Kishkumen wrote:There are no poor in Zion. There are no proud in Zion. The wealth of the current LDS Church is a sham so long as Zion is absent from it.
Kishkumen wrote:There are no poor in Zion. There are no proud in Zion. The wealth of the current LDS Church is a sham so long as Zion is absent from it.
zeezrom wrote:OK, I see the conflict.
How can you build the kingdom of god (infrastructure) while maintaining the cause of Zion (no poor, etc.) at the same time?
United Order?
Nightlion wrote:Not realizing what day it was I did a walk about looking for Harmons, initially, but got caught up in the celebration of the Grand Opening. Lots of cool musicians, two alto saxaphones, each playing solo apart from each other, two jazz ensembles one African acoustic thing going on. Elton John (almost) on his Yamaha syth and a few paid guitarists. You could not hardly move for all the security. There was the uniform smokey the bear hat mall police, and scads and scads of earpiece walkie talkie types you had to elbow your way through them as they were as thick as theives, so to speak.
I saw the genetic trout and the roof closure that was just for show. I shook hands with that guy whom I always run into at every event in Salt Lake City, you know who, Ardeen Watts. It was a material world for sure. I think it has little wow factor however. Pleasant for sure but no Vegas. Gateway 2 1/2.
Kishkumen wrote:I imagine it involves being truly converted. That should be the goal. All things follow on that. If your first goal is to build a shiny building, and not to be converted, then you will never experience Zion, the pure in heart.
Our work is to bring forth Zion, and produce the Kingdom of God in its perfection and beauty upon the earth (DBY, 443).
The Kingdom we are talking about, preaching about and trying to build up is the Kingdom of God on the earth, not in the starry heavens, nor in the sun. We are trying to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth to which really and properly everything that pertains to men—their feelings, their faith, their affections, their desires, and every act of their lives—belong, that they may be ruled by it spiritually and temporally (DBY, 339).
We are building up the literal kingdom of God on the earth, and we have temporal duties to perform. We inhabit temporal bodies, we eat temporal food, we build temporal houses, we raise temporal cattle and temporal wheat; we contend with temporal weeds, and with temporal enemies in our soil, and these things naturally give rise to the necessity of attending to and performing many duties of a temporal and arduous nature, and they, of course, are embraced in our religion. Deseret News, May 22, 1872, 216.
zeezrom wrote:Sorry to belabor this.... Is the Zion you speak of exactly the same thing the leaders have in mind?
zeezrom wrote:My parents and many other Mormons have no problem all with this mall. They see it differently than I do. I was thinking the reason they are okay with it is because it is all part of the kingdom.
Kishkumen wrote:zeezrom wrote:My parents and many other Mormons have no problem all with this mall. They see it differently than I do. I was thinking the reason they are okay with it is because it is all part of the kingdom.
Well, I am sure they may think of it that way, but that is largely because the membership at large has been told that they must trust all of the decisions of their leaders and they have been given absolutely no say in what goes on. So, naturally, who would they be to question the implicit assumption that any business dealing the LDS Church has is part of "building the kingdom"? The whole concept has become so corrupted as to be a perversion of the professed original intention.
The doctrine of Zion is what I really believed in as a missionary. It is one of the primary reasons I became so disillusioned and disappointed with the LDS Church as it actually existed in the world around me. The mall is the ultimate expression of the perversion of Zion. It is an abomination.