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<\/a>Some critics insist that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> is nothing more than a profit-driven corporation designed to enrich its leaders. This charge is absurd on its face, of course, but it surely ought to be obvious that the Dominican Republic isn\u2019t very likely to be a profit center for the Church. And Haiti, next door, where a new temple is under construction, is even LESS likely. For a bunch of supposedly greedy corporate executives, Church leaders certainly seem to be taking a lot of interest in \u201cinvestments\u201d that will never pay off financially.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As a former director of the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (CPART), a division of what was then FARMS but later became the Maxwell Institute, and as someone who was present at the very creation \u2014 indeed, as a former chairman of the board of FARMS who was closely affiliated with the organization for twenty-four years \u2014 \u00a0I\u2019m saddened to see this:<\/p>\n
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\u201cCPART\u2019s season at the Maxwell Institute comes to an end\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Those were heady days. \u00a0We had high hopes; fantastic relationships internationally; grand ambitions; generous, supportive, and involved donors; and a remarkable symbiosis of enthusiastic BYU specialists in both ancient studies and cutting-edge electronic technology. \u00a0BYU was a\u00a0world leader, a central player. \u00a0There was a spirit of adventure and excitement about the whole FARMS organization. \u00a0To repurpose the opening lines of William Wordsworth\u2019s rather oddly-titled poem \u201cThe French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement\u201d:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From the hellish region of California\u2019s terrible fires:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWatch: Why woman displaced by Calif. wildfires is feeding other victims at Mormon chapel\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From the Salt Lake Tribune<\/em>, historically hostile to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its leaders and, still today, often critical:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRecords reveal how money from Utah and U.S. Mormons props up LDS operations overseas\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This article is actually fairly balanced \u2014 though Gina Colvin, cited in the article, is scarcely a\u00a0friend to Church leadership.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n (For the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple, see here: \u00a0http:\/\/ldschurchtemples.org\/portauprince\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been bemused, incidentally, by the complaint that I\u2019ve long heard \u2014 and that I\u2019m hearing a great deal again over the past few days \u2014 that the Church allegedly gives so little of its \u201cprofits\u201d (that\u2019s the word that\u2019s often used to describe its income from tithes and other sources) for \u201ccharity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sigh.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is<\/em> a charity.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And tithes and fast offerings and the like aren\u2019t \u201cprofits.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The people making this complaint \u2014 relatively few of them, I suspect, actual tithe payers themselves \u2014 seem to imagine that welfare and humanitarian aid are the only activities or expenditures that can be validly counted as \u201ccharities.\u201d \u00a0But ordinary usage (not to mention American tax law) recognizes such organizations as the Sierra Club, the Metropolitan Opera Association, the Boy Scouts, the Museum of the Bible, Harvard University, the Audubon Society, the YMCA, the American Cancer Society, the Nature Conservancy, the American Civil Liberties Union, Junior Achievement USA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Public Broadcasting Service, Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Museum of Natural History as charities. \u00a0Yet I doubt that most of those organizations devote\u00a0a significant portion of their income to\u00a0the digging of water wells in Africa or the alleviation of poverty in Appalachia.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Metropolitan Opera Association is a charity that raises money to support . . . opera<\/em>. \u00a0Harvard University seeks donations to expand and deepen its educational offerings and its research, and to continue to build its (elite) international reputation. \u00a0Wycliffe Bible Translators concentrate on . . . well, Bible translation.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In an analogous way, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints constructs temples, builds chapels, supports educational institutions (from seminaries and Institutes of Religion through universities) and subsidizes students, furthers international missionary work, pursues the gathering of genealogical records around the world, makes family history materials available at no charge, furnishes weekly broadcasts of \u201cMusic and the Spoken Word,\u201d and a host of other things.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n True, the critics don\u2019t like<\/em> those things. \u00a0They regard those things as silly, if not worse. \u00a0But that doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re not charities<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone,\u201d I read this morning, \u201cis getting very rich off the tithes and offerings of Mormonism\u2019s dupes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I have no idea, though, who that person might be. \u00a0I alluded to such allegations only\u00a0yesterday:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Church and Its Money, and David Whitmer\u2019s Testimony, Versified\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve addressed this general topic, of the Church and its humanitarian efforts, on a number of occasions. \u00a0Here are just two of them:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhy does the Church give so little to charity?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n