Right. Perhaps the question to ask is whether there's something better that could be done with the tithing that the church doesn't need for operational expenses other than to inflate a rainy day fund.Roy wrote: ↑23 Feb 2023, 13:07 I put forward a few assumptions:
1) Church leaders are trying to be "good stewards" of the "Lord's funds."
2) There is concern that if it were more widely known how much wealth the church has, people would be less likely to pay tithing.
3) Church leaders genuinely believe people need to pay tithing for their own eternal welfare and happiness.
4) There are probably valid additional reasons for the church to want to hide the size of its wealth but I think the biggest one goes back to tithing.
Figure out what your yearly operating expense are, set aside money to cover some set number of years, then take the excess from that effort and do something.
I've commented before. I think leaders are actually afraid of being bad stewards of the lord's funds so there's only a limited number of things that they see as safe to spend money on. I think that's why we're seeing double-digit temples being announced with each conference. The lord surely won't get upset with us if we use his money on temples. Boom, a policy to dot every corner with temples is born.
Everyone has their opinion but I think another thing the church should "purchase" with the excess is taking in less in tithing. Making up numbers time, if the church is accustomed to taking in $5 billion per year in tithing, "purchase" $1 billion worth of expected tithing revenue. "Purchase" being comfortable with only expecting $4 billion in tithing per year. How?
No more asking or implying that people should pay tithing on gross or even net. Tithing is 10% after living expenses are paid. I agree that I think leaders are concerned that members would be breaking a commandment by not paying tithing but tithing could be interpreted as considerably less. I don't believe the lord would command a family to pay his over-wealthy church before the family has eaten food. I don't believe the lord would command such a thing.
I know the official policy is that tithing is not defined. I don't hear that during general conference but I have heard stories about paying tithing before buying food, which is expressly against current church policy.