{"id":36190,"date":"2016-08-28T20:06:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T02:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=36190"},"modified":"2016-08-28T20:06:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T02:06:07","slug":"useful-data-on-the-scope-of-lds-humanitarian-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/08\/useful-data-on-the-scope-of-lds-humanitarian-efforts.html","title":{"rendered":"Useful data on the scope of LDS humanitarian efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"FEMA — LDS missionaries helping in the wake of a major fire in California, in 2007.
(Public domain photograph from the Federal Emergency Management Agency)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This article<\/a> should be gratifying to Church members.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
LDS Church Spent 1.2 Billion on Welfare and Humanitarian Efforts<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A word, though, about the inevitable criticisms:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The recently most fashionable response of Church critics to such numbers is that the Church isn\u2019t doing <em>enough<\/em>. \u00a0After all, the Church gives only <em>x<\/em> percent of its total budget to charity, whereas companies A, B, and C give something on the order of, say, <em>3x<\/em>. \u00a0Or, to put it another way, the Church gives $Z to charitable causes, but Z divided by the number of Church members only comes out to the paltry sum of approximately $Z\/15,000,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll probably need to compose a relatively extended response to this objection.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, though, three\u00a0quick observations:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Church <em>is<\/em> a charity. \u00a0<em>All<\/em> of its donated budget goes to support charitable functions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The correct comparison is not between the Church and some company that does charitable contributions. \u00a0The correct comparison would be between, for example, the Church and the Sierra Club, or the Church and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, or the Church and the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What percentage do such organizations give to humanitarian service? \u00a0I don\u2019t know. \u00a0But I wouldn\u2019t be at all surprised to learn that they give <em>nothing<\/em>. \u00a0It\u2019s not their function, and they understand that people who want to fight hunger in Africa, or eradicate disease in India, or eliminate homelessness in Appalachia, can (and do) give directly to organizations focused entirely on those causes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/mormonism' target='_blank'>Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> sees service to the poor and the needy as among\u00a0of its principal missions. \u00a0Still, important as such service is, it\u2019s only <em>one<\/em> of the Church\u2019s missions. \u00a0Those functions are commonly explained as 1) \u00a0Perfecting the Saints, 2) Proclaiming the Gospel, 3) Redeeming the Dead, and 4) Serving the Poor and the Needy.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course, some critics of the Church don\u2019t see the building of temples, the production of Church teaching materials, the support of international missionary work, the accumulation of family history records, and similar activities as legitimate objects of charity. \u00a0But they don\u2019t get to <em>determine<\/em> for others what is or isn\u2019t a genuinely charitable cause, any more than they have any actual\u00a0status to decree that, while fighting malnutrition is a <em>bona fide<\/em> charitable mission, advocating conservation (the Sierra Club), supporting grand opera (the Metropolitan Opera Guild), and building up museum collections and educational services (the Smithsonian Institution) are not.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>2.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I would guess that the figures cited in such articles as the one to which I link above are incomplete. \u00a0They don\u2019t represent, because they <em>can\u2019t<\/em> represent, all of the hours of volunteer service that are given under the auspices of \u2014 often directly organized by, but sometimes merely (!) inspired by \u2014 the Church. \u00a0My own ward, for instance, has done some spectacular service projects; I doubt that they\u2019ve made it into the numbers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Many if not most charitable organizations are obliged to hire their workers. \u00a0A very great deal of the service given through the Church is given by volunteers, including full-time missionaries.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to learn that many of those who criticize the Church for giving too little give proportionately less, and even perhaps <em>much<\/em> less,\u00a0themselves. \u00a0(See <a href=\"http:\/\/ldsmag.com\/article-1-1952\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 This article should be gratifying to Church members. \u00a0 LDS Church Spent 1.2 Billion on Welfare and Humanitarian Efforts \u00a0 A word, though, about the inevitable criticisms: \u00a0 The recently most fashionable response of Church critics to such numbers is that the Church isn\u2019t doing enough. \u00a0After all, the Church gives only x […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Useful data on the scope of LDS humanitarian efforts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    This article should be gratifying to Church members.  \" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/08\/useful-data-on-the-scope-of-lds-humanitarian-efforts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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