Is it the PR department? So the world knows they are just normal Christians.... or is it the financial department? To keep the money rolling in with tithing and investments... or is it CES? To keep the next generation indoctrinated...

They feed the one that needs feeding at the moment, i.e. the one falling down on the job. Need more money? Focus on paying your FULL tithe. YW/YM falling away? Correlation/indoctrinate earlier! They want a well-oiled corporation. Perhaps it was years ago, but now it's hemorrhaging everywhere.

US AND WE ARE GONE

Whatever happened to the threefold mission of the church? (a) Proclaim the Gospel, (b) Perfect the Saints, (c) Redeem the Dead ? Oh and they put in one overarching theme called "Come Unto Christ" that encompasses these 3 missions?

It's the Strengthening Church Members Committee, aka the Mormon CIA. This is the division charged with both silencing dissent from within and keeping tabs on those who have left and might scream too loudly.

It may not be the most important today or before now, but more and more in the information age, controlling the message and potential messengers is key to survival of TSCC.

NerdLinger, I am insulted. The Strengthening Members Committee is nothing like the CIA. If anything, it is more like the old Russian KGB. It would be like the CIA, if it only spied on the Catholics, while ignoring all other problems elsewhere.

The Stasi had 1/4 of the population spying or informing on the other 3/4. The East German communists even more zealous "true believers" than their Russian colleagues. Nothing stays secret forever and a lot of people on the outside will be shocked when the SCMC is exposed.

It's sure not the Q of the 12. Somebody let poor Mr. Holland get strung up pretty good in that interview. Where were his "handlers" like a Savvy Seventy. Why didn't anyone brief him, or run him through some practice interviews.

Whoever is back there running the show from behind the scenes doesn't appear to put a high value on the Q of the 12. It was humiliating, if nothing else.

As for the most important, I'd have guessed the Presiding Bishopric. But they all got canned en masselast week, so I guess they we'nt the top dogs after all.

Interesting question.
RG

Probably "Intellectual Reserve Inc.," a corporation which holds all the copyrights and trademarks used in the church including scriptures and so forth. They're the ones that sue when critics make use of church "intellectual property" such as it is. Sort of like in Scientology, where the real power is with the Religious Technology Center (RTC).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Reserve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Technology_Center

In some countries, "Mormon" and some phrases including the term are registered trademarks owned by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
In the United States, in 2002, the LDS Church applied for a trademark on "Mormon" as applied to religious services; however, the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected the application, stating that the term "Mormon" was too generic, and is popularly understood as referring to a particular kind of church, similar to "Presbyterian" or "Methodist", rather than a service mark.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Reserve

The division of the income...

Office of Presiding Bishopric