Jersey Girl wrote:Shades,
Excuse me for butting in here again, but yet another ignorant thought came to me. Given the information that ex-mo's have access to, would it have been a good idea to remain in the church on some level to bring this type of information (church wealth vs expenditures on Missionaries) to the Ward members at grassroots level?
Dumb @ssedly yours,
Jersey Girl
Good question. Do you mind if I butt in with an answer?
The church makes sure there is absolutely no mechanism to make this possible.
1. only ward leadership (bishop, counselors, and financial clerk) has access to ward budgetary information. No ordinary member has access to financial information.
2. No one has access to church-wide financial information, so the information available is always tainted as "unofficial". The semi-annual financial report is spectacularly uninformative.
3. there is no time or place when this information could be disseminated to an entire ward... ever. Absolutely not. No time. No. Every meeting is scheduled out in 5 minute intervals, and there is no time for this sort of information. If a member actually brings this up in a meeting, such as F&T meeting, there would be an instant shut down of the microphone and an escort to the bishop's office.
4. Ward members as a general rule don't want to know. They're content to let SLC run things, as long as they feel like they're getting a good bargain for their tithing dollar.
Very very very few members are anywhere near as concerned as some of us here are, about the lack of transparency of the church's finances.