The Treasurer’s Report, Parts 1 & 2 [Updated]
By Dennis Hokama, July 5, 2015 [Updated July 10]: I would like to make some observations regarding the Treasurer’s Report at the General Conference Session (GC) in San Antonio.
Part 1: Adventist World Membership, Tithing Per Capita
We often see world membership data broken down by region as well as gross regional tithing data at General Conferences, but seldom, if ever, do the twain appear to meet. The present analysis represents a synthesis of data from “Delegate Information” which contains world membership data used to justify delegate representation and the “Treasurer’s Report.” I entered the relevant numbers from both reports into a spreadsheet. Here are two tables of these figures: one ranks the regions by membership. The other ranks them by per capita tithing. Some observations will then be made.
Some Observations
- The North American Division (NAD) is not even the top region when it comes to per capita annual tithing. That honor technically goes to the seldom mentioned MENA region that includes Israel, though it amounts to a nearly insignificant drop in the bucket from the perspective of world membership.
- There seems to be an inverse relationship between regional membership totals and per capita tithing. The top three per capita tithing regions (MENA, NAD, TED and EUD) have a weighted mean of $809.25 in per capita annual tithing and pay 48% of world tithing, despite making up only 8% of world church membership.
- The bottom six regions (SUD, ECD, WAD, SID, SSD, and IAD) have a weighted mean of $35.72 per capita tithing, pay 19% of world tithe, but make up 73.03% of SDA membership. This is highly unlikely to be a mere coincidence. We seem to intuitively know that being desperately poor and in need of outside help apparently makes people open to evangelism, but nobody seems willing to admit this. The unwelcome parsimonious implication is that evangelistic success depends more on poverty and misery, rather than on mystical causes.
- One has to wonder how a division such as the SUD whose annual per capita tithing is only $3.95 per year could ever escape mission status, since division status supposedly means financial independence.
- The world membership totals in the Delegate Information report do not add up. Total world membership is given as 18,143,719. Excel tells us that it is 18,180,721, making the former number an under-count by 37,002. (In the Secretary’s report, a figure of 18.5 million was reported. That makes sense because it is presumably a more recent figure than that used in the Delegate Information report.)
Part 2, SDA World Regions, GC Regular Subsidies, and Budgets
This second analysis attempts to get an overview of the financial picture of the various world divisions and their financial dependence on GC regular subsidies, or what the Treasurer’s Report calls “appropriations.” It is based upon financial data provided on p. 20 of that report, as well as “Delegate Information.” In order to fit all the data on one page, the full regional names were omitted (Please see Treasurer’ report I for that). This time the various world regions have been ranked in their inverse order of dependence on the GC. The division budgets were algebraically inferred from the Treasure’s report. Here is the data, and observations follow.
Observations:
- Not even the NAD is completely independent of GC subsidies, although $750,000 is only a token amount. This does not include subsides to GC institutions such as the GRI, ADRA, Loma Linda, etc, because the subsidies to those 10 institutions add up to $27.5 million. In the case of Loma Linda, 3% of their budget comes from the GC (figures not shown here). The question is, why does the GC subsidize the NAD and institutions like LLU? One plausible hypothesis is that the GC wants to control NAD and LLU, which are effectively actually cash cows for the GC. This control will be even more critical for the GC which just passed FB#6 and squashed Women’s Ordination, whereas both LLU and NAD were on losing side, and are quite frustrated and disappointed.
- MENA does not have the numbers of members needed to be economically viable despite their incredibly high per capita tithing rate.
- As expected, those world divisions with low per capita tithing require massive financial GC subsidies, but in return provide the Wilson administration with a formidable conservative voting block that is based on sheer numbers of members.
Vey interesting analysis, indeed. There are sobering implications in the fact that the bottom six divisions in the table above pay 19% of the tithe but comprise 73% of the membership. The membership ratio clearly gives these divisions potential voting control. What if their votes antagonize the 8% of the membership who pay 48% of the tithe? Could that happen? What consequences might there be, if any
Question following then is what happens if various North American and European Unions continue to act in “rebellion” over the issue of WO? What can the GC and rest of the SDA Church really do to stop them?
Can Unions be expelled and would that mean the GC and rest of the SDA world cutting off its own nose to spite its face, given a huge % of the money that keeps the Church running comes from these Western world Unions?
Is that an honest question? Or treat? For if it is a treat God has a way of flipping the coin. The Church should remain true to the Bible ALONE, other consideration should be ignored. If we do anything else then the richer members of the Church must now determine the Churches direction. The Church must be true to the word only.
The last thing the GC would do is expell a Union Conference, that prospect raises many possible issues. There are some that have said they wouldn’t leave the church over this vote, however the way they contribute the offerings would change, which at the end of the say is their personal decision.
That is an interesting hypothesis. However, the “power” (in an earthly, secular, power politics sense) is in the individual member. If a particular union were to withdraw financial support for the GC, methinks that union would stand to lose a large amount of its membership (and the vote at that constituency meeting would be far more acrimonious, political and divisive than the symbolic WO vote at the GC). I would think the same would occur were a local conference to withdraw support for its parent union.
Could it could mean that those areas of the world that consider women equal with men, are blessed with prosperity, and those that consider male headship the rule stumble on in poverty?
We already recognize that those nations of the world that consider women equal with men DO have more prosperity. This has been repeatedly shown that women in those nations are better educated, are able to more adequately care for their children and raise the level of the entire country. The reverse is found in those areas where patriarchy rules and women are subject to men’s rule over them.
It means Adventism has not penetrated male dominated countries such as the Gulf States yet.
After having lived and worked in Africa, Eileen and I have come to the conclusion that economic salvation for that continent will come through empowering the women.
Beware, correlations. They indicated nothing other than correlation.
Does gender inclusiveness generate more economic growth, or with economic growth do people generally find patriarchy to be more embarrassing?
It is interesting that the ordination of women became a topic of interest at the General Conference level as the church began to grow and was regularly on the agenda during the hey day of Seventh-day Adventist growth, 1980 – 2000.
Since that time, growth rate is declining. Had it continued at the 1980-2000 average rate, there would be 28 million members, rather than 18 million today. Is the drop off in growth due to a failure to become gender inclusive? Not likely.
As for financial parity or lack of it and its implications, that matter was resolved with the introduction of Union Conferences, more than a century ago. Not only did Union Conferences result in fully delegating responsibility of nearly every aspect of church governance to Union Conferences, it usefully geofenced the work of the church so as to protect local ecclesiastical practices and economies from being hijacked by distant, even neighboring Union Conferences, or not insignificantly the General Conference. For more than a century, the General Conference has been the source for policy guidance, not legal control, save for institutions it essentially owns.
All in all, things are working pretty well in the church.
Beware, correlations. They indicated nothing other than correlation.”
True, correlation is not cause. But I invite you to come up with a more plausible hypothesis. Ted Wilson called this an “enigma” in 2010. Can you do any better?
“We seem to intuitively know that being desperately poor and in need of outside help apparently makes people open to evangelism, but nobody seems willing to admit this. The unwelcome parsimonious implication is that evangelistic success depends more on poverty and misery, rather than on mystical causes.”
I find this is the most interesting observation of them all.
On the one hand this should not suprise us at all. Christianity is after all the religion of the underclass, just as Judaism began as a religion of the slaves’ God. At its inception, it was always a message more greatly received by the underclasses, whether it be the poor, slaves and women. When Christianity began to penetrate the upper classes, it was usually through Roman aristocratic wives first, and husbands only last.
But it present a real challenge for us too – as it did for the 1st Christians. The first Christians were faced with “rice Christians” – people who converted for social service reasons, instead of real conviction. In fact, many of the early schisms of the Church (such as the Donatists) arose because persecution exposed many were not really committed to the cause.
In the Developing World, Adventist services in health and education are arguably far more important than the West, with strong State services. How many are “rice Christians”? For e.g. in PNG, which has a massive Adventist population, has some of the highest rates of murder, rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence. A…
If we interpret “rice” metaphorically, then perhaps that is the only kind of Christian there is. After all, if there is no payoff, why do anything that requires sacrifice and effort?
We now have turned into wealth and money as the bases of argument for WO. Now those with more money or larger number should be heard and not the Bible?. If truth can be bought with wealth and influence as NAD and other people would want us to believe, then majority of the world populace who are poor due to imbalance and selective economic inequality by the world ‘s rich countries against poor ones, will never have access to the doors of heaven. Let those think money is everything remember what Satan pledged to offer Jesus should He had kowtow and worship him. If NAD think money is everything then they are mistaken. Jesus will save more poorpeople who fortunately occupy the world’s population and leave the few whose wealth have made them trample God’s word. Those in America and Europe want everyone in this world to believe they are the most favoured among everyone. What ever America and Europe believe should be accepted by everyone is that not it? WO is nothing but a philosophy of socio cultural pressure with no Bible support yet because Americans and their former masters Europeans are rich, they want to force their will on the church due to their fat budget for the world church.if NAD decide not to support the world church God can still raise up help from elsewhere. All indicators shows that U.S. Is acting the second Beast role of REV. 13. God will never allow NAD nor any other people to destroy His truth. Now U.S. Culture is fasting destroying the Bible God won’t allow…
The initials for the divisions are abbreviations, not acronyms. An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a new word such as SONAR, SCUBA or LASER. This is universally misunderstood. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym
Listen to Jesus.
13:27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
13:28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
13:29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
The tithing doctrine is nonsense. Tithing in Scripture ended when the temple was destroyed, actually, when Christ was crucified. There was no expectation that the very people who had Christ crucified should be supported by tithe.
God is not going to curse people vis a vis Malachi 3. Paul did not appeal to tithe laws when seeking support for the gospel ministry.
Every third year the tithe was to be shared (Deut 14:27-29). This was an integral part of the tithe law but it’snot being performed today. Th denomination itself is robbing God of this tithe.
The tithing doctrine is based upon the writings of EGW, not Scripture. In h past, the BRI made no attempt to use Scripture to justify tithing; they appealed directly to EGW.
Tithe is mentioned in Scripture relative to both Abraham and Jacob (Gen. 14:20; 28:22); consequently, it is not something to be ignored but it is simply wrong to draw a direct parallel between the Levitical system and the SDA clergy.
If keep this pace the South America Division will pass NAD in tithe in 5 years.
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