It should be noted that Michael Quinn paints a rosier picture of the Church and its leaders with charts and figures from his new book Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth & Corporate Power than Church apologists do with their denials and obfuscations. Surprise! Honesty can be faith-promoting.
For that "who would have thought" moment, please consider this article:
... the church took in about $33 billion in tithing in 2010, based on a model of projected growth rates that followed a consistent pattern starting in the 1950s. It earns another $15 billion annually, he says, in returns on its profit-making investments.
Canada: $166,728 New Zealand: $17.1 million Philippines: $63.8 million Tonga: $12 million United Kingdom: $1.8 million Source: D. Michael Quinn
Even in a developed country like the United Kingdom — home to almost as many Mormons as in Canada — headquarters sent $1.8 million in 2010, indicating that the church infrastructure exceeds what the locals can support. That and the other subsidies lead Quinn to assume the U.S.-born church is subsidizing its work and wards in Africa and Latin America, too.
Apostles long have preached that making profits builds the overall church, Quinn says, and the foreign filings appear to support that.
“Theologically,” he says, “the business of Mormonism has always been business.”
The church must be true because of all the business success it has and how it successfully hides the true amount of success from its dupes.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
