Much has been posted about the imminent demise of LDS Corp. It don't think it will die. Why do I think this?

Because I think it has become what Joseph Smith envisioned with his Kirtland Anti-Banking Society and what Brigham Young envisioned with his Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution.


LDS Corp is a large conglomerate of interests of which one is religious. It spends a good amount of its profits from donations received from members and its wholly owned for profit interests on land, on investments, and on promoting its religious core. Nothing more.

That religious core can shrink but its investments and real-estate continue to grow. It is the perfect American scam for a big international business. A small little "religion" has vast interests and money. And if they squeeze the members in donations of time, less convenient meeting facilities, more and more work for them what does it matter?

So the shell religious corporation shrinks. As long as it serves its purpose and a decent maintenance amount of believers it can continue to operate as a business venture serving not only to make its top brass feel entitled but also give them religio-philosophical justifications for its continued operations and successes let alone give them the feeling that they are serving their fellow "men" in dovetailing their work "for the dead" with real-estate portfolio enhancements. And anyway the church parts are probably so rife with graft that they will continue unabated.

I don't think it's in any financial stress either

The cash flow is slowing, undoubtedly, and it won't come back.

I must kill them to go into the cash reserves, hence the cutting out of all conveniences and fun.

Elyse Wrote:
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> I must kill them to go into the cash reserves,
> hence the cutting out of all conveniences and fun.

Beneficial Life Insurance.

The leaders have all the conveniences they want and they get to play the part of little popes.

Fun is a word becoming archaic in LDS Corp. They hold to their anachronism and kill their potential for fun all the while loading their portfolios and preaching moderation and temperance in all things. Fun is not their commandment.

Just their stock portfolio alone is worth an estimated 32 Billion, the can survive on those dividends alone for another 25 years. I wish they'd go tits up as much as anyone,but don't think for a minute it will happen in our lifetime.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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>
> Because I think it has become what Joseph Smith
> envisioned with his Kirtland Anti-Banking Society
> and what Brigham Young envisioned with his Zions
> Cooperative Mercantile Institution.

Consider the Kingstons, who practice a polygamous, openly corrupt business empire, "the Order." They may be the purest of all Mormon groups.
>
> LDS Corp is a large conglomerate of interests of
> which one is religious.

I think you've nailed it here. Very succinct.

> It spends a good amount of
> its profits from donations received from members
> and its wholly owned for-profit interests on land,
> investments, and on promoting its religious
> core... That religious core can shrink but its investments
> and real-estate continue to grow.

Amen, brother!

You're suggesting that the higher-ups do not really believe that "the Church is true."
>
> So the shell religious corporation shrinks. As
> long as it serves its purpose and a decent
> maintenance amount of believers it can continue to
> operate as a business venture serving not only to
> make its top brass feel entitled but also give
> them religio-philosophical justifications for its
> continued operations and successes let alone give
> them the feeling that they are serving their
> fellow "men" in dovetailing their work "for the
> dead"

Now, you suggest that the higher-ups actually believe "the Church is true." It's a tough call, and we'll never know for sure. I vacillate, myself.

For a long time, I expected the Christian Science organization to collapse: top-heavy leadership competing for financial assets, with an ever-decreasing base of believing members. I was wrong. Yes, the membership base is in steep decline, but the financial/ecclesiastical leadership is prospering just fine.

"Now, you suggest that the higher-ups actually believe "the Church is true." It's a tough call, and we'll never know for sure. I vacillate, myself."

Tom Phillips gave us much insight in this regard.

I believe both kinds of leaders exist. There are the Tom ones who believe and there are the Joseph Bishop ones.

https://medium.com/@davidscoville/timeline-of-the-joseph-bishop-sexual-abuse-scandal-77f39be1ef3a

It is a spectrum. No man who has had all their "keys"(reigns) has been much of a believer in recent history I think. Hinckley definitely not. Joseph F. Smith definitely yes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2018 01:17PM by Elder Berry.

I agree with SEcular Priest on this.

Their historical bread-and-butter, the member tithing, is shrinking with the new generation that is cash strapped, even more so with early children, and the declining activity rate in the US & Canada. Hard core TBM generation that matured and prospered in 1950s-1980s is starting to die off.

They have a lot of assets, mainly in real-estate, however. So they can continue milking those, where possible, for cash flow, but real estate has some downsides -- annual real estate taxes and, in the case of buildings, insurance, maintenance and repairs. The cash flow from things like farms and forests is not necessarily large unless you start selling parts of the assets, such as timber and land to other developers (as they are doing in Florida). ROI on office buildings now is good, but rents could fall in the next recession.

In the case of Sears I understand they started borrowing heavily against their assets and/or selling land to lease back. LDS, Inc doesn't really have those options but could survive by gradually selling land and buildings for quite awhile, it seems. Wardhouse consolidation and sales in the SLC area and other places with shrinking activity rates could be the first shoe to drop.

numbersRus Wrote:
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> In the case of Sears I understand they started
> borrowing heavily against their assets and/or
> selling land to lease back.

Sears is being looted by its CEO. LDS Corp is micro-looted by graft, deals, and such. Brigham Young basically converted "the church" into his personal fortune. Smith did the same.

The difference I see is Sears is being strategically killed off and LDS Corp is merely losing subscribers. If publishing "The Ensign" was a big part of its "bread and butter" I would agree but the fact is it isn't and has been diversified for much longer than when Henry D. Moyle was stretching its resources in expansion of chapels and other building.

My great grandfather lawyer and his cousin businessman Eldon Tanner helped McKay save the day and now LDS Corp is as healthy a business as any over this great Mericaland.

Lds.org could shrink to under a million and center just on the West and still have a pyramid of best in the world retirement older men running a multi-billion dollar conglomerate capitalizing on land, communications, agribusiness, mining, and investments.

They divested themselves of retail and financing as well as insurance mostly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2018 02:09PM by Elder Berry.

I guess it depends on how much shrinkage the leaders will tolerate.

I mean, if you're willing to go down this small, you're still officially "not demised"...:)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/13/us/last-blockbuster-america-trnd/index.html

tell us what "progressive state" means.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> I guess it depends on how much shrinkage the
> leaders will tolerate.

Brother Brigham didn't care bout no stinkin' shrinkage. He actually created a situation where people wanted to leave.


"The Church needs trimming up, and if you will search, you will find your wards contain branches which had better be cut off. The kingdom would progress much faster, and so will you individually, than it will with those branches on, . . ."
https://historyofmormonism.com/2009/09/16/reformation/

I'm sure the wizards of Mormondumb could be just as comfortable now as they were then. Hinckley had it in his craw to get a presidential medal.

Whew! Glad your hypothesis is modest because… well, modest is hottest, after all.

I don't think churchco will collapse in my lifetime. But then, I didn't think I'd ever see the end of the Soviet Union either. The Soviet empire and the Berlin Wall were permanent fixtures until they weren't. And the Romans sure didn't see Alaric coming. I'd still bet against it but you just never truly know.

time, energy and money fighting in Afghanistan.

The parallel in LDS, Inc is fighting against the LGBQT. Most of GenX and younger will turn away from such efforts. Only difference is the LDS, Inc has a lot of free labor compared to the Soviet Army.

True. The difference I see is governments and religions aren't the same. Religious beliefs tied with business acumen seem to have a bit more staying power.

The General Conferences are shareholders meetings held twice a year by the prophet (CEO) and the Apostles (Board of Directors) to assure the flock (Shareholders) that business is good and keep buying stock (Religion).

The top leaders are the shareholders and the flock is both the labor force and the consumer. That is the magic of the religion business that inspired L Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith.

The flock is also more committed to their leaders than they are to their flock. It is painfully obvious yet a highly ignored and unseen fact of Mormonism.

Members fee actual pain when their efforts to improve their religion fail. But the fact of the matter is members don't change cults.

numbersRus Wrote:
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> The top leaders are the shareholders and the flock
> is both the labor force and the consumer. That is
> the magic of the religion business that inspired L
> Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith.

Exactly. The members are not shareholders in the church. They own nothing. They simply are dupes who donate a lot of money and time to it. When you hear a member say our church just laugh because it's not their church. It's the corporation's church and legally they don't have to give the members a damn thing back.

I just read an article where 100 Christian church's are disappearing a day in the US. I think it's more accurate to say the LDS church is going to change. It's nice to think it will implode.

Since I have no accurate data on the church it's hard to say where they are financially. They might not as solvent as people think they are or they might be doing better.

I think a big recession or depression would really hurt the church. Real estate values tend to drop drastically and with no baby boom and the baby boomers aging and dying off, there is not going to be the demand for real estate there once was.

The young people are making wages that haven't increased in 30 years but the cost of living sure has. An economic depression would make prices on many things including housing cheaper but jobs will be hard to get. Add in jobs lost to technology.

The young people have a lot of challenges and they are challenges the church can't really help them with. They are going to be less inclined to pay tithing and other donations and they are not going to want to spend their spare time doing church callings.

The only place the Christian church's can find anyone interested is the third world. Especially Africa. Finding people interested in the industrialized world is near to impossible.

I wonder how it can go on and thrive when they aren't out and about. Yes there is plenty of money to last a long time. But the evangelicalism aspect of mormondom inc. has been on the decline since at least the time of Hinkley.

Within the last few years:
1) they don't broadcast anymore talks by the hierarchy on TV.
2) They don't preach the word on the Radio like other christians. 3) They only show up twice a year for a general meeting in SL.
4) They aren't concerned anymore about devotionals at BYU and have almost completely left it to the educators to run the religion.
5) they cut back the meetings, (it's just not important anymore?)
6) they lowered the missionary age, from a slightly more mature adult age to youngsters who are almost still in highschool. The world is not impressed.

I see other churches that are more flashy, out there, more involved in reaching ordinary people and think they've got to be stealing the market share, while the hierarchy is on vacation...

anono this week Wrote:
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> I see other churches that are more flashy, out
> there, more involved in reaching ordinary people
> and think they've got to be stealing the market
> share, while the hierarchy is on vacation...

They haven't been "missionary" leaders since Joseph Smith. Oaks and Holland went to be missionaries for a time and that was historically significant because the leaders are proselyting.

If they have downed their "devotionals" it is because they are focused on reclamation not inspiration.

Their vacation is their job. It is a corp run by pseudo-retirees. Hinckley was a flash in their pan and not their business as usual. Being a corporation and producing genealogical and temple real-estate is their highest priority religious work. Mostly they are running for profit businesses as a board of directors and giving talks.

I doubt that a demise is imminent, but the market has been considerably saturated, except in so-called African "shithole" countries, where they are thriving, but with no substantial benefit. Even many of those countries are off-limits due to persistent danger.

Tax the churches!

That might hasten their demise.

The USA had freedom of religion because it was started as a Masonic influenced country. Contrary to popular belief, the USA was NOT founded as a Christian nation. Formal Christianity is Roman Catholicism. The Masons believed in religious freedom. THE Roman Catholic church's version of religious freedom was for a person to become a member of THE (Catholic) church OR be terminated / executed, which is NOT religious freedom at all.

Realizing that the masses have a weakness for the idiocy of religion, The Masonic founding fathers encouraged grass roots informal Christianity as a way to fend off Formal Christianity as in The Catholic church and its political meddling. That incentive worked. Their real preference would have been for everyone to become fully enlightened Lodge members who realize that religion is UTTER BS and Idiocy, but they could not force /compel/ coerce people to become lodge members because The masonic lodge really does believe in personal freedom FIRST and FOREMOST. Even today, the Lodge does NOT directly talk negatively about religion. They let religion tell its own story and leave it to people to figure out for themselves how things are really working!!! INSTEAD of ordering people around while invoking the name of god the way that heavy handed religion does.

Forcing people to do things like join their organization was a tactic inherent to the Catholic church, which the Masonic lodge opposes, ideologically and in practice. In the interest of strictly maintaining and promoting REAL personal freedom, The Masonic lodge was fundamentally opposed to using coercion tactics like the heavy handed Catholic church did. The gory "masonic" penalties in The LDS temple ceremony are an allusion to what Formal Christian and The Catholic Church has done, NOT to what the Masonic lodge intends to do !!!!!!!


The masonic lodge has always been a benevolent society. And the Real New World Order is actually Christianity going back to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the New World Order. The Catholic Church is the second coming of the New World Order and The Roman Empire. What a joke when Evangelical Christians are waiting for their Jesus to return by descending from the sky, and in the mean time they are on the prowl attempting to expose the New World Order as an instrument of the Masonic lodge.

Giving exemption from Taxation to churches was the founding fathers way of encouraging grass roots churches in America as an intended counter to fend off Catholicism. That allowance was NEVER intended to facilitate the creation of an American version of the Catholic church,which is what The MORmON church is. Leave it to Meglomaniac and PERVERT MORmON founder Joseph Smith to come along to exploit that loop hole and do exactly that, so ironically while rabidly bashing The Catholic Church which he really wanted to emulate as much as possible and talking about "Free Agency" as a paramount cosmic principle.

LD$ Inc and its MORmON church ARE the Utah Version of The Catholic church, a whore for money upon many waters (in many countries) using God's name to justify their self serving predatory actions. And THE MORmON church is becoming MORE like THE Catholic church everyday, just look at the growing MORmON Vatican in down town Salt Lake City with its opulent City Creek Center Mall !!! .....and then there is the commonality in the incidence of child molestation.

The time has come to start taxing churches, just like other big time money grubbing businesses, especially the "churches" that are operating as multi national, multi billion dollar corporations. Tax exemption for Churches was NEVER intended to be a business advantage for multi national multi billion dollar corporations (criminal enterprises) who were willing to pose as a religion / church.

If anything, Churches/ Religions should have to pay taxes at HIGHER than normal tax rates, to make up for what they have gotten away with. REAL Charities might be entitled to a tax break, but NOT the criminal enterprise otherwise known as THE MORmON church !!!!

THE (MORmON) Church is going to implode, just as it is imploding right now.

The MORmON religion simply can not compete entertainment (ENTERTAINMENT !!!) wise for people's time, attention and money in the modern information age setting.

LD$ inc business concerns may or may not persist/ continue to operate, but the MORmON religion is dying right before your eyes.

I think the demise/transition might come if they actually got some ethical business men at the top (Big 15) who used their influence to break off the for profit side from the not-for-profit (religious) side. They could drop the idea of a prophet leading them and turn the church over to the members to run as a full blown charity or keep it a religion with a belief structure based on truth and faith (faith in higher power or humanity) rather than lies and bogusly declared knowledge.

The for profit side could become individual legit businesses owned by their employees.

Yeah, I'm dreaming.

At this point, they are mostly a tax-protected investment holding company.

All they need to do manage their investments in a way that sustains the investment company, structure and façade of a religious leadership team at the top.

They really don't need a bunch of people, revelations or religious dogma. They have no accountability for having an actual product that has to meet any claims.

They only have to be accountable for maintaining the investments which determine the viability of the business.

They need investments like buildings that generate income (office buildings, malls, apartments), ranches, prime real estate that appreciates even with empty temples sitting on them, linked businesses like insurance, etc. They need lobbyists and political power to protect their interests.


They don't need butts in the pews. They just need the appearance of running a religion to maintain their investment management company.

They could get hurt if they lose the base of loyal "customer members" who automatically vote for the investment company's interests. They implant the "values" to the people and the people who are conditioned to "follow the brethren" vote to protect the corporate interests. When people stop voting against their own interests to support the church, that could undermine their business model. They don't worry about paying any dividends to the people who allow them to run their religious side-scam. Jesus needs your money. Leave the rest to them.

"They don't need butts in the pews. They just need the appearance of running a religion to maintain their investment management company."

I believe things changed with The Internet and Hinckley. The church changed from something into something else but I can't put my finger on it.

Obvious signs are the focus shifting from Lamanites and Mormon religious themes to Jesus and money. It is like it is evolving into an Olstein-Ramsey-Hinckley prosperity gospel with little care for their tenants and facets of historical Mormonism to some Jesus in America "Law of Attraction" corporate-focused money and family make you happy business.

I believe the Mormon Church is trending down fast. However, it will probably take another 2-3 generations of shrinking attendance before it is on life support. As long as the leadership has the financial capacity to deal with the changes occurring within their ranks, it will likely survive for many more years. However, I do enjoying reading posts on this board about the Church's demise, particular from those who have first-hand experience. These accounts give me hope that things may progess much more quickly than I anticipate.

I have more modest dreams:

Seeing the U.K. shrink to 5 stakes or fewer.

Seeing Scandinavia shrink to one stake per country (is it already there?) or one for the whole region.

That'd be a good start. The rest of the world would follow in due course.

There is no imminent demise of LDS Corp going on.

To think otherwise is as delusional as believing in the BoM