My cousin went to the LDS Christmas Devotional last night at the conference center. He posted a picture of the stage and I could not BELIEVE how lavish it was. Giant trees were constructed to frame the stage. A tiny village adorned one side and thousands of dollars in plants covered any empty space. There was much more to it than that, but you get the picture.
The church obviously spent tens of thousands of dollars on decorations and it blows my mind that people who claim to be followers of Christ find this acceptable.
Aren't churches supposed to follow Jesus's teachings? You know, like the fact life isn't about luxury, it's about loving each other?
The first thing I thought when I saw the photo was "great and spacious building". Of course, members ar so brain-washed they'll never see the hypocrisy.

please post the link to his picture if you can.

The stage finally shows up about a minute or so into the video:

http://lds.org/broadcast/christmas/0,6609,4617-1-81-2021,00.html

thanks!

Oh God! Now I remember why I don't click on LDSinc links.

After listening to Aretha Franklin's gospel music this morning I cannot believe how utterly *dreary* mormon music is! That first minute waiting to see the stage in question is unbelievably depressing.

Oh man I'm glad I'm out!

Oh boy are you ever right! And what about the tree-mendous electric bill they'll be facing after the holidays? (Pun intended for all the trees in Temple Square that have lights).

Gees it just ticks me off about how my local missionaries have to go to a food bank just for bread and other basic grocery items and my ward gets reemed in Sacrament Meeting for not stepping up to the plate and signing up to clean the building when TSCC only cares about its damn $4 BILLION mall and all these damn excessive decorations?????????????



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2010 10:51AM by imalive.

Comparing that tacky, gaudy display with what old, established mainstream denominations do it is easy that LDS, Inc. is moving in that direction. This has been discussed many times on this board and the Morg is constantly upping the ante to prove our point. The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS is just another archaic Christian denomination with a few weird twists for good measure.

The building itself cost an estimated $300-400 million. That's an enormous amount of money for a building that wasn't all that necessary. That's worth squawking about.

But Christmas decorations? The plants were probably "loaners". If not, they were rented. Or they were going to be given out as gifts afterward. For a multi-billion dollar operation, this is lunch money.

As a percentage of their overall budget, what they spend on all Christmas decorations is quite likely a lower percentage of their budget than what most of us spend on Christmas decorations, or Thanksgiving dinner, or one annual dinner for 4 at a nice restaurant. There are plenty of problems with Mormonism. A stage full of Christmas plants is not on the short list of problems.

I think that is the problem. At a time when the church is squeezing local ward budgets, it seems tone deaf and hypocritical to put on a lavish display at the Conference Center. But I am sure the suits chalk it all up as missionary work.

helemon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think that is the problem. At a time when the
> church is squeezing local ward budgets, it seems
> tone deaf and hypocritical to put on a lavish
> display at the Conference Center. But I am sure
> the suits chalk it all up as missionary work.


In Ann Arbor, years past (don't know about this year) they have a Creche Exhibit, which occupies the building for three or four Sundays in Dec. The chapel, rooms and halls are filled with upwards of 1000 creches from around the world. It's filled by one lady who happens to own probably about the largest private collection of international creches. Some rare pieces that are over a hundred years old.

The expense for this do come out of the shared ward budgets. As a financial clerk, it was a mess to deal with at the end of the year (on top of all the other financial year end biz).

I went to the Ann Arbor exhibit in 2000 or 2001 with my TBM fiance.

Our current IL ward has a similar, smaller exhibit each year. It's nice to have decorations up inside the building for Christmas. They help to cover up the horrible burlap wall paper(?).

My bet is most of the sets are recycled or simple re-used for several years. They have a storage facility and guys with trucks haul them in, set them up, strike them after all the broadcasts and performances are done.

They stage some pretty high-level broadcasts from the conference center. I've surfed into a couple and was impressed by the sets. Yes, over-the-top, but that's the style right now for christmas shows.

I seriously doubt that they went out this year and created an entirely new set. I'm with Brother of Jerry on this.

Considering one of the main messages of the program was to forsake materialism and focus on the real meaning of the season - Jesus, I find the fact that the messengers were surrounded by expensive decorations and opulence to be very well worth discussing.

It may seem an insignificant amount of money to you but:

What would be more worthwhile and Christlike at Christmas?
1. Spending that insignificant amount on baubles for the Christmas devotional

or
2. Instead, give the money to the people of Haiti who probably haven't had a thanksgiving dinner this year and who would probably not perceive it as 'insignificant'

How much did the Church spend on tv adverts publicising that there are skateboarders, surfers and artists on it's book? And what impact might that have had on the homeless people in the city's the adverts were shown?

The point is that the Church does not spend it's money in the way that Christ would. Not even close. Yet it demands members sacrifice (the baubles vs cleaning the chapel toilets whine)

The Church needs to have all it's spending held up for scrutiny no matter how small. Because the money is Christ's not the Church's and the leaders need to be held accountable for how they use it.

I find Jerry's brother a bit naive

Did they hire (and will they hire) people to set it up and clean up after the show is done? Or will they just ask the local stakes and wards to muster janitor-power from the testimony well they're drawing deeply already?

I was asked to help set up for the festival last night. 2 hours of my time on a Sunday night (8 to 10pm) ... for free.

eh ... no. Not this year.

Not until you mentioned it. Now I'm a little miffed when I think about it. LOL

Heck, it's Christmas time, so Latter-day Saints should 'feel the spirit' and sacrifice even more of their harried lives to financially benefit multi-billion-dollar LD$ Inc.!