Live data from Hacker News

The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

wsj.com

241–250 of 537 posts

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mormon church tried for years to pretend that their leaders don't make money from the church. That too was confirmed as a lie not too long ago.

They don't get wealthy from it. Those who work for the church full time (with the exception of missionaries) receive a stipend to cover their living expenses and not much else.

> They don't get wealthy from it.

We have no way of knowing that, because the church keeps their finances shrouded from public view. Not even members that have paid 10% for their entire lives have a view into how the money is spent.

What we do have is a few leaked pay stubs showing actual amounts, and leaked memos acknowledging the existence of, but not quantifying, other forms of compensation. We also have some tangible evidence of the large net worth of various leaders of the church. The typical excuse is that they made lots of money before they were general authorities...but we also have proof of large (8-figure) net worths of people like Thomas Monson, who was a church employee (notorious for lower than market pay) for his entire career.

So what we really have is some leaked proof of a decently sized lower bound on compensation and knowledge that it goes higher than that, with the possibility that it could go much higher. How much higher, we don't know. And we won't until the church decides to actually share their finances.

I know that unapproved critical thinking is looked down on in the mormon church, but if I were a believing member, I would probably be asking why they won't do just that. If they really are responsible and meagerly paid stewards of god's money, they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by being transparent about it. Occam's razor tells me that they're a bunch of liars and secrecy suits them far better than transparency does.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s lots of wisdom in old texts. Plato is 2000+ years old. Heroditus. Confucius. Rumi is almost a 1000. Beckham is a football player and isn’t known for writing down (or saying) wisdom. But I can definitely imagine people reading Marx and Darwin and Hayek 2000 years from now. Biographies and published text.

There's things just as thoughtful that were written in the past 10 years. The things you cited are famous for being famous, like some celebrity of the ages. Just like the Mona Lisa was famous for getting stolen and returned, then this was forgotten about but it remained famous, but now just because it was famous previously.

And how much Plato and Herodotus have you read? Nearly all of Western intellectual history pretty strongly disagrees with your argument.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#244
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a close friend who experienced this. Just because the church has no official policy doesn't mean it doesn't happen. People showing up at your door for years when you've repeatedly asked for it to stop happening, including new addresses you move to after asking not to be contacted again (I've witnessed this personally, and it is deeply distressing and invasive), is harassment no matter what the intention behind…

This sounds like a situation where no one can win 100% of the time. Some people who are left alone after leaving the church complain that they're "alienated" by their neighbors, while those whose neighbors try to keep them involved are victims of "invasive harassment". And those who are content don't mention it, so no one hears about them. Any time I've heard of someone wishing not to be contacted, I've seen members…

> Of course that doesn't stop everyone (because not everyone may be aware of that desire).

This is only true to the extent that the church is extremely efficient at tracking down ex-members and sharing this information with local congregations and extremely inefficient at remembering that people have requested multiple times with multiple authorities never to be contacted again.

People are visited by members of the church, acting as members of the church, introducing themselves as representatives of the church, visiting an address given to them by the church, and asking for a person they've never met by name, at an address the person has recently moved to after leaving the church. Again, I've witnessed this firsthand, in front of my own eyes.

Think of the effort it takes to pull that off. It's not an innocent oopsie.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#245
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always surprises me that wealthy churches pretend to take Christ seriously, when Jesus was not very fond of amassing money. I get why the churches do it (of course they don't believe in Christ), but why do the exploited masses believe them?

A lot of what the Mormon Church teaches is not based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Mormonism and Christianity are two separate things much like Christianity and Judaism are separate.

For example, Christians and LDS have different answers for these 3 fundamental questions:

Who is God?

LDS: God was once a man, who became a god There is more than one god, but only one god that we have to do with.

Christianity: There is only one God, who is the creator of all other things.

What happens when you die?

LDS: If you are truly evil, you will go to the bad place. If you are generally ok, you will go to the ok place. If you follow LDS teachings your whole life and perform the required temple rituals, you will eventually become a god.

Christianity: Heaven (eternity with God) or Hell (eternity without God)

What must you do to be saved?

LDS: You must perform many good works, including temple rituals.

Christianity: There is no good work you can perform that will save you. You have to trust Jesus and put your faith in Him. Good works are possible evidence that you have done this.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mormon church tried for years to pretend that their leaders don't make money from the church. That too was confirmed as a lie not too long ago.

Find me the executive team of a multimillion person company with hundreds of billions of assets making the living stipend of the (relatively few) ecclesiastical leaders of the Church and your argument will have more weight. IIRC, the living stipend for members of the Twelve was around $100k? Or less than the salary of an intern at Google...

Do you forget that $100k is a lot of money in most places?

> Or less than the salary of an intern at Google...

It'd be remarkable if their stipend was less than the salary of an intern at nearly any other company. Google is a huge exception

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#248

Can you imagine the criticism if the investment arm was losing money? The Church does amazing work providing resources during crises. I’ve personally cut trees off of people’s houses with chainsaws provided by the Church and given buckets of sanitation supplies when hurricanes swept through Florida. There is always a tension in “what do you spend now and what do you invest for later” but I honesty feel like the Churc…

I think the criticism comes from them amassing so much wealth when there is still so much suffering.

There are people who will criticise churches regardless, but there seem to be a lot of reasonable people who look at the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church and determine their wealth is inconsistent with their teachings.

Mormons could probably further their message by selling their golden ornaments and using it to shelter the homeless, for instance.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find me the executive team of a multimillion person company with hundreds of billions of assets making the living stipend of the (relatively few) ecclesiastical leaders of the Church and your argument will have more weight. IIRC, the living stipend for members of the Twelve was around $100k? Or less than the salary of an intern at Google...

What you need to understand is that Thomas Monson, who was an employee of the church (notorious for their extremely low pay) for his entire career, had an estimated net worth of $14m. That is excluding the church owned property that he gets to use free of charge, including private jets, cars, and homes. This is excluding free income sources such as free university for all family and extended family members. Outside o…

I’ve never found that number substantiated anywhere.

But we agree that the Church is tight with its money. I just argue that’s a good thing...

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#250
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God." -Jesus Matthew 19:24

It’s “the eye of the needle”. It was a very narrow gate into Jerusalem, which camels had difficulty traversing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle#Gate

> The "Eye of the Needle" has been claimed to be a gate in Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night. A camel could only pass through this smaller gate if it was stooped and had its baggage removed. This story has been put forth since at least the 15th century, and possibly as far back as the 9th century. However, there is no widely accepted evidence for the existence of such a gate.[7][8]

Post reply on HN