Just a quick one today. I have been reading over some very interesting posts on 'Truth Hurts: Not the searching after, but the running from' - There is a 4 part series there that goes into the financial world of the CoJCoLDS (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; or the Mormon Church).
It is well worth a read. Mostly I hope that my Mormon friends will read it. Again, not to make them feel bad/stupid/whatever but just so that they can be informed. I remember teaching classes at church and telling the class what tithing was spent on, boy was I misinformed!!!
And for my non-member friends - I think it might be illuminating for me to reveal Rockstar and I have paid more than $100,000 to the Church in our lifetime together. I can only imagine what we could have done with that money to provide for our little family. Living the advice to marry young and pop out (I accidentally typed poop out! haha) babies; as students mind you!!! kind of left us poor and very busy! Not much time for questioning beliefs. Makes me feel sick. But we figured it out in the end, phew! Yay for being able to sponsor a child in Ethiopia through an organisation we trust (Childfund) and yay for being able to provide for our little family without siphoning off our 'increase' to the Fat Cats at CoJCoLDS.
Hmmm, not such a short one after all.
It also makes me sick to think of the "tithing first" check I always wrote. Added up we could've bought a house and had it paid for by now. Instead, the money went towards re-carpeting 10 churches, and a couple of chandeliers in a temple. Oh, and maybe a little humanitarian aid. But just a little.
ReplyDeleteIF it were just spent on chapel carpet and humanitarian aid then I could be satisfied with that, but discovering that the money was held in high interest investment options for a couple of years and that the interest from my hard earned money has been used to build malls and other 'great and spacious buildings' really gets my goat!!!
ReplyDeleteKeeping the people dumb, poor and busy is incredibly mean (smart for big business) but mean.