Liquor licenses at Church's City Creek Center?

[cougjunkie]

I guarantee that just for the simple fact that this is owned by the church every condo will be solid quickly and people will shop there over other places.

Not sure what it is with mormon stigma but we support our own. When the LDS temple in Draper was announced one guy owned 10 lots within a block of the temple. He was selling them for 145k a piece. As soon as they announced that location was going to be a temple and not just another church in a down economy he started selling them for $300k each and sold them all within in a week.

Same thing will happen with the CCC. Mormons will come from all over the world to visit Temple square and now to see the CCC.

[hostile]

I guarantee that just for the simple fact that this is owned by the church every condo will be solid quickly and people will shop there over other places.

Not sure what it is with mormon stigma but we support our own. When the LDS temple in Draper was announced one guy owned 10 lots within a block of the temple. He was selling them for 145k a piece. As soon as they announced that location was going to be a temple and not just another church in a down economy he started selling them for $300k each and sold them all within in a week.

Same thing will happen with the CCC. Mormons will come from all over the world to visit Temple square and now to see the CCC.

[All-American]

I'll spell it out for you.

Mary has something of great value that she offers to the Lord (this could be analogous to tithing funds).

The apostles (only John specifies Judas as the most upset) are indignant because they felt the ointment could have been sold and distributed to the poor (take the offering/tithing to the marketplace and invest it so its value can be multiplied and it can supposedly do greater good).

Christ rebukes the apostles and says that what Mary did (the least profitable and least efficient use of the tithes) was a good thing, even though it didn't make money and it didn't help as many people.

You used the story as a way of telling those who disapprove of the city creek project that because city creek was a good thing (i.e. it's like Mary anointing Christ's feet) and so our disapproval is like the Apostles' indignation over not selling the perfume (i.e. monetizing its value). The reality is that we who disapprove aren't saying the tithes should be used in a more efficient manner, but that they shouldn't be used to get gain or make profit, even if those profits could potentially help more people.

In other words, we're siding with Mary (and I'd like to think Christ) in the belief that using the perfume (tithing funds) for a good thing that isn't the most efficient and won't be able help more people. We're against the concept of using those funds to make money and amass wealth. Invest them directly in the people who donated them in the form of better programs, better welfare. Make decisions based on solely on the spiritual and social ramifications of the question, not the economical.

Doesn't that make sense?

Okay, I see what you're saying. I don't agree with your interpretation for a few reasons, though most of them are quibbles (are they really multiplying the funds? They were just supposed to give it away, were they not? and who is it that is amassing the wealth?), but the fundamental lesson Christ was teaching was not about the best way to deal with the funds. He does not say that Mary's idea was the better of the two. The lesson was an instruction to refrain from criticizing those who are trying to go about doing good. Hence my indifference at the end; whether this is truly the most optimal way to expend funds is beyond me and anybody else who doesn't know where the dollars are going, and I don't particularly lose any sleep over it.

Which leads to your next point:

Does it really have to be decided by the balance sheet? Could it be that the best use of the money might also be the least profitable, or it might even lose money? This is the fundamental problem with associating for profit enterprises with a charitable organization in the way the church does. Any evaluation of whether or not the funds were used in the best manner reverts back to an interpretation of the balance sheet where only a numerical value in the black can be considered to be a good use of funds. The corporate mentality hi-jacks the decision making process because instead of evaluating the intangibles of a given project (i.e. the spiritual benefits that will come of it) the very tangible bottom line takes priority and drives the decisions.

Well, I'm not sure how much ROI the church is planning on getting from Haiti, for example.

I simply believe that in the long run, the church will be able to do a greater amount of good the way it is going now than if it liquidated its for-profit assets and gave them away to the poor. Look at the perpetual education fund, for example. Why insist on repaying the loan? Why not instruct the debtors to give the money out to the poor? The way they run it now, the fund can run in perpetuity-- a continual source of good, ultimately benefiting more than if we just gave it away as soon as we could find the first dirty kid to whom to give it.

I don't think the corporate mentality is hijacking the spiritual mindsent. I think it is relieving the spiritual mindset of financial restraints. I mentioned the temple in Rome as evidence earlier, and I'm disappointed nobody took the bait. That could have been a project that would have been put on hold, or abandoned, or never dreamed up in the first place, had funds not been available to build it. I say thank goodness we have the resources to be able to do the work we do, and thank goodness we were wise enough to manage the resources to be able to do it.

[BlueHair]

No - but it certainly applies to this case. god doesn't want the Church to squander its resources any more than the servant who buried his talent and was rebuked.

I know of no such whole cloth indictment of "the rich."

The church is obviously free to spend it's money however it chooses. The Jesus that I've read about in the New Testament would spend his money healing the sick, clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry, not providing high end housing and shopping for the rich. I know the church does a lot of good. They could do a lot more. Any church that claims to be Christ's church should spend most of their money on things Christ would spend it on, not lavish developments. They should spend all of their resources on the needy today. Have some faith that God will provide for tomorrow. This is the sort of thing that would inspire.

[Surfah]

There isn't enough that the Church could do to satisfy everyone. The Church could divest all of its assets and give them away to charity and I'm positive that it would be roundly criticized by many.

[Surfah]

The church is obviously free to spend it's money however it chooses. The Jesus that I've read about in the New Testament would spend his money healing the sick, clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry, not providing high end housing and shopping for the rich. I know the church does a lot of good. They could do a lot more. Any church that claims to be Christ's church should spend most of their money on things Christ would spend it on, not lavish developments. They should spend all of their resources on the needy today. Have some faith that God will provide for tomorrow. This is the sort of thing that would inspire.

I am not picking on you, but I thought this was interesting given the absence of faith in many of the hard things discussed in the Foyer.

[UtahDan]

There isn't enough that the Church could do to satisfy everyone. The Church could divest all of its assets and give them away to charity and I'm positive that it would be roundly criticized by many.

Conversely it could invest half of it and spend the rest on commercial development and most members would be fine with that. I'm not sure either of our comments really answers the question of what ought to be done.

[Babs]

I would think Mormons who are uneasy with Marriotts selling porn would have a problem it.

Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem very analogous.

[Surfah]

Conversely it could invest half of it and spend the rest on commercial development and most members would be fine with that. I'm not sure either of our comments really answers the question of what ought to be done.

Of course. And maybe what you propose is exactly what is happening. But who knows? Nobody that posts on CUF. Given that none of us know how much money the Church has, what portion of that goes to charities and welfare projects, what investments the Church has, how much tithing contributions amount to, etc., I just think there are much bigger windmills to fight.

[Indy Coug]

Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem very analogous.

It's not just you.

[Moliere]

The church is obviously free to spend it's money however it chooses. The Jesus that I've read about in the New Testament would spend his money healing the sick, clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry, not providing high end housing and shopping for the rich. I know the church does a lot of good. They could do a lot more. Any church that claims to be Christ's church should spend most of their money on things Christ would spend it on, not lavish developments. They should spend all of their resources on the needy today. Have some faith that God will provide for tomorrow. This is the sort of thing that would inspire.

We are squeezing out faith and replacing it with financial security. Who needs the gifts of the spirit when we have modern technology and good investment advisors?

[scottie]

Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem very analogous.

There are Mormons (see CB) who have a problem with the Marriotts (they are a Mormon family) offering porn in their hotels. I will not be surprised if those same folks are left scratching their heads if the Mormon church allows businesses in its CCC to sell alcohol.

[ERCougar]

It's not just you.

I bet she didn't really think it was just her. That crazy Babs!

[Indy Coug]

I bet she didn't really think it was just her. That crazy Babs!

Since she's a Protestant in a Mormon world, I just wanted her to feel more at home.

[UtahDan]

Of course. And maybe what you propose is exactly what is happening. But who knows? Nobody that posts on CUF. Given that none of us know how much money the Church has, what portion of that goes to charities and welfare projects, what investments the Church has, how much tithing contributions amount to, etc., I just think there are much bigger windmills to fight.

Ha! I will choose my own windmills thank you very much. I do hear what you are saying and maybe it is an argument for a return to transparency. Still in the absence of any other data I think a 3B expenditure that Will not produce a picuniary ROI any time soon suggests a lot about how much fee cash there is. I think that is more than enough to fuel some reasonable questions here. IMO anyway.