With the recent 'money grab' of the Watchtower Society, this clip re: the Mormon Church seems timely.
'...If you were to attend a conference in the early days of the LDS church,
you could expect to come away with at least two things that we don't get
now.
First, the leadership would provide a complete report of the Church’s
financial holdings, detailing the amount of tithing funds collected and a
thorough accounting as to how those funds were being spent.
Second, you could expect to hear something from the prophet that would
truly edify you; some cosmic truth you didn’t know or hadn’t realized
before. In short, you would attend conference expecting to take away
from the experience at least a modicum of further light and knowledge.
Financial reports were quietly discontinued after 1958, despite no
announced revelation from God that such an accounting was no longer
required. It was simply an executive decision by Church leaders that
these things were not the business of the membership at large. “I don't
think the public needs to have that information,” is the way it was put
by N. Eldon Tanner, the Church’s unofficial CFO. By “the public,”
Tanner was referring to the lowly rank and file members who had
contributed the money in the first place.
Besides, the argument went, once it's donated, that money no longer
belongs to the members. Tithing money belongs to the Lord. So there....'
