You paid ten percent. Every year. The church grew it to $265 billion inside a fund hidden from the federal government for twenty-two years. The SEC noticed. The fine was five million dollars.
This episode of Postmormon Postmortem is Jess working through one question: what does it actually cost to belong to the LDS Church, and where does that money go?
She covers the Ensign Peak SEC settlement and what the cease-and-desist order actually says, the temple recommend system as a financial compliance mechanism, the psychological research on costly signaling and why sacrifice increases group attachment, the unpaid labor economy of callings and missions and FamilySearch, the social architecture that makes leaving cost everything — and the $265 billion in total church assets that members built while believing they were funding God's work on earth.
The institution is cynical. The members mostly aren't. That distinction is not a small thing.