Scott Woodward:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today owns and operates several successful for-profit businesses, from livestock and agriculture to publishing and digital media to real estate and many others. This has caused some to wonder, does a church focused on bringing people to Christ have any business getting involved in business? Are business ventures like these compatible with the mission of the church generally and the founding principles of consecration specifically? In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we go back to the beginning of the church to discuss its very first consecration-based business ventures, the Literary Firm and the United Firm, or United Order. Specifically, we’re interested in the founding revelations that justify these ventures and how the principles found in these have paved the way for the church’s very successful business ventures today. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today we dive into our second episode of this series dealing with consecration and church finance. Now let’s get into it. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hello, Scott. 

Scott Woodward:
What’s going on, Casey Griffiths? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Nothing much. Just excited to talk about church finance. 

Scott Woodward:
Church finance doesn’t sound like the most exciting topic. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. It feels like, hey, guys, we’re going to talk about, you know, fiduciary statements or things like that, but church finance actually is sort of exciting, and I’ve got to tell you, Scott, I’m not a finance guy. Like, honestly, my wife handles most of the—she’s the CFO. I’m sort of, like, the big-picture person when it comes to, you know, our finances, and my wife’s the practical person. But I do like to talk about church finance. It’s weirdly inspiring. 

Scott Woodward:
And it’s quite the hot topic in some circles today.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It is. It is. Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
And this is why we wanted to do a whole series on it, because people are asking a lot of questions, and we thought, hey, if that’s where the interest is, let’s dig it up, and let’s talk about it. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I noticed that 60 minutes did, like, a whole piece on church finance and everything like that. So if it’s interesting enough for 60 minutes, then it’s interesting enough for our program as well. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You really can’t talk about church finance without talking about the law of consecration. It would be like talking about the economy of the United States without talking about the Constitution of the United States. Section 42 of the Doctrine and Covenants is the law of the church, and like we mentioned last time, it has several laws contained within it about what’s supposed to be taught, what are the moral laws of the church, how do you deal with transgressions, how do you heal? But the heart of section 42 is verses 30-42, which contain the law of consecration. 

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so section 42 outlines a specific system, but one of the things we’re going to emphasize today is that this system was very much in that time and place. Underneath the system are a set of consecrated principles that are more timeless, that are more widely applicable. And so a lot of times when people say, we’re not living the law of consecration anymore, what they’re saying is, we’re not doing exactly what they did in section 42— 

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—which we aren’t, by our own admission. We’re not doing that. But the explanation given in section 42 established a set of principles that are still very much active in the church: for example, the idea that consecration was going to be formal, that you were going to work with a bishop, that you were going to consecrate or make sacred all your physical possessions, is still very much a principle that exists within the church: Sunday I went to tithing settlement. I sat down with my bishop, who’s my dear friend, and we talked over how my family was doing, and then he asked that wonderful question, “Are you a full tithe payer?” And I can’t say on the air what my answer was. That’s between him, me and the Lord. 

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I got a lollipop when I was done, so . . . Other principles: that there was supposed to be a storehouse of goods to assist the poor. There are still bishop’s storehouses anywhere we have the resources to put one that offer goods and help the poor. We were supposed to be careful with our stewardships, that we should see what we have not necessarily as something that we own, but as something that the Lord has made us a steward over, that we’re supposed to use wisely and carefully to meet our needs first, and then our wants, and also to build up the kingdom of God on the earth, and that—I think the major thing from the beginning was that the church wasn’t going to be a “come on Sunday, hear a great sermon, go home” kind of organization. The leaders of the church and the church itself were going to be deeply involved in community building, in helping families and individuals make sure that their needs are met, and in, you know, using every asset that they had, including the financial assets of the church, to try and make the world a better place. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So it’s fair to say those principles are still very active in the church today, though the way that it’s carried out in practice is very, very different.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I love that. And I love the emphasis on community building. They would call it the kingdom of God on earth. In fact, I remember right after D&C 42 was received, Joseph wrote a letter to Martin Harris, who was back in New York, and he said, “We have received the laws of the kingdom.” And that’s how Joseph saw section 42 was that it was the laws of the kingdom of God on earth, which has a very strong temporal side to it. It needs to be financed. There needs to be a way to buy property. There needs to be a way to take care of its own, particularly the poor. There needs to be ways to help full-time church officers to be able to provide for their families. Section 41 is the call of the very first full-time general authority, which was Bishop Partridge, and the Lord calls him explicitly in section 41 to leave his job and become a full-time employee of the church, you know? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
Where’s that going to come from? How will the kingdom of God be financed? And section 42 lays out those principles, like you’ve said. So, excellent. This is not just “come to church on Sunday, listen to some sermons, go home.” There’s a bigger project underway, which is ultimately leading to the millennial reign of Christ, if I understand the theology right here. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
And so this law is crucial, the law of consecration, and like you said, the principles are still the same, but the systems have changed. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. You touched on something that I want to emphasize really briefly here, which is a lot of times religious people will create this dichotomy of the spiritual and the physical. In the Doctrine and Covenants, the word is temporal. They’ll say things like, hey, we’re not physical beings having a spiritual experience: we’re spiritual beings having a physical experience, and things like that. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And that is sometimes a useful paradigm to look at things from, but to the early saints, the Lord was really trying to obliterate the line between the two.

Scott Woodward:
Yes. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is from Doctrine and Covenants 29: verse 35, the Lord says, “I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself. I gave unto him commandments, but no temporal commandments gave I unto him.” He’s talking about Adam here. “My commandments are spiritual.” They’re not natural or temporal. He basically says, I’ve never given you a law which was temporal. They’re all spiritual. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So in the Lord’s setup here, a spiritual act could be something like building a temple or even something more mundane like making sure a family has food. He wanted them to know that it was an act of spirituality and an act of devotion and worship to make sure that everybody was fed and clothed as well, and that we shouldn’t necessarily always have this dichotomy of, well, there’s spiritual needs and physical needs. Though the Lord does use that from time to time, when it came to consecration, he wanted them to know it was a spiritual and a temporal or physical law. 

Scott Woodward:
That’s a good point. Is taking care of the poor spiritual or physical? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Is building a temple spiritual or temporal? Well, you’re going to need to get a general contractor who’s going to need to sub out the foundation work. You’re going to need some drywall. You’re going to need some HVAC in there. You’re going to need to pay a bunch of people to do this work, which is ultimately a physical space that will be dedicated and consecrated to God for very spiritual purposes, and you can see this beautiful blend between the temporal and the spiritual in physical temples, physical chapels. We have universities today sponsored by the church, right? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
Is BYU temporal or spiritual, right? And the answer is always yes. Absolutely. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Both, right? 

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s a fantastic premise that we need to have, like, solid in our minds as we go forward to not get tripped up by any of this history, is to say the paradigm the Lord is working from, and that Joseph is working from here, is absolutely temporal, spiritual, hand-in-glove, they go together. They are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin when it comes to the kingdom of God on earth. That’s a big deal. I’m glad you pointed that out. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And the idea that the church is going to be involved in business is not an aberration. It’s baked into the cake from the beginning, basically.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So a lot of people today, the criticisms financially of the church are just, why is this church involved in so many business ventures? The answer is because we’ve always been, because we were commanded to be. A person that is upset by that needs to kind of look at consecration and how church members have been commanded to look at the temporal and spiritual and see them as the same thing, you know? That there’s no difference between the two, therefore, if the church can use business methodology in order to further the kingdom of God, we’re going to use it. 

Scott Woodward:
Hundred percent. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But that does make us a little bit different from, you know, typical “go to church on Sunday, put some money in the collection plate,” and then you’re not involved. We’ve always been more deeply involved in people’s lives than that, and that was from the beginning. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Well said. And I think that is a wonderful transition to what we want to talk about today, isn’t it? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
So today we want to dive headlong into the business side of the law of consecration. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
If last time we talked about the individual side, the personal side, individuals consecrating their property to the church and receiving a stewardship from the bishop to improve upon that, today we want to talk about what was the business side of the law of consecration. So let me put it like this: In the Doctrine and Covenants you’ve got the personal system of the law of consecration of property and stewardship we talked about last time, and then in our next episode we’re going to talk about the second kind of personal system of consecration, which was the law of tithing. So kind of bookmark that. We’ll talk about that next time. But then there’s also these two business systems. The first is called the Literary Firm, which is established in D&C 70, and the second is called the United Firm, which is established in D&C 78 and 82. And so the business systems that we want to talk about today are essentially ways for the church to produce revenue to forward the cause of Zion, to forward the cause of building the kingdom of God on earth. That would include all aspects, right, of buying property, building temples, helping the poor—all the things, right? All the things that D&C 42 outlined where the purpose is the law of consecration. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
So the Literary Firm, let’s start there, shall we? The Literary Firm is D&C 70, and this is comprised of Joseph Smith, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon, and W. W. Phelps, and it’s essentially a printing business. It’s a group of gentlemen here who are responsible for printing church materials. So their stewardship was over printing the revelations, including receiving them, scribing them, editing them, preparing them for publication, actually printing them, and then selling the revelations. That’s their stewardship within the law of consecration. So these gentlemen were expected to give of their time, their talents, and their money to take care of these revelations, and then the Lord authorizes them in section 70 to also then receive compensation from the consecrated funds in return for their efforts. That would be verse 12 of section 70. Now this system was never intended for, like, all members of the church to participate in or to be part of, right? This is specifically a business firm, the Literary Firm. But the funds generated from the sales of the revelations or the hymn books, any of the books that are published here by the Literary Firm, were to be used for the same purposes as money received from members generally in the personal system of consecrating of their property. So all of this money would essentially go into the same fund and could be used for all the purposes outlined in section 42. So that’s number one. That’s the first kind of business venture. It’s a printing business called the Literary Firm established by section 70. Anything else you want to say about that, Casey, before I go to section 78? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Just that, again, the main thing that this shows is the flexibility of consecration, right? They’re not doing exactly what’s in section 42, but they’re using the principles of section 42 of saying, we’re going to give a stewardship to this group of people, and we’re going to give them a specific task, which is to edit, compile, and print the scriptures. And so for me the main takeaway is to basically say, from the beginning, they’re saying, the principles will guide us. The practice will be different based on the situation. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Excellent. Then we go over to section 78. Section 78 authorizes the creation of what comes to be called the United Firm, which will consist of the Literary Firm established in section 70, along with the consecrated storehouse of Newel K. Whitney there in Kirtland and a bishop’s storehouse that’s established in Missouri by Sidney Gilbert and Newel K. Whitney. The purpose of the United Firm is to help the church be financially independent, the Lord says, and this is a business that consisted of twelve men at its largest and was never intended, again, for all church members to participate in or be a part of, but it was intended to produce revenue to accomplish the purposes of the law of consecration. The United Firm, which is brought about by Section 78 and then officially established by Section 82, constitutes the beginning of the corporate management of the church’s financial and commercial interests, is how I’d say it. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
It would not have been possible without the consecrated efforts of individuals like Newel K. Whitney. Like, that guy is a stud. Like, he was asked by the Lord to consecrate all of his business ventures in Kirtland. We’re talking about his store, we’re talking about the ashery down the way, we’re talking about some commercial property that he owned in Kirtland, and to his everlasting credit, Newel K. Whitney consecrated all of that to the Lord and then would continue to run those businesses and then use the money generated from them for the purposes of the church. Like, that man’s incredible. Can we just pause and give props to Newel K. Whitney? What a man. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Honor and praise to Newel K. Whitney, who—it’s probably fair to say the most well-off member of the church in Kirtland. Like, he’s doing good. He didn’t inherit his money. He’s just a hard worker and a smart businessman, but also a guy who just completely lays it all before the Lord, who is a sterling example of consecration, someone that gave up everything that he had to build up the kingdom of God, like, a great, great man.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I can’t imagine the United Firm actually working without Newel K. Whitney. He was, I think, an integral piece to that. So, so good. And his actual company is called Newel K. Whitney & Co., and part of the “& Co.” was Sidney Gilbert. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
And so they were both well established in the mercantile business and grocery business.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right. The other point we need to emphasize, too, is at this point in church history, there really were two headquarters of the church: one’s in Kirtland, and there’s a bunch of leaders established there and supposed to direct the business of the church there, and it’s in Missouri, and there’s a bunch of church leaders there that are supposed to direct it. And the Lord is setting up these two things to work in cooperation. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Section 57 of the Doctrine and Covenants will put Sidney Gilbert in Missouri and have him establish a store there. Oliver Cowdery and William W. Phelps are going to be in Missouri as well to establish the printing business there as part of the Literary Firm, and so what section 78 begins and section 82 finishes is putting all of these pieces together and saying Literary Firm, the printing press, and all that goes on with that in Missouri, in addition to the Sidney Gilbert store in Missouri, in addition to the Newel K. Whitney properties in Kirtland, are all going to be joined together in one united business.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
So yeah, let’s just dive into D&C 82:11. We’ll pick it up right there where the Lord says, “Therefore, verily I say unto you that it is expedient for my servants,” then he lists the following people: Edward Partridge, who’s in Missouri, established in Missouri; Newel K. Whitney, who’s in Kirtland; A. Sidney Gilbert, who’s in Missouri; and Sidney Rigdon, who’s in Kirtland; and “my servant Joseph Smith,” Kirtland; John Whitmer, Missouri; Oliver Cowdery, Missouri; and W. W. Phelps, Missouri; and Martin Harris, Kirtland, “to be bound together by a bond and covenant that cannot be broken by transgression except judgment shall immediately follow in your several stewardships.” In other words, these nine men are to enter into a binding legal contract with one another which, if violated, would carry serious penalties, the Lord’s saying here, right? They were to covenant to unitedly, “manage the affairs of the poor and all things pertaining to the bishopric, or temporal affairs, both in the land of Zion,” Missouri, “and in the land of Kirtland.” It’s, like, a joint venture partnership. “Therefore,” the Lord says, “to the end that Zion and Missouri may be built up by the wisdom and financial strength of the Kirtland stake and vice versa,” the Lord says, “I give unto you this commandment that you nine men legally bind yourselves by this covenant according to the laws of the land,” our earliest manuscript says. “Behold, here is wisdom also in me for your good, for you are all to have equal claims on the properties for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just.” Let’s just digest that for a second. So of these nine men you’ve got Edward, Sidney, Oliver, John, and William, who are going to operate primarily from Missouri, while Joseph, Sidney Rigdon, Newel K. Whitney, and Martin Harris will operate primarily from Kirtland, and then the following year Frederick G. Williams and John Johnson are added to the Kirtland branch of the Firm. And each of these men are going to have their own unique financial stewardships to wisely manage. For instance, like, Edward Partridge, as the bishop in Missouri, he’s going to oversee land purchases there, and he’d already by this time acquired about 1,200 acres of land to be used as inheritances for the saints who arrived there. Sidney Gilbert is the church’s agent in Missouri, and he’s going to operate the mercantile store there. W. W. Phelps, with the assistance from Oliver Cowdery and John Whitmer, are going to manage—they call it W. W. Phelps & Company, which is the printing enterprise of the church in Missouri, which includes printing a newspaper and the Book of Commandments, the predecessor to the Doctrine and Covenants. So this Literary Firm established in section 70 is now subsumed into the United Firm here. Meanwhile in Kirtland Newel K. Whitney as the bishop is going to oversee the operations of his own now freshly consecrated mercantile store, his ashery, which is very profitable there, as well as to manage the various properties that he owns in the area. And then Joseph and Sidney were most directly responsible for the revelations themselves, Martin Harris was to help finance scripture publications, and then when John Johnson comes into the scene, he’s going to act as a land agent, and he’s going to operate an inn there, and he’s going to own a farm there. Then Frederick G. Williams is going to manage the Kirtland Printing Office with the help of Oliver Cowdery after Phelps’s Printing Press is destroyed by the mob action in Missouri the next year. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right. 

Scott Woodward:
So in verse 17 of section 82 here, the Lord is telling the members of this firm that they are each to, “have equal claims” on the revenue generated by the various money making endeavors of the other members of the firm if it would help in, “managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just.” “All of this,” the Lord says, “for the benefit of the church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his talent,” or his stewardship, “that every man may gain other talents,” that is, financial means, “yea, even a hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord’s storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church—every man seeking the interests of his neighbor and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God.” So there you go. That’s the Lord’s vision for this United Firm, and these men were being invited to enter into a legally binding contract or covenant with one another to uphold that vision and to use their unique skills to make this a reality. As one scholar put it, and we need to link this into our show notes, this is an incredible article by a man named Max Parkin. Back in 2007, he published an article called “Joseph Smith and the United Firm.” It’s, like, 65 pages, but it’s amazing. The subtitle is, “The Growth and Decline of the Church’s First Master Plan of Business and Finance, Ohio and Missouri, 1832 to 1834.” So good. Published in BYU Studies, article, but let me quote him: he says, “Possessing managerial, financial, or publishing skills, members of the United Firm consecrated their time, money, property, and energy and pledged their cooperation to advance the business of the new joint stewardship.” That’s a great way to say it. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
And so that’s the—basically the foundation of the United Firm right there that section 82 establishes, and these gentlemen get to work. The Lord says this could be an everlasting order, an everlasting firm. In fact, should we talk about that for a second? There’s a word in the early manuscripts that says firm, but later on they change it to order, which has actually led to some confusion. Like, in verse 20, the Lord says, “This order I have appointed to be an everlasting order unto you, gentlemen, and unto your successors, inasmuch as you sin not.” But the original manuscript says this firm can be an everlasting firm. Casey, can you tell us why there’s some changing of that word and then also whenever these men’s names were mentioned in the original publication, there were code names that were used here. Should we just pause for a second and talk about code names in the Doctrine and Covenants? What’s going on there? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is actually one of my favorite things with the United Firm is that there’s a little cloak and dagger going on here. I remember I was at my grandma’s house, and I pulled off her copy of the Doctrine and Covenants, and you open up to some of these revelations, and instead of like, “The word unto my servant Joseph Smith,” it’s like, “The Word Unto My Servant Baurak Ale. 

Scott Woodward:
Baurak. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Or Gazelem or Enoch, or anything like that. And there’s codenames. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
These revelations had codenames covering who the people were until 1981. And Orson Pratt gave an explanation: he said, “When at length the time arrived to print the manuscripts, it was thought best not to publish them all on account of our enemies who were seeking every means to destroy the Prophet and the Church. On account, however, of the great anxiety of the Church to see them in print, it was concluded, through the suggestions of the Spirit, that by altering the real names given in the manuscripts and substituting fictitious ones in their stead, they might thus safely appear in print without endangering the welfare of the individuals whose real names were contained therein.” So they give everybody code names. That way they’re able to publish the revelations in a church periodical, like a church newspaper, without endangering the people that are part of the United Firm. 

Scott Woodward:
Endangering them in the sense of people coming after them financially, right? Like, enemies of the church or those who’ve fallen away from the church, like, who want to come after either the church financially or come after any of those individuals, it was thought best not to disclose their names. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah. And I would emphasize that this sort of illustrates another thing that’s sometimes criticized about church finance, which is the church sometimes insists on privacy when it comes to its finances. Finance is an easy and convenient way to attack the church and also hurt people, basically. So as early as 1832, and that’s another major takeaway from Max Parkin’s article, is that this is really early in the church. This is before we have stake high councils, before we really have a First Presidency or a Quorum of the Twelve. And we have a presiding bishop at this point, but his role is still being established and outlined, and so the United Firm is sort of the earliest financial structure in the Church, but it’s going to be a foundation that’s built upon and added to. And again, even the name United Firm you won’t find in the Doctrine and Covenants. It had a code name too, right? 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. It says United Order. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which I believe is still in the Doctrine and Covenants, isn’t it?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We haven’t ever changed that because to-may-to, to-mah-to. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. And United Order was meant to be, like, a pseudonym to—same thing, right? To obscure the financial nature of what that section was talking about, almost to make it not obvious that they were doing financial stuff only to avoid lawsuits from unfriendly actors who wanted to take advantage of the church. But, yeah, once all that generation died and those were no longer, you know, stakes that anyone was worried about, those code names could be changed to their real names. But for whatever reason, United Order has stuck instead of United Firm being put back in as it originally was written, but whatever.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And it’s stuck partially because Brigham Young and the generation of leaders that served with him all use the term United Order for the Law of Consecration. So it’s not that uncommon today for people to use the terms Law of Consecration and United Order as synonyms for each other, although the United Order, strictly speaking in the Doctrine and Covenants, was the United Firm.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Which was just this joint venture of the Kirtland and Missouri leaders. Like, that’s it. That’s all it meant. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
You know? But, yeah, it has kind of grown into its own, like, thing. Like, people think of the United Order as, like, encompassing all of the law of consecration or the system set out in section 42, but that’s not it. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s a thing within the law of consecration. It’s not the law of consecration. 

Scott Woodward:
The business venture. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
So within days of section 82 being received, William W. Phelps and Sidney Gilbert actually draft—they call it “the bond” or the legal contract for the members of the United Firm, and Sidney Gilbert, Newel K. Whitney are appointed as the financial agents to act in the name of the firm for their respective branches in Missouri or Kirtland, and although the United Firm kind of has these simple beginnings, by primarily governing a mercantile store in each location and a print shop in Missouri, the council made it a policy that their regulatory scope would include any special business, they called it, that occurred in either branch or firm, and so this really is the beginning, like I said, of the corporate management of the church’s financial and commercial interests. It kind of is the seed or the antecedent to all of today’s business ventures of the church. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
Now, unfortunately, this United Firm, which the Lord said could be everlasting, only lasted two years, from 1832 to 1834, so it’s—there’s kind of a long story, right? There’s many complicating factors during that period that put strain on the firm. There’s the Missouri mobs, for one, that are going to destroy the Phelps printing press. They’re going to destroy the Sidney Gilbert store, or at least all the goods in the store.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
There’s also pressing debt. There’s also greedy church members. And so in April of 1834, and this is in D&C 104, the Lord announces that he is going to dissolve the firm, ultimately because he said, “Some of my servants have not kept the commandment but have broken the covenant through covetousness and with feigned words.” So he dissolves this joint venture, but that does not end the corporate management of the church’s financial and commercial interests: it just dissolves the partnership between the two cities, right? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
So the organizational structures and methods for continuing to operate the corporate management of the church’s financial and commercial interests evolves over the years, but it doesn’t end. D&C 104 does not end it, nor does it end the need for church leaders and members to consecrate their time and their talents and their money to advance the cause of Zion, right? It just dissolves the joint stewardship. That’s it. So we could say that was something of a failed venture after two years, which the Lord says came about because of broken covenants and covetousness and feigned words. But that’s not the end, is it, Casey, of the church’s business ventures? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, and I want to add, too, I mean, the covetousness and broken promises are part of the problem. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Another major part of the problem is the church undergoes serious persecutions in Missouri. 

Scott Woodward:
Right. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Sidney Gilbert’s store is ransacked and destroyed.

Scott Woodward:
Yes. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The church printing press is burned down. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so a lot of the assets that the Missouri branch of the United Firm is managing are destroyed in the persecutions that happened in 1833. And section 104 is recognizing, yes, there was some selfishness. There were some broken promises there, but it’s also recognizing the reality of, well, the church in Missouri is in financial trouble now because of persecution. So there’s some things that were done wrong by members of the church. There were some other things that were outside of their control, like the way the Missourians chose to treat them. And the Lord in section 104 is reorganizing the financial concerns of the church. He’s going to dissolve the United Firm, and then he’s basically going to direct them to sort of regroup with what they have, but the basic aims don’t change. The United Firm started as the Literary Firm, which was intended to publish the scriptures. He’s still telling them to do that. In fact, in section 104, verse 58, he says, “For this purpose I’ve commanded you to organize yourselves, even to print my words, the fulness of my scriptures, the revelations which I have given unto you, and which I shall hereafter from time to time give unto you, for the purpose of building up my church and kingdom on the earth, and to prepare my people for the time when I shall dwell with them, which is nigh at hand.” So he’s still saying, I still need you to get the scriptures printed. I need you to get my words out to the people. I need you to do things that will build the kingdom of God. And then, later on in verse 66, he actually designates the funds that will be set aside to do this as the sacred treasury. He says “a seal shall be kept upon it that it may be holy and,” then here’s the word, “consecrated to the Lord.” But there’s an interesting thing that you can find here as well. If you go to verse 67, right after he does set up the sacred treasury to print the scriptures and build up the kingdom, he says, “There shall be another treasury prepared,” this is verse 67, “and a treasurer appointed to keep the treasury, and a seal shall be placed upon it;” and then in verse 68, “all [the] moneys that you receive in your stewardships, by improving upon the properties which I have appointed unto you, in houses, in lands, or in cattle, or in all things save it be the holy and sacred writings, which I have reserved unto myself for holy and sacred purposes, shall be cast into the treasury, as fast as you shall receive money, by hundreds, . . . by fifties, . . . by twenties, . . . by tens, or by fives.” So we’re going to set up this sacred treasury, and its purpose is to print the scriptures and build the kingdom, but he also says, take your funds as well and set up a second treasury, and you’re going to use that to improve upon your stewardships. I don’t want to use the labels sacred and secular here, but one of them is intended to do spiritual things, print the scriptures, build up the kingdom, and another one is intended to make the world a better place, right? 

Scott Woodward:
Would it be the scripture fund and then everything else, almost? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, but not just to print the scriptures. He also says to build up the kingdom, to get the words out to everybody. And so in a general sense, you can also see this kind of dichotomy that exists in the church today, where some funds are directed to get the word to people and convert them, and some funds are directed towards community development, making things better. Like, in my classes, sometimes I’ll put up something and say, here’s something the church spends money on. Here is Gospel Library. It’s a comprehensive electronic resource that anybody can download as long as they have access to the app store and thereby access almost anything that a prophet has ever said in history. Is this a sacred treasury thing or is this something that the other treasury would worry about? 

Scott Woodward:
Sounds like sacred treasury. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. This is what it looks like in the 21st century to get the word of God out to people. You can’t necessarily get them to buy a book, so give them a free app where they can download it.

Scott Woodward:
Wait, wait, wait. So is the Gospel Library app, like, the modern equivalent of the Literary Firm? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Sorta. Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
Holy cow. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s other iterations, too. Like, maybe you’ve seen the church’s Bible videos app. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which has, like, a digital model of Jerusalem and little glowing circles. You tap on them, and it’ll show you a video that acts out a text from the New Testament. That’s what it looks like to get people to read the scriptures in the 21st century, too. They might not sit down and plop open their Bible. I mean, hopefully it leads them to do that, but if we can get them to watch a six-minute video that presents the text of the Bible, that’s also printing the scriptures, getting the Word of God and building the kingdom into people’s hands.

Scott Woodward:
And that took money to pay those actors, filmmakers, editors, digital media folk to put that all together, right? That took money. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And that’s a charge given to the church. 

Scott Woodward:
And we give it away for free to help build people spiritually. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. But there’s this other branch of the church that the other treasury that he sets up in verses 67 and 68 is still concerning itself with, which is, let’s build the community around us. Let’s improve on our stewardships. And so the second picture that I usually put up on the screen is the City Creek Mall in downtown Salt Lake, which was really controversial for a lot of people. A lot of people are like, why does a church own a mall? 

Scott Woodward:
Why are they into business? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Why are they into business? Why is there a mall where you can go and purchase Apple products and then get some candy at the Rocky Mountain Candy Factory and then go to Nordstrom’s or something like that? That’s because this principle of stewardship and community building. So the City Creek Mall is a great example of this. In the early years of the 21st century, downtown Salt Lake had started to sort of degenerate, and the area surrounding church headquarters in Temple Square was sort of becoming dangerous. Church leaders decided to invest funds, and President Hinckley gave a talk where he said directly, we’re not going to use tithing funds for this: We’re going to use the investments of the church, this other treasury, to build and revitalize downtown Salt Lake. So they build the City Creek Mall, which effectively does that. They just happened to coincide the construction with the 2008 financial crisis, so it spares downtown Salt Lake some of the worst effects of this global financial meltdown that happens in 2008, and it represents a secular venture of the church. So it’s owned and operated by the church, but it’s a secular venture that does make a profit. The tenants there pay money to the church, but it’s also intended to build the community, make the community a little bit better. 

Scott Woodward:
But it’s a for-profit business. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I mean, it’s for profit, and the money that is generated from that can be used for all the purposes of building the Kingdom of God on earth.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right. 

Scott Woodward:
That are outlined in the Doctrine and Covenants. It continues to—again, yeah, the seeds that are there in section 70, section 78, 82, and 104, like, those seeds justify everything that the church does today in terms of its business ventures. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
And the funds are continually used for those same purposes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So let me give you another one, Scott. 

Scott Woodward:
Okay. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And you tell me if you think this is the sacred treasury or the other treasury. 

Scott Woodward:
Okay. Whoo. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The church owns a theme park. That’s going to sound crazy, but the number one tourist attraction in the Hawaiian islands . . . 

Scott Woodward:
Six Flags? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s not called Six Flags. 

Scott Woodward:
Oh, okay. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s called the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, I love the Polynesian Cultural Center. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The PCC is the most popular tourist attraction in the islands. It’s on the north side of Oahu . . . 

Scott Woodward:
North Shore. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
. . . and it’s a place where you can go and basically, like, watch a show, learn about Hawaiian culture, get a smoothie, learn how to crack open a coconut, or make a hat, and you’ll have people there from all these different cultures, from New Zealand, representing Maori culture, from Tonga, from Samoa, from Tahiti, who talk about their culture, who put on shows, and who entertain people. It’s a theme park, basically. 

Scott Woodward:
I haven’t thought about it as a theme park, but that’s so true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s Polynesian Disneyland, basically. So is that sacred or the other treasury? What do you think? 

Scott Woodward:
I mean, it’s sacred, but it’s probably funded by, in terms of section 104, it would be that other treasury, wouldn’t it? 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. This is a little from column A and a little from column B, right? 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Where on the one hand, the whole reason why the PCC exists is because it’s literally only separated from BYU–Hawaii by a chain link fence. Most of the students that attend BYU–Hawaii—and BYU–Hawaii, just so you know, if you’re an American kid living on the mainland, BYU–Hawaii is the hardest of the three BYUs to get into. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Partially because the spots of BYU–Hawaii are primarily reserved for students coming from Pacific Island nations and Asian countries. So these kids come to Laie, Hawaii, where there’s a BYU, and there’s almost no jobs. A lot of them are coming from poor families or from developing nations. How do they pay for their schooling? The PCC was set up to basically provide employment for them. A lot of them go to school, and then in the afternoon they dress in native costume, go over to the PCC, and they work the rest of the day. 

Scott Woodward:
That’s how they get through school. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s how they pay for school. 

Scott Woodward:
It’s awesome. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So it serves the secular purposes of the church in that it helps these students get the money that they need to go to school, but it serves the spiritual purposes of the church because these students go to religion classes, because they learn about leadership. A lot of them stay in Hawaii. A lot of them go home to their countries where they serve as stake presidents, Relief Society presidents, bishops—leaders in the church, essentially. It builds the kingdom of God, and through the means of their religion classes, it does help people know the scriptures better, too, because they’re not only going to learn the scriptures, they’re going to go home and hopefully teach the scriptures to people. So this is a little, little bit of both, when it comes down to it. 

Scott Woodward:
Just kind of goes to show how futile it is to try to draw a solid line between the spiritual and the temporal. It’s like, you know, which is that? It’s like, yeah, it’s all of it. It goes together. Drawing a line there between the two feels a little arbitrary. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. But again, this is another one of those texts that suggests the church isn’t going to just concern itself with Sunday business. It’s going to be involved in community building. It’s going to be involved in all aspects of a person’s life. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So you mentioned City Creek Mall and the PCC. The church seems to be involved in a lot of other business ventures as well. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
Like, I have a former student who manages the almond farm of the church in California. There are orange groves in Florida. In fact, I think we own, like, 2 percent of all of Florida, if I remember the staggering statistic correctly, where we have orange groves, we have apartment buildings, real estate. That’s incredible, right? We have cattle farms all over the place, actually. We also do, you know, digital-media-type stuff with, like, Bonneville Communication, KSL . . . I mean, we’re into a lot of stuff. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
Business ventures, which are for profit and intended to help raise funds to accomplish the purposes of the church, and it’s remarkable. Are they spiritual or are they temporal? Uh, yeah. Yeah, they are. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
And it’s all intended to bring to pass what Doctrine and Covenants originally articulated, and so you can trace all of those business ventures back again to sections 70, 78, 82, and 104. It’s pretty awesome. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
All guided by the principles of consecration that are established in the Doctrine and Covenants. For instance, a lot of those farms that the church owns start out as welfare ventures. They’re created in the Great Depression, and we’re going to spend an episode on this, to basically facilitate the needs of members of the church who are struggling financially, are out of work, or are affected by that. So that idea that we just don’t draw a line between the temporal and the spiritual is something that’s seen manifested in an almond farm in California or an orange grove in Florida or a theme park in Oahu. If it’s helping us get the job done, then great. We’re going to use all the tools we have at hand to try and make things better.

Scott Woodward:
And it really brings to pass what the Lord said back in section 78, verse 14. At the very beginning of all of this, the Lord said, “that through my providence the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world.” I love that. Like, all of this is ultimately to bring about an independence. Financial independence? Yes, which the church has now achieved, and done so remarkably. But that is a means to the end of all the other kinds of independence, whatever that might mean under the celestial world. But financial independence is a key piece to the broader picture of what God is intending to accomplish.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
What’s cool is we’ve achieved the financial independence piece through these business ventures, which just shows the wisdom of the Lord early on. There were some bumps, there were some struggles, there was some dissolving of the United Firm. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. 

Scott Woodward:
There’s other failed business ventures. But the principles prevail.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And you can see these principles sort of illuminated. For instance, there’s one section of general conference that nobody pays attention to . . . 

Scott Woodward:
Uh-oh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
. . . and that is the church auditing report that’s in the April general conference. 

Scott Woodward:
Do we still do that? I was just trying to remember. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I know that some things, like the statistical report, they just sort of decided, Oh, let’s just publish that. We don’t have to read it in the middle of general conference, but I’m not 100 percent sure if we still do this. 

Scott Woodward:
I think we might have recently stopped doing it. Anyway. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s usually only about a 30-second thing. For instance, this is from 2015: The church auditor got up and said, “Based upon audits performed, the church auditing department is of the opinion that, in all material respects, contributions received, expenditures made, and assets of the church for the year 2015 have been recorded and administered in accordance with approved church budgets, policies, and accounting practices. The church follows practices taught to its members of living within a budget, avoiding debt, and saving against a time of need.” And I just want to emphasize, these principles and policies are from the Doctrine and Covenants. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And by the way, that little, 30-second excerpt of General Conference that nobody pays attention to is the product of thousands of audits that are carried out throughout the church. And God bless the auditors of our church. I mean . . . 

Scott Woodward:
God bless them, every one. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m not a finance guy, so when I have to work with them—I mean, I remember the first audit I went through as an ecclesiastical leader, and all you do basically is you stay in your office in case they have questions, and the auditor sits with the finance clerk and just, they go through all the receipts, and everything’s okay. First one I did, we’re there until, I mean, honestly, like, 10:30 at night, and the auditor comes in and goes, “We’re missing a couple of receipts,” and I’m brand new, and I go, “I don’t know where they are,” and they’re like, “Well, we have to account for these.” And I go, “Okay, I’ll call the old bishop and see if he knows anything.” So we called the guy at 10:30 PM. We couldn’t find him. I think we were there until 11:30 when I finally said, “I will pay you $1,000 if I can go home.” And the auditor, like, totally stone-faced, “Are you trying to bribe a church auditor?” I was like, “No, I just don’t want to be here anymore.” We eventually got everything resolved, but that 30-second excerpt of General Conference, which might not even be in General Conference anymore, is the result of thousands of interactions like that, where these dedicated people just make sure that we’re following the principles established in the Doctrine and Covenants, that we’re being honest, and that there’s nothing untoward happening. So if you’re a church auditor, thank you for what you do. If you’re not, just know that there are thousands of dedicated people who work to make sure that we’re honest in our dealings. So if we’re looking back over what we’ve learned, episode one kind of introduced us to the principles of consecration. 

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
What we’ve talked about today is what happened when these principles were put into practice. And what the historical record shows is that the Lord wasn’t a passive bystander. He was actively involved in saying, let’s do this, let’s do this, let’s bring this person in, and sort of leading the leaders of the church to say, let’s use every asset that we have to make this happen. And you still see this in the way that the Church operates today, where the Church tries to use its resources as carefully and effectively as we can. And if we can achieve it through something that might be called secular by the world, great. Great. If we can achieve it through spiritual means or a spiritual sacrifice, something like tithing or fast offerings, then great, but we’re going to use everything we have to accomplish this. And this is something that, I’ve got to emphasize here, I see as one of the real strengths of the church. Most churches are led by guys like you and me, Scott. 

Scott Woodward:
That’s a problem. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Who have backgrounds in history and theology, right? I can tell you extensive stuff about the historical context of the Kirtland period in the church, but I can’t balance my own checkbook. I need my wife to do that. Church leadership is a mixture of people like you and I, who have backgrounds in theology, in psychology and in things like counseling, and people who have expertise in other fields, like finance or business. And that eclectic mix has made the church uniquely prosperous, I guess you’d say. We don’t believe in anything like a prosperity gospel where we just think that the Lord wants us to be rich. But we also think that if someone has a set of skills that are linked to business, finance, accounting, they could also use those skills to build the kingdom of God. And we have, and we still do, and we probably always will, because we just don’t draw a line between those temporal concerns and spiritual concerns. We’re trying to get all of them met, and we’re going to do so by the means the Lord has given to us. 

Scott Woodward:
Whatever skill set you have, there is a place for you in the kingdom of God. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So in the Quorum of the Twelve, you can have a guy like Jeffrey R. Holland, who is like you and me—like, he’s a teacher and a theologian—be right next to a guy like M. Russell Ballard, who just passed away, who was a business person in his regular life. And if you run down the Quorum of the Twelve, you have people with legal expertise, you have people with business expertise, you have people with medical expertise. Russell M. Nelson and Dale Renlund are heart surgeons, right? And we just draw from all these different disciplines to get the work done, and actually, it’s a really, really great system because it doesn’t just rely on people like you and me. We have a skill set that’s useful in some contexts, but that’s not useful in others. Instead, it’s holistic and it does go back to this idea of consecration not just being financial. Consecration is holistic. It’s not just a way to manage your money. It’s a way of living your life. 

Scott Woodward:
Well said. Time, talents, and finances, all together to build the kingdom of God on earth and establish Zion.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s right. Now, we spent this episode talking about how the businesses work. There were some successes, there were some failures. Next time we’re going to have to go into one of the big failures that still kind of haunts the church today. That’s the Kirtland Safety Society. But we’re going to talk about one of the great successes that comes in the wake of the Kirtland Safety Society, which is the establishment of the law of tithing, which is still a financial law that blesses the church and blesses the lives of millions of people around the world. So more finance ahead. 

Scott Woodward:
Colossal failures followed by inspired adaptations, or something like that. 

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Or something like that. Okay. So thanks, Scott. You make finance interesting. We will see you guys next time. Thanks for listening. 

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we discuss the most painful and possibly most consequential business failure of the church, as well as the intriguing origin story of the most enduring financial system subset of consecration, the law of tithing. Prepare to be surprised. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. And while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of this with us.