The LDS Church spends over a half a BILLION dollars to buy more land in Florida. Florida? We now own more than 2% of the entire state. Will this be the new Zion?
"The Mormon church stands to own nearly 2 percent of Florida by completing a deal to buy most of the real estate of the St. Joe Co. for more than a half-billion dollars.
The megapurchase was announced jointly Thursday by a corporate representative of church, which owns the nearly 295,000-acre Deseret Ranches in Central Florida, and by the real-estate and timber business, which has built several communities along the Panhandle coast.
According to the announcement, a church entity, AgReserves Inc., will buy 382,834 acres – the majority of St. Joe's timberlands – in Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty and Wakulla counties for $565 million."
LINK to see the news video and more of the article.
Sidenote:
As a family we are now in the book of Helaman, We read this verse this week which I found to be interesting.
"Now this great loss of the Nephites, and the great slaughter which was among them, would not have happened have happened had it not been for their wickedness and their abomination which was among them; yea, and it was among those also who professed to belong to the church of God. And it was because of the pride of their hearts, because of their exceeding riches, yea, it was because of their oppression to the poor, withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the naked, and smiting their humble brethren upon the cheek, making a mock of that which was sacred, denying the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, murdering, plundering, lying, stealing, committing adultery, rising up in great contentions, and deserting away into the land of Nephi, among the Lamanites."
Key words we talked about as a family:
- Great slaughter would NOT have happened
- Professed to belong to the church of god
- because of their exceeding riches
- oppression of the poor
- withholding their food from the hungry
- withholding their clothing from the naked.
19 comments:
What connections do you see?
Let's see...$1.5B (or was it much more?) for City Creek Mall, $565M for farm and timber land in FL; while the church is closing down Welfare Cannery facilities all over Utah.
I (guess) I can partly understand the church investing tithing money and earnings off tithing money...after all the Lord was upset in the parable of the talents with the servant who did not invest his master's money wisely.
However, I do find it difficult to understand how the church cannot find ample opportunities to use that money to help the poor: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick and afflicted, given the current downward spiral of the financial situation of many people, not just in the US but all over the world.
I wonder what the Lord thinks of church leaders hoarding money given by the faithful while many all over the world struggle and suffer in poverty?
JR
Perhaps we need to take another look at the meaning of Malachi's words. "Will a men rob God?"
We often think that this is referring to individual tithing, however it is about the "priests" who rob God. They were taking the money for their own purposes and robbing the treasury of the Lord. That is the true meaning of Malachi's words.
So the amount of land the church now owns in FL (not including the land owned in Hawaii, Nebraska, etc.) is equivalent to 15 Washington D.C.s or (roughly) 1 Rhode Island.
THE CHURCH OWNS MORE LAND IN THE US THAN THE SMALLEST STATE IN THE UNION.
You got me riled up.
http://upwardthought.blogspot.com/2013/11/an-open-letter-to-whosoever-may-care.html
What fruits of the Spirit are you feeling? Is it worth it?
27 Therefore, see to it that ye trouble not yourselves concerning the affairs of my church in this place, saith the Lord.
28 But purify your hearts before me;
It is good to see things as they really are, just let it not spring up feelings that keeps the Spirit away, you can choose to do that :-)
I love this blog btw!
Fruits: Charity for the poor and for the deceived.
Worth it: If anyone reads that and decides to repent, then it is worth it.
That's wonderful
Oh, you mean read the entire chapter instead of the few select verses? I mean we are in a sound bite church after all.
Meanwhile all these religious business transactions are going on the Pope is out blessing people. How ironic that the LDS church is in the news for buying stuff, while the Pope is in the news for blessing a man in need.
"THE SIMPLE THING POPE FRANCIS DID TO A SEVERELY DISFIGURED MAN THAT HAS CAPTIVATED THE WORLD"
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/07/the-simple-thing-pope-francis-did-to-a-severely-disfigured-man-that-has-captivated-the-world/
I sometimes pray that I can stand up for what is right when it is right to do so, but to not get stirred up 'round and 'round in my mind, otherwise I have to go take a brisk walk or something to dissipate my anger.
The church might even buy us a house so we as a family have a home. Or is my head in the ground?
I came across this today ... it seems to hit so EXACTLY what I see happening right in front of us! How appropriate the speakers topic "Willful Blindness". So many emotions and thoughts crossed my mind and heart (including the past several months, even couple of years).
If you have just 15 minutes. I strongly encourage watching this. There truly are voices crying out from the "wilderness" (not to be taken completely literal, but metaphorically--the deep, dark, natural hermitages of those called by God ... the only place those who maintain intimacy with God reside).
We ignore their words at such a huge (spiritual) cost, which is mounting!
Willful Blindness: Margaret Heffernan at TEDxDanubia 2013
http://youtu.be/PCetmZUzB5w
Who knows where the actual acreage is, but if you go here
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/abel-harding/2011-03-29/who-owns-most-florida-not-st-joe-co
you'll see where the St. Joe Co. land holdings are (in red). Now, I'm no meteorologist, but I do understand that the area tends to be a hurricane magnet: Hurricane Eloise (1976), Hurricane Erin and Hurricane Opal (1995), Hurricane Ivan (2004) and Hurricane Dennis (2005). Why buy timerland in a hurricane-prone area?
I happen to know that during the depression in some areas of the 'church' the church would actually buy the mortgages from farms to keep them from being lost--
and the farmers would pay off the mortgage with low-interest or no interest loans--
That is wonderful and I know many bishops help people with mortgage payments for an extended period presently but that is not out of tithing funds .Up until 1950 the church would routinely disclose how tutting funds were being spent during General Conference but it abruptly stopped doing that in 1951. Might be nice to have fuller disclosure or at least have an explanation why the stewarts use to render an accounting but then suddenly stopped
Last month, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received attention when the Touchstorm Video Index listed the Mormon Channel as a “top brand” on YouTube.
The Touchstorm report features channels ranked within what it calls the “YouTube 5,000” — a group of channels that each has at least 43 million views. Touchstorm says only 74 of those 5,000 are brands, and it ranked the Mormon Channel 52nd out of those 74.
Source: http://www.ldsliving.com/story/74336-mormon-channel-recognized-as-top-brand-on-youtube
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