-- During October 1985.
President Gordon B. Hinckley, second counselor in the First Presidency, warns at general conference: "We are not under obligation to spend tithing funds to provide facilities and resources to those who have demonstrated that it is their objective to attack the Church and undermine the mission." (1)
-- Nov 25, 1989
[Finances] The church announces that the expenditures of local units -- wards and stakes -- will now be paid by annual budget allowances from church tithing funds, ending the established practice of having members pay many local costs. (2)
-- Mar 30, 1990
Apostle Boyd K. Packer, speaks at a Regional Representative Seminar. In a talk titled "Let Them Govern Themselves," he reiterates the importance of the announcement on tithes and offerings and its purpose in reducing "the overregimentation of the Church. This overregimentation is a direct result of too many programmed instructions" He acknowledges that "smaller budgets and fewer activities, fewer programs . . . will leave a vacuum," he pleads with the Regional Representatives to "absolutely resist the temptation to program that vacuum. . . . Please, for this one time, honor the agency of the members, the families." He also significantly in this context, points out that "the term `free' agency is not found in the revelations. It is a moral agency" (3)
-- Jun 30, 1991
ARIZONA REPUBLIC begins three-part series on LDS church finances and claims that church receives $4.5 billion in tithing annually. LDS headquarters announces that this estimate is "grossly overstated" but does not say by how much. (3)
-- Aug 18, 2007
[Finances] Church contractors implode a 20-story office building in downtown Salt Lake City, the final step in preparations to begin construction on City Creek Center, a $1.5 billion redevelopment project. (Presiding Bishop H. David Burton has stated that no tithing funds will be used in the completion of this project.) (2)
Footnotes:
1 - Anderson, Lavina Fielding, "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology," Dialogue, Vol.26, No.1
2 - http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/282148/
3 - On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com
Mormon Tithing Timeline /Chronology
http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/
