Zion (Latter Day Saints)
This association would practice a form of communitarian economics, called the United Order, which were meant to ensure that all members maintained an acceptable quality of life, class distinctions were minimized, and group unity achieved.
[not verified in body] In this way, Zion must be distinguished from the ideal political system called theodemocracy, which Latter Day Saints believed would be adopted upon Christ's Second Coming.
Examples include: In one interpretation, Zion refers to a specific location to which members of the millennial church are to be gathered together to live.
The region of Kansas City Metropolitan Area remains important today in the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and Community of Christ, as well as many smaller branches and offshoots of the Latter Day Saint movement, who view it as having a crucial role to play in their Christian Millennialist theology.
[2] Central to Zion's philosophical underpinnings was a sense of community cohesiveness and unity, a concept which seemed to be unraveling in the world of Jacksonian Democracy.
"[3] Esoterically considered, "Zion" as used in this context is a dualistic term connoting a sanctified group of people living according to the commandments and ordinances as revealed to them.
These requirements are often referred to as "the fulness of the gospel" and as "ordinances", specific commandments which have long set this movement apart from mainstream Christianity.
For a few years after the pioneers arrived, an attempt was made to live the United Order and plural marriage, but both leaders and members failed to continue those important laws.
The Book of Mormon prophet Ether taught that a remnant of the house of Joseph would build a holy city in the Americas.
[13] Early Latter Day Saints interpreted these scriptures to mean that there would be a sudden and dramatic conversion of the American Indians to Mormonism.
"[15][14]: 75 [16]: 55 [17][18] In January 1831,[19] Parley P. Pratt took these teachings to the Lenape, a mission which many Mormons expected to be very successful and dominated Latter Day Saint thought in Kirtland.
[14]: 82 On July 20, 1831, Smith stated that he had received a revelation that designated a physical location for the Saints to start to build Zion, which he taught would be the future New Jerusalem.
"[27] While Latter Day Saints were anxious to gather to Missouri, Smith said he received another revelation to stay in Kirtland for five years, during which time the wicked would not be destroyed.
A revelation in December 1833 through Smith states the belief that the Latter Day Saints were unable to establish Zion in "consequence of their transgressions".
[31] The revelation says that among the Saints there were "jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them; therefore by these things they polluted their inheritances.
[29]: 34 [33] The Latter Day Saints were finally driven from Missouri in 1838 as a consequence of the Mormon War and Governor Lilburn Boggs' Extermination Order.
[29]: 35 After this time, the concept of Zion as a specific piece of geography (Jackson County, Missouri) began to lose its importance.
"In Missouri and Illinois, Zion had been a city; in Utah, it was a landscape of villages; in the urban diaspora, it was the ward with its extensive programs.
President Lorenzo Snow taught that "there are many here now under the sound of my voice, probably a majority who will have to go back to Jackson county and assist in building the temple.".
Bruce R. McConkie taught: "An occasional whiff of nonsense goes around the Church acclaiming that the Lamanites will build the temple in the New Jerusalem and that Ephraim and others will come to their assistance.
