I suppose now you want me to come over now and give you a bubble bath and a massage?
I really would suggest that you not make another remark to me like that on this board. Consider this a warning shot.
Jersey Girl
Yeah....massages and bubble baths are my job ;-)
"Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded."-charity 3/7/07
Seven wrote:Has anybody answered why the books were once open and then became secret???????
No, no one has answered that direct question but it seems to me based on some of harmony's comments that there was some sort of mishandling of funds going on and then the books were closed. I'd like to make sure that's an accurate statement.
If it is an accurate statement, I'd like to know how closing the book would be a preventive measure against future mishandling of funds.
Jersey Girl
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
No, no one has answered that direct question but it seems to me based on some of harmony's comments that there was some sort of mishandling of funds going on and then the books were closed. I'd like to make sure that's an accurate statement.
If it is an accurate statement, I'd like to know how closing the book would be a preventive measure against future mishandling of funds.
I suppose it would do no good whatever to point out that the mishandling of Church funds (I've yet to see a source for this claim, I should point out) is not,uhh.....official Church doctrine.
Jersey Girl wrote:No, no one has answered that direct question but it seems to me based on some of harmony's comments that there was some sort of mishandling of funds going on and then the books were closed. I'd like to make sure that's an accurate statement.
If it is an accurate statement, I'd like to know how closing the book would be a preventive measure against future mishandling of funds.
Jersey Girl
The following is an excerpt from Michael Quinn's book, "The Mormon Hierarchy". Hopefully, this may shed some light as to why the Church discontinued financial disclosure.
The combination of bad financial investments, declines in church businesses, and the Great Depression once again pushed the LDS church into deficit spending. First counselor J. Reuben Clark announced to general conferences that the church had spending deficits amounting to $100,000 in 1937 to nearly $900,000 in 1938. In Clark's view, voluntary disclosure of regrettable deficits was a way to encourage greater austerity on the part of the leaders at headquarters and elsewhere. During the 1940s Clark allowed the church to spend only 27 percent of its annual tithing revenues. The rest went into bank savings accounts as a "reserve fund."127
Twenty years later the First Presidency's deficit spending caused the end of detailed financial reports regularly given to April general conferences since 1915. In the period of a few months in mid-1956, the church suffered a loss of $1 million of tithing funds invested in municipal government bonds, yet later that year the First Presidency committed two-thirds of church income to continued investment in municipal bonds.128 The next annual financial report gave fewer details about expenditures of church funds, and the church published its last financial report in April 1959.129
By the end of 1959, the church spent $8 million more than its income that year. This was extraordinary in view of the fact that the church had surplus income of $7 million after 1958's expenditures.130 To conceal the massive increase of building expenditures in the last half of 1959 which created that deficit, the church stopped releasing even abbreviated financial reports. At the close of 1961, Apostle Harold B. Lee expressed "my stubborn resistance to the principle of `deficit spending,' supposedly justified in the hope of increasing the tithing of the Church to cover the deficit."131 To no avail.
Jersey Girl wrote:I really would suggest that you not make another remark to me like that on this board. Consider this a warning shot.
Jersey Girl
I apologize, I can only plead that I was half-delirious due to not sleeping for over 24 hours. Sorry.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Jersey Girl wrote:If I am not mistaken, this is "Mormon Discussions" not "Mormon Invitations". Thanks for the apology. You are forgiven.
Go in peace my son.
Jersey Girl :-)
Can I plead dyslexia on the title of the board too then? :)
No, it's not true, but it sounds good.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Yong Xi wrote:The following is an excerpt from Michael Quinn's book, "The Mormon Hierarchy". Hopefully, this may shed some light as to why the Church discontinued financial disclosure.
The combination of bad financial investments, declines in church businesses, and the Great Depression once again pushed the LDS church into deficit spending. First counselor J. Reuben Clark announced to general conferences that the church had spending deficits amounting to $100,000 in 1937 to nearly $900,000 in 1938. In Clark's view, voluntary disclosure of regrettable deficits was a way to encourage greater austerity on the part of the leaders at headquarters and elsewhere. During the 1940s Clark allowed the church to spend only 27 percent of its annual tithing revenues. The rest went into bank savings accounts as a "reserve fund."127
Twenty years later the First Presidency's deficit spending caused the end of detailed financial reports regularly given to April general conferences since 1915. In the period of a few months in mid-1956, the church suffered a loss of $1 million of tithing funds invested in municipal government bonds, yet later that year the First Presidency committed two-thirds of church income to continued investment in municipal bonds.128 The next annual financial report gave fewer details about expenditures of church funds, and the church published its last financial report in April 1959.129
By the end of 1959, the church spent $8 million more than its income that year. This was extraordinary in view of the fact that the church had surplus income of $7 million after 1958's expenditures.130 To conceal the massive increase of building expenditures in the last half of 1959 which created that deficit, the church stopped releasing even abbreviated financial reports. At the close of 1961, Apostle Harold B. Lee expressed "my stubborn resistance to the principle of `deficit spending,' supposedly justified in the hope of increasing the tithing of the Church to cover the deficit."131 To no avail.
Bingo! Coggins suspicions notwithstanding, I was right about why the books were closed.