Church Finances: Turning intangibles into cold cash

[BlackMormon]

https://www.deseretnews.com/user/commen ... ances.html

One person's comment on the article reads: "God discloses very few details about himself and the afterlife. Do the complainers beef to Him about that as well? He protects His church by following prudent privacy principles."

So, if God keeps certain things secret, then not being transparent about church funds is justified? How does anyone arrive at this type of flawed line of rationalization?

Religion is one of those things where you market intangibles that convert to billions of dollars in investments, assets and cash. In Brazil, there is famous pastor who has been featured in Forbes Magazines as a billionaire. He's probably the richest pastor in the world at the moment. He just purchased a $9 million dollar condo at the Porsche towers in Sunny Isle Florida. He makes millions of dollars marketing and selling the gospel, (intangible) and translates all that into actual cash (tangible) for himself and his organization.

Religion: no manufacturing costs and you can turn stories into actual ca$h. I find it amazing and you?

[wtfluff]

How does anyone arrive at this type of flawed line of rationalization?

They're trained to use that sort of rationalization from the instant they are born.

Religion: no manufacturing costs and you can turn stories into actual ca$h. I find it amazing and you?

Amazing, and extremely heartbreaking, all at the same time.

[Thoughtful]

Related: can anyone link a good source on church finances that discusses how little goes to charitable giving? Spouseman thinks I'm gullible and repeating something unfounded.

[wtfluff]

Related: can anyone link a good source on church finances that discusses how little goes to charitable giving? Spouseman thinks I'm gullible and repeating something unfounded.

LDS Church welfare, humanitarian efforts average $40 million per year, apostle says

Let's see... 40 million per year, divided by 16 million members = $2.50 per member, per year. I sure wish I had paid close to that per year in tithing. Hell, I'd even be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and round up to $3.00 even.

[Thoughtful]

Related: can anyone link a good source on church finances that discusses how little goes to charitable giving? Spouseman thinks I'm gullible and repeating something unfounded.

LDS Church welfare, humanitarian efforts average $40 million per year, apostle says

Let's see... 40 million per year, divided by 16 million members = $2.50 per member, per year. I sure wish I had paid close to that per year in tithing. Hell, I'd even be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and round up to $3.00 even.

Thank you!

[moksha]

LDS Church welfare, humanitarian efforts average $40 million per year, apostle says.

In LDS historian D. Michael Quinn's newest book, he estimates that the Church's total annual revenue is about 33 billion dollars from tithing and business incomes and investment dividends.

[Just This Guy]

One examination:
http://www.timesandseasons.org/harchive ... le-giving/

I don't remember where it came from, But there was a church publication a few years ago that stated they gave $25M in help over a 5 year period. A mere $5M/year or About $0.33 per member per year. I'm having trouble finding that one.

Or you could look at how LDS compares to other religions.
The 7th Day Adventist church publishes this for 2014*: For a church that claims 18.5M members, they took in $2.3B in tithing, and had $291.6M in aid distributed. That works out to $16.16/member or 12.6% of all tithing.

Now compare that to LDS. Estimated tithing of $7B** They claim about 15M members and $40M*** in charitable aid a year. That is 0.05% of the tithing, or $2.66 per member per year. Mormon is pretty pathetic in comparison.

Also note that the 7th Day Adventist church had it all in one detailed report. With Mormonism, you have to look at several sources which include outside organizations estimating critical info to put together the same picture together. That says a lot about an organization.

The thing with Mormonism is they advertise a pretty good game, but it is always partial info. You have to read between the lines and put the info in context to see how poorly the measure up.

* https://www.adventist.org/en/informatio ... tics-2014/
** http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news ... -indicates
*** https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865 ... -says.html