Reactions to The Church’s $100 Billion Savings Fund Shows That Many Saints Do NOT Understand D&C 104:16

When the news broke that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had $100 Billion in surplus tithing wisely invested for a rainy day, many people were outraged. I started getting messages from members asking that I explain why and how the Church could or would do this. Whereas those are important questions, and questions I addressed in Facebook live videos and this article: “We Should be Praising The Church for Having $100 Billion in Savings Not Criticizing It!” I think that the bigger problem is that it exposed that too many members don’t understand Doctrine and Covenants 104:15-16!

There are a lot of things we are commanded to do that the Lord does not care about how we do it. For example, the Lord does not care if you hold scripture study in the morning vs the night. Nor does He care if we hold it in bed vs at a table vs at a desk vs in the car. But, there are other things that the Lord does care about. Baptism, for example, it must be done in water, it must be by immersion, and it must be performed by someone holding the Priesthood Authority. Welfare is one of those things the Lord cares about how we do it. Regarding welfare, The LORD declared in Doctrine and Covenants 104:15-16 that “it [welfare] must needs be done in mine own way.” So what is His way and how is the world different?

I want to point out three critical differences between the Lord’s way to administer welfare and the world’s way to administer welfare. And how a lack of understanding of these differences is the root of all the hoopla regarding The Church’s savings.

1st The Church does not throw money at problems.

When people say, “Why don’t you spend that $100 Billion on helping people!” It shows that they don’t understand how welfare in the Lord’s way works. Probably the starkest difference between welfare as the Lord has instituted it and how the world has instituted it is how money is used. In the world, they simply throw money at programs to fix perceived problems. Take for example SNAP or food assistance. The US Government has budgeted $79 Billion on food-based welfare in 2020 alone (up from $68B in 2018), often simply giving people money to buy food, some perspective, they give up to $352 a month for a family of 2 and $762 for a family of 5! This is just a single welfare program that the government runs! There are dozens of other programs from housing to education assistance.

The philosophy of throwing money at problems is not limited to the US Government, as countless charities and foundations also use this approach. The side effect of this philosophy is that often welfare programs/charities have rampant fraud and abuse both by recipients (food stamp fraud was estimated at $592.7 million in 2016 alone!), as well as administrators who often get paid six-figure and seven-figure salaries out of their organization’s donations (see charity watch article)! And that is not even going into how poorly managed many of them are. For example, the American Red Cross and their $500 Million scandal with their Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund see this NPR article: In Search Of The Red Cross’ $500 Million In Haiti Relief

In contrast to throwing money at problems, the Lord’s welfare program uses resources and people at a problem. And when they do make donations in cash it is with carefully selected partners to ensure that they use the money for fiscally sensible projects. One example of the Church’s long-term welfare strategy is when they used welfare funds to hire local tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, what did they hire these workers to do? Helped rebuild schools, churches, clean water projects, and to repair fishing boats. The fishing boats were to ensure the economic recovery of the region as fishermen without boats can’t fish. The Church’s goal was not to throw money at the problem as the RedCross did with Haiti but to actually help them help themselves. To read more about the Church’s post-tsunami welfare activities click here.

2nd. Church welfare humbles the giver and exalts the receiver.

In Doctrine and Covenants 104:16, the Lord outlines why we must follow His pattern in welfare: “But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.” Not only are many government programs bloated and ineffective, but they gather their funds via forced taxation or running a deficit and borrowing money. This causes a disconnect between the giver from the receiver, robbing both of the full benefits of welfare. This is not even addressing the fact they employ force and infringe on freedom with their socialist/welfare state policies. President Hunter addressed this issue at BYU when he said:

“If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through “a democratic process” he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the “haves” and give to the “have nots.” Both have lost their freedom. Those who “have,” lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who “have not,” lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got “something for nothing,” and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift.”

(Howard W. Hunter, “The Law of the Harvest.” BYU, 8 March 1966.)

Within the Lord’s program of Welfare, the goal is not to simply get someone to pony up the cash, as the Lord could provide if all we needed was money, and it is not only about helping others. Welfare within the Church is about blessing both the giver and the receiver. Marion G. Romney explained it like this:

“The Lord doesn’t really need us to take care of the poor. He could take care of them without our help if it were his purpose to do so… It would be a simple thing for the Lord to reveal to President [Nelson] where the deposits of oil and precious ores are. We could then hire someone to dig them out and we could float in wealth—and we would float in wealth right down to Hades. No, the Lord doesn’t really need us to take care of the poor, but we need this experience; for it is only through our learning how to take care of each other that we develop within us the Christlike love and disposition necessary to qualify us to return to his presence.“

Marion G. Romney, Living Welfare Principles, Oct 1981

3rd Church Welfare is aimed at self-reliance.

When I was serving my mission in Maine, I ran into something I had never fathomed before. Someone who was on welfare explained that she had been offered a job that week, she told us “I turned it down because I make more money by not working than that job would pay.” As we drove home my companion lost it. and started raging in the car, “YOU DON’T MAKE ANYTHING ON WELFARE! You don’t produce anything, you just get money to live!”

Government programs justify their existence by showing that their services or being used; because of this, not only are they not incentivized to help people become self-sufficient, even worse, they are incentivized to promote dependency, as their existence is justified by how many people are getting welfare from their given program.

On the flip side, Church welfare is aimed at self-reliance. The goal of ALL their help is to help you start progressing spiritually and temporally. That is why the Church focused on rebuilding and repairing the fishing infrastructure after the 2004 Tsunami. The Church has repeatedly focused on helping people to help themselves. President Spencer W. Kimball learned this the hard way when he was a Stake President and needed aid to help with flooding in Arizona; here is his story as related by Dieter F. Uchtdorf

In 1941 the Gila River overflowed and flooded the Duncan Valley in Arizona. A young stake president by the name of Spencer W. Kimball met with his counselors, assessed the damage, and sent a telegram to Salt Lake City asking for a large sum of money.

Instead of sending money, President Heber J. Grant sent three men: Henry D. Moyle, Marion G. Romney, and Harold B. Lee. They visited with President Kimball and taught him an important lesson: “This isn’t a program of ‘give me,’” they said. “This is a program of ‘self-help.’”

Many years later, President Kimball said: “It would have been an easy thing, I think, for the Brethren to have sent us [the money,] and it wouldn’t have been too hard to sit in my office and distribute it; but what a lot of good came to us as we had hundreds of [our own] go to Duncan and build fences and haul the hay and level the ground and do all the things that needed doing. That is self-help.”

By following the Lord’s way, the members of President Kimball’s stake not only had their immediate needs met, but they also developed self-reliance, alleviated suffering, and grew in love and unity as they served each other.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Providing in the Lord’s Way, Oct 2011.

Conclusion: Problems vs Solutions.

The world views the poor and needy as a problem that needs to be fixed. When in reality the true problem is that we are not Celestial Beings yet, therefore we are unable to inherit Celestial Glory. The solution to us not being Celestial Beings yet is taking care of the poor and the needy. If Satan is allowed to do welfare his way he will remove the solution not the problem. Thus we are left back at the issue that we are not Celestial Beings. This is why welfare MUST be done in the LORD’s way. Because His way simply put, is to use welfare to help us become Celestial Beings living Celestial Law, and worthy of the Celestial Kingdom.

Understanding that welfare is a solution and not a problem one can flatly reject the notion that the Church should engage in welfare like the world does by throwing their $100 Billion savings into welfare projects. But rather, that welfare should be done in the Lord’s way, as it is the key to becoming like Him.

This truth was taught by Marion G. Romney who taught, “Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom. Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made.”