I don’t at all understand churches advertising… Maybe because of my European ass? To my knowledge churches are not about profit? I get that you want to announce your service times and such, but put that in a small column in a newspaper for the ones interested or something lol
USA gotta export its worse ideas abroad, after all. For-profit churches, flat earth, antivaxx
That’s an ad for Mormons. The Mormons are a corporation disguised as a church that has gained extreme wealth. They own a huge real estate empire, universities, and farms plus over a hundred billion in one investment fund.
Thy have been caught numerous times breaking all sorts of financial laws but because of their status as a church it’s hidden.
For the Mormons it’s all about profit and hoarding wealth.
The church in the ad is particularly harmful. I had to fight to get out of it, and only after they took 10% of my income for years and trafficked me. They want money, power, and control, not increased numbers at their services.
and trafficked me
There’s a serious “wait, what?!?” here. The church sells slaves?
I was threatened by local leaders and family if I didn’t go on a 2 year mission in another country, then when I got there, they:
- took my passport immediately and locked it in a building I couldn’t access
- required 12 to 16 hours of work a day, with discipline if productivity dropped
- refused to provide adequate food or medical care
- restricted my communication with my family
- assigned me a companion to surveil me 24/7 and report disobedience to leadership (and assigned me to surveil someone else)
- disciplined me when I was physically and sexually assaulted by other missionaries
I didn’t want to call it trafficking for a long time. I figured maybe God just had a weird way of doing things. But my spouse works at a recovery center for survivors of violence (including trafficking) and helped me realize that’s what it was.
A pretty big misconception is that trafficking has to look like selling slaves, and I agree that’s an egregious thing, but it can be a lot more broad than that.
There are a lot of resources at https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en if you’re curious. My mission experience checked just about every box for labor trafficking, and I’ve heard very similar stories from a lot of other people who have been missionaries.
They might be talking about a mission? Personally wouldn’t call that trafficking, but it can be pretty brutal depending on the mission
Not everything is so Black & White ;)