The Order's full name invoked the city of Enoch, described in Latter Day Saint scripture as having such a virtuous and pure-hearted people that God had taken it to heaven.
[2] The United Order established egalitarian communities designed to achieve income equality, eliminate poverty, and increase group self-sufficiency.
The movement had much in common with other communalist utopian societies formed in the United States and Europe during the Second Great Awakening, which sought to govern aspects of people's lives through precepts of faith and community organization.
The Latter Day Saint United Order was more family- and property-oriented than the utopian experiments at Brook Farm and the Oneida Community.
Joseph Smith learned of a group of about 50 people known as "the family" living on Isaac Morley's farm near Kirtland, Ohio, who had established a cooperative venture based on statements in the Book of Acts.
[4][5] Members of "The Morley family" were originally followers of Sidney Rigdon, a minister associated with the Restoration Movement who later converted to Mormonism.
[10] Smith directed Colesville immigrants to settle in Thompson, Ohio, a few miles east of Kirtland, on a farm owned by Leman Copley.
Shortly after, Smith announced a revelation directing Newel Knight to lead the saints on the Copley farm to settle in Missouri.
Historian Andrew Karl Larson pointed out that the failure of these ventures are rooted in the frailties of human nature: Some leaders and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that the United Order will be reestablished some time in the future.
Many leaders have taught that the church's present system of welfare and humanitarian aid is a predecessor or stepping stone to the renewed practice of the United Order in the future.
That year, John R. Young and the local bishop, Levi Stewart, began colonizing this area and twelve families followed to begin this endeavor.
Large families in all Mormon communities were regarded as a spiritual practice and the child to woman ratio in Kanab reflected that.
[16] Many suffered hardships while living on the frontier and tended to move frequently, around the same area to escape the harsh conditions and seek greater opportunities.
With the permission and blessing of Brigham Young, Clark established the order within his own family at Farmington which lasted from the 1870s until it was dissolved on July 24, 1901, months before the patriarch's death.
J. Reuben Clark, a member of the First Presidency, explained: The fundamental principle of this system was the private ownership of property.
[3]Lorenzo Snow, a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also highlighted the United Order's preservation of individual free will: In things that pertain to celestial glory there can be no forced operations.
[18]This United Order was an attempt to eradicate poverty and promote a sense of unity and brotherhood within Latter Day Saint communities.
[19] The LDS Church's view is that the doctrine and the various attempts at practicing it should not be seen as part of the 19th-century utopian movement in the United States,[20] and is distinct from both Marxist communism and capitalism.
[22][23][24] The law of consecration and the United Order can be compared to the shared economic arrangement presented in the New Testament as practiced by 1st-century Christians in Jerusalem.
[4][5] In the 20th century, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including David O. McKay, Harold B. Lee,[25] Ezra Taft Benson,[22] Marion G. Romney,[23][24][26] and J. Reuben Clark,[3][27][28] claimed that communism is a "counterfeit" version of the law of consecration.
In 1942, the church issued the following statement: Communism and all other similar isms bear no relationship whatever to the United Order.