Posted by:
Rubicon
(
)
Date: July 13, 2019 11:02AM
One of my big moments of clarity was when I realized the church was a theocracy and I don't believe theocracies are good. Hey if a group of people want to try their best to live Christlike go knock yourselves out but my problem is when leadership of such groups start claiming they are THE authority and you must follow them unconditionally. This is what the LDS church is. Does it do some good? Sure. Do some members really try to be good people? Absolutely. The big problem with the church is it's a theocracy where one man is head of it and the rest of the church worship him like he's some kind of celebrity. If you have ever been to a church function where one of the top church leaders show up and see how the membership reacts it's not much different than being somewhere that a big name celebrity shows up and the fans are going crazy. It's the same thing. It's scary and creepy.
If you look at the history of the church the leadership have put it into financial trouble several times. The main culprit usually is building buildings the church can't afford. The church went bankrupt in Kirtland mainly due to building the Kirtland temple. The church again got into debt for finishing the Salt Lake temple. All those fancy light fixtures, hard woods, furniture and fixtures cost money. The church borrowed money to pay for them and then could not pay it back. To pay the debt the church went to a cash tithing system that has worked well for the church.
In 1959 the church again was in substantial debt. Again due to building buildings it could not afford. The church leadership figured if they built nicer modern meeting houses that would draw more people to the church. That really didn't happen to the level they had hoped and again the church found itself in debt.
If you look at the church in the 60's it didn't do much. The reason why is it didn't have the money to do much. Many credit N Eldon Tanner for restructuring the church's finances and making it solvent again. In the 70's the church started building temples again and building meeting houses again but it was cautious.
In the 80's the church built smaller cost savings temples. The first one built in Boise turned out to be a failure. That temple later had to be closed down and remodeled to make it work. The church started to realize it had to go back to building big temples in areas where there were a lot of church members.
When Gordon B Hinckley came in he went temple crazy. He went back to the failed mini temple concept. He built a ton of these little temples everywhere. Then of course he dumped a lot of church money into historical sites and downtown Salt Lake. Much of the church building is due to Gordon B Hinckley. He went completely nuts that way.
The church continues to build temples big and small. Almost 10 new ones are announced every general conference. I have a friend who works in the church finance department. He said there is a huge push under Nelson to modernize all church financial reporting using the latest technology. The reason why is Nelson wants to know how the church stands financially in real time. In the past the financial system was a bit slow and the church kept a cash cushion. Well now Nelson wants to spend the cash cushion and take the church to a just in time system. This means again building more temples.
There seems to be this engrained belief in the church leadership that if you build it. They will come. Nelson is obsessed with this gathering Israel concept. The fiscal caution of Spencer W Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson are gone. In those days the church feared insolvency. They would turn down requests for temples because having a cushion of cash was more important than building temples even where they might be needed.
The church went nuts under Hinckley and is really nuts under Nelson. Nelson believes technology will help the church gather Israel (whatever the hell that means). He wants to spend every penny available to take the church forward on his vitamin and sleep fueled quest. Of course historically this means the church gets into financial trouble building buildings it could not afford. It's build it and they will come.
What has kept the church going through all of this is the members. The members keep paying their tithing and donations and that cash flow has bailed the church out from the stupid decisions the leaders have made. The leadership would have driven the church into the ground a long time ago if the membership didn't keep bailing the church out.