"Ye do love your money... and adorning of your churches"

[ap1054]

http://www.missedinsunday.com/memes/fin ... -of-money/

So I shared this with my TBM father and he defensively let me know that the church does more than any other Christian church in helping the poor. I think he gave me a figure that the church has donated approx. $1.2 billion in the past 30 years? I think I've heard this figure officially reported before...

Anyways, assuming the church's general welfare aid has amounted to say $1.5 billion in the past 35 years, how does this compare to the financial outlay of temple construction and annual worldwide temple upkeep? Any NOMs here with any insider knowledge of how expensive all this stuff is? If you had to guess, what estimate would you put on annual worldwide temple operating expenses? This question doesn't even begin to consider the upkeep for all other church fixed property.

A huge struggle I have with Mormonism is its emphasis on temple work. If Quinn's estimates (approx. $40 billion top line in 2014??) are close to correct, it's staggering to consider that the church is equivalent to a Fortune50 entity (after considering its tax-exempt status). Consider all the resources at the COB's disposal and how much good could be done if education was extended beyond BYU, BYU-I, and BYU-H...

I will applaud the church when they begin seriously extending education opportunity (i.e., real education institutions) to members around the world and giving to the poor. Imagine if the church sent business-astute service missionaries to provide consultation on developing an enterprise and managing micro-loan services... IMO, this is at least one condemnation of modern Mormonism.

[IT_Veteran]

I think that even if you took an absurdly low estimate of church income, say $1Bn per year, the roughly $40M per year that they claim is 4%. They're not even giving back the 10% donated, on top of all their for-profit ventures, to the needy or the unfortunate. I saw somewhere (sorry I don't have the source handy) that the DC temple renovation alone will cost more than $140M. Is it really a generous church that spends three times their annual giving on one temple renovation that only those that have paid into the system get to participate in?

[Rob4Hope]

We will never know, because the church doesn't publish its numbers. I wonder why that is?.....I mean REALLY wonder...

[mooseman]

"In 2010 Catholic charity USA expenditures of between $4.2 billion and $4.4 billion, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which publishes an annual list of the 400 biggest charities in the United States, ranked by the amount of donations they receive. This enabled it to rank near the top of the 400 list, behind two major social-services charities -- the United Way and the Salvation Army, neither of which is affiliated with the Catholic church."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... services-/

So the Catholics church gives 4 times more in the USA allow in a year...and isnt the salvation army also considered a church?

This study found that most US churches spend 5% of revenue on charity. So givin IT_veterans generous discount for annual church income, its still well under the mark. I think its safe to say your dad's statement about other christian churches giving less is demonstrably false.

http://web.archive.org/web/201410190332 ... yreports20

[Palerider]

Pretty sure I read that the Salt Lake City mall (can't remember exact name) cost them in the neighborhood of 3 billion. So what does that make their contributions of 1.5 billion to the poor over the last 35 years look like?

Stingy a$$ed chump change.

And most of that was probably to membership who had given them the money in the first place.