I have been over many of the scriptures that are ignored. Here is one of them:
(New Testament | Matthew 5:16)
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
How many are doing this?
Are you serious? Who is doing good works? And without even showing
how Mormonism outdoes or corrects whatever Christianity is supposedly not doing in this area? Okay...
In general:
"The Roman Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world. It has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals, with 65 percent of them located in developing countries." (from
Catholic Church and health care - Wikipedia)
The Roman Catholic Church also runs
1,358 institutes of higher education (colleges and universities) around the world.
And of course the Roman Catholic Church is just the largest single church in the world. Many, many Protestant-led organizations focused on international and domestic aid, child development, homelessness, the prison population, etc. also exist, either directly tied to specific churches like
Lutheran World Relief or the
United Methodist Committee on Relief also exist, or not tied to particular churches, like the
YMCA. There are also of course those organizations that are known primarily for their outreach/community aid, like
the Salvation Army.
On a more local level, here is what I get when I search Google for shelters (not even putting in "Christian" or "religious" or anything, just "shelters"):
GODMOVESINC
Salvation Army
Family Promise (from
their website: "Each evening, Family Promise transports the families to the host congregation for that week. At the church or temple each family is provided a private room with bedding as well as daily dinners and breakfasts all provided by volunteers")
Union Gospel Mission
Loaves & Fishes Jail Visitation
Mercy Housing (connected with the
Sisters of Mercy RC religious order)
4th & Hope (grew out of Yolo Wayfarer Center Christian Mission, est. 1985)
St. John's Program for Real Change
etc. etc. (that's just the explicitly religiously-based options found on the first of 10+ pages of results; many of the other options were animal shelters and the like)
It should be noted that
my area is the 19th 'least churched' area in the United States according to a recent survey by Barna, so other locations are bound to have many more religiously-based options for services.
At the level of my specific Church (so, talking about the Coptic Orthodox Church in particular), the diocese into which I was received (in New Mexico, so it was part of the Southern United States Diocese) runs the following social service programs:
- Archangel Raphael Ministry (A.R.M.), "designed specifically for individuals with special needs---our brothers, sisters, children, and their families dealing with these challenges. Individuals with special needs include many challenges, but not limited to persons with Autism, Down Syndrome, Rhett's Syndrome, Tourette Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, Chromosomal Disorders, Psycho-Emotional Disorders, Speech Delays, Developmental Disabilities, Intellectual Disabilities, Physical Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorders, Varying Exceptionalities, and other Exceptional Student Education."
- Family Ministry Program
- Helping Other People Excel (H.O.P.E.) social services program (everything from Covid-19 relief to flood relief to school supplies; the specific projects are dependent on whatever is going on; they do both larger projects aimed at the U.S.A., Egypt, and elsewhere, as well as individual projects, such as medical aid to specific needy individuals, paying for weddings, etc.)
- LEAD Program (leadership program for young adults, 22 and up)
- Orthodox Christian Campus Ministry
- Pre-marital counseling/classes
- St. Clement Coptic Orthodox Christian Academy (pre-K through 7th grade school in Nashville, TN)
- St. Verena Medical Society (medical aid in Bolivia, local aid to the homeless in Houston TX, a yearly health fair at diocese churches providing free flu shots, medical advice from doctors, check ups, etc.)
- St. Verena Resource Ministry (financial, material, employment and other types of assistance)
- A mentoring program
- St. Athanasius Theological Seminary (two locations: Tennessee and Florida)
- Triumphant Christian Church (recovery/addiction services program, includes counseling, retreats, 9th-month rehab services program, etc.)
That's just
one diocese of
one Church that isn't even particularly big in America (maybe 200 parishes total, and somewhere around a million or so members). Case in point, I can't really speak to the activities going on in northern/central California (where I am now), because we're part of a larger archdiocese of Northern California and the Western United States which actually doesn't have its own bishop, but instead a Papal residence (in Livermore, CA) and a secretary who attends to the needs of resident and visiting clergy (e.g., HG Bishop Angaelos of the UK was here for a retreat back in 2018, around when I first moved to Sacramento). This is not the way that things should be, traditionally, with such large swaths of the world 'directly' under the aegis of the Coptic Orthodox Pope (except, y'know...
not directly, since he lives in Egypt), but this also a very small area, in terms of its number of churches and communities...sure, it's an archdiocese, but more so because of the massive territory it covers rather than the large number of people or individual churches or communities it houses (basically all of the western half of the USA outside of Southern California and Hawaii, from Northern California/Oregon/Washington on one end to UT/ID/MT on the other, with not even 20 parishes and communities between them; for comparison, the Southern United States diocese contains 55 individual churches and 40 communities spread from Arizona to Florida). So the fact that we're fielding anything (which we do, generally at the parish level) is practically a miracle.
And of course other churches which may be better integrated/larger/older in the USA, like those of the Greeks and Russians, have their own histories, programs, outreach, etc. This post is probably long enough as it is. The take home point is: at the level of manifesting good works so as to glory our Father Who is in heaven, I really don't see how this charge can seriously be made against Christianity, and by Mormonism of all other religions. You run a huge missionary program dedicated to propagating Mormonism (naturally), and a relatively small everything else (a few BYU campuses around the world and online, right?), and things like "bishop's storehouses" or whatever they're called are run on the same 'worthiness' model that trips you up in practicing spiritual gate-keeping to your secret temples and such. Meanwhile, in Christianity, the ethos is
"freely you have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8).
Since you have not made it obvious despite being told to in the OP, I'll ask you directly: on what basis do you claim that Mormonism does any of this 'better' or more than any actual Christian churches, or Christianity more generally? Because you raise more money via for-profit ventures, an
exceedingly tiny fraction of which goes to various forms of outreach?
According to Deseret News, the LDS charities have given an estimated $2.2 billion since 1985...which
sounds super impressive, until you remember that the LDS church has
quietly amassed $100 billion in its recently-revealed investment fund, meaning that 2.2% of that has been given, but over the last
35 years...that's about $63 million a year, which is peanuts to
an organization that receives $7 billion per year in tithing -- 63 million divided by 7 billion is 0.009 (seriously; look it up). As a percentage, that's 0.9%, or just under 1%.
0.9%.
Over 35 years.
WHAT THE SERIOUS HECK, MORMONISM?!?!
Meanwhile, about 10 million tithers across the churches which reported donate approximately
$50 billion yearly to churches and non-profits. (
source)
Hmm...$50 billion per year vs. $2.2 billion over 35 years.
No wonder you guys are so secretive about your finances!
