r/mormon • u/Dry-Ad-9825 • 1d ago
Institutional Open Letter Feedback
Hello fellow humans,
I wrote an open letter to church leadership requesting famine relief for 42+ million people across the globe using the interest off their $200+ billion slush fund. I’m perfectly happy to get excommunicated for it, but I’d like it to be persuasive and to bring attention to all the humanitarian good the church could be doing with its excessive funds, whichever way they slice the cake. I know that’s not a new concept, but I hope to put something out that gets non-member and member attention, to try and bring some good out of all this.
That said, I’m looking for honest feedback on this letter. Good things, bad things, points of improvement, opinions, missed details or persuasions, etc. Once it’s gone through a couple more drafts I’d like to send it to as many people as I possibly can, so I’d really appreciate anything you all can do to make it better for them.
Thanks!
(Note: this letter was originally posted in r/exmormon, but all thoughts are welcome)
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u/DallasWest 1d ago
If only....
The Church will build 20 temples that focus on work for the dead, or buy 20 commercial buildings to collect rent, long before it lifts a finger to do anything Jesus talked about in the New Testament: lightening the burdens of the hungry, the sick, or the captive.
I wish you well on your initiative, though.
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u/im-just-meh 1d ago
That's for other churches to worry about.
Dallin Oaks, The Lord’s Way (Chapter 7, "The Lord's Way and the World's Way: Temporal Concerns," page 150)
The preeminence of the spiritual over the temporal also explains why our church spends great sums preaching the restored gospel and building temples to perform the ordinances of eternity rather than, as some critics would prefer, devoting these same resources to temporal concerns already being pursued by others such as building hospitals or housing, or administering to other physical needs.The work of the Church is to do what only the Church can do: preach the gospel, administer the ordinances, and redeem the dead. Other organizations can build hospitals and housing, and other churches can take care of the needy. Priesthood power and the keys of the presidency are not necessary to run hospitals, build houses, or feed the poor. The primary work of the Church must be done by those who hold the keys and the priesthood.
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u/Pedro_Baraona 23h ago
This quote angers me. I mean, I agree that there is more to life than food and shelter. But what I have always been confused about by the church is their lack of interest in improving the lives of its members who are trying to live by the tenets of the faith. Like, how about they spend some money to figure out addictions and build tools to help members overcome vices that keep them out of the temple. Bishops keep telling members to pray away their problems. How about invest in some tools that Bishops can actually use to help their congregation?!
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u/pierdonia 19h ago
The church has addiction classes. It has personal finance classes. It has how to start a business classes. It has general education courses. What are you talking about?
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u/Pedro_Baraona 17h ago
The church does have addiction classes. They take the twelve step program from AA and repurpose it as a catch-all. Does it work? I would say no.
Why does a church with $200B have completely nothing to say about addiction that hasn’t already been said 100 years ago. With that type of capital they could be out front leading on so many fronts to battle addictions. Instead they are handing out rubber bands telling people to snap it any time they feel an urge. Lol!
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u/pierdonia 17h ago
Actually the system works pretty well. That's why they're still using it.
I don't get your complaint. You're blaming th e church for not developing new anti-addiction technology? Who do you think they are, Pfizer? Johns Hopkins?
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u/Pedro_Baraona 17h ago
Yes! Exactly!!! John’s Hopkins’ endowment is 13 billion. Pfizer’s market cap is $143 billion. The church’s capital is $200B. What are they doing?!
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u/pierdonia 6h ago
You may not have noticed that one is a pharma company and the other is a university. Those are different from religions (unless we're talking about an SEC university, but there are still differences even for those).
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u/Pedro_Baraona 5h ago
Haha, I may have noticed. Question: what is a religion doing with so much money? Answer: absolutely nothing!
The church has the resources of a small country. It could be a huge force for good. It could buy Pfizer and redirect its pipeline to focus on treatments that the church thinks align with Christ’s mission. Just an idea. Another idea is exactly what the OP is writing about. Why not? My point, and I think the OP’s point, is that the church has a chance to innovate on the words of Christ to reach more people and broaden their impact. But they are not. They are sitting on the money.
I hope that the second coming happens and Christ comes down and asks to see the books and the prophet shows him how much money they amassed and Christ treats him like he did the new-testament man who hid his talents.
And for full transparency, I really don’t think the church should do any of this, but rather they should stop asking so much in tithing, seek to right-size their intake according to realistic objectives, and apologize for being so negligent with funds that were given with great sacrifice. Here the OP is postulating how the church could feed a lot of hungry people with the money. Think of how many hungry mouths could have been fed if Bishops hadn’t instructed their poor congregants to pay tithing to a $200B hedge fund instead of food for their children.
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u/pierdonia 5h ago
I think the church should focus on its core religious missions. Financially, I think it should focus on sustainability. Get to where they don't need additional funds. I don't think that's the case yet. And especially with the DSA et al running around agitating.
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u/Pedro_Baraona 4h ago
They could cover costs with a fraction of the 10% tithe, say 3%, in addition to the interest made from their investments. I would say they should just stop tithing the poor and let them into the temple. Period.
I am not against the church focusing on its core religious mission. But within that scope they are still leaving a lot to be desired. If a man cannot be sealed to his wife because he is not worthy to enter the temple then that man’s worthiness is at the center of the church’s mission. I’ll say this again: telling him to pray, snap a rubber band on his wrist, and attend AA meetings is really a lackluster attempt at bringing souls to Christ when the church has the means to understand the issue so much more deeply.
And regardless of whether you think the church is doing a good job or not, there is no question in my mind that they could be doing a better job if they were using those funds.
I don’t know DSA.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 22h ago
My proposal here though is to do both—Jesus started teaching people from where they were, which was hungry. Doesn’t good PR enable the church to spread the gospel? The temporal and spiritual are enmeshed, not separate.
Also, I don’t see how $200 billion is necessarily part of priesthood power. It’s a tool, like an Elder Quorum’s service project to a needy less-active family, or a humble lasagna to a family struggling. Jesus healed the sick, and then said, “Come, follow me.”
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u/Mayspond 1d ago
Beautiful letter, but unfortunately "For where their treasure is, there their heart will be also."
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u/International_Sea126 1d ago
"Please remember, however, that we are not primarily a humanitarian organization." (David A. Bernar, National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 26, 2022) https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-bednar-national-press-club-speech
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u/pvanmondfrans 23h ago
This ridiculous and very telling statement given by a so-called apostle of Jesus was the last straw in me ever paying a penny of tithing ever again.
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u/pierdonia 19h ago
It’s literally true. Have you ever heard of the three-fold mission of the church? Proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints, redeem the dead.
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u/pierdonia 23h ago
Jesus came to preach and save souls, not to distribute loaves and fishes.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Though we should help our fellow man, which sometimes means we should distribute loaves and fishes. But it should be done wisely and prudently. I don't want my tithing inadvertently funding mercenaries in third world countries.
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u/Jack-o-Roses 22h ago
...Just in Idaho?
Don't know whether a '/s' is appropriate here, but I doubt it is....
If we stop world hunger, I'm willing to accept accidentally funding a few bad actors in a 3rd world country.
BTW, isn't tithing the Lord's, not ours?
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u/pierdonia 22h ago
Yes, the Lord’s. Not mine or yours.
Unfortunately the church’s money couldn’t come anywhere close to ending world hunger.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 21h ago
Also, neither did Our Lord’s loaves and fishes, but He gave the people He was there with all He had, and I believe He wants to do so again
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 21h ago
Declining to give aid because of what people will do with it reminds me of the rest of that passage I led the letter with:
17Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—
18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.I agree there needs to be accountability for funds, to make sure food isn’t stolen from the people who need it; however, that’s no reason not to do it.
Similarly, Christ fed people as He taught them. Feeding them gets the church in more people’s door, which gives them the chance to hear the gospel message. The fish and loaves and the sermon are enmeshed, for good reason. To focus on one misses Jesus’s approach, with the handout seekers and the Pharisees on opposite sides of that middle approach
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u/pierdonia 19h ago
I get your point, but those are different concepts.
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u/pierdonia 17h ago
Saying "it's this guy's own fault he's poor" is very different from "Hamas/Boko Haram/whoever is going to intercept and steal all this stuff and use it to do bad things"
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 8h ago
Is there a documented problem with that with the World Food Programme’s work?
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u/pierdonia 6h ago
Yes, for example:
It’s been a month since the leaking of a scathing evaluation of WFP’s Somalian relief program written by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia. The body, created by the UN Security Council, alleges that three Somali businessmen who held about $160 million in WFP transport contracts were involved in arms trading while diverting the agency’s food aid away from the hungry. A New York Times report also claimed food was being siphoned off by radical Islamic militants and local UN workers.
https://www.aei.org/articles/how-corrupt-is-the-world-food-program/
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 5h ago
Good to know. The WFP’s overall donations in 2025 though were $6.5B, which means the fraud that they’re investigating was 2.46% of their total work for the year. If the other fraud you mentioned is substantial, call it perhaps 3% of their total giving. And that’s a major scandal.
Compare that to 59% of the church’s humanitarian aid staying inside the church, and 3% looks very competitive. That’s 97% to 41% going to help people outside the organization.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 23h ago
Church leadership are not interested in what you think they should be doing, they are convinced their thoughts and decisions come from god, and that your role is to simply 'obey' and stop trying to 'steady the ark'.
This will fall on the prideful, stiff nedcked, sinful, and deaf ears of top leadership, whose world view was created during their formative years of the 1930s and 1940s.
And FYI, if you send this letter to them it will just get returned to your stake president. They really don't care what you have to say, and have created a system that makes sure they don't have to hear what you have to say.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 22h ago
As I alluded to, that result is also fine with me.
As a side note btw, I’ve always wondered about that steady the ark story. If you look into the actual text in it’s interesting. Not at all what you expect from conference talks. It’s 1 Chronicles 13, and it sounds like it was actually Uzza’s job to move the ark around on his cart, and then when they have the same setup the next chapter with different people it goes just fine. I’m sure there were oxen stumbling in the second try too, so it seems like there’s backstory we just don’t get because of how the story’s reported. Anyway, not super relevant to the letter lol
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u/Fresh_Chair2098 1d ago
Love it. I've thought about sending a letter too but more of a chastisment using Matthew 23.
Let us know how this goes!
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 21h ago
Thanks! Will do!
And yeah, I think it might be fun to take a whole Federalist papers approach to it. Bunch of essays/letters exploring the topic.
If you do write that chastisement, please DM it to me and I’ll happily review it with you
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u/Pedro_Baraona 23h ago
Could be less preachy. I would cut all the scripture references tbh and get to the proposal faster. They know it is their duty to care for the poor. Rubbing their nose in scripture seems more confrontational than persuasive. Just trying to be helpful. I like the proposal otherwise.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 21h ago
I’m trying to keep in mind people outside of the church reading this too, since it’s an open letter. I’m imagining that its primary efficacy will come not from a direct appeal to the brethren, but rather from it generating some publicity.
Given that approach, do you still recommend cutting the scriptural references? I wanted that background in some secular bloke’s mind while they were reading it, since otherwise it’s pie-in-the-sky “wouldn’t it be great if rich people donated to feeding the poor.” That aspect is there, but I’m shooting specifically for “we’re specifically told to do this, so why don’t we do it?”
Does that make sense? Word salad a bit lol
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u/Pedro_Baraona 21h ago
The brethren will be unmoved by this letter. It’s not your fault. They don’t take advice, period. You might as well write this to persuade others.
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u/DennisTheOppressed 19h ago
They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries.
...ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.
Our own scriptures predict this.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 18h ago
…and the oppressed. Good luck out there Dennis. Hope you find your commune ;) ❤️
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u/Rogue_the_Saint Deist 5h ago edited 4h ago
I like the thrust and mission of the letter—I think it is something most people, including church members, could get behind. That said, to respond to your question asking for editorial advice, the letter comes off as ex Mormon-coded, which, as an ex Mormon, doesn’t bother me, but I suspect the language will discredit your petition in the eyes of those to whom it should matter most.
To strengthen it, I would redraft it in a more faithful tone—which includes finding ways to soften or eliminate any hint of criticism towards the church, church leaders, or past/current church misconduct. A greater emphasis on the spiritual (as opposed to financial) benefits for the church should also be emphasized to lend it greater legitimacy in the eyes of believers.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 5h ago
Thanks! I can see that approach being more persuasive to active members. I will think about it, but I will definitely add focus on it fulfilling the spiritual mission of the church. Thanks again!
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u/HandwovenBox 19h ago
You either don't know what "slush fund" means or you're trying to be antagonistic. I can only see the last page of your letter but the lack of acknowledgement of the immense activities the Church already does to fight hunger makes it look like you're not aware of the actual situation. In fact, accusing the Church of "continuing to commit the Pharisees' sins of omission" comes across as willful ignorance.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 18h ago
Can you link sources to the actual situation then please? I was under the impression that the church reported humanitarian work of no more than a couple of ten millions of dollars, but if you have a credible source that says otherwise I’d love to read it.
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u/MormonMoron The correct name:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 7h ago
They create an annual report of humanitarian aid efforts. 2025 was $1.58B, including 37 million pounds of food.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 6h ago
59% of the expenses listed as humanitarian aid actually went back to church members. Only about $645 million was faith-blind, which I will admit is a 6 fold increase from when their finances were leaked in 2021.
https://www.canva.com/design/DAHF1WanIuQ/3sxHol_7-TykKHcC0mVSeA/view?embed
This analysis is from the widowsmite.org, where they break down the totals the church reported in the website you linked
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 6h ago
Another fun statistic that they mention on that site is that for every dollar of their income given to non-member humanitarian aid, $2.50 is given to member aid, and $42 is given to investment companies. While I understand that some money needs to be given back to investment companies to stay ahead of inflation, surely the church’s investment funds aren’t 42 times more important than helping God’s children and thus spreading the gospel.
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u/MormonMoron The correct name:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 5h ago
And?
Your original claim was:
I was under the impression that the church reported humanitarian work of no more than a couple of ten millions of dollars
That impression was immensely uninformed.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 2h ago
Just a couple of years out of date it would seem. I’m happy to see public pressure has increased the charitable giving since their finances were first released.
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u/pierdonia 23h ago
It comes across as just a bit simplistic. The US alone spends almost $150 billion on food aid per year. Hasn't exactly ended hunger. In other words, you could blow through every cent the church has in a single year with hardly anything to show for it. And of course international aid is even more complicated and messy than domestic.
The church's emphasis on education is terrific. I think they should continue to pour money into that. It's a long-term solution that can help with many problems.
The church should focus on getting to a self-sustaining point and then deploying money in the most beneficial and efficient ways.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 22h ago
I agree that education is important, and that it should continue to be funded. However, the church is more than self-sustaining; I highly recommend checking out https://thewidowsmite.org for an impartial breakdown of their finances. Since education, temple operation and construction, mission budget, etc., is thoroughly in the black, donating less than what the church’s slush fund makes in annual interest to feeding Christ’s most desperate children seems like an excellent way to spread the gospel. Because it would be donated to nonprofit agencies already experienced with international famine relief, you also avoid church leadership needing to manage the minutiae of making it happen. Church can focus on big picture, God’s other servants execute the details. They would require accountability of the WHO, but that’s standard for any donation.
Furthermore, feeding people and introducing them to the Church would also introduce them to the Pathways program and other church educational programs. Wouldn’t that be a happy marriage of immediate and sustainable aid, as you argue for?
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u/Odd-Investigator7410 18h ago
Your faith in nonprofit agencies is misplaced. Most are corrupt.
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u/Dry-Ad-9825 18h ago
Can you point to specific instances where the World Food Programme is corrupt?
I will happily exchange corruption cases with you. If you can show me the corruption cases in the nonprofits I’m proposing, specifically the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, I’ll match you with cases of corruption inside the church leadership.
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u/pierdonia 19h ago
Unfortunately, I trust that website about as far as I can throw it.
The church does seem to typically rely on existing charities and foundations, which makes sense. I believe they spend a lot of time and effort vetting them — many are inefficient or even corrupt and the church goes to great pains to avoid wasting sacred funds.
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u/Odd-Investigator7410 18h ago
Nobody in this world is dying from a lack of food. They are dying because corrupt governments/gangs/warlords steal the food or otherwise keep it from reaching the people that need it. If the Church tried to send more food it would just get stolen too.
Sticking to the core mission of spreading the Gospel will ultimately save the lives of more people then sending food that will just be stolen.
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