My Anecdotal Experience with the $100B Revelation

[_Gadianton]

Without a shred of sympathy, the Proprietor of a certain blog out there on the Internet has put up a post defending the idea that paying tithing gets you out of poverty: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... qus_thread

Easy for him to do, just saddle any random poor person with this lie because heck, it doesn't affect him, and most importantly, he thinks it will annoy his critics. It's worth potentially screwing someones life over just to bother people he doesn't like online. He relays one of the many Mormon urban legends that somebody paid their tithing and they couldn't make sense of their accounting records and were coming out ahead when they shouldn't have.

Anyway, while ole RTM Nelson may have said this, it isn't really church doctrine to preach it otherwise. Unless something has changed, when I was on a mission, it was forbidden to tell investigators that they would be blessed financially for paying tithing.

It's really unnecessary to lie about all this stuff, as the apologists are doing, and even unnecessary for RTM himself, since he already came up with the idea that one must have the faith not to be healed. Why would it be any different for tithing? why shouldn't you have the faith not to do better financially if you pay your tithing?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I do find it psychologically fascinating that Mr. Peterson is up to 21 editions of his, I don't know what to call it really, tithing apologia on his blog?

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... qus_thread

He curiously links to this article by someone named LaVarr Webb:

https://utahpolicy.com/index.php/featur ... 4IygwmFXwk

Who mentions, presumably, this opinion piece as being "irresponsible falsehoods are spread around":

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/12 ... s-new-era/

tl;dr - The Church doesn't like whistleblowers, but it's necessary because the Church can't be trusted to do the right thing until they're embarrassed publicly.

So, back to Mr. Webb's piece where he writes regarding spending money on someone who needed a medical procedure:

... uh oh, a church official is calling about the 8,000 bucks I spent on one person. And I was right, although the conversation was quite different than I expected.

The church representative identified himself as someone from the welfare services department. He said the expenditure, as it was a large amount, had been flagged. Then he thanked me for helping the person in need. I briefly described the situation, and he completely surprised me by saying something like, “I want you to know that if additional medical work is needed, and if the cost exceeds what local leaders can authorize, please call me and I’ll help you get what is needed.”

So, back to Mr. Peterson's piece where he writes:

I served for several years as the bishop of a ward that met near the south Orem campus of Utah Valley University. It was a young single adult ward...

Most people in the ward were as healthy as a group of under-35s might be expected to be. But the ward was quite poor, and there were a surprisingly high number of mental health issues. Surprisingly high to me, anyway.

On my very first day, before I even knew how to do such things, I was approached by a ward member who needed substantial monetary help. I raced around the building, finally finding a fellow bishop who could walk me through the steps.

And it never stopped thereafter...

I actually worried about the amounts of financial assistance that I was handing out. I knew that they far exceeded the figures brought in by my own ward’s fast offerings and other donations...

I continue to be grateful that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the wherewithal to help. That hasn’t happened without careful and deliberate planning.

tl;dr - The Church is spending A LOT of money they don't report as humanitarian aid.

So, it seems to me that the new angle is the Church is spending a lot of money on people, much more than we'll ever know, and we have two testimonies stating that's that. I have a feeling that the subtext to those two testimonies is that if the Church were to open up the floodgates, so to speak, they'd be broke shortly thereafter.

- Doc

[_Dr Exiled]

Dr. Peterson's series is just a bunch of filler and misdirection from the real issues of should EPA be taxed and why the church is hoarding when it is supposed to be doing those things claimed to have been done in part 21. At least we aren't talking about modest houses from the past or what cars they drove 30 years ago. Nevertheless, I thought the stories about helping students was what a church should be doing and $100 Billion would go a long way to cure the mental health issues the church probably caused these poor youth in the first place. I know I would have suffered had I gone to BYU instead of the U of U. So why isn't the church using the money it saved on helping humanity instead of on building the holy hedge fund?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

It’s been interesting to see him publicly fumble around with the issue. He’s had some serious gaffes, such as those you pointed out, and if he were smart he’d stick to this new tactic of the BILLIONS the Church is spending that we don’t know about, but that former and current faithful types can totes attest are 100% fer shur being spent because you can 100% believe them because they’d 100% never lie to us about something like that because they’re 100% credible professors or authors or businessmen or whatever.

21 blog posts. Smh.

- Doc

[_Dr Exiled]

It’s been interesting to see him publicly fumble around with the issue. He’s had some serious gaffes, such as those you pointed out, and if he were smart he’d stick to this new tactic of the BILLIONS the Church is spending that we don’t know about, but that former and current faithful types can totes attest are 100% for shur being spent because you can 100% believe them because they’d 100% never lie to us about something like that because they’re 100% credible professors or authors or businessmen or whatever.

21 blog posts. Smh.

- Doc

Yeah, he should definitely dwell on hyping these stories without revealing dollar figures involved. When I was last going to church, the ward counsel was discussing what to do with the $100.00 fund the young women had for the whole year. So, I suspect the money these "generous" bishops were passing out was very conservative and their surprise was that the SP wasn't forcing them to be even more conservative.

Perhaps some of the former leaders who comment here could offer their anecdotes of the money involved helping members? The experiences of people I know who requested assistance from the church was what one would expect if one requested assistance from the most conservative republicans. I did some legal work for a low income member once and after I agreed to reduce my fee, the bishop agreed to pay. Now, what the church does should be lauded, but we ought to know how that compares to the $100 Billion fund it is hoarding, tax free.

[_fetchface]

I was never a bishop, but as Elder's Quorum President my experience with church welfare was that my bishop was extremely miserly in dispensing fast offering funds. I spent countless hours trying to help people fix cars before he would just pay to have a real mechanic look them over. I really resent how much time I was asked to devote to various ward members' car trouble (I'm not a mechanic, so I'm not very effective as one) during a time in my life when I had four toddlers at home. I really feel used having spent that much precious time, just so the church could save a few bucks.

[_Dr Exiled]

I was never a bishop, but as Elder's Quorum President my experience with church welfare was that my bishop was extremely miserly in dispensing fast offering funds. I spent countless hours trying to help people fix cars before he would just pay to have a real mechanic look them over. I really resent how much time I was asked to devote to various ward members' car trouble (I'm not a mechanic, so I'm not very effective as one) during a time in my life when I had four toddlers at home. I really feel used having spent that much precious time, just so the church could save a few bucks.

The church that won't pay for janitors more than likely isn't too liberal with welfare expenditures for the members, no matter if some SP somewhere isn't holding a Bishop back from giving $200 for a power bill. It supposedly has $1 Billion per year excess, according to the whistle blower, and gives $40 Million per year in charity, and it counts volunteer hours as part of the $40 Million. So, the actual cash outlay is less than.

I know some over at Sic et Non don't like the word "miser" when it comes to the church financial practices, but it fits so well.

[_Gadianton]

The church representative identified himself as someone from the welfare services department. He said the expenditure, as it was a large amount, had been flagged. Then he thanked me for helping the person in need. I briefly described the situation, and he completely surprised me by saying something like

Which only proves the case the critics are making. It even shows he's not posting in good faith, and even he believes the Church is notoriously tight and cheap, and doesn't give a damn about the poor, but at the end of the day is slightly better about it than he originally thought.

[_I have a question]

From my Church upbringing, my understanding is that you can buy anything in this world with money. Even the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints. Satan has gotten them so focussed on the accumulation of wealth that Church Leaders prioritise hoarding over any and all Christlike imperatives - this is now an undeniable fact. How can a Church that claims to be led by the Jesus Christ of the New Testament have $100 billion sitting in a bank when people around the world are starving and dying of diseases preventable by having access to clean water? If God and Satan are real people, then the evidence overwhelmingly points to Satan being the one in charge of the Church, not God.