They have so much money from their for-profit holdings -- they even own a big chunk of property in Hawaii, which must be worth its own fortune at this point -- that they don't really need low-level members paying them tithe for the leaders to be rich and powerful. They can keep pushing members out with their backwards ideas and excommunicating anyone who even whispers at doubt and they'd still come out ahead. They have no reason to modernize their thinking or become more open-minded when being close-minded and greedy has given them everything they want already.

Will the Church keep shrinking until it's just a sham religion for a core group of wealthy families to hide their money in? I wonder...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 02:27AM by abcdomg.

I think that is exactly where the church is headed, either by design or circumstances. There likely will always be those who claim it is all true, but that probably won't include the owners. As long as the gravy train chugs down the line, they won't admit it, though.

Harder to pretend to be a church if you have no members, so yes, they need some number of people.

shortbobgirl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Harder to pretend to be a church if you have no
> members, so yes, they need some number of people.

But it just occurred to me that you don't NEED to be a "church" to accomplish the same financial ends...

...all you have to do is create a legally-approved charitable entity (corporation...foundation...institute...whatever...) which can receive funds, invest funds, and distribute funds to legally-approved beneficiaries: corporate owners and officers...employees (could be family and friends of corporate owners and officers)...OTHER legally-approved charitable entities (consisting of family members, friends, former co-religionists...etc., etc., etc.).

Create intersecting "rings" of legally-approved charitable entities, and you keep all of the assets, and all of the earnings, within a tightly-restricted group of people (which could, potentially, number in the hundreds or thousands, depending).

???Que no???

There is something wrong with a church holding so many for-profit businesses that are not in any way church related. I can see a day coming when people start to question that.

Their tithing receipts are still in at least a billion I believe.

Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people being required to give up a full tenth of their yearly incomes still is a lot of money.

Sources, various. Check it out.

All they really need is money. Having said that, it was once estimated that they were taking in 7 billion every year. That's billion with a "B".

I suspect their tithing revenue has been shrinking yearly which is why the brethren tend to freak out every time they address the members. Sure they have billions socked away in real estate and business enterprises, but without the billions in tithing they will have a difficult time keeping up appearances. They will continue to call themselves a church as long as it ensures their tax-free status, but if they ever get to a point where they lose that status, or the religious component eats into their profits, they will pack it in and focus on their more lucrative activities, such as cattle ranching, insurance, real estate, broadcasting, publishing etc, etc...

So, yes, they need members who can pay.

No pay, no play.

they will always need members to maintain their tax exemptions and to launder their ill gotten gains.

+1

When I was a missionary 25+ years ago in the Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa area, we spent a lot of time knocking on doors out in rural farming communities. More often than not, when we introduced ourselves, the response was, "You are the church that owns all of this land!" Apparently TSCC owns huge areas of farmland in the midwest and leases back to the families they bought it from for ridiculously low prices. At the time it sort of made sense, getting ready for the mass migration to Independence and all. Now it just seems weird.

They bought a successful pig farm from some old friends of my parents here in the midwest. The local agricultural unit in this area calls itself "Farm Services" without any clue that it is owned by TSCC or any church for that matter. It's obviously a for profit enterprise and has no desire to be recognized as part of tscc.

I think LDS, Inc. could very easily separate itself from the religious side and go it's merry way. It could let the church side just wither and die but keep the profits and holdings for the Board of Directors.

If anything is going to kill the religion it will be the huge expense they go through to keep up the appearance of everything growing and expanding when, in reality, the religion is drying up. Building temples and spending on PR is such a waste of money. The businesses are fine but the religion is trending ever downward. I hazard a guess that there is an ongoing discussion at LDS headquarters about just how and when to cut away and let the church struggle and die. They could sell off temples, land, and meeting houses as numbers fall or they could just announce all at once that members will now meet in their homes and all real estate will get gobbled up by the for profit side. They could set each ward free and let them run everything individually. Or another solution could be to just proclaim a revelation that the end days are here and everyone needs to run to Missouri, buy a house, and wait for Christ while the GA's sit on the COB roof waiting for their visit from Jebus.

Do the GAs need members?

Yes, the adulation & praise they get is a (psychological) need.

A lot of the things that generate income for them are programs that are ostensibly for the members, like publishing books, magazines, and media broadcasting. I'm sure if I thought about it more there would be other things. Of course, tithing probably generates more income than anything else.

Losing their tax-exempt status would mean they would have to probably quadruple, if not quintuple the tuition for the BYU colleges, and they would probably run at a deficit for decades. It would also mean that whatever businesses and associated property they own under the corporation of the church of Jesus Christ (the SLC downtown buildings, Provo, etc.) would start being taxed. I don't really know how that would work.

It would also mean they would have 150+ useless temples, and thousands of useless buildings. Even if they sold all of them at at a huge deficit, it wouldn't begin to cover the cost of their construction, upkeep, and maintenance (oh wait- that's done by the members.)

I would imagine, that if the church dwindled so badly in numbers that it risked its exempt status, that it would start becoming unprofitable very quickly. It'll be interesting to read that D. Michael Quinn book that's coming out about the wealth and corporate power, I imagine it's going to speculatively answer a lot of questions about the churches finances.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2016 02:04AM by midwestanon.

Their commercial property and businesses are already taxed, both property tax and income tax. I'm not sure if the welfare farms are considered to be church program property or commercial property. I'm guessing they are completely or mostly tax free. The big ranches, farms, City Creek, etc, are definitely taxed.

Universities by and large are non-profits and tax exempt, whether run by a church or not.

Besides, this is a hypothetical. There is zero chance LDS Inc will shrink enough to lose its tax exemption for a very long time,

I have visited Adam-Ondi-Ahman several times and noticed that a rather large building had been torn down. I asked the current director there at the time what had become of the building. He said that it was a left-over building from before the land had been purchased by the church and was costing quite a bit in taxes so they tore it down. I know that most of the land at Adam-Ondi-Ahmen is farm land leased out to farmers for profit so in order for that particular spot to be tax free and fall under the church's non-profit status there could not be any farm/business related buildings on it.

Wouldn't it be weird to one day see old meeting houses and temples torn down if the church lost it's tax exempt status? If the property wouldn't sell they would probably be forced to do so as a cost cutting measure.

Those bathrooms aren't going to clean themselves!

My bad. I thought the buildings directly associated with running the church got some kind of tax break; I guess I thought buildings associated with nonprofits didn't have to pay property taxes, or payed a reduced one or something.

Will the Church keep shrinking until it's just a sham religion for a core group of wealthy families to hide their money in? I wonder...


Yes, I think this will happen. There will be a small fanatical membership so they can still claim Church benefits, but in fact it will just be a wealthy and exclusive corporation for the elect.

I think the membership becomes more dispensable every year.

Thus excommunications at the drop of a hat, lack of concern
about being out of touch, and no real plan to explain all the
doctrinal issues and confusion.

They get all the " christian cred" they want by growing and manipulating the numbers in low cost Africa and to a lesser extent now, Latin America and throwing a few bucks at the occasional disaster.

I wonder how long it will all last though? Neither of the major candidates are particularly religious or indebted to the religious lobbies that curry favor with the federal government.If the economy gets a lot worse quickly, a lot of the religious exemptions could end up being phased out. We shall see.