City creek project. the union of church and commerce.

For the past three years Utah news stations have devoted hours of air time to the city creek shopping center/ high end condo project. In a strange twist of fate, this downtown project opens on my husbands birthday. This got me thinking about this project more deeply.
The city creek center is a combination of apartments high rise condo's that over look the SLC temple, and expensive shops, the likes of which Salt Lake has never seen before. In theory it sounds like a good idea, a group of investors get together and start a great money making venture, right? Wrong. In the case of City Creek, the largest investor is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In a news story about the project a reporter talked to the Bishop in charge of the project, yes I said Bishop. A church that enjoys tax exempt status is putting all of that tax free money behind Tiffany's and a Porsche store.
That Bishop made the comment that this project was the most important thing that Gordon B Hinkley (head of the church at the start of the project) wanted done. As I look around at the number of people without a home, at the number of hungry children in this state. I have to ask, is this really the most important thing that a church as large as this one can do? Imagine the great impact disabled housing would have had on a community with a large disabled population. Or what amazing things could have been accomplished with a community center, theater, or.......... I mean the list of things that would have been more Christ like is endless.
Instead, tomorrow, on a birthday that my husband would not have lived to see if it were not for tax funded programs, programs prominent Mormon leaders wanted, and still want to end, a church will open a shopping center that caters to the rich and influential.
A church that teaches others to put God at the center of their lives, has chosen to put profit at the center of it's function. So buy an expensive condo, and look down on the house of God.