Not Tithing Funds (ii)

[smac97]

39 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I never said, implied, or thought that “tithing is indistinguishable” from any other revenue sources.

Also you: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

This is the idea/argument you have been advancing.  If you are backing off of it, great.  Otherwise, failing to differentiate between "tithing" and "interest" sure looks like a "tithing is indistinguishable' from any other revenue source" argument.

39 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

And yet they are trying anyway....

No I’m not. Stop telling lies about me.

Again: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

This is far from the only permutation of this argument you have been advancing.  For years.

39 minutes ago, Analytics said:

First of all, I am not Huntsman’s attorney. Nor am I his spokesman. I don’t really care if he wins or not--I’m just an outside observer.

And yet you are advancing his arguments on this board: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."  That is the same argument Huntsman is making.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Danzo]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Perhaps this one?

http://www.mscbc.org/hinckley.htm

Just read through the transcript.  I interpret Hinckley as politely telling the reporter that church finances were non of his business.

There was no follow up questions, no further explanations. 

 

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think most Latter-day Saints construe "tithing" in its normative, Sunday School sense, and either don't given any thought to whether investment revenue is "tithing," or else they consider and reject the notion out-of-hand.  

 

I'm not sure about most. 

I know from my very very limited experience talking about this topic in person with another member, they actually have conflated tithing and investment revenue from tithing as being the same...at first.  If I remember correctly, and if the conversation continued (a lot of times it didn't), those I discussed it with rejected that idea once they thought about it for a minute though.

But, even though they eventually landed on the opposite conclusion, their first inclination was to view anything connected to tithing as the same as tithing.

[ttribe]

3 hours ago, Danzo said:

Lots of good questions here.

In the last city council meeting there was an issue with the Library fund borrowing money from the cemetery fund (Cemetery funds just sit around until all of the plots are sold so we borrow from them a lot)  The library was going to pay back the cemetery fund with interest and the council wanted to waive the interest to allow for more money for books, less money for the dead people.   We were informed that the cemetery fund doesn't earn interest even though a portion of the cemetery funds were in the investment account.  So it would appear that in this case that the cemetery fund doesn't accrue interest. In other words any interest goes to the general fund.  I scanned through the last years budget and I don't see investment income for any fund other that the general fund.  Maybe I will ask the finance director  if there is any fund where interest is restricted to the fund just to be sure.

The city pays me 100 dollars a month to be on the council, this comes from the general fund. There are many funding sources, in fact the interest revenue would cover my salary, many taxes go into the general fund, but I am not paid from development fees, not payed from sewer fees, library or parks fees.

Funds are not the same thing as assets (although total of all funds balances + Liabilities = Assets).  Funds are internal restrictions on money that an organization has.  But just because they are internal accounting creations doesn't mean they are not real. For example, in the city I serve there are just two liquid assets, bank account and Investment account. but the money in them is internally divided into many, many different funds (I counted 17 different funds when I just glanced at the budged).

I suspect something similar with the church the assets could be in one, two or many different bank and investment accounts, and other investments.  Internally those funds available are restricted in to different categories that really correspond to the actual assets.

 

If the church said that it spent funds from one category and not another category (tithing vs investment), and they are not just making things up, I would assume that internally they have different fund accounts that use to segregate their assets.  If they didn't have a funds accounting system, the statement wouldn't mean anything.  (How would you know the source of an expenditure if you didn't have a system of keeping track of these things?)

I think the church keeps track of its revenue sources and categorizes them as donations, offerings, investments income, service fee income (revenue from church magazines, temple cafeteria, etc.), revenue from businesses that they own and other sources.

Money from from investments and church business probably goes on their bookkeeping system as a separate fund.  When they make money from investments, the investment fund goes up. When they write a check for the  the city mall, the money in the bank account goes down and the money available in the investments fund goes down.  They probably have some sort of fund for ecclesiastically  activities like building a temple, that fund goes up when tithing comes in and when they write a check to build a temple, that fund balance goes down.  

In either case, the city mall check or the temple check, the money could come from the same bank account, but internally it is recorded differently.  

This example is simplified since the church obviously has more than one account they could draw funds from but the account is not the same as the fund, also the city creek check might be booked as an asset and fund might not go down for that reason. the same for the temple since that as well would be an asset and the fund balance might not be reduced. 

Hope that helps

 

While I have little to no doubt that the Church, as an entity, utilizes a fund accounting system, I also have little to no doubt that Ensign Peak does NOT use fund accounting. The question remains whether the interplay between the two systems keeps things straight. I suspect they do, else the Church would have very little ground to stand on with assertions regarding the uses of its monies, but we are in the realm of speculation given we have no available information.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Analytics, however, wants us to believe that many of us conflate tithing with other sources of income.  I find this claim contrived, ad hoc, and plainly incorrect.

I do not want you to believe that. Stop saying lies about me.

You and Huntsman want to conflate tithing with other sources of revenue so you can justify the notion that - as you put it - "using tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

Tithing is distinguishable from the Church's other sources of income, such as "interest {generated from invested tithing funds}" (as you put it) or "from those commercial entities owned by the Church" and from "the earnings of invested reserve funds" (as Pres. Hinckley put it).  Using these latter funds is not "still using tithing" because they are not tithed funds.  If you concur with this, just say so and we can move on.

Thanks,

-Smac

[ttribe]

Just now, smac97 said:

You and Huntsman want to conflate tithing with other sources of revenue so you can justify the notion that - as you put it - "using tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

Tithing is distinguishable from the Church's other sources of income, such as "interest {generated from invested tithing funds}" (as you put it) or "from those commercial entities owned by the Church" and from "the earnings of invested reserve funds" (as Pres. Hinckley put it).  Using these latter funds is not "still using tithing" because they are not tithed funds.  If you concur with this, just say so and we can move on.

Thanks,

-Smac

Why are you so hell-bent on making @Analytics and Huntsman one and the same? They are not. It's a cheap rhetorical device and it should be beneath you.

[Analytics]

11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Also you: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

This is the idea/argument you have been advancing.  If you are backing off of it, great.  Otherwise, failing to differentiate between "tithing" and "interest" sure looks like a "tithing is indistinguishable' from any other revenue source" argument.

Do you think directly using X to do Y is indistinguishable from indirectly using X to do Y? 

11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And yet you are advancing his arguments on this board: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."  That is the same argument Huntsman is making.

Likewise, that is the reason that @The Nehor, @Robert F. Smith, @Storm Rider, @Mystery Meat, @readstoomuch, @thesometimesaint, @Deborah, Kim Pearson,  selek1, Jeff K., Pahoran et. al., used for being confident that the funding for the mall came from "church owned business and sometimes direct donations from mebers for a specific purpose" and not from tithing, neither directly nor indirectly. 

As a reminder, I asked you, "Why do you think Craig Paxton said, "I hate that believers get so defensive at the very suggestion that tithing funds were used...or even that the investment income from tithing funds were used...good greif....chill out”?

And I also asked you why Deborah, responded with the following: "Because the First Presidency has said they weren't and you are calling them liars. Shouldn't be that hard to figure out." 

Remember. The 2012 conversation was all about the word “indirectly”:

[The critics] conclude that It must have started with tithing money donated by early church members. So in an indirect way the City Creek mall was made possible by sacred tithing money donated by members 150 years ago; money that is supposed to be dedicated to building God's church and helping the poor; not for building shopping malls. How does one respond to this?

 

[Danzo]

12 minutes ago, ttribe said:

While I have little to no doubt that the Church, as an entity, utilizes a fund accounting system, I also have little to no doubt that Ensign Peak does NOT use fund accounting. The question remains whether the interplay between the two systems keeps things straight. I suspect they do, else the Church would have very little ground to stand on with assertions regarding the uses of its monies, but we are in the realm of speculation given we have no available information.

The church is a very large organization.  It would be very difficult to manage without a sophisticated accounting system in place. If it couldn't keep things strait, the Huntsman lawsuit would be the least of their concerns. 

[ttribe]

Just now, Danzo said:

The church is a very large organization.  It would be very difficult to manage without a sophisticated accounting system in place. If it couldn't keep things strait, the Huntsman lawsuit would be the least of their concerns. 

You are making assumptions. I've audited and investigated plenty of "very large organization[s]" with holes the size of a 747 in their internal controls, especially over their reporting systems.. Nevertheless, I'll repeat what I said at the end of my statement, since you ignored it - "I suspect they do, else the Church would have very little ground to stand on with assertions regarding the uses of its monies, but we are in the realm of speculation given we have no available information."

[ZealouslyStriving]

😴 All ya'll have been making the same points (literally) over and over again for multiple pages (literally). 

For our collective sanity, can you just move on to something else?

Edited May 8, 2024 by ZealouslyStriving

[rongo]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

I still have questions.  For one, that would be extremely vulnerable seeing as how there is no federal protection for an accounting holding billions of dollars, right?  What if something happened to that bank?  It's also hard to fathom that the person paying for temple furniture in Bangkok is doing so with the exact same account numbers that the bishop uses to pay for Mary's electrical bill and that those are the exact same account numbers that someone else uses to buy a million square miles of ranch land in Florida. 

I never said anything about "exact same account numbers." The local ward checking accounts on up the chain all interface with and draw from the Church's checking account. The scenario you are envisioning would require 33,000+ separate checking accounts for wards and branches alone. Who monitors and transfers money if/when some of these get overdrawn (our stake has high councilors audit our assigned wards, and one of my wards overspent their budget last year)? Bishop Burton was saying that this is never a factor (except for on paper, and when discussing why they spent more money than they were given), because all of the checking accounts in the Church tap into the one checking account for the Church. He also emphasized that even fast offering is only an on-paper category, as far as that account goes. Which should be obvious to anyone who's issued checks. The boxes of checks with the routing and account numbers are used to reimburse YW leaders for activities (ward budget), pay an electric bill (fast offerings), etc. We don't have different checkbooks with different account numbers for different category expenditures, because we only use the ward's checking account for all of these. Same as the Church, whether they are buying temple furniture for Bangkok, paying $10 million to the NAACP, or buying a property. According to Bishop Burton, it's the same checking account from the top down (even if, for purposes of daily local transactions, this account is tied to accounts through Zion's, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Dresdner Bank, etc.). 

[quote]And then we have places like Ensign Peak, who obviously move around church funds into multiple places.  Are those not considered accounts? [/quote]

I don't think this matters when Ensign Peak money is put into the checking account (the account the Church uses to pay for everything) to be available to be spent. When that happens, there aren't separate categories like "from tithing only," "tithing interest dividends," etc. Doesn't Ensign Peak "move around church funds into multiple places" using the checking account? How else would it "move funds around?"

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Why do you think Craig Paxton said, "I hate that believers get so defensive at the very suggestion that tithing funds were used...or even that the investment income from tithing funds were used...good greif....chill out”?

If you want to have a good-faith discussion, please answer that question. 

I think because he, like you, was determined to mischaracterize and misrepresent.  He portrayed himself as no longer a member of the Church, and - like you - overtly hostile to it.  His characterizations of the Latter-day Saints were also not particularly distinguishable from your: hostile, contrived, based on worst possible assumptions, designed to distort and mischaracterize, etc.

Craig, like you, had elsewhere attempted to characterize tithing as being conflated with or indistinguishable from other sources of church income (responding to "Jeff K") :

Quote

Quote

When people accuse the Church of using sacred tithing money to fund things like the building of the City Creek mall, the obvious answer is of course that tithing money is not used; rather money from the for-profit arm of the church is used that was obtained through business investments over the years.

But then of course critics ask the next question; "Where do you think the church got the money to buy the businesses in the first place?"

And they conclude that It must have started with tithing money donated by early church members. So in an indirect way the City Creek mall was made possible by sacred tithing money donated by members 150 years ago; money that is supposed to be dedicated to building God's church and helping the poor; not for building shopping malls. How does one respond to this?

It is disingenuous for the church to claim that no tithing funds were used to fund the City Creek Mall. Member Pays Tithing à Tithing in Excess of Current Needs is Invested à Investments Earn Return à $$$ From This Return on Investments is Reinvested in the City Creek Mall…. Classic Money Laundering...So can the Church really claim that they didn’t use tithing funds to fund the City Creek mall? Ummm I suppose so…but is it really an honest statement to claim such or is the church just being disingenuous?

PS: Just for the record...I really don't care if they used tithing funds or not....I'm personally glad that they did it...I can't enter their temples...but at least for the time being, I can enter their mall

See, Jeff pretty clearly differentiates what you and yours want to conflate: "{T}ithing money is not used; rather money from the for-profit arm of the church is used that was obtained through business investments over the years."

Later, Craig responded to this statement from "Jeff K":

Quote

Quote

And yet, you have no standing to complain. Whether the investment comes from one source, many sources, investments or donations is irrelevant to all but those who participate in those investments. That being those who give in faith and those who spend in faith and the increase that comes between those two decisions. How the contract exists between them is not of your concern. No one need give money if they have no trust. And the only people complaining, have an agenda that does not coincide with a desire for truth. They are insincere, we know this given the history of their posts. Their goal is not to find the truth, but to undermine the church, and any argument no matter how insincere or hypocritical is acceptable to them.

Just a couple of points...prior to my exit from Mormonims...I was a full tithe paying, temple recommend holding, active member of the church. I would like to think that some of those funds tht are being used to fund the Mall actually came from me.

Why is it such a big deal for you or any other believer to just accept that tithing funds were used to fund the mall...Why does it matter if tithing funds were used...I'm certainly glad that the church wants to improve the core city by investing 5 billion dollars of their money into the downtown area...certainly no private funds were willing to do so...I say good for them for making SLC an even better place to live (although I do wish it were open on Sundays).

I hate that believers get so defensive at the very suggestion that tithing funds were used...or even that the investment income from tithing funds were used...good greif....chill out

Again, Jeff pretty clearly understood that the funds used from City Creek are not indistinguishable from each other (as you put it, "using tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall").  

So what was Craig doing here?  Misrepresenting the Latter-day Saints.  In my view, it makes little sense to suggest that "believers" got "defensive at the very suggestion that ... investment income from tithing funds were used," since that is an eminently reasonable extrapolation of Pres. Hinckley's remarks:

Quote

We feel we have a compelling responsibility to protect the environment of the Salt Lake Temple. The Church owns most of the ground on which this mall stands. The owners of the buildings have expressed a desire to sell. The property needs very extensive and expensive renovation. We have felt it imperative to do something to revitalize this area. But I wish to give the entire Church the assurance that tithing funds have not and will not be used to acquire this property. Nor will they be used in developing it for commercial purposes.

Funds for this have come and will come from those commercial entities owned by the Church. These resources, together with the earnings of invested reserve funds, will accommodate this program.

Pres. Hinckley differentiated what you seek to conflate ("using tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall").  

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Quote

I am curious if you have ever considered "tithing" to mean both

(A) a member's voluntary donation of money to the Church (typically 1/10th of one's "increase"), and also

(B) interest/revenue that the Church obtains from investing a portion the tithes donated per (A).
...

Analytics claimed that some portion of Latter-day Saints interpreted Pres. Hinckley's remarks in such a way as to justify the notion that "using tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."  IOW, that "tithing" refers to both (A) and (B) above.

No, that is not what I’m saying in other words.

"{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

You cannot assert, for years not. that "tithing {was used} to build a mall" while elsewhere denying that you are conflating (A) and (B) above.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The word “tithing” can be a noun or an adjective. As I have demonstrated, some Latter-day Saints did in fact interpret the phrase “tithing fund” as a fund that was sacred because it contained tithing. Thinking that a “tithing fund” refers to a fund that contains tithing doesn’t tell us whether or not the same fund also includes investment income. 

Malarky.  You persist in misrepresenting Pres. Hinckley's comment. He did not say "a tithing fund."  He said "I wish to give the entire Church the assurance that tithing funds have not and will not be used."  In the phrase "tithing funds," "tithing" is being used as an adjective to modify the noun "funds." The phrase refers to funds which have been tithed.  In contrast, funds obtained from sources other than tithed donations from members of the Church cannot, by any reasonable measure, be characterized as "tithing funds."

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

27 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Why are you so hell-bent on making @Analytics and Huntsman one and the same? They are not. It's a cheap rhetorical device and it should be beneath you.

The former is advancing the latter's argument that seeks to conflate tithing with other sources of church income.

Thanks,

-Smac

[ttribe]

2 minutes ago, smac97 said:

The former is advancing the latter's argument that seeks to conflate tithing with other sources of church income.

Thanks,

-Smac

It's hardly an argument that is owned solely by Huntsman. It's been posited by many, many people and Huntsman has simply turned it into a lawsuit. A lawsuit which I continue to predict will fail. Moreover, the fact that both espouse portions of ONE ARGUMENT does not make them one and the same about all things.

[Analytics]

14 minutes ago, smac97 said:

You and Huntsman want to conflate tithing with other sources of revenue so you can justify the notion that - as you put it - "using tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

Stop telling lies about me.

14 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Tithing is distinguishable from the Church's other sources of income, such as "interest {generated from invested tithing funds}" (as you put it) or "from those commercial entities owned by the Church" and from "the earnings of invested reserve funds" (as Pres. Hinckley put it).  Using these latter funds is not "still using tithing" because they are not tithed funds.  If you concur with this, just say so and we can move on.

The Church currently has about $2.87 billion of Apple Stock. How much of that is tithing funds, and how much of it isn’t tithing funds? If it sells some of its Apple stock buy shares of Simon Property Group (a public company that owns shopping malls), did it using tithing funds to do so? How would you know?

My point is that to me, Hinckley’s comment was always too vague to mean anything. 

In 2012, I said:

In one form or another, the capital to build the mall must have come from the time, energy, talents, and money that members have consecrated to the church over the years, and the church's diligent management and reinvestment of those assets. Those consecrated assets are a class much bigger than "tithing" receipts. So while it's simplistic to claim that "tithing money" provided the capital that grew into the funds that were used for the commercial City Creek project, it seems a little disingenous to claim that there is a clear line between the Chruch's sacred tithing-generated assets and the other billions of non-sacred assets it generates from its commercial endeavors.

That was my position then, and I stick by it now. I think James Huntsman is a fool for paying tithing in the first place, and frankly, I think he was naive and ignorant about finance to interpret Hinckley’s statements the way that he did. And I think it is wrong for him to sue. And I while I still think Hinckley’s comments were “a little disingenuous,” I think they were so obviously disingenuous that they don’t constitute fraud.

And I think many members of this forum interpreted Hinckley’s remarks in the same way that James Huntsman did.

If the Church wants to put tithing money into one account and put every cent of interest on unspent tithing into another account so that it could pristinely determine whether a given expenditure was funded by tithing or by investment income, it could do that. However, I don’t believe its accounts are set up that way.

And I believe that indirectly using X to accomplish Y is still using X to accomplish Y.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

This is the idea/argument you have been advancing.  If you are backing off of it, great.  Otherwise, failing to differentiate between "tithing" and "interest" sure looks like a "tithing is indistinguishable' from any other revenue source" argument.

His argument is, I believe, that an indirect use is the same thing as a direct use…both are a use.

I disagree with him because I see a break between tithing and interest made off of tithing.  Money is used over and over again as it passes through people’s hands, either in actual currency or marks in a ledger or however you want to call the paperwork that transfers ownership and purpose.  How far down the line of “use” of money does “indirectly” finally fade away?  If someone uses my gift to my grandson that got stolen after he used the money to buy clothes for his mission to buy illicit drugs, have I indirectly bought illicit drugs?  Not in my view.  As soon as someone uses the money with a different intent, that breaks the line of “use”, imo.

I know this argument won’t work for everyone because of how they define tithing or believe the Church is defining tithing and all uses after it, but I am just saying that it isn’t always true that ‘an indirect use of money is the same thing as a direct use’…or rather than what gets defined as an indirect use simply because it came after a direct use may not be an indirect use at all.  It could be in a new line of use…that may last for one action or several, depending on the intent of the person passing the use of the money to the next in line.

 

Edited May 8, 2024 by Calm

[Rain]

5 hours ago, Danzo said:

Most non profits and government entities use a funds based accounting system, rather than a profit/loss based accounting system.  This can be very confusing to those who don't have a background in funds based accounting.

I currently serve on a local city council.   Our particular city uses two bank accounts, a checking account, and an investment account.  To an outside person, it would seem that the city is just sitting on a pile of money in two bank accounts and that all of the money can be used for anything. Despite  the  fact that there are only two bank accounts, there are numerous "Funds".  These funds (park fund, general fund, library fund, street maintenance fund,  sewer fund, cemetery fund,  capital improvement fund, and a few others I cannot remember at the moment.   Each of these funds has an income source and expenditures are restricted on what they can be used for.  There is even borrowing from one fund to another fund where notes have to be drafted and interest paid.  Segregation of these funds is a serious matter, even though there are only two actual bank accounts.   People  have been fined for using the wrong fund for the wrong purpose, even though all the money may be in one bank account. 

 

Fund segregation is a real thing. and when the church said that tithing funds weren't used for a particular project, they were using the word "fund" in a funds based accounting sense.  

Segregating investment income from contributions is a normal thing in the non profit accounting world.  For example in the form 990, the form that charities use to report their activities to the IRS, on page one (the summary page) you have line 8, contributions or grants (which is where tithing and similar contributions would be reported), and then you have line 10, investment income.  These are two separate lines because they are considered two separate things.

 

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

Agreed.  A lot of members probably assume that talking about tithing funds is just another way to say tithing money, since funds and money can be interchangeable. People say stuff like "I don't have the funds for that..." all the time. 

The idea of a fund as an accounting tool that is used to organize money into different "folders" all stored in the same "filing cabinet" is not where most people's minds go when the word is used. 

Mine certainly doesn't.

The funds thing makes perfect sense to me. If I understand right You Need a Budget software also works this way. When I heard about it I thought it was such a great way to budget (I do so using several different savings, checking, HSA, credit card etc accounts, over 20 funds) and mostly 1 income stream (my husband's salary plus a little I make and interest). It's a piece of cake to see where money comes and goes from - for example my interest goes automatically to my "savings" fund, but my credit card offer credits go to my travel fund. 

I often wonder why people don't get it though.  It's basically a digital envelope system. 

[Analytics]

18 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think because he, like you, was determined to mischaracterize and misrepresent.

If you look up “psychological projection” in the encyclopedia, it should have a photo of you.

18 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Craig, like you, had elsewhere attempted to characterize tithing as being conflated with or indistinguishable from other sources of church income...

Full stop.

In the post you just linked to, Craig said, "Member Pays Tithing-->Tithing in Excess of Current Needs is Invested-->Investments Earn Return-->$$$ From This Return on Investments is Reinvested in the City Creek Mall"

Isn’t that exactly what happened? Craig is clearly saying that tithing money was NOT used to fund the mall. Rather, he is saying that a Return on Investment was reinvest into the mall.

Craig is saying exactly what did in fact happen, right?

I agree with you that Jeff K. was upset about this comment. However, Craig was right. Jeff K. is wrong. Craig claimed that investment returns on unspent tithing [not tithing] was used to build the mall. That made Jeff K. angry because Jeff thought using tithing to generate investment income to build a mall constitute using tithing to build a mall, which is what Hinckley promised the Church didn’t do.

[Rain]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

His argument is, I believe, that an indirect use is the same thing as a direct use…both are a use.

I disagree with him because I see a break between tithing and interest made off of tithing.

That's the thing. When I get interest in bank accounts it always goes into my "savings" fund.  Someone else might assign it "investments", or "restaurant" or "to be assigned". The church can assign tithing to "tithing" and then interest to "tithing" or "investments" or the "needy". 

So the real question is does the church consider the interest to be tithing or other? If tithing then saying no tithing was used when the interest was used would be wrong.  If the church thinks of the interest as "other" then using the interest wouldn't be using tithing. 

I'm not aware of the church clearly stating what fund they put the interest in. I would assume it is not tithing from what they said.  So given what they said they were either dishonest or people don't understand what "other" the interest is assigned to. (This would be a good place to advocate for the church to be open so people understand better).

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

 Money is used over and over again as it passes through people’s hands, either in actual currency or marks in a ledger or however you want to call the paperwork that transfers ownership and purpose.  How far down the line of “use” of money does “indirectly” finally fade away?  If someone uses my gift to my grandson that got stolen after he used the money to buy clothes for his mission to buy illicit drugs, have I indirectly bought illicit drugs?  Not in my view.  As soon as someone uses the money with a different intent, that breaks the line of “use”, imo.

I know this argument won’t work for everyone because of how they define tithing or believe the Church is defining tithing and all uses after it, but I am just saying that it isn’t always true that ‘an indirect use of money is the same thing as a direct use’…or rather than what gets defined as an indirect use simply because it came after another direct use is not an indirect use at all.  It is in a new line of use…that may last for one action or several, depending on the intent of the person passing the use of the money to the next in line.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2024 by Rain

[Analytics]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

His argument is, I believe, that an indirect use is the same thing as a direct use…both are a use.

I disagree with him because I see a break between tithing and interest made off of tithing....

Yes, but keep clear that this isn’t my argument. This was the topic of that conversation that was an assumption built into the OP.

This was the topic of the conversation:

[The critics] conclude that It must have started with tithing money donated by early church members. So in an indirect way the City Creek mall was made possible by sacred tithing money donated by members 150 years ago; money that is supposed to be dedicated to building God's church and helping the poor; not for building shopping malls. How does one respond to this?

JAHS thought the critics had a pretty good point here and wanted to know how to respond. 

The way Smac97 interprets Hinckley’s remarks holds together in an abstract logical stance, but it doesn’t make any sense theologically. It’s okay to invest tithing in Apple and Microsoft, but it isn’t okay to invest it in City Creek? Why would that be?

[smac97]

23 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Full stop.

In the post you just linked to, Craig said, "Member Pays Tithing-->Tithing in Excess of Current Needs is Invested-->Investments Earn Return-->$$$ From This Return on Investments is Reinvested in the City Creek Mall"

Isn’t that exactly what happened? Craig is clearly saying that tithing money was NOT used to fund the mall. Rather, he is saying that a Return on Investment was reinvest into the mall.

You: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

Craig elsewhere: "It is disingenuous for the church to claim that no tithing funds were used to fund the City Creek Mall."

Tithing funds were not used to fund City Creek.  The only way to argue otherwise is for you, Craig, Huntsman, etc. to conflate "tithing" with other sources of income.  It does not work.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

40 minutes ago, ttribe said:

It's hardly an argument that is owned solely by Huntsman. It's been posited by many, many people and Huntsman has simply turned it into a lawsuit. A lawsuit which I continue to predict will fail. Moreover, the fact that both espouse portions of ONE ARGUMENT does not make them one and the same about all things.

Is using tithing money to generate investment income to build a mall using tithing money to build a mall?

Personally, I don’t care.

My point is that in 2012 and 2015, Latter-day Saints did care, and in general, they agreed with the statement. When somebody said said that “critics” were suggesting that “in an indirect way the city Creek mall was made possible be sacred tithing,” they did not say, “Yep; the critics are right on this one. Tithing wasn’t used directly; tithing was used to fund a rainy day fund that invested in stocks and bonds, and investment income from that rainy day fund was used for the mall."

They did not say that. Rather, they said things like what Pahoran said:

From the very earliest period of settlement, the Church was investing in business ventures. They were primarily driven by "community good" considerations, but of course they had to make a profit in order to be viable. If a "genealogy" of Church-owned businesses were to be researched, I am confident that the City Creek Mall's pedigree would trace back, not to the tithing paid in St George after President Snow's famous "Windows of Heaven" talk, but to the original Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution.

If I would have politely explained the truth--that a significant portion of City Creek Mall’s pedigree traces back to tithing paid in the 80’s-2000’s, he would have personally attacked me in a vile way because in his mind, tracing the mall back to tithing was tantamount to calling Hinckley a liar.

[ZealouslyStriving]

Using excess tithing to create extra funds....

Genius.

The end.

Let's move on.

[Analytics]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

You: "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

Craig elsewhere: "It is disingenuous for the church to claim that no tithing funds were used to fund the City Creek Mall."

Tithing funds were not used to fund City Creek.  The only way to argue otherwise is for you, Craig, Huntsman, etc. to conflate "tithing" with other sources of income.  It does not work.

Thanks,

-Smac

Craig said that the mall was funded by investment income on tithing that was saved in a rainy day fund. He explained that in detail. Was he wrong about that?

[smac97]

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My point is that to me, Hinckley’s comment was always too vague to mean anything. 

And yet here you are, spending years carrying water for Huntsman, advancing the same arguments he is attempting.  Odd.

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

In 2012, I said:

In one form or another, the capital to build the mall must have come from the time, energy, talents, and money that members have consecrated to the church over the years, and the church's diligent management and reinvestment of those assets. Those consecrated assets are a class much bigger than "tithing" receipts. So while it's simplistic to claim that "tithing money" provided the capital that grew into the funds that were used for the commercial City Creek project, it seems a little disingenous to claim that there is a clear line between the Chruch's sacred tithing-generated assets and the other billions of non-sacred assets it generates from its commercial endeavors.

That was my position then, and I stick by it now. I think James Huntsman is a fool for paying tithing in the first place, and frankly, I think he was naive and ignorant about finance to interpret Hinckley’s statements the way that he did.

For my part, i don't believe he interpret Pres. Hinckley in the way he is now claiming.  He is attempting to salvage his lawsuit by retroactively re-defining "tithing" so as to include sources of income other than tithing.  More particularly, he is arguing that "tithing" includes income generated from invested tithes, such that - as you have put it - "{U}sing tithing to generate interest to build a mall was still using tithing to build a mall."

It's a specious argument, and you have been advancing it for years.

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

And I think many members of this forum interpreted Hinckley’s remarks in the same way that James Huntsman did.

I disagree.

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If the Church wants to put tithing money into one account and put every cent of interest on unspent tithing into another account so that it could pristinely determine whether a given expenditure was funded by tithing or by investment income, it could do that. However, I don’t believe its accounts are set up that way.

And I believe that indirectly using X to accomplish Y is still using X to accomplish Y.

You can only say this by conflating tithing income with other sources of income.  It doesn't work.

Thanks,

-Smac