The growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a fledgling band of frontier Americans to a global faith that blesses the lives of millions is one of the great religious success stories of the 19th and 20th centuries.
From the very beginning, members of the Church displayed a remarkable ability to set aside material things for spiritual goals. One of the earliest Church members, Martin Harris, mortgaged his farm to pay for the publication of the Book of Mormon. Other examples of self-sacrifice among the early Latter-day Saints abound.
Driven from place to place — from Missouri to Illinois to the far reaches of the western frontier — Church members several times abandoned their homes, farms and cottage businesses they had lovingly nurtured. By the time they made the final great trek across the American Plains to the Rocky Mountains, many were already impoverished. Those who came by handcarts because they could not afford wagons are a poignant testimony to that fact.
Brigham Young once remarked that if the Latter-day Saints could have 10 years unmolested in the Rocky Mountain valleys, they would establish themselves as an independent people. Over time, Brigham Young’s vision of a thrifty, independent and spiritual people largely came to be realized.
Complete financial independence and freedom from debt would take several decades, however. Historians today point to the early 1900s as the time when the Church finally began to turn the corner and free itself from decades of indebtedness — specifically highlighting a sermon by Church President Lorenzo Snow in which he called on the Latter-day Saints to renew their commitment to the principle of tithing.
Tithing is an ancient biblical principle and has been practiced by many churches through the centuries. Independent studies show, however, that nowhere else in America today is the principle of tithing so widely and faithfully followed as among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The vast majority of the income used to manage the Church comes from tithing, not from businesses or investments.
Tithing has thus proved to be an enormous blessing to the Church and its people, along with simple but sound economic principles such as avoiding debt, living within one’s means and setting aside funds for a rainy day.
The key to understanding Church finances is to understand that they are a means to an end. They allow the Church to carry out its religious mission across the world.
Does the Church own for-profit businesses? Yes. In the Church’s earlier history as it was establishing itself in the remote Intermountain West, some of those businesses were necessitated by the simple fact that they didn’t exist elsewhere in the community. Gradually, as private businesses developed and the need for Church-owned businesses diminished, they were sold off, donated to the community or discontinued. Zions Bank and the LDS Hospital system are examples.
Today, the Church’s business assets support the Church’s mission and principles by serving as a rainy day fund. Agricultural holdings now operated as for-profit enterprises can be converted into welfare farms in the event of a global food crisis. Companies such as KSL Television and the Deseret News provide strategically valuable communication tools.
Tithing funds are used to support five key areas of activity:
Providing buildings or places of worship for members around the world. We have thousands of such buildings and continue to open more, sometimes several in a week.
Providing education programs, including support for our universities and our seminary and institute programs.
Supporting the Church’s worldwide missionary program.
Building and operating nearly 140 temples around the world and the administration of the world’s largest family history program.