‘Thoughts on Zion’ newspaper column

Reading discourses given by LDS leaders during the 1850s, one sees how consistent and central the theme of building Zion was to the Church during that decade. Here’s a few representative quotes from then: 1852: “Don’t mention Joseph Smith — never mention the Book of Mormon or Zion, and all the people will follow you.” […]

The Mormon leaders in the 1800s were focused on building a Zion society here in the Mountain West, not in some ephemeral way, but in a very real here-and-now, brick and mortar kind of way. The doctrine of building a Zion society was central to the Gospel message being preached. We see in an 1852 […]

In this column, we have been exploring pride-based social institutions that make up a Babylon society, and, their humility-based counterparts in a Zion society. Let’s now consider pride-based economic systems. In President Benson’s landmark talk, “Beware of Pride” he says it is pride that motivates us to do our own will and not the will […]

Previously we explored how pride or humility gets incorporated into governments, which then reinforce one or the other in the people. In this way, governments are one of several “cultural pumps” moving a society towards either Babylon or Zion. Another is education.  The Book of Mormon offers examples of both humility and pride-based education. One […]

Last time we explored how the principles of pride or humility get incorporated into our social institutions which then reinforce pride or humility in the people. Over time, these “cultural pumps” move the society towards Babylon and self-destruction, or towards Zion and peace and prosperity. Let’s explore briefly how the Nephites incorporated pride into their […]

Elder David R. Stone, in his Conference talk, “Zion in the Midst of Babylon”, taught that Babylon has a culture.  And, since Zion is an alternate society to Babylon, it has a culture too.  Common definitions of “culture” include the social institutions that pass on that society’s values. I propose that it is the nature […]

While pondering the Book of Mormon verses mentioning “gain”, a step-by-step process opened up that shows how pride leads to Babylon, Zion’s opposite, and then to society’s demise. 1. Pride includes the belief that some are worth more or worth less than others (Alma 32:2-3), in contrast to God’s valuing everyone as equally precious (Jacob […]

If we are truly interested in fleeing Babylon and then building Zion, we need to thoroughly understand the similarities and differences between pride, which moves society towards Babylon, and humility, which leads us to Zion. Pondering President Benson’s landmark talk, “Beware of Pride“, it becomes clear that both pride and humility have two main components: […]

Along our journey here, we came to conclude that: 1. “Babylon” is any culture that has incorporated pride-based beliefs and customs into its social organizations, such as families, schools, businesses, and government, 2. “Zion” is any culture that institutionalizes humility-based beliefs and customs into its social organizations, and 3. If we want to ‘flee Babylon’ […]

The ideas shared here opened my eyes to see Babylon and Zion much more clearly and helped me better understand how to move from the former to the latter. In his General Conference talk in April 2006, Elder David R. Stone of Second Quorum of the Seventy took a good portion of his talk to […]

Before we explore something both Babylon and Zion have in common, let’s take a closer look at two conclusions we came to in a previous column: “Pride is the steppingstone to Babylon” and “Humility is the steppingstone to Zion”. How can pride lead to Babylon and humility to Zion? Imagine wearing a pair of glasses. […]