I gave this talk in Sacrament Meeting last Sunday.
This talk is in two parts. I’ll alert you to when the transition is.
Earlier this year, 60 Minutes ran a “breathless exposé,” informing the world that The Church of Latter-day Saints had a lot of money from tithing in an investment fund. Nobody knows how much – or rather, because they were talking about funds that were all invested in stocks and bonds, nobody knew exactly what the value was. The general number bounced around was $100 billion. Possibly as low as $50 billion, or maybe as much as $150 billion. Whatever the number, the implication was that it was too dang much – that the Church had no right to amass or “hoard” that much money, that it was hoodwinking its members and enriching itself at their expense, and that it was immoral – or at least highly suspect – to have that much money without using it immediately.
That sounds like a lot of zeroes, doesn’t it?
Let’s look at this historically.
As you know from reading the Doctrine & Covenants, the Church in its founding era was never financially secure. There was a lot of work to be done that needed money, and calling many of its most prosperous and capable men into full-time ministry and overseas missions didn’t help. What also didn’t help was the way that Church would build up an area and invest time and money in Church buildings, printing presses, and such – not to mention the investments that the individual members put into their own houses and farms – and then to be driven from that place, with little opportunity to recoup those costs. This happened FOUR TIMES before the Church came to the Rocky Mountains under Brigham Young, and the needs of trying to establish a self-sufficient society in Deseret meant that even then, there were never any excess funds.
The Church’s holdings, including its buildings and other property, were then confiscated by the federal government in its bid to fight polygamy. While those properties were eventually returned, they cast the Church into even less secure financial footing. To the end of his life, President Wilford Woodruff was balancing the need to expand the work of salvation through temples, meetinghouses and other infrastructure with the handling of the Church’s debt.
Through the 20th century, the Church kept its head above water financially, but only just barely.
The biggest change to that happened after Elder N. Eldon Tanner became a member of the First Presidency in 1962. He instituted a policy of saving and investing a portion of tithing proceeds every year, even if that meant that some building projects and other programs of the Church would have to pause for years. When the auditing department states in General Conference every year that “The Church follows the practices taught to its members of living within a budget, avoiding debt, and saving against a time of need,” this is what they mean.
But still, $100 billion a lot of money.
Or is it?
First, remember that the value of any portfolio is very much dependent on the economy of the time. In 2008, when the last previous economic downturn took place, the Church’s investment fund reportedly lost 20% of its value immediately. I can only guess what the latest economic instabilities have done.
Second, remember that the Church currently has about 17 million members. Divide $100 billion by 17 million, and you get less than six thousand dollar per member.
Third, remember that the Church reportedly gives about $1 billion in humanitarian aid every year. Why not give more? Because the Church knows that simply throwing money at a problem like poverty or disaster relief doesn’t solve the problem any better than a slow and wise application or resources to help people become self-reliant. For instance, in the year 2016 (the most recent one I could find figures for), the U.S. federal and state government spent a walloping $1.1 trillion on means-tested welfare spending – that’s ten times the Church’s entire reserve. And yet, poverty hasn’t been solved.
Fourth, as the financial backing for the Church has grown, the Church has reduced or eliminated many other financial obligations for its members. Ward budget, building funds, etc., all used to be assessed in addition to tithing; now they are covered from tithing funds. The enrollment of every student at any of the Church’s school, including BYU Pathways available worldwide, is heavily subsidized by the Church. Just this year, the Church magazines were made available in print to anyone who wants them, free of charge.
Fifth, the Church has greatly expanded its missionary work in Africa in the past twenty years. As a whole, that’s the poorest continent, and there is no way that tithing from the faithful African members will cover the costs of meetinghouses, temples, materials, etc. The tithing funds of the more affluent parts of the Church help support those worthy needs.
End part one.
Part two begins now.
Forget everything I just said.
For us in the United States, we may be more susceptible to some false thinking about tithing because of our government.
We have a representative government, where those in power are supposed to be working as our proxies. We vote them in, we expect them to serve our interests, and our taxes are exacted semi-voluntarily for the government’s legitimate use. We still think of them and refer to them, quite accurately, as “our tax dollars,” and we have a legitimate interest in how those dollars are used.
We sometimes, perhaps unconsciously, think of tithing as “the Church’s income tax,” and still have that feeling of ownership over how “our” tithing money is used.
Brothers and sisters, that is WRONG. Yes, the Lord has instituted tithing to fund the temporal needs of His kingdom, and yes, we all want the work to go forward with wisdom and responsibility. However, I don’t pay tithing while retaining any sense of ownership of those dollars.
Once I give them to the Lord, THEY ARE NOT MINE.
If the Council on the Disposition of the Tithes – that is, First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the Presiding Bishopric – decided that every Sunday, the bishop should take all tithing funds collected out behind the meetinghouse and set them on fire, that would not affect my willingness to pay an honest tithe, because once I give that money to the Lord, IT’S NOT MINE. I would be no more offended by the Lord’s use of His own money than I would be if any of you took twenty bucks and went out and burned it – or even worse, bought a country CD with it. IT’S NOT MY MONEY, and NOT MY BUSINESS. Just don’t play your country music CD for me.
Tithing is, on the surface, a financial commandment, but that is a very small part of it.
Tithing is a commandment of discipleship. It is very literally an occasion for me to put my money where my mouth is, to show that I am willing to sacrifice for the Lord. That I am not a hearer of the word only, but a doer of the word. That I literally “buy in” to the promises He has made.
The Lord Jesus Christ, in his earthly ministry, called many of His disciples to walk away from the perfectly legitimate worldly pursuits of their life to follow Him. In our dispensation, He called His saints – the spiritual ancestors of everyone here – to forsake their possession to drag themselves across the continent. Those of us who have been endowed have covenanted that all we have, both temporally and otherwise, is the Lord’s for His use. Can we be grudging or reluctant in giving a fractional earnest of that covenanted consecration, when He promises further blessings to use for our discipleship?
One year, when I was a counselor to Bishop Jackson a decade ago, he was deployed overseas during tithing settlement and it fell to me to review those tithing records and conduct those interviews. I was dismayed to find that some outwardly faithful members, even those in leadership positions, did not pay a full tithe. When I asked them about that, they said, “Well, sometimes it’s a choice between paying my tithing or feeding my family.”
And I could only shake my head and say inwardly, “O ye of little faith.”
Our family is currently stable in our finances, but most of my adult life that has not been true, and there have been literally years where our income could not support all of our obligations. But tithing was non-negotiable. As in most things that matter, my wife has led out in our family on this, and not only because she is our household bookkeeper. There was one time several years ago when my paycheck disappeared practically before I could deposit the check. This was when the government was issuing those commemorative quarters for each of the states, and we had a cardboard display we had gotten from the dollar store to plug in those quarters as they came out. When there literally wasn’t money in the bank account to pay tithing, I found Michele popping the quarters out of that display to fulfill our covenant obligation to pay tithing.
And look at us. We didn’t starve. Our children never went hungry, although they may not have always been excited by what was in the cupboards. My credit rating may have taken some hits, but by being faithful, our faith was strengthened, because the Lord blessed us with what we needed, either through direct visible means such as getting a food order and other financial support from the bishop, or through means which weren’t as visible, but were no less real.
And we learned that nothing builds discipleship like discipleship. Nothing confirms your commitment to the Lord like being forced to follow through on that commitment.
Ultimately, the promises for discipleship are stupendous. Those who are valiant in the testimony of the Savior shall be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, promised to go where He is and go no more out. How eternally sad it would be if the main sticking point of our discipleship was in literally the most worldly thing there is – money.
The Lord gives us no promises that He does not want us to rely on. So as for me and my house, we will rely on the promises which he has made to those who lay all on the altar – beginning with ten percent, so that eventually we can say that everything with which we have been blessed has been consecrated to His holy work.