…God the Father of Jesus, and all the eternal Priesthood in the heavens expect… all the Priesthood and all the people to be governed by the law of God, and to help faithfully to build Zion and establish the kingdom of God that we may be one in all things temporal and spiritual….
– John Taylor, 6/17/1877
Will
July 28, 2017 @ 1:11 am
Hello Jesse,
Let me start by saying that I fully understand that initiating the building of the center place of Zion will not be done by you or me, and when it is built it will require priesthood keys.
With that said, this is what my stake president said during a conversation I had with him regarding our preparations to become unified as a people, and be ready to usher in Zion…
Quote:
“I think that is is easy for many to be confused when someone talks about living the law of consecration. My understanding of it is that we individually covenant to consecrate our time and choices to the Lord (as Elder Christofferson talked about – purity, work, integrity, service, respect for our physical bodies). However, the church as a whole is not in any policy or practice approaching an “equality among all”.
End Quote
The same apostle he quotes, Elder Christofferson, in his 2008 conference speech “Come to Zion” quoted the Lord saying…
Quote:
“Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment” (D&C 104:17–18; see also D&C 56:16–17).
Furthermore, He declares, “In your temporal things you shall be equal, and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld” (D&C 70:14; see also D&C 49:20; 78:5–7).
End Quote
People… we are talking about preparing to receive Zion! “And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom.”
Anything other than spiritual AND temporal unification brings forth something like this…
“If the people neglect their duty, turn away from the holy commandments which God has given us, seek their own individual wealth, and neglect the interests of the kingdom of God, we may expect to be here quite a time—perhaps a period that will be far longer than we anticipate.” (Brigham Young – Journal of Discourses, 11:102.)
186 years and counting, since the Lord Himself declared that were it not for the transgressions of His people, Zion may have been redeemed even now.
Still hanging on to the summer cottage in Babylon :-(
Jesse
August 2, 2017 @ 7:57 am
You make a great point, Will.
Your stake president’s comment, “the church as a whole is not in any policy or practice approaching an ‘equality among all'” is accurate, but it doesn’t have to remain that way.
The original Utah United Orders, the cooperatives of the 1860s and 70s, the Zion Central Boards of Trade of the 1880s, the Sunday School program, and the Young Men and Young Womens programs were all created on a local level, then adopted church-wide.
If a group of faithful Saints could successfully demonstrate some form of economic unity, it just might catch on. That is what I’m calling on my fellow Saints to attempt until we get it right.
Early LDS leaders saw cooperatives as a steppingstone (their word) to the United Orders. We can start there. The UK and the United States, and other countries, all have a rich history of experience with worker-owned cooperatives. The knowledge of how to do this is out there, we just need to find enough Saints who long for Zion to join efforts to bring this about.