“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [the LDS or Mormon Church] … gave about $1 billion to charitable causes between 1985 and 2008. That may seem like a lot until you divide it by the twenty-three-year time span and realize this church is only donating about 0.7 percent of its annual income.”

Deanna Cantrell, 71 Billion Reasons to Tax Religious Organizations (Washington, D.C.: Secular Policy Institute, 2015), 1.

It’s hard to imagine anything more offensive than a church raking in nearly a billion dollars a week in tithing and then patting itself on the back for giving away a paltry 0.7% to actual charitable causes. Most religious institutions would be shamed out of existence for such stinginess, yet here it’s spun as generosity.