Come Follow Me: Ensign Peak, Tithing, and Why the Church Claims They Hid it from Members (February 10, 2020)

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If you're reading this post, you have almost certainly heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holding an investment fund worth around $124 billion dollars called Ensign Peak in recent weeks. The original story was reported by the Washington Post on December 17th, and the Wall Street Journal did another dive into the Ensign Peak fund this past weekend.



Originally I didn't plan on doing a write-up because it was all happening during the holidays and I just did not have time to write about it, but this past weekend's Wall Street Journal article really articulated what is so frustrating about the church's lack of transparency on finances, and what we've noted when looking at a lot of other troubling topics of Mormonism - they simply do not trust their members with honest, complete information on their history or finances.



To give a better overview of this topic, we're going to refer to the Salt Lake Tribune's coverage of the recent Wall Street Journal article by Peggy Fletcher Stack, because it covers some of the quotes from Mormon leaders along with Ensign Peak about the fund without getting as deep into the weeds as the WSJ article does. As we tend to do, we'll go through it in chunks to cover what the church is saying along with what they're not saying. And on to the article:

"Latter-day Saint officials kept the size of the church’s $100 billion investment reserves secret for fear that public knowledge of the fund’s wealth might discourage members from paying tithing, according to the top executive who oversees the account.



For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tithing — donating 10% of one’s income to the faith — “is more of a sense of commitment than it is the church needing the money,” Roger Clarke, head of Ensign Peak Advisors, which manages the denomination’s investing holdings, told The Wall Street Journal.



“So they never wanted to be in a position where people felt like, you know, they shouldn’t make a contribution,” Clarke said."



The Salt Lake Tribune gets straight to the point here, because this is a massive statement and acknowledgement by the Mormon church. Ensign Peak, which manages $124 billion in investments cultivated from tithing funds, is admitting that the church doesn't tell its members about the fund because they know members aren't going to keep paying tithing if they knew the church is sitting on so much money that they could cover every administrative cost for the church with the yearly gains and still have billions left over in gains each year to grow the account.



And do not forget that Prophet Joseph F Smith said this about tithing at the 1907 General Conference: "Furthermore, I want to say to you, we may not be able to reach it right away, but we expect to see the day when we will not have to ask you for one dollar of donation for any purpose, except that which you volunteer to give of your own accord, because we will have tithes sufficient in the storehouse of the Lord to pay everything that is needful for the advancement of the kingdom of God." (In Conference Report, Apr. 1907, 7)



Of course the church (and church apologists) would reply that Joseph F Smith was speaking as a man in that instance, and that $124 billion in liquid assets is not "sufficient" for the church's needs. But if church leaders truly believed that, why not be transparent with the members who are taking their hard earned money and funding the church's investment portfolio? If $124 billion in an investment portfolio is not enough, why not share with members what they've accomplished and let them know what the goal is if the church is truly as 'transparent as they know how to be.'



This is the same exact reason the church refuses to be transparent with members about problems with church history whether it's Book of Mormon translation, Joseph Smith's implementation and use of polygamy and polyandry, or the vast issues with the First Vision as they celebrate the 200th anniversary. If the church truly believed what they were doing was true and good, they would be open and honest and tell every member to research their claims and hold them accountable. Instead we have talk after talk demonizing those with doubts, telling the poor that only tithing can get them out of the poverty cycle, and that they are as transparent as they know how to be.



Back to the article:

"The Journal’s exploration of church financial holdings included interviews with Clarke and top Latter-day Saint officials, including Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé, the ecclesiastical leader who oversees the Utah-based faith’s vast financial, real estate, investment and charitable operations.



Neither Clarke nor other officials would provide The Journal with details on the size of the church’s annual budget or how much money goes to Ensign Peak. But, the paper reported, they “gave estimates for its main areas of expenditure that, collectively, total about $5 billion.”



In recent years, the church’s reserve fund has grown by about 7% annually, Clarke told The Journal, mainly from returns on existing investments, not member donations."



Again, the church refuses to be transparent with their members as they enjoy the benefits of being a tax exempt corporation. And while that might not be against the law (there are questions of whether it's lawful to be tax exempt when you are not actively using the fund for charitable purposes), it is absolutely against their own definition of honesty. From the church's manual on honesty:

"When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest."

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Not only is the church being dishonest by leading the church members to believe that they are “We are not a wealthy people but we are good people, and we share what we have" as Elder Andersen said in 2018, they are taking active steps to obfuscate their financial dealings in order to keep members thinking the church needs their money. When you look at the details of the story along with the church's rationale for deceiving members, it quickly goes from dishonest to reprehensible.



Just last year, Prophet Russell M. Nelson did a worldwide speaking tour where he told members in Africa that only paying tithing can get them out of the cycle of poverty. From the Deseret News: "We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation," he said. "That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing."



Not only is that statement simply untrue, it is beyond self serving for a man who knows the enormous amount of cash they are sitting on to tell those who do not have the means that they have to pay tithing in order to not just get out of poverty, but to enter the temple which they are told is essential to their salvation.



Put another way, the man who claims to be the lone prophet of God on this Earth is telling people in the poorest areas of the Earth that without giving the church (worth $124 billion in this one investment fund alone) 10% of their income they not only will never get out of poverty, but they will be denied exaltation for eternity.



I know some believing members will take offense at that characterization, but please tell me where I am wrong. There is simply no statistical evidence that paying tithing brings people out of poverty (anecdotally I have been much better off in my career since I left as have thousands of others who leave the church), and tithing was not enforced to enter the temple until 1899, which is why Prophet Joseph F Smith assured members there would be the day that the church would have "sufficient" money to not require tithing money from members.



Last, the church concedes the whistleblower was accurate when stating their yearly gains were about 7%, which is the benchmark rule of thumb for most investment plans. That would mean the church isn't doing any better or worse than the average, which is what you'd expect from an organization that is run by men. But when Clarke says the gains are "mainly from returns on existing investments," he is being careful not to say that those "existing investments" were made with tithing money. Just as in the Gospel Topics essay on Joseph Smith's polygamy, they are using carefully worded denials when they know full well that they are purposefully misleading their members (and the public) at best.



Back to the article:

"The fund’s handlers are instructed not to invest in industries that Latter-day Saints consider objectionable — including “alcohol, caffeinated beverages, tobacco and gambling,” he said, alluding in part to the church’s health code known as the Word of Wisdom, which bars those substances (although caffeinated sodas are not part of that prohibition).



Some of the stocks in which Ensign has invested millions include Apple Inc., Chevron Corp., Visa Inc., JPMorgan Chase, Home Depot, Amazon and Google, according to the article."

This is no surprise, although I'd just note that if you've never looked at the Word of Wisdom, we covered their recent "Now You Know" video on the Word of Wisdom and you can see how silly the Word of Wisdom is not just in the actual revelation, but the implementation of it as well. But there's really nothing here of note, so let's move on. Back to the article:

"Clarke and former Ensign employees said the firm created a system of more than a dozen shell companies to make its stock investments harder to track. That strategy, Clarke said, was designed to prevent members from parroting what Ensign was doing and to, as the paper stated, “protect them from mismanaging their own funds with insufficient information.”

Church officials described the fund as a “rainy-day account” and to help fund operations in poorer parts of the world — such as Africa, where the faith is booming — where member donations can’t keep up."

Wait, what? The Mormon church created a system of more than a dozen shell companies to make their investments harder to track?



And now that the church has now been caught doing so, their excuse is that it was to "protect them [active members of the church] from mismanaging their own funds with insufficient information?"



This is absolutely ridiculous. The statement here by the church is a flat out lie, and as a member of record I beg any church leader to explain to me how this is not as damning towards their honesty as it appears to be. What member is going to be harmed by seeing that the church has a professionally run investment fund and then attempt to replicate it? Do they not realize that many members have 401K accounts that are run in the exact same way? And yet somehow they don't need to set up shell companies to hide it from the government or their family.



I can't overstate how blatantly dishonest this statement is, and the church absolutely knows how deceptive and insulting such a rationale for creating a system of shell companies to hide their wealth is. This is a true 'liar liar pants on fire' moment for the church, and the leaders of the First Presidency are all in on it. Either they don't have enough faith in you remaining 100% obedient to tell you the truth, or they are so greedy that they would rather lie to keep the money rolling in. There is no faith promoting answer here which is apparent from their terrible answer here.



The church calling the fund a "rainy-day account" is also laughable, because we can see the devastation around the world every day. Children are starving to death every minute, millions upon millions of people have no access to clean water, and natural disasters impact poor countries around the world and yet the church has never once made a charitable donation from this $124 billion account according to the whistleblower account.



Now the church in this case is saying that eventually they will use the money to fund church operations in the parts of the world where they are actually growing at a decent page (where there is a lack of access to Google to research their truth claims), but why would that be needed if paying tithing will bring them out of poverty as Prophet Russell M. Nelson declared to the members just last year? This is so contradictory to what the leaders say today, yet they say it with a straight face because they need members to believe that they need to follow the prophet, no matter how dishonest and wrong the prophets have been throughout the church's history.



Back to the article:

"The church can’t predict “when the next 2008 is going to take place,” Christopher Waddell, second counselor in the faith’s Presiding Bishopric, told The Journal. “If something like that [an economic recession] were to happen again, we won’t have to stop missionary work.”



When the Great Recession hit, however, officials said the church trimmed the budget rather than tap its reserves."

The church here is saying they need the $124 billion for when the "next 2008" takes place so they "won't have to stop missionary work," yet when the 'Great Recession' actually did hit, the church never tapped into the fund nor did it halt missionary work. This is yet another rationale that is contradicted by their past actions, and they are only saying it to try and pacify members who are waking up to realize that this church is not only untrue, but not good, either.



Back to the article:

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"Here are some other takeaways from The Journal story:



• Ensign Peak’s holdings include “$40 billion of U.S. stock, timberland in the Florida Panhandle and investments in prominent hedge funds.”



• Latter-day Saint officials acknowledged that it used Ensign funds to underwrite construction of City Creek Center mall in downtown Salt Lake City and rescue Beneficial Life, a church-owned insurance company, but said there was nothing illegal in that.



• Former employees said the fund mushroomed from about $40 billion in 2012 to around $100 billion by 2019.



• Church officials said the global faith, as a whole, gives about $1 billion a year to “humanitarian causes and charities.”"

This big concession here is that the church admits they used this tax exempt fund to underwrite a for profit venture in the City Creek Mall and to rescue Beneficial Life, both of which were originally reported by the whistleblower. The church contends this is not illegal and I am not a legal expert, but I can say it looks awful when a church uses a tithing investment fund to bail out its for profit ventures yet has never spent a dime to help those who truly need it.



And the church claims to give $1 billion a year to "humanitarian causes and charities," yet they do not give details. That should not surprise anyone considering the way they do accounting of these donations. For example, in one instance where we do have some transparency:



The LDS welfare fact sheet from 2009 shows in the years 1985 through 2009 (24 years), the church donated just $327.6 in cash donations but they also count $884.6 million in donations of "material assistance." So in other words, over those 24 years the church donated an average of just $13.65 million a year in actual cash, while *valuing* the volunteer time of its members at $36.85 million a year.