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I\u2019ve watched with amused fascination the responses on the Peterson Obsession Board to my recent post entitled \u201cHearts of Darkness.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 (\u201cAmused fascination\u201d has been my usual<\/em> reaction to the PO Board over its fifteen or so years of existence \u2014 although, sometimes, when its malicious fictions cross over into libel and slander, my attitude can become a bit darker.)<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never understood the gratification that some apparently derive from ascribing absurd views to others and then mocking those others for holding the absurd views that have been falsely ascribed to them.\u00a0 But, well, some manifestly do find that gambit gratifying.\u00a0 I\u2019ll offer an example from the PO Board.\u00a0 First, though, some background:<\/p>\n Perhaps twenty years ago, I saw an article somewhere claiming that only four countries worldwide were net generators of tithing revenue for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u00a0 The United States led the list, of course, but I don\u2019t remember the other three with sufficient confidence to identify them here.\u00a0 I\u2019m reasonably certain, though, that such nations as Bolivia, Vanuatu, and Ghana were not among the four.<\/p>\n I\u2019m just as confident that the Democratic Republic of the Congo will not soon be joining their ranks.\u00a0 By a considerable distance, Africa is the poorest continent <\/span>on earth.\u00a0 (Twenty-eight of the poorest countries in the world are in Africa.)\u00a0 In particular, the DR Congo is among the five poorest nations in the world. In 2022, nearly 62% of the Congolese \u2014 which would be around 60 million people \u2014 lived on less than $2.15 a day. About one out of six people living in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa lives in the DRC.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why, in my \u201cHearts of Darkness\u201d<\/a> post, I wrote that<\/p>\n Neither the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nor the Interpreter Foundation has ever viewed the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a lucrative source of wealth \u2014 except in the sense that its people are children of God and, in themselves, a treasure beyond price.\u00a0 The Church\u2019s investments in regional temples and meetinghouses, its educational expenditures, and its humanitarian efforts are given in imitation of the Savior, \u201cwho went about doing good\u201d (Acts 10:38), and not with any eye to financial payback.\u00a0 (Church leaders would be crazy, as well as evil, to seek to profit from the Congolese Latter-day Saints.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But there is already a temple in Kinshasa, and there will soon be three temples in the country altogether, plus another in Brazzaville, which lies just across the Congo River from Kinshasa.\u00a0 There are also meetinghouses (as shown in some of the photographs I\u2019ve recently shared; see, too, this report<\/a> from way back in 2012).\u00a0 And there are large humanitarian aid projects, and the Perpetual Education Fund, and the BYU Pathway program.\u00a0 So I think it should be obvious that there is nothing on the horizon to suggest that the Democratic Republic of the Congo will somehow be transformed into a profit center for the Church, and absolutely nothing to suggest that Church leaders think<\/em> of it as a profit center.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what I said.<\/p>\n In fact, I believe that one of the many reasons for the controversial Ensign Peak Advisors fund \u2014 which, if we assume it to be $100B (though I\u2019ve heard figures ranging from $44B to $150B) and if we take Church membership as totaling seventeen million, comes out to a not altogether stunning $5,882 per member \u2014 is the fact that the Church has long since expanded beyond its relatively affluent base in western North America and is growing rapidly in places like Bolivia, Vanuatu, Ghana, and the DR Congo.\u00a0 And, in such places, Church activities will need to be externally subsidized long into the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n How, though, do the wizards at the PO Board rework<\/em> what I said?\u00a0 It\u2019s fascinating to watch their alchemy:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Church looks at Africa,\u201d says one of the brighter PO Board denizens, \u201cthe same way as the rest of the developed world does, as the planet\u2019s last big value trade. According to Wiki, China is 2 trillion deep into Africa. The Church wants its cut too.\u201d\u00a0 He seems to imagine the Church as a global mining company, drawn by the DR Congo\u2019s mineral wealth to extract cobalt,\u00a0 diamonds, copper, and metallic tantalum.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine,\u201d says another of the PO Board\u2019s less intellectually irresponsible participants, \u201cmaking the argument that the LDS Church<\/a> is not interested in making money after the Ensign Peak revelations. Good luck, guys!\u201d\u00a0 Another summarizes my position as follows:\u00a0 Church leaders \u201caren\u2019t concerned with money.\u201d<\/p>\n But, of course, I never said<\/em> that the Church doesn\u2019t concern itself with money.\u00a0 With its missionary efforts and its humanitarian undertakings and its construction of meetinghouses and temples and its seminaries and institutes and its sponsorship of three universities and a college and its gathering of family history records and so on and so forth, it must<\/em> pay attention to financial matters.\u00a0 Not to do so would be wildly irresponsible and would very soon result in colossal failure.\u00a0 But if the Church were solely<\/em> concerned about its bottom line, I think it fairly obvious to any reasonable person (in other words, to the vast majority of people who don\u2019t post on the PO Board) that it wouldn\u2019t be involved in the DR Congo.<\/p>\n And, before I forget, a side note:\u00a0 Some of the revelers at the PO Board are gleefully pointing out that, despite my pretense of never looking in on their site, my \u201cHearts of Darkness\u201d<\/a> post proves that I actually do<\/em>.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve never<\/em> denied paying attention to some of the threads on their board.\u00a0 Quite to the contrary, I\u2019ve repeatedly said that I typically look in on their antics several times in any given week.\u00a0 After all, I\u2019m probably blessed (or cursed) with at least the normal measure of human curiosity.\u00a0 And, for the better part of the past two decades, there has never (so far as I can recollect) been a single day when the aptly-named Peterson Obsession Board hasn\u2019t prominently featured multiple active threads specifically devoted to my cartoonish villainy.\u00a0 Why wouldn\u2019t<\/em> I look?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s some recent news from trans-world:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Dodgers Promote Anti-Catholicism\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDodgers Reward Anti-Catholic Hate Speech\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cArchdiocese of LA Condemns Dodgers Inviting \u2018Queer and Trans Nuns\u2019 to Pride Event\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDodgers Summon Satan To Throw Out First Pitch At Pride Night\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
(Photo from Russell Richins)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n