Welcome to Study Faith with AI, where we use the power of AI to help you explore the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I'm Meg Jensen.

And I'm Paul Carter,

and we're Google AIs. Whether you're a lifelong member or just starting to learn about the Church, we're here to dive deep into its history, beliefs, and culture.

So, if you're ready to learn, you're in the right place.

That's right.

Let's get started. 

$200 billion. I mean, just think about that number for a second.

Yeah, it's huge. That's the estimate for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints investment reserves.

And some estimates put the total wealth, you know, everything closer to 300 billion for 2024. It's well, it's pretty eye opening.

Definitely.

So, let's get into it. Today, we're doing a deep dive into the story of money in Mormonism.

Uh-huh. Tracing it right from the beginning.

Exactly. Starting way back in Kirtland, Ohio, and bringing it up to today, looking especially at tithing.

And what's really interesting, I think, is seeing how the Church's approach to finances, um how it shifted over time, it really mirrors the Church's own growth.

Totally. You see these early ideas about communal living and then well things get more structured as the organization gets bigger and faces different challenges. Right?

So for you listening, if you're interested in how big organizations work, how they change,

this should be pretty fascinating. We're looking at how financial principles got started, how they were, you know, tested by reality. and how they still shape things today. You know, looking at the finances of any large group, whether it's a business or a Church, it tells you a lot about its values, its priorities, where it's headed.

Okay. So, here's the plan for this deep dive. We'll kick off in Kirtland. Those early attempts at communal living, the financial struggles they ran into,

which were significant.

Oh, yeah. Then we'll look at how tithing actually started, its origins, how it worked in the beginning,

and how that evolved into what members practice now,

right? And we'll definitely talk about how the Church uses its money today, the big investment funds, um some of the controversies, too, like that SEC settlement everyone heard about.

Important context there.

And finally, we'll touch on why this whole topic, money, tithing, why it means so much both for believers and, you know, for people looking in from the outside.

And we've pulled from a lot of different places for this history books. The Church's own scriptures like the Doctrine and Covenants,

which collects revelations and other key documents. Exactly. Plus financial reports, statements, even court filings sometimes trying to get the full picture.

That variety is crucial, isn't it? You see the theology, but also how it works in practice and well, how different people see it.

Precisely.

Okay, let's dive in. Picture this. Kirtland, Ohio, 1831. The early members, they believed God commanded them to gather there.

And he promised he'd give them his law in that place.

And that law, at first, it wasn't quite tithing as we know it. It was this thing called the law of consecration and stewardship.

Yeah, this was a really foundational idea more than just giving money. It was about how you lived, how you shared everything. Basically,

the core principle was this intense community focus, esteeming your neighbor as yourself, like the scripture says.

So, people would consecrate or dedicate their property to the Church, to the Lord really

and then they'd receive back what they needed to manage that was their stewardship enough to support their family and contribute.

And anything extra, the surplus was supposed to go into a central storehouse,

Right? To take care of the poor, fund Church projects. It was a system for managing resources collectively.

A very ambitious vision, but uh making it work daytoday, that was tough.

Yeah. Especially defining surplus like we saw. One example. Imagine you're a farmer.

Uhhuh.

How do you know what your surplus is before the harvest before you know your yield or what prices will be?

Exactly. There's so much uncertainty. How do you calculate extra when you don't know what you'll actually end up with or what you'll need next week.

It made it really hard to implement consistently.

That ambiguity was a real challenge built into the system from the start.

So to try and make things work, they set up Church-run businesses, things like the literary firm, the United firm.

Basically businesses owned and operated by the Church based on these same consecration principles.

The goal was things like publishing scriptures, religious materials, and also generating money to help the poor.

And any profits again were supposed to go back to that storehouse. It was all meant to be interconnected.

A real attempt at a self-sustaining, consecrated economy.

But then reality hit hard.

Yeah. Kirtland faced one financial crisis after another. They were forced out of Jackson County, Missouri.

Costly, disruptive.

Then there was Zion's camp. That expedition to try and reclaim land. Also expensive and ultimately unsuccessful in its immediate goal.

And building the Kirtland Temple itself was a massive undertaking financially,

huge expense. And then the big one, the collapse of the Kirtland society.

Ah yes, the bank or uh the anti-banking safety society as it was structured, its failure was devastating.

Right? All these things together just put incredible strain on the Church's finances. They were stretched really, really thin.

It showed how vulnerable that early economic model was, especially when facing outside pressure and frankly some internal financial missteps.

Definitely. So this leads to a major pivot point. It's December 1837. The Church is in deep financial trouble.

So, a committee comes up with a new proposal.

Yeah. Instead of trying to get everyone to consecrate this undefined surplus, which wasn't really working consistently.

They suggest something else, a voluntary donation.

Specifically, a small percentage, they started talking about maybe 2% of a household's net worth.

Kind of a stop gap measure really to deal with the immediate debts and needs.

Exactly. It was framed as like a partial fulfillment of consecration given how difficult the full thing had proven to be.

It was a practical adjustment. It acknowledged the real that the original plan wasn't working financially and it sort of paved the way for well for tithing

precisely because just a few months later July 1838 the Saints are now in far west Missouri

and Joseph Smith receives another revelation this one is canonized as section 119 in the Doctrine and Covenants

and this revelation gives a much more specific instruction it introduces tithing as we tend to think of it

right it defines tithing pretty clearly one-tenth of all their interest annually

though interestingly, it also still mentioned contributing surplus property as well as a standing law.

Yeah, that part sometimes gets overlooked, but the annual interest part became the focus.

And look at why they needed it then. The revelation lists specific purposes, building the Lord's house temples, basically

laying the foundation of Zion,

supporting the priesthood, and crucially at that moment, paying the debts of the Church Presidency.

Notice what's not explicitly listed there, at least initially. Broad humanitarian aid was the primary stated purpose right at the start.

Good point. It was very focused on building the institution, getting it on solid footing, dealing with those immediate debts,

which makes sense for a young movement trying to survive and grow.

Now, comparing this new tithing law to the old law of consecration.

Mhm.

It's interesting. Some historians argue tithing was actually seen as more demanding.

Really? How so?

Well, because it was a set percentage, one-tenth, even if people debated what interest meant exactly.

Uh, okay. compared to the vaguer surplus which could be interpreted more subjectively.

Exactly. A fixed percentage might feel like a higher bar, a more consistent requirement than just giving what you felt was extra.

That makes sense. A clearer expectation perhaps.

But here's another fascinating part. The revelation didn't give, like a detailed IRS style worksheet on how to calculate it.

No specific formula provided by the Lord as it were,

right? It was left more to the individual member to figure out, you know, between them and God. odd maybe talking with their bishop.

So that allowed for some personal interpretation right from the beginning.

Definitely. And early on interest wasn't always understood as just income.

How was it interpreted then?

Well, the terms income, interest, and increase seem to have been used kind of interchangeably.

Okay.

And there's evidence some early leaders and members thought it meant one-tenth of your profit or increase after your basic living needs were met. Sort of like the old surplus idea, but maybe calculated annually.

Interesting. So, not necessarily 10% of everything you brought in.

Potentially not for some people initially. There are references in Joseph Smith's translation of Genesis and an editorial in the Church's newspaper, The Millennial Star, around 1847 that kind of support that after expenses view.

So, the modern understanding of 10% of income wasn't necessarily the only understanding back then.

It seems there was more discussion around it. Yeah. But even with that uh maybe more flexible interpretation that

it wasn't universally followed.

Fast forward to 1873. Orson Pratt, a prominent apostle, he actually observed that a lot of Saints weren't even complying with what he called the inferior law of tithing, meaning one-tenth of their annual income.

So even the basic income tithe wasn't happening consistently across the board yet.

Apparently not. Pratt seemed frustrated that people weren't even doing that, let alone worrying about the surplus property part.

Shows that establishing a consistent financial practice across a whole population takes time and uh reinforcement

definitely which brings us to how things shifted towards the modern practice. There was a really big push later on especially around the turn of the 20th century.

Right. Lorenzo Snow's famous emphasis in 1899.

Exactly. He was president of the Church then and he really stressed tithing on income as the key to getting the Church out of debt again and for members to receive blessings.

He tied it very directly to blessings both for the Church as a whole and for individuals like opening the windows of heaven.

Yeah. Quoting Malachi. That period really cemented the focus on annual income.

And you see that reflected in the Church's official handbooks over time too.

Right. Like the 1944 handbook talked about income or increase from property. A bit broad still.

Mhm.

But then in 1970 there was an important letter from the First Presidency. They specifically went back to the wording of the 1838 revelation one-tenth of their interest annually. And basically said this is the standard.

So reaffirming the original revelation, but by then interest annually had pretty much come to mean annual income in common practice.

That seems to be the case. That 1970 letter really solidified the interpretation most members follow today.

And the process now is quite streamlined, isn't it?

Very members give their tithing usually along with other donations like fast offerings to their local ward or branch

and then those funds get sent up to Church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

Yep. The general handbook makes it clear. It's centrally collected and then distributed based on the Church's overall priorities and needs

which allows them to fund things globally from temples in Africa to chapels in Asia using funds collected everywhere.

But even with all that standardization, there's still that element of personal interpretation.

How so?

The Church officially states that the definition of increase or interest annually is ultimately between the member and the lord.

Huh. Okay. So while the common understanding is income, they don't rigidly enforce one single calculation method.

Exactly. Bishops can give guidance, but the final call on what constitutes your personal increase is left to individual conscience.

That maintains a degree of that early flexibility even within the modern system.

It does. Now, let's talk about where all this money goes. We're talking huge sums collected globally.

The guiding idea here is stewardship. Church leaders emphasize they're accountable to God for how these funds are used.

And we see it used for a lot of visible things, right? building and maintaining temples, thousands of meeting houses worldwide,

the massive missionary program, tens of thousands of missionaries out at any given time,

supporting Church schools like BYU, BYU Idaho, BYU Hawaii, Ensign College,

and of course the welfare and humanitarian programs, food banks, disaster relief, community projects.

These are the core activities that tithing has presented as funding.

But then there's the other side of the financial coin, which has gotten a lot more attention recently.

You mean the investment Exactly. That estimated $200 billion plus figure managed by Ensign Peak Advisors.

Yeah. The sheer size of that fund has raised eyebrows and questions

and it represents a fundamental shift. Investment income itself has become a massive source of revenue for the Church

to the point where some analyses like one called the Widow’s Mite Report suggest that maybe only a third of the Church's total income in recent years has actually gone into operations.

With the other two/3s going back into those investments, growing the pot even larger

which understandably leads to discussions about well why keep accumulating so much

and that ties into some of the controversies like the SEC settlement in 2023

right what was that actually about

so the SEC found that Ensign Peak the investment arm had used a series of shell companies for years from 1997 to 2019 basically to avoid disclosing the full size of the Church's stock market investments

they were trying to keep the number under the radar

that was the SEC's finding that it obscured the true size in scope. They weren't properly filing the required forms that large investment managers have to file.

And the Church and Ensign Peak paid penalties.

Yep. They settled, paid fines, and agreed to stop that practice. Importantly, the SEC case was about disclosure, how they reported things, not about whether the investments themselves were illegal.

Okay, that's a key distinction. Transparency, not legality of the assets.

Correct. Then there was also that lawsuit from James Huntsman,

right? A prominent member who sued to get his tithing back. What was his argument?

He claimed the Church had misrepresented how tithing funds were used, specifically alleging that tithing money had improperly funded the City Creek Center project in Salt Lake,

that big upscale mall and residential development downtown.

Exactly. Now, the Church maintained that no tithing was used, that it came from commercial earnings and investment returns.

And how did the courts rule?

Ultimately, a court ruling acknowledged the Church's integrity regarding the source of funds for that specific project, siding with the Church's explanation. But the lawsuit itself brought more attention to how the Church uses its commercial and investment income.

It sparked a lot of conversation among members and observers.

Definitely. And all this connects to the debate about humanitarian aid.

You mean is the Church giving away enough relative to its wealth?

That's the core question some people ask. The Church points out its aid has increased dramatically. Some reports say it's up more than five times since the finances became more public, maybe over $500 million a year now. Which is a lot of money in absolute terms.

Absolutely. But critics compare that $500 million figure to the $200 billion plus investment portfolio and argue it's still a very small percentage of the total wealth.

So it becomes a debate about proportion and priorities

exactly what's the right balance between saving for the future, funding current operations, and giving to immediate needs.

And then there's that striking point from the Widow’s Mite Report again.

The idea that the reserves are now so large they could theoretically fund everything the Church does forever just off the investment returns.

Yeah. Using a standard endowment payout rate like a university uses, like BYU even.

If that analysis holds, it suggests the Church has reached a point of complete financial self-sufficiency, potentially even without any more tithing donations,

which really shifts the conversation about why members are still asked to tithe today.

It absolutely does. So, let's unpack that. Why does tithing still matter so much? First, from the perspective of believers.

For faithful members, it starts with belief. Tithing isn't just a policy. It's seen as a commandment from God.

Right? Something taught way back with Abraham in Law of Moses in the Book of Mormon. It has deep scriptural roots.

And tied to that commandment are promised blessings,

spiritual blessings like feeling closer to God, growing your faith

and temporal ones, too. That windows of heaven promise from Malachi is still very central to the teaching believing that obedience brings blessings.

So, paying tithing becomes an act of faith, an expression of love for God, a way to show commitment.

It's also linked to this idea of living a consecrated life, recognizing that everything you have comes from God and you're just a steward over it.

We even saw that quote from Elder Bednar, a current apostle, basically saying the Church doesn't need the money,

but the members need the blessings that come from the obedience of paying it.

It reframes it as being primarily for the spiritual benefit of the giver, not just the operational needs. to the Church.

That's a powerful perspective for believers.

Okay, now let's flip it. Why is money and tithing such a big deal for doubters, critics, or even just observers?

Well, a big one is transparency or the perceived lack of it historically.

Even with more disclosure now, some feel it's still not enough,

right? Questions remain for some about exactly where all the money goes, how investment decisions are made, the full picture of the Church's global financial operations,

and then there's the sheer size of the wealth itself.

Yes. The accumulation of hundreds of billions raises ethical questions for some, especially when compared to the direct spending on charity or humanitarian aid. Is the balance right?

There's also sometimes criticism about a prosperity gospel feel to some tithing rhetoric.

Yeah. The idea that if you pay tithing, you're guaranteed financial success. Critics argue that it can be manipulative or harmful, especially for people struggling financially.

And James Huntsman’s point comes back here too. If the Church is so wealthy, is asking members, especially poorer members, to continue tithing for basic operations still justifiable?

It leads some to feel their contributions aren't truly necessary anymore for the Church to function.

That the Church could easily cover everything from its investments.

And you get these interesting contrasts like President Nelson telling members in Africa that paying tithing is key to breaking cycles of poverty.

Which raises questions about how that message lands or should land for members in, say wealthy Western countries. Does the rule change?

It highlights the complexity of applying a single financial principle across vastly different global economic realities.

And ultimately, maybe it's just the nature of being big and successful.

It seems likely. As one source noted, whether the Church was seen as struggling financially or incredibly successful, it would probably face criticism either way about how it handled money, there are always going to be differing views.

So, wrapping up this deep dive,

wow, we've gone from From Kirtland's communal dreams and financial nightmares

all the way to today's multi-billion dollar global finance reality

with tithing as this constant yet evolving principle running through it all.

I think the biggest takeaway is just how much the understanding and the practice of tithing have changed over time.

Yeah. Shaped by history, by leaders interpretations, by the Church's own growth and frankly its incredible financial success.

And there's this ongoing almost inherent tension, isn't there, between the spiritual side, faith behind it all, and the very practical sometimes controversial realities of managing such enormous wealth as a global organization

which leaves us with a final thought maybe for you to ponder.

Yeah. How should an organization, especially one with a spiritual mission balance that mission with managing massive wealth? What does responsible stewardship look like at that scale?

And what happens when members within the same faith have different ideas about what core financial principles like tithing really mean or require? today.

Lots to think about. It's a definitely a complex story still unfolding. Hopefully, this deep dive gave you a lot more context and different perspectives to consider.

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