I just saw the following exchange on one of my former colleague's Facebook page. He's a Mormon. His original post was just an observation about his tax situation under the new tax rules.

<Original Post>
Reply: Pay that tithing, the blessings will flow.
Re-reply from friend: That was never in question for me.

I will grant that there's going to be some fudging about what "the blessings" are. For example, I do not believe that the statement he made is wholly about financial wealth, based on what I know of him. But there's a clear cause-effect pattern that's being declared. This led me to wonder about the prosperity gospel within Mormonism.

I went around the internet and found this article, which is an interesting analysis of the concept of prosperity over several decades and how it's a waning feature:

https://www.scribd.com/document/2002...-is-Dumping-It

I also found this statement on the "Law of Tithing" presented in 2006:

https://www.lds.org/general-conferen...thing?lang=eng

There are also some discussions of this type on some LDS message boards, so it's at least a conversation within the group.

I thought this was an interesting little diversion because I've never really considered how this idea could have a role within the Mormon perspective. But upon reflection, it does make sense because Mormonism is a largely transaction-based religious perspective, so at that level it seems to fit pretty well into a consistent framework.

Not being Mormon or having deep ties to Mormons, I do not know how this "plays out" in their sense of spirituality. But at least on the surface, the promises do sound like prosperity gospel language, and it does seem to function in a similar capacity.

Also, I wanted to point out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsRUy982IbA

If you've seen John Oliver's show, you might recognize this as his show on Televangelists. But if you watch the video, you'll see/hear a change of quality where someone spliced in other videos. Just be forewarned that if you look into this yourself, you'll no doubt stumble into that video and you will want to acknowledge the parts that were not part of the original show.

The video is making a point, and the video description says explicitly that it's a mashup, but I wanted to draw that out explicitly because probably not that many people read video descriptions before watching and it's a little jarring if you're not expecting it.

There are many messages in the bible, but that God operates on a quid pro quo basis is not one of them.

As for the idea of a prosperity gospel:
From my perspective it's fairly tricky to judge one revealed religion vs another (since I don't accept any of them), but to say that anyone who is peddling a prosperity perspective is in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus is trivial.

It's certainly interesting that some Mormons push this, but in the end it's all pretty much just snake oil.

"Tithe" means tenth. The duty to give tithe to God is found in both OT and NT.
God rewards tithes:
Mormon tithing however appears to based primarily on "revelation" specific to their religion.

Mormons believe in "continuous revelation" such that Church elders can come out of prayer sessions saying God told them x, y, z and that becomes doctrine. e.g. LDS were explicitly racist, and criticized for it, until:
without faith, these "revelations" appear to be convenient lies to expand their Church

I used to be married to a 7th Day Adventist, and giving %10 is a major part of their belief...not just to do good or support the church, but because they believe that if they tithe, they will be repaid by God ten-fold. Giving to the Church will literally cause you to get more wealth.

"But the Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people a miracle, for most people need to see the miraculous in order to be content in their religious faith. Man needs a supernatural being to worship, and Christ refused to appear as one."
I disagree with Dostoevsky (or if you like the Grand Inquisitor) as miracles wouldn't help. People want : Wealth, Lovers and Health. If miracles would be helpful in these directions than people would accept Jesus if not they would clap their hands and go home.
And the main reason why the Grand Inquisitor instantly arrests Jesus is: Jesus looks like a poor man.