they don't do that, and if it results in a particular story having a particular "slant," then they open themselves up to [completely fair and legitimate, in my view] accusations of bias. And if the Church doesn't release all the data, then its stories may be slanted.
CV75 Posted February 16, 2020 Posted February 16, 2020 2 hours ago, Thinking said: And if the Church doesn't release all the data, then its stories may be slanted. As a church, her stories will be from the perspective of a church, not a financial or not-for-profit institution. As a journalist, the perspective of his stories is revealed by how fully and accurately he represents the perspective of a church. The data he has to work with is what the Church provides, whatever he obtains through investigation, and journalistic savvy in assessing the quality of data in either case. 2
Scott Lloyd Posted February 17, 2020 Posted February 17, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, CV75 said: As a church, her stories will be from the perspective of a church, not a financial or not-for-profit institution. As a journalist, the perspective of his stories is revealed by how fully and accurately he represents the perspective of a church. The data he has to work with is what the Church provides, whatever he obtains through investigation, and journalistic savvy in assessing the quality of data in either case. Indeed. it is the duty of a reporter to make known what facts are accessible. To ignore them pursuant to purveying some particular slant or another is journalistic malpractice. One might expect an opinion writer or political commentator to do that, but not a professional journalist adhering to accepted ethics. Edited February 17, 2020 by Scott Lloyd 2
Thinking Posted February 17, 2020 Posted February 17, 2020 4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said: it is the duty of a reporter to make known what facts are accessible. To ignore them pursuant to purveying some particular slant or another is journalistic malpractice. One might expect an opinion writer or political commentator to do that, but not a professional journalist adhering to accepted ethics. Prior to Tad Walch's article, what facts did reporters leave out that were available to them?
Popular Post Hamba Tuhan Posted February 17, 2020 Popular Post Posted February 17, 2020 10 minutes ago, Thinking said: Prior to Tad Walch's article, what facts did reporters leave out that were available to them? Quote “There will be future downturns,” Bishop Waddell said. “How extensive, how dramatic we don’t know. But one of the comments we made to the Journal was that if that were to happen, because of the reserves being carefully watched over, protected and wisely handled, we won’t have to stop missionary work, we won’t have to stop maintaining buildings and building temples, we won’t have to stop humanitarian and welfare work, we won’t have to stop education work. What the journalist (wrote) was that we won’t have to stop missionary work, period. Well, there’s more than that.” 5
Scott Lloyd Posted February 17, 2020 Posted February 17, 2020 10 minutes ago, Thinking said: Prior to Tad Walch's article, what facts did reporters leave out that were available to them? The point is they now do have the Deseret News piece and the associated Church News article that they can quote from with attribution.
Scott Lloyd Posted February 17, 2020 Posted February 17, 2020 15 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said: The point is they now do have the Deseret News piece and the associated Church News article that they can quote from with attribution. And, I might point out, this bears out an oft-cited reason why the Church of Jesus Christ maintains ownership of a newspaper (to have a voice in the marketplace of ideas). It is thus not totally dependent on potentially partisan or even hostile news outlets to get its side of the story out to the public.
carbon dioxide Posted February 19, 2020 Posted February 19, 2020 The Mormon Church's secretive $100 billion investment fund revealed massive stakes in Microsoft, Apple, and other tech titans for the first time this month. Ensign Peak Advisors, the investing arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, boasted a $40 billion stock portfolio at the end of December, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. https://www.yahoo.com/news/mormon-churchs-secretive-100-billion-170418456.html Kind of confusing. its a 100 billion dollar fund then then it has a 40 billion portfolio. Where is the other 60 billion?
Calm Posted February 19, 2020 Posted February 19, 2020 1 minute ago, carbon dioxide said: The Mormon Church's secretive $100 billion investment fund revealed massive stakes in Microsoft, Apple, and other tech titans for the first time this month. Ensign Peak Advisors, the investing arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, boasted a $40 billion stock portfolio at the end of December, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. https://www.yahoo.com/news/mormon-churchs-secretive-100-billion-170418456.html Kind of confusing. its a 100 billion dollar fund then then it has a 40 billion portfolio. Where is the other 60 billion? Probably other investments besides stock. There is a spreadsheet identifying such iirc in the appendix of the exposé (rainbow coloured one iirc).
Tacenda Posted February 21, 2020 Posted February 21, 2020 Good thing not a lot of people read the Enquirer or believe it.
smac97 Posted May 22, 2020 Posted May 22, 2020 An update: Quote The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ largest investment fund plunged by 21% in the first quarter of 2020 as stock managers reallocated the multibillion-dollar portfolio amid the slumping coronavirus economy. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined about 23% over the same time period. Ensign Peak Advisors, the investment arm of the Salt Lake City-based faith, reported to federal regulators that the value of its stock holdings fell by $8.1 billion, to $29.7 billion, during that three-month span. This stock account appears to represent a large chunk of the total value of Ensign Peak Advisors, which whistleblowing brothers Lars and David Nielsen said last year in a headline-making complaint to the IRS controlled assets worth at least $100 billion. Thanks, -Smac 3
Thinking Posted May 22, 2020 Posted May 22, 2020 On 2/20/2020 at 9:36 PM, Tacenda said: Good thing not a lot of people read the Enquirer or believe it. I guess the Enquirer believes that Donny and Marie are prophet and prophetess, and is unaware that Julianne Hough is no longer a member. 2
The Nehor Posted May 25, 2020 Posted May 25, 2020 Also how in the world would that story be exclusive?
The Nehor Posted May 25, 2020 Posted May 25, 2020 On 2/11/2020 at 7:03 PM, bsjkki said: My friends first reaction to this story was interesting. She had not really followed it and I mentioned the WSJ story. She was afraid for the missionaries. If wealth of the church is well known, are the missionaries more in danger from kidnapping schemes. I had not thought of that. The church would be unlikely to pay a ransom. Doing so would be declaring open season on missionaries worldwide. 1
Judd Posted May 25, 2020 Posted May 25, 2020 28 minutes ago, The Nehor said: Also how in the world would that story be exclusive? Well, if nobody else published it, then it is exclusive. 1
Thinking Posted May 28, 2020 Posted May 28, 2020 On 2/19/2020 at 3:48 PM, carbon dioxide said: Kind of confusing. its a 100 billion dollar fund then then it has a 40 billion portfolio. Where is the other 60 billion? Could be cash.
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