That’s a lot of dinero. But, what to do with it? Expect tithing to continue at 10%, even as the return on the investment begins to dwarf the new tithes coming in, and keep squirreling it all away until direction is received from the Prophet?
From time to time, church leaders in the ecclesiastical arm that oversees Ensign Peak arranged lunch meetings with Ensign Peak employees. During Q&A sessions at the end, employees sometimes asked what the money might be used for, according to one of the former employees, who attended.
Church leaders responded by saying they wanted to know that, too, according to this person.
“It was so amorphous,” the former employee said. “It was always, ‘When we have direction from the prophet.’ Everyone was waiting, as it were, for direction from God.” The prophet is the president of the church.
Or is it time to put the returns to work, and offer individual church members more personal direction with their tithes?
But Sam Brunson, a church member and tax law professor at Loyola University, said he wished church officials would use the $100 billion to help those in need today.
“They could go a good way to eradicating malaria, or fix Puerto Rico’s electrical grid,” he said. Alternatively, he said, the church could change what it considers tithing, allowing members to give 10% of their income to charity, rather than to the church itself.
A giant pile of money is usually good problem for any person or business to have. Is that true for a church as well?
How is a church a Pyramid scheme? Church members pay Tithes to the church. Some also contribue to the missionary program, and some also contribute to the charity program of the church.
Money contributed to the church for charity works is used in places where natural disasters have occured (not just United States). The tithe for the missionary program helps pay for room and board for the missionaries, food, transportation, training.
Tithes go to other things for the church (temples, church buildings, supplies, utilities, youth programs).
Your right. Other money’s go to pay salaries of the church higher ups (on the stake and ward level there is no compensation). goes to pay for the Tabernacle. Also goes to pay for bibles to be distributed (along with the book of mormon). It also pays for the people who run the Geneology section.
But they also stick money aside as a “rainy day fund” and that’s this money.
Keep in mind families in the LDS community are encouraged to stay prepared at all times for a rainy day. The Church is comprised of tightly knit communities who watch over one another. It only makes sense that the Church as a whole is equally well prepared to do this for all its members.
It may help them, I hope it does. I keep in mind, though, even as I prepare for my own rainy day, the story Jesus tells of the man who filled his barns, but in the end they were of no help. There are some things that even wealth cannot fix.
They’ve got public shaming and things like that going on. Don’t do what is “expected” of you (i.e. give 10% of your earings to the church), and you get excommunicated real quick.
