Ryan Cragun, a sociology professor at the University of Tampa and co-author of the recently published book Could I Vote for a Mormon for President? “Given their array of corporate interests, it would probably make more sense to refer to them as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Holdings Inc.”
This is interesting:
".....like all church businesses, donates 10 percent of its income to a church fund. In some cases money flows in the opposite direction, from the church’s treasury to the businesses. “From time to time, if there is a particular need, there would be some monies available, but fortunately over the years that has not been the case very often,” says McMullin. “If you have a particular reversal in an enterprise, you need to have some additional cash flow until you work through a difficult time. I’ll give you an example, we’re going through one right now: It’s called a recession.” McMullin declined to elaborate on whether the church has been bailing out subsidiaries."
Could they be using tithing to provide that 'additional cash flow'?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2012 02:15PM by caedmon.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attends to the total needs of its members,” says Keith B. McMullin, who for 37 years served within the Mormon leadership and now heads a church-owned holding company, Deseret Management Corporation (DMC), an umbrella organization for many of the church’s for-profit businesses. “We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.”
So if you are impoverished, you cannot blossom spiritually? That's weird because according to mormon theology Joseph Smith was a poor farm boy. If you cannot blossom spiritually when you are poor, McMullin must think Jesus was the Mitt Romney of the Middle East.
…"When you look at what these companies do, they are for the purpose of lifting and strengthening people."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....
One question - where does all the profit go? If tithing is used for general church expenditure (and a very tiny amount of humanitarian aid) and fast offerings are used to support local members (occasionally until the funds are swiped), what on earth is all the profit used for? Building $bn malls and other profit-inducing enterprises?
Maybe given Monson's remarks when cutting the ribbon at City Creek, he thinks that shopping is the way to strengthen members.
Reminds me of GWB's encouragement to Americans after 9/11. Go shopping. Boost the economy.
There need be only one article of faith in the present corporate venture masquerading as a church: "We believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually."
The 15 really do seem to be the pinnacle of decision making at dmc. Quote: Asking your prophet to fund a flailing business can be stressful. Sheri Dew, the chief executive officer of the DMC subsidiary Deseret Book, pulled the publisher and distributor out of the red 10 years ago. It’s now profitable. “There’s, like, nothing worse on the planet than to go back to your owner and say, ‘Uh, we didn’t do what we told you we’d do,’ especially because one of the interesting things we deal with is that the owner is also an ecclesiastical leader whom we revere,” she says. “That’s the toughest thing about an organization that’s owned by the church, because you don’t want to disappoint them, and you don’t want them to have to worry about what you’re doing, because they have better things to think about.”
From the article -- "Several high-ranking church insiders told him that the church’s finances are so compartmentalized that no single person, not even the president, knows the entirety of its holdings."
Latter-Day Saints? They should be called Latter-Day Mushrooms. Keep them in the dark and feed them B.S.
My wife's grand father recently passed away. He had accumulated a small fortune during his life, roughly $3M. He has 3 kids (my father in law & 2 others) whou could have really used that money to help pay off debts, put kids through school, etc.
Unfortunately, the guy tried to buy himself to heaven by giving $2M to the morg and the remainder was split between his kids. What a joke! These clowns have $2B to drop on a mall, they don't need this guy's money especially when his kid's are struggling.