Allow me a little economic soothsaying. Given that all good things must come to an end, and given that the more rational economist are now saying we’re back at 1929, lets assume that the Greater Depression is upon us once again. American culture as we know it will change. Barak Obama will most likely be president, with a progressive wind at his back, and the storm clouds will indeed be dark by the middle of 2009. Attempts will be made to revive the economy, through programs, bailouts, and governmental incentives. Like in 1930, we provide government alphabet programs to do this, however, unlike the 1930’s we will be starting with massive deficits. Instead of gently expanding and encouraging consumer spending to jump start the economy, a la John Maynard Keynes, we encounter a meltdown of our currency due to our very high and unmanageable debt like pre-war Germany. Hyperinflation and Weimar-like conditions melt the entire economy in ways never seen before. Essentially, America becomes bankrupt. Our currency is worthless, we’re being told to merge into a one world order and currency to stabilize, and fascism on one hand and civil unrest on the other is threatening to topple us.

Mormonism will also change. Salt Lake will make a huge shift in resource allocation. Resources and attention spent currently on missionary efforts, temple and chapel-building, and managing the burgeoning local priesthood expansionist efforts will now shift. What once was a kitschy Mormon hobby by the fundamentalists, Provident Living now takes on massive attention from the Brethren. A Church that operates on a cash basis could become its own quasi-governmental institution with focus on welfare economics for its membership. The state may not be able to provide, or, if it does, it may be of the variety that is anathema to the general membership. Work farms, granaries, mills, orchards, and factories may pop up akin to the 1870’s and we collectivize once again the membership of the Church—although more generally in the United States and Canada. The political culture may shift left once again (at least economically), albeit an old fashioned left that may still eschew state collectivism, but will embrace private collectivism. Rugged individualism that is the hallmark of current Mormonism may whither on the vine. This process will be a huddle for survival in this brave new world ravaged by a dramatic decline in wealth.

President Monson will be bred for this. It will be interesting to see how he proceeds. If successful, it may attract the intrigued like never before. The orthopraxic machinations of this future Church may lure the theologically and sociologically ostracized DAMU’s back or chase them away for good to spit and fight against this new development. There will still those that have nuanced views, but probably for very different reasons. It may be seen as a threat to the new order—people off the grid. The conspiracies mark this time as a bargaining chip for the nations. Sign away your sovereignty, and get bread. All that we see now will come into view and we will see that the last few decades we were being set up for this. The curtain will now be drawn, and the wizard is seen for what he is, the grand master that used the dialectic of left and right to destroy our country. The others may see a benevolent pragmatic government just trying to help. There will be costs, and Mormons will be warned that the costs will be too high. We will be seen as renegades, unpatriotic, and we will again reclaim our status that existed pre-1890, a dangerous, subversive force that must be stopped. Persecutions return. Mormonism will be set up for another clash with Washington—or Brussels. To ensure compliance, people will be implanted with chips that will allow them to participate in the governmental programs—allowing them to buy and sell. Others will be shut out, ostracized, and then perhaps arrested for non-compliance.

The Failures of Classic Marxism

The political left has its roots in French Jacobin politics and has survived as a staple of leftist thought. This mindset is interested in a new order where state morality replaces private morality, with an aversion to religion, sexual repression, or aristocracy. They were built upon Karl Marx in the mid-nineteenth century, where economics became the big staple of the utopian dialectic and leftist thought. Classic Marxism, however, through revolution with a focus on economics, went by the wayside with the failures of Stalinism and Maoism and the successes of American capitalism in the mid 20th Century. But not giving up on Marxism, many leftist thinkers found another way.

It is found in Neo-Marxist Critical Theory, what they call cultural Marxism, outlined by Herbert Marcuse. They saw cultural institutions as inhibitors to evolved socialism. The family, religion, etc. became prime targets. The theory goes that if the nuclear family can be dismantled, the individual will place more faith in the State for his security and well-being, and Marxism will take root again. The battles of the sixties, anti-communists will say, were driven by these Marxist undercurrents that had been in the intellectual community. The LDS Church had its own historical dialectic. One of those is the idea that in the last days, the government would be subverted by secret combinations. With Skousen and Ezra Taft Benson at the very vocal helm of this thought, these secret combinations were defined as communism and socialism and evolved to include neo-Marxist critical theory ideas as well. The abortion rights movement and the ERA, were all seen by through an anti-communist lens. Gay marriage is the next in line of a string of neo-Marxist ideas that have to be repudiated. There really is a conspiratorial streak to this opposition to gay marriage; otherwise, I don’t think they would see it as a big deal. The question arises about evidence to support this fear. We are not the first country to go down this path, so we have templates to study.

The Case of Norway, Sweden, and Canada

Norway, Sweden, and most of Scandinavia played this game 15 years ago, and we have results to measure as well as attitudinal shifts to show how gay marriage correlates to other cultural shifts about religion, marriage, and the State. Stanley Kurtz has repeatedly examined this, and came to the conclusion that it does. To paraphrase his study, marriage is almost non-existent in these countries (as measured by the out-of-wedlock birthrate, and the family dissolution rate), and a bellwether for this change, he saw in the gay marriage movement. I’m not altogether convinced it is causal in nature, or just part of the overall chess game, but one of the most disturbing signs was the change in rhetoric. Before the gay marriage was allowed, the rhetoric was about equal rights, love, and acceptance. After gay marriage was allowed, the cultural left started attacking marriage as an outdated institution, as characterized BY gay marriage. This change in rhetoric confirms some of the conspiratorial view. The institution of marriage has altogether been subverted and replaced by the State in Scandinavia.

In Canada, opposition to homosexuality as wrong is now considered hate speech. There is an instance where an ad placed quoting bible passages showing why homosexuality is wrong, and the man who placed the ad was fined by the Canadian Human Rights Board of Inquiry. Furthermore, a Catholic bishop was taken to court by an offended gay man over printing a letter that called on Canada to overturn gay marriage. The case was withdrawn by the plaintiff who was just trying to make a statement, but thousands of dollars of court fees were incurred. Some lawmakers in Canada have regarded their hate crime laws as having a chilling effect on the freedom of religion.

From the same quoted LDS Newsroom article above, here are the concerns—some of which have already materialized:

“Public accommodation laws are already being used as leverage in an attempt to force religious organizations to allow marriage celebrations or receptions in religious facilities that are otherwise open to the public. Accrediting organizations in some instances are asserting pressure on religious schools and universities to provide married housing for same-sex couples. Student religious organizations are being told by some universities that they may lose their campus recognition and benefits if they exclude same-sex couples from club membership.

Many of these examples have already become the legal reality in several nations of the European Union, and the European Parliament has recommended that laws guaranteeing and protecting the rights of same-sex couples be made uniform across the EU. Thus, if same-sex marriage becomes a recognized civil right, there will be substantial conflicts with religious freedom. And in some important areas, religious freedom may be diminished.”

Interesting, the same article states, “The Church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference.”

Seems to me, in conclusion, that the Church’s opposition to marriage is not based on irrational fear of homosexual love per se (they seem awfully close to being okay with domestic parternship rights and have no qualm with employment discrimination based on sexual orientation), but on a deeper, subversive fear that relates to, cultural revolution, neo-Marxian destruction of the family, the State replacing religion, and limiting the freedoms of speech and religion that go along with forced acceptance of homosexuality. This is a massive chess game in a cultural war. Agree or disagree, that’s how you have to look at it if you want to see it through the Church’s lens.

What we have is another classic Book of Mormon last days parallel as pointed out by Samuel in Helaman 13.

“And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them.
And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts . . . Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle.
Yea, we have hid up our atreasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land.
O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them.

What we have is a classic example of the rich (bankers) trampling upon the poor (mortgage racket to sucker people into loans they have no business getting themselves into), to the point that when the notes come due, there is NO MONEY. We have all been suckered.

This problem is a fundamental cultural problem, from the credit card lenders, borrowers, mortgage lenders and their secondary market funds that have cut them up in ways unrecognizable, to the general obligation debt-financing of state government of everything from park trails to zoos, up to the Federal Government’s ponzi scheme known as Social Security, entitlement and defense spending for which there is no money—all driven by voters to vote the idiots in office and spend it out of fear of a terror attack, a layoff, cancer, hurricanes, or carbon dioxide.

News flash!!! We don’t have the money! Sure we can ask the Fed to print more dollars, which in turn make the dollar value plummet, and these mysterious bankers can get debt- financed backing from the Chinese, Saudis and all the Emirates, etc or they can just ruin our economy and China-ify us with this marvelous new fascist economic system that is all the rage in China and Russia (capitalism run amok at the top, with socialism and totalitarianism at the bottom).

So vote Obama who will double entitlements, start a MASSIVE new entitlement to fix health care, all while denying us the opportunity to drill for new energy because of the spotted caribou or a 2 inch rise in sea levels crippling our economy and remaining energy slaves to OPEC.

Or vote McCain who will cut taxes (you can only supply-side once every twenty years, man) and ONLY cut earmarks (drop in the bucket) and DOUBLE our defense spending.

There are no clear choices. It’s painful and disappointing. I guess all I can do is go back to voting on culture war issues that are all the rage because these clowns will do nothing to stop us from declaring bankruptcy and turning our country into a second-world nation.

As Mormons, we have all been taught the value of living within our means, getting out of debt, saving for rainy day. Our governmental fathers seem to think they are beyond that. To quote Jeremiah Wright from another angle, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Local leaders, stake presidents and bishops, are the only ones who are Judges in Israel. They are where the rubber meets the road. Keys of the Priesthood are only given to them locally. With those keys they can rent out ordinance labor with the local Priesthood pool, but it is under their approval only. Area Authorities do not have it, neither do the Seventies. Only the Twelve and the First Presidency hold keys other than stake presidents and bishops. How we see the Church, at least sociologically, is in a greater part how our bishops and stake presidents exercise their keys. Here, you find a wide variety, which was a surprise for me, as I assumed that stakes took very specific marching instructions from Salt Lake.

What I found is that this is not true. There are some very specific rules that must be followed (commandment rules). Aside from that, how they practice as Judges in Israel, as well as policy implementation is subject to personal revelations, interpretation, and culture. The Church is a loose confederacy, where stakes are given general principles in the Church Handbook of Instruction (a thin book) and the rest is left up to the man with the keys. Some stakes will take a statement in the handbook like fundraisers, where the text is ambiguous, and run in either one of two directions, either they will have no fundraisers, and all of their allocated budget money is sufficient to provide for the needs of the stake activities, including Scout camps, and another stake will follow another tack where fundraisers are allowed under certain stipulations (those outlined by the General Young Men’s President). Stake Presidents and to a smaller extent Bishops are their own prophets for their flock. The chain of command in 99% of all instances stops there.

Another personal example is from my life, where I was confessing to sins in my rebel days to my stake president in Salt Lake. He was an inch from excommunicating me based on a single situation that had occurred. I was relocated to Sacrament, California for a job where that stake had a more liberal stance (no sacrament until behavior improves for three months). It was quite confusing and I realized how different those with keys interpret their responsibility to judge. In Utah, I have noticed a pattern of very conservative judgment (harsher punishment and longer probation) versus other places I’ve lived such as Florida and California where judgment is more lenient and probation periods lighter. There is discretion of judgment in stakes and it seems that local culture is taken into consideration, as well as personal upbringing of the key holder, his political attitude, etc. Now, I do want to say that I had positive experiences in the two church courts held in my behalf and the several times I met with bishops and stake presidents. The Brethren were loving, positive, encouraging, and helpful, despite any verdict. Indeed, the only injustice I ever felt was in the length of some of the probations, especially when I felt that I was forgiven of any sin. I learned to accept the decisions despite any personal differences I had with the individual, the conclusions, or the judgment. The bottom line is that the only person that keeps me from God is me and my humility and state of repentance. This was very liberating for me and made me not fear local judgment from my local leaders. The only thing they could withhold from me was officiating in the Church as well as denial of ordinance renewal, which was a pain, but I could still approach God in prayer, and no one can take that away from you.

The final example from my life was from my own stake president who sent me out on my mission and brought me back home. Months after I returned he was released and excommunicated. Life went on, and eventually ended up without his family, poor, and he died recently. While he was ministering to me in my mission, and some of the problems that ocurred for me before my mission, the mantle was definitely there. All this time, he was abusing his position as judge with young women. I didn’t know this at the time, but my mother did. It took that long to get it investigated by Salt Lake. Although our family knew this was going on, we still respected the keys he held until they were passed on to another. It was a very humbing experience, but showed that the Church must be true, or the “local leadership” would have destroyed it along time ago – to twist a familiar phrase about missionaries. At least, I felt this way. I felt that in his ministry to me, he was exercising keys he had, they worked, but he shouldn’t have had them. Nevertheless, while he had them, they worked. Perhaps it was my faith justifying their use and not any specifics of his title. Who knows? That’s always a good discussion.

Which brings me to philosophy of responsibility of Priesthood: Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies. That doesn’t mean it happens overnight, or in the first instance. I believe that Priesthood judgment and efficacy is an evolutionary process, just as we in our everyday Christianity must evolve to be better Christians. That understanding keeps us from judging our local leaders too harshly. We can be more accepting of judgment calls if we realize they aren’t perfect and let bygones be bygones. Sometimes that interferes too much with personal needs and we can’t afford to let a sloppy priesthood leader mess things up for us. Another approach we can take is to ward and stake shop. If we feel unduly judged or oppressed by a Priesthood leader we can vote with our feet. I know that Church hates this, but it is effective and can often put the person in need in the arms of a Priesthood holder that will truly understand.

Finally, one hopes that brethren up the chain will be more effective than those who are green under the proverbial collar, and that it isn’t just politics. One hopes that there is a weeding our process that our Apostles and prophets have Priesthood experience in exercising and judging. One hopes that there is a refining process that occurs. Indeed, because the general lay member’s judgment is local, we have very little personal experience with them. Our local leaders, on the other hand, are ministered by these General Authorities, so we are indirectly affected. We are also ministered in General Conference, but one gets the feel that the GA’s have been playing good cop and letting the local leaders play bad cop.

It’s a tough job to be a bishop or stake president. Thankfully it’s not a lifetime calling. I wouldn’t covet it for anything; however, those that have been in those positions consider it the best time of their lives as they learn to love their flock.

My vacation of choice is a pilgrimage across the plains to Nauvoo, with stops in Independence, Liberty, Farr West, Spring Hill, Quincy, Nauvoo, Carthage, and on our return, Winter Quarters. Neither of us have seen these Church History sites. My wife has been to Kirtland and Palmyra.

Both are about equal in cost. You can get a Cotco pass for the parks in California to make them cheaper. We live in Cedar City, thus closer to California–and less gas. Contarily, the Nauvoo trip will be free of major traffic, littered with cheap roadside motels, but be a gasoline-consuming nightmare.

California is the fun trip, let our hair down trip, laugh, play, and romp around. It will be more luxurious, but probably a tad more stressing. Nauvoo is the discovery trip, the experience trip, finding what’s under that rock trip.

San Diego is also the “Disneyland” temple, but Nauvoo is our Meccan legacy temple. But ordinances are ordinances, so its not the biggest factor.

What say ye?

I had the opportunity of late to score a read from a family member’s library. This family member is an activist on the fringe set of fundamentalism and preparedness, dabbling into the occult and mysticism as well—happy times! I happened to return it so this will be a bit rusty on the documentation side. The book is called Awakening to Our Awful Situation by Jack Monnet. It even comes with a nifty little CD that explains how the United States took down the World Trade Center. If you want to find this book, you can buy it at the Chevron gas station in Cove Fort at the intersection of I-15 and I-70. Hinckley’s father/grandfather? Ira used to live there in that godforsaken outpost—it’s like a must see for the Utah family vacation—but I digress.

Awakening is another book in a long list of LDS fringe conspiracy literature that begins with heavy firepower from our modern scriptures in setting up the justification for conspiracy by an appeal to the warning of secret combinations, but usually ends up going off the cliff towards the end. There is enough good stuff here methinks that I may esteem the Book of Mormon too lightly. We like to give it the round robin lately with its appeal to Christianity, thanks to Stevenson and Millet, but we are still probably amiss at the lack of attention we give to the politics of Satan. A list of secret combination scriptures should suffice.

We shall start in sequence:

• Moses 5:51 “For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination their works were in the dark . . .”
• Ether 11:15 “And it came to pass that there arose a rebellion among the people, because of that secret combination which was built up to get power and gain. . .”
• Helaman 2:8 “. . .and how that it was his object to murder, and also that it was the object of all those who belonged to his band to murder, and to rob, and to gain power, (and this was their secret plan, and their combination)
• Helaman 3:23 “. . .there was continual peace established in the land, all save it were the secret combinations which Gadianton the robber had established in the more settled parts of the land, which at that time were not known unto those who were at the head of government; therefore they were not destroyed out of the land.
• Helaman 6:38 “. . . the Nephites did build them up and support them, beginning at the more wicked part of them, until they had overspread all the land of the Nephites, and had seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations.
• 3 Nephi 7:6 “And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination . . .”

Relating to our day:

• Ether 8: 23-24 “Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, . . . when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you . . .”
• 2 Nephi 26:22 “And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things . . .”
• D&C 42:64 “And even now, let him that goeth to the east teach them that shall be converted to flee to the west, and this in consequence of that which is coming on the earth, and of secret combinations.”

Monnet then proceeds to elaborate on well-documented historical challenges to orthodoxy about the Federal Reserve, World War I, and the aftermath as well-worn historical examples of modern secret combinations. I mean, if it’s likely according to the Book of Mormon that we have them, why not elaborate? The book relies heavily upon Carrol Quigley’s, Tragedy and Hope, a conspiratorial staple for decades since Quigley describes himself as an insider who got out (just found out that Bill Clinton is a BIG fan of Quigley). The mining of this book, along with other LDS conspiratorial favorites (Skousen, Ezra Taft Benson) leads me to inquire within the pages of the resourced books, since they seem more authentic. Yet, it’s nice (at least for the first part of the book) to have a paraphrased compilation that pulls it all together and modernizes it a bit. For me, it was fairly convincing and challenging to my historical/political consignment that I have furthered my pursuits into this hot topic. Some of the javelins of conspiracy in the book were as follows:

• Early banking, aristocratic, and high bourgeoisie meddling was commonplace in Europe during the 19th Century and increased after 1830 (hmmmm). They found during the Napoleonic wars that they could make money peddling death, and that it helped to give them more control over people and nations. Thus spawned the American Civil War, the Prussian wars of the 1870’s (Second Reich), and the various British skirmishes hop scotching all over the globe.
• Well-known banking and business families: Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan families helped to create the Federal Reserve in 1913 after the Panic of 1911, giving them control of the money supply and created a sort of shadow government. WWI, the Income Tax amendment, and the League of Nations were an early attempt at global government. Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is a more extensive treatment of this era.
• They repeated the same thing in the 1930’s (FED creating an economic pandemic as a pretext for war, as a pretext for war profiteering and global control through the United Nations).
• These banking entities funnel their money into not-for-profit foundations that fund the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations. These foundations pretty much fund the testing and curriculum standards in public school, and are the funding and granting mechanisms for the modern scientific discovery process. They basically fund and encourage scientific discovery ONLY in areas that further their agenda (atheism, new world order-ism, sexual hedonism, etc.).
• Through their shadow control of the civil/bureaucratic and sometimes political elements of Washington, the drug war in the 1970’s-today was engineered to take control of the drug trade and profit from it, not destroy the drug trade.
• 9-11 was engineered and orchestrated by this group to bring us to war, oil profiteer, and bring the roguish nations of the Middle East under the New World Order. Iraq is also part of this effort (the book doesn’t separate Iraq Gulf War I from Iraq Shock and Awe II). The added benefit is deficits for the USA, thus a crashing economy, thus a world currency and international rescue and control, and voila, Euromexamericanada, UN dominance with the shadow satanic government behind it all.

This is where the book starts to go off the mark for me. I’m not altogether convinced that these secret organizations (Council of Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, etc.) have got it all put together and that there are no surprises. Sometimes the dots are connected too easily with little ambiguity or mistake. I’m also a little skeptical of well-worn conspiracy when the Book of Mormon indicates that it will be SECRET. There is also little, if scant, acknowledgement of the rise of radical Islam, and if it is noticed, it is cursorily brushed aside as a pawn of the great world bankers to bring down the United States or to be used as a big stick to bring the Middle East under the wing. It seems as if every world event has to fit the 1960’s Cold War template as well. I, for one, can believe in competing conspiracies that sometimes get in the way of each other, rise and fall in importance, are replaced, or face obsolescence. Of course, the Book of Mormon shows one big conspiracy and so maybe I’m wrong. Monnet has to circumscribe everything into the thesis/antithesis/synthesis of the dialectic between communism and capitalism as a distraction to worldwide domination by global corporate fascism and working class socialism where left wings and right wings are chicken meat to a global elite intent on having the whole cow. While I do not doubt those intentions and have begun to transcend traditional politics now looking at policy more through the lens of sovereignty and liberty, I do doubt that they have drawn and quartered every world event. Were I to make a comprehensive list of modern secret combinations, undoubtedly there is probably little honor among thieves here. A partial list would suffice and show that almost any party to modern world power is probably to some extent or another, a secret combination (murder/war to get gain/power in secret):

• The Mafias (Italian, Chinese, Russian, etc.)
• Drug Cartels, Street Gangs, Pornography Peddlers, Prostitution Rings
• World Banking Elites and Old World aristocracies, various Federal Reserves
• New World Order Groups (Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, etc., UN committee groups, World Bank, World Court, IMF, academia)
• Global Communism through (World Worker Party, Critical Theory, Cultural/sexual revolution, International ANSWER, Chinese Communist Party, South American Communism, academia AGAIN)
• Various traditional nationalist groups (neo-Nazism, neo-Russian nationalism, KKK, Aryan Nations)
• Islamic Fascism, Islamic Radicalism, Islamic Natioanlism
• Factions of the Democratic Party (Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Clinton)
• Factions of the Republican Party (Ike, Nixon, Bush, Bush Jr.)
• Big Oil, Big Defense Contractor, Big K Street, Big Saudi Royalty
• Various and covert black ops sub agencies (CIA, IRS, DOD, DOJ, FBI, NSA, FEMA, Homeland Security)
• The Catholic Church
• African Warlords, Indian Thuggee cult, Navajo Skinwalkers
• The Mountain Meadows Perpetrators, Danites, and Church Security
• Haiti
• My Grandmother’s Enchilada Recipe

As you can see, unless they have a big club meeting once a week at Satan’s house, I highly doubt they all work hand-in-hand. I suspect this is where the book goes of course and denies itself to the austere shelves of the Deseret Book. I felt like a lawyer who was constantly objecting to the judge on the grounds of speculation. It was, however, an interesting read, and in these times, I enjoy getting my hands on everything I can because of all of the weird economic coincidences and the event dominoes that have been falling in line (this book was published two years ago). As well, since my faith in mankind has kind of been shattered lately, I have been putting my trust more in the arms of the scriptures, the Priesthood, any my own inspiration. So I guess it has its side benefits. Merry global conspiracy day to you all and a happy Greater Depression!

Money – Plain and simple, it costs most to send someone out of the country, albeit there is a benefit going to a country where the cost of living is lower.

• Problems – Easier to relocate a missionary to a service mission if he’s an anxious case if he’s only in North Dakota. Problems with culture shock are also allieviated.
• Language – Let’s face it, people learn better in when they can be taught and teach in the same language. I served a multilingual mission, both Enlglish and Haitian. Teaching Americans who spoke English – much easier.
• Security – As worlwide security gets more scrutinzed, as America becomes less popular, better to keep the American missionary home where he doesn’t have the potential of ticking off the local socialist activits or Muslim cleric.
• Health & Safety – Insurance costs, poor American diet, diahhrea in South America, poor law and order. Easier to send missionaries from Africa to Africa. They’re used to the local flora and fauna.

We all know of horror stories of battle wounds from missionaries over these things. We’ve put up with it in the past. With the availability of Latin, European, and African missionaries, why risk the Utah/California boys in other lands? I don’t mean this to sound racist; I don’t think the policy would be that anymore than it would just be more practical.

What think ye?

When one contemplates the sanctifying effects of true Christian behavior, after hope and faith, charity is the greatest of these. Yet can we dissemble charity from normative and theological economics and economic behavior? I think how we see macro-economic philosophy as well as how we behave with our own personal economics ties greatly into how we implement charity.

In Working Toward Zion, James W. Lucas and Warner P. Woodworth examine economic philosophy according to scripture and modern prophetic teachings, and surprise-surprise, it isn’t modern capitalism. D&C 77:2 states “that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual.” In other words, how we conduct our temporal (economic) affairs directly relates to our spiritual well-being. David O. McKay also offered that “The betterment of the individual is only one aim of the Church. The complete ideal of Mormonism is to make upright citizens in an ideal society.”

Woodworth offers that 28 percent of the Doctrine and Covenants relates to economics activities. The theology of Mormon economics is based upon concepts of consecration, stewardship, care for the poor, equality, and work and self reliance and they also respect the idea of the free market. Thus, it would be incorrect to label it as socialism (it may be a sort of proto-socialism) but it does not conceive of state-controlled or planned economies. In the 19th century, various attempts to implement these laws culminated in different types of “United Orders,” some of which were more successful than others. Many of the early united orders failed because of the failure in temporal duties because of the perceived imminence of the Second Coming. Others failed to understand the concept of surplus thinking as Brigham Young mused, that members thought surplus was a cow that “was of a class that would kick a person’s hat off, or eyes out, or the wolves had eaten off their teats.”

Nauvoo implemented many of the ideals of united orders, but didn’t institutionalize the united order. The most successful attempts at consecration and a form of united orders took place in the 1870’s in the form of co-ops. Lorenzo Snow organized all of the businesses in Brigham City in to cooperatives in 1874. Another example was Zion Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) where all common stock was held by LDS merchants who provided the goods. The First Presidency in 1875 spread the stock even further among many of the members so that stock wasn’t concentrated in the hands of a few. Rural communes such as Orderville instituted united orders in such a way that even items like clothing and food were created and distributed in common in a closed economy.

Ultimately, all successful united orders and many co-ops were disbanded as a result of an agreement with the United States of America in exchange for statehood. The US government felt that these united orders were a threat to its current capitalist economic order. Elder Widstoe wrote that the united order “as a mode of life . . . is in abeyance.” It will only be reestablished by revelation. Until them we were to follow the law of tithing as preparatory to the law of consecration. There are many parallels to this and the Manfesto. In fact, the confusion of consecration, Marxism, and socialism were evident. Politicians saw the Communard, the Fabians, and the French anarchists at the end of 19th Century and began to fear Mormon economics as another form of potential socialist economic turmoil.

All was not lost, however. In fact, elements of consecration were implemented in the 1930’s during the Welfare Programs instituted by J. Reuben Clark and Heber J. Grant. This is one formal representation of the consecration progressing into a new path after it was dismantled in the 1890’s. Other modern progressions to a type of consecration is the Church budget system implemented in the 1980’s and the recent Perpetual Education Fund on a limited basis. But there were some bottlenecks that arose at the end of WWII the curtailed movement towards forwarding consecration. The rise of Karl Marx, totalitarian socialism in Germany and Russia brought a major backlash against any economic experiment that was not modern enterprise capitalism. In the anti-Communist hysteria, even Mormons fell prey to embracing enterprise capitalism as a boomerang effect in order to curtail the erasing of freedom seen in the Red Menace. The freedom aspects of enterprise capitalism overshadowed all over failures of the system that consecration was supposed to correct.

So they have embraced MLM’s, real estate speculation, bankruptcy, and get-rich-quick schemes. Many Mormons have endeavored to become their own little Carnegies in direct opposition to consecration, something they covenant in the temple. They have been doing what Brigham Young lamented about in the hyper extreme—securing their way through the world as “comfortably and as easily as possible”.

But what can we do? There are some suggestions, especially for those of us with means.

1. Actually donate your surplus in ways that help the world and make sense to the spirit of charity. This is done by understanding sufficiency in personal utility and not maximization of utility.
2. Start by donating beyond regular tithes to fast offerings, humanitarian funds, PEF, missionary, and other funds.
3. Also donate to other not-for-profits like the Red Cross, CARE, and international organizations that help the poor through micro-credit loans and eliminations of disease.
4. Consecrate your time if you are a professional in doing pro bono work for those that cannot afford it.
5. Formulate your own family-based consecration-based economic order. Families can share profits and property, hold common stock, make revolving loans, etc. This not only implements consecration principles, but also strengthens family ties.
6. If you are wealthy, do as Jon Hunstman Sr, is doing, using all of your personal wealth to solve a problem such as cancer. Hunstman vows to cure cancer or die poor.

This is all something Mormonism can work on, and it would be in our best interest, creating a spirit of Zion so that we can be ready for its full implementation in the future. I will end with Brigham Young again, stating: “When all concede the point that when this mortality falls off, and with its cares, anxieties, love of self, love of wealth, love of power, and all the conflicting interests which pertain to the flesh, that then, when our spirits have returned to the God that gave them, we will be subject to every requirement that He may make of us, that we shall then live as one great family; our interest will be a general, a common interest. Why can we not so live in this world?”

I would not be surprised as the economy falters and that which has padded the pants of Mormonism in the past 50 years – capitalist entrepreneurship – falters if we enter a second type of depression, that the Church harks back to its economic legacy and implements again elements of consecration, the economics which trickles sideways in the benefit of all equally.

The east side is a collection of families that make up the wealth of Utah. In 1975, these families contained many of the General Authorities, members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, those of wealthy pioneer stock, business owners, university professors, real estate professionals, and those with land. The west side was an outgrowth of President Monson’s Pioneer Stake in Rose Park. They were the working class, the poor, inflowing Polynesian, Latin, and Asian minorities from Vietnam. The outgrowth of Rose Park became West Valley City, Taylorsville, Kearns, Magna, and West Jordan. These communities each had elements of the working class and had sizeable minority populations.

By the 1980’s satellite gangs from Los Angeles set up shop there with a large contingency of Crip gangs becoming very prevalent. There were great influxes of young Mormon families in the 1970’s on the west side because of the affordability of the new phenomenon of starter homes. Within 15 years, most of them left for the richer and more prosperous pastures of the south side of the Salt Lake Valley, or the families that could afford it. Now you fast forward 30 years and the West side has become a sub-cultural wasteland of poverty, crime, and blight. The boundaries have triangulated, with the east side moving ever eastward and what has been considered the west side creeping eastward as well to 13th East. The old Mormon families have left the East side (or died off), which has been filled by nominal numbers of cultural leftists, ex-Mormons, gay-friendly, and California transplants. The East side and downtown are essentially like any other city with large numbers of affluent cultural leftists with poverty sinkholes south and west of the downtown area. Mormon families are migratory in Utah and have crept towards the exterior southern and western boundaries of the county. They search out new developments that are cheap and offer the Utah ideal of a single family home with green lawns. They shun diversity and select areas with tight, well-structured wards with people that think and act exactly as they do. Even gated communities are making inroads. I believe modern Mormonism may have invented urban sprawl. If they are in an area where blight creeps in, they creep out, or the ones that can afford it, leaving the few poorer families behind to run a ward that is essentially in every way, the same as wards in other poverty-stricken areas of the country. This means that the greater concentration of Priesthood is in areas where they aren’t needed, and that the lesser concentration is in areas where the need is desperate.

The bad feelings that exist in Salt Lake County reflect this. The east siders think the west siders deserve what they have, that they earned the money, so they have been blessed with big homes, toys, and other luxuries. I explicitly heard this from my peers at my affluent east-side high school. The west siders resent the east siders and it reflects in their spiritual health, their mood disorders, their rebellious dress and music, and the perpetuity of generational poverty. When I left the west side schools in 1990 there were identity groups: the goths, the metalheads, the gang-bangers, the skaters, etc. On the east side, those groups were there but it was if I was in Connecticut with the vast majority of youth sporting preppy looks. They were busy padding their scholastic resumes for BYU, Harvard, Stanford, or other prestigious schools.

There is a sense of economic repression here. Because of ward structures, many jobs and economic opportunities are kept within affluent areas. Cronyism and nepotism run rampant, as well as get-rich-quick schemes and real estate speculation. Those LDS on the west side are left out, while the increasing non-LDS population feels a little boot on their backs as well. It’s no wonder we are a Prozac state with all of this subconscious rich Mormon guilt and the economic repression of their west side brethren along with the passive shunning of those that don’t fit into the rich ward monoculture. My question in all of this is what ever happened to Zion?

In my studies, it was no surprise that is was never really there. The doctrine that we read from Joseph Smith was never followed very well by the early Saints. We idealize the pioneer spirit of the past, but only in their sufferings did they ever come together temporarily. Normally, they were plagued by the same problem we are with respect to property and wealth. We all know of the vagaries that plagued Kirtland following the failure of Joseph’s bank. We also know of the failure of the Saints to follow the law of consecration in Jackson County in 1833.  Let’s also remember the abandonment of the poor on the banks of the Mississippi.  These difficulties had issues related to the feelings of deservedness of property and wealth. I will relate two other examples.

In 1838 when the Saints were moving to Far West, Oliver Cowdery, WW Phelps, and the Whitmer brothers homesteaded large tracts of property and were going to sell them to the saints to profit by it. This was opposed by Joseph, who ordered them to give it away. This and other feelings of perceived arrogance and overstepping boundaries by Joseph Smith caused the excommunication of all of those men, two of which were Book of Mormon witnesses. They didn’t want to follow the new economic laws. In 1842-44, Robert Foster was a wealthy real-estate developer in Nauvoo, owning part of the ground where the temple was constructed as well as other projects. There is some evidence according to Richard Bushman that his disaffection with Joseph started over Joseph’s insistence that the personal projects be postponed until the temple was built, something that put Foster’s personal financial state in limbo. The polygamy problem with his wife was a later outgrowth of the initial money matter. Indeed, it appears that almost every problem, persecution, disaffection, and eventually migration were problems that stemmed from property and money, not doctrine. Even the non-Mormons that colluded to expel the Saints had more to do with coveting cheap, developed property as with any inherent bigotry.

There are some bright spots. The Brigham Young era was especially successful in its cooperatives, socialist experiments, and disseminations of money and property. Indeed, the successes lasted until he Federal government forced the Saints to sell off their cooperatives as part of gaining statehood. It appears, however, that after 1860 and the railroad that class stratifications were beginning to become more apparent and have continued onward until today. The Red Scare further chased off any lingering ideas about having things in common. Mormons had fully embraced the JP Morgan ideal.

This ugly economic spot in Mormon culture has been endemic to every people of God in every scriptural text save the people of Enoch and the early Christians in Antioch. If people want to throw Mormonism under the bus because of the treatment they get from other Mormons, they are in the company of the Nephites, the Jaredites, the Israelites, and the Jews. People of God have a pattern of not handling prosperity very well. The true order has always had the hardest time following the personal economic laws of sufficiency.

Mormons have been especially susceptible because of the ancestry of the early Mormon faith. In the early Church most Mormon converts were Methodist, Presbyterian, or Anglican. These faiths were steeped in Calvinism, predestination, prosperity=blessings from God, etc, and the idea that if you were wealthy that it was because you were righteous. This false doctrine was difficult to beat out of the heads or early saints, and it has carried on as false traditions of the fathers unto our generation where we venerate utilitarian capitalism as the expense of explicit commandments of economic sufficiency in the Doctrine & Covenants. It’s no wonder that Heber C. Kimball said in 1968 that “. . . Salt Lake will be classified among the wicked cities of the world. A spirit of speculation and extravagance will take possession of the Saints, and the result will be financial bondage. Persecution comes next, and all true Latter-day Saints will be tested to the limit. Many will apostatize, and others will stand still, not knowing what to do . . .”

Looks like many of us will be in financial bondage by the end of the year.

A year ago I was part of a seminar with Frazier Bullock, who is an area authority in Utah, who presented a presentation about Scouting. If you’d like it I have it and can send it to you. The presentation outlined that along the Wasatch Front, 40-50% of young men are going inactive. This is not because they are reading Fawn Brodie, guys and coming to some “enlightened” agency-based conclusion, but more like they are loosing their agency to cigarettes, immorality, and peer-based distraction. He also showed a graph that showcased some research results:

When Bishops were asked to rate their ward Scouting units quality (training, outdoors, achievement) as Poor, Fair, Good, or Great a matrix of results appeared.

Poor = Baseline

Fair = Slight Increase in Retention and Prospective Missionaries (about .3 increase from poor)

Good = Moderate Increase in Retention and Prospective Missionaries (about 1.5 times from poor)

Great = Large Increase in Retention and Prospective Missionaries (about double from poor)

In the presentation there are actual variable numbers applied. With this research data, it is showing to the Church that Scouting is making a difference. Now, it also may be autocorrelated with great leaders, not a great program, so its still hard to prove causality unless there is some sort of regression on the data. I’m not sure this was done, and it probably should be done.

Another market research I was involved with at BYU asking boys ages 16-18 about Scouting and what their feeling were about it as a series of older boy scouting events. About 85% of the boys reported that they had a positive experience. Now this doesn’t measure boys who have dropped out since 14-16, and its indicative of a those that already have buy-in. However, since this activity was billed to youth as a Young Men’s event and that it baited boys with Shotgun shooting, there was bound to be some boys that weren’t necessarily big scouters. Leaders on the other hand, when they were asked, only about 50% of the leaders submitted that they thought the boys has a positivie feeling about Scouting, showing a bit of discontect between what leaders think boys want and what boys actually want.

Now, why are this research important? One of my collegues sits on the General Young Men’s Board. On that board they were approached by Elder Oaks and Holland and told with respect to retention of young men “Bretheren, this is where the action of the Church is at.” They stated that it was much easier to retain teenagers than to retrain prosective Elders or the dissaffected. They stated that Scouting was an integral and seminal part of this retention process and thus, Scouting was more relevant to the Bretheren now than ever before. They were encouraging Stake Presidencies to put their top-tier Priesthood leadership over the Young Men and Scouting and not in Bishoprics and Elders’ quorums.

Unless the gay thing changes, I don’t see Scouting going away any time soon.

Lack of Knowledge about Scouting—the calling versus the volunteer
Most members have no idea how Scouting and the Church work together unless they get called to serve in Scouting, and even then, they serve as a duty to the Bishop, and have no loyalty to the BSA organization. They only do Scouting insomuch as the local ward dictates the program. Then only about 20% attend BSA meetings or get trained to operate the program according to the guidelines of the BSA. This is unique in the Church. All other callings require no training from any outside organization. It is bizarre to those that see that “whom the Lord calls, he qualifies.” In the case of the BSA and the Church, whom the Lord calls, the individual is qualified by a 501-c3 organization. It’s counterintuitive, not to mention the fact that non-members can be called in BSA positions. Those that have committee callings find that most of their work is bureaucratic involving doing the annual charter, running fundraising campaigns, filling out tour permits, and registering membership with strict guidelines of adult leaders requiring a background check and parents signing forms indicating the movement of their sons from on program to the other. This bureaucracy isn’t required by the ward, it’s demanded by the BSA, some other entity that Joseph Smith didn’t have a revelation about. It’s a completely gentile organization and Mormons just don’t get it unless they are involved with the BSA in a mutually exclusive way. Unless they believe in the mission of the BSA independent of the Church, any work done on behalf of the BSA is done half-heartedly with a complete lack of faith. The first challenge is therefore understanding the mission of the BSA independent of Mormonism, and making a personal judgment call on its efficacy. If a person believes, he holds no longer perceives himself as called, he perceives himself as a volunteer—a much stronger keystone of service.

Lack of Buy-In
Thomas S. Monson loves Scouting. He is the longest serving executive board member for the National Council. This is another unique and intriguing layer to the BSA/LDS relationship. The BSA is a private organization same as the Red Cross, but it is influenced by the Mormon Church nationally. The general primary president also sits on its board. It’s safe to say that the top-level has buy-in. They are part of its guts, so to say. There is a new website operated by the LDS/BSA Relations division in the Church that attests to this fact. Down the line, you may have some lukewarm area authorities, but the real buy-in problem is with stake presidents. The LDS/BSA relations division attests to the confederate nature of the LDS church. They set certain guidelines in the LDS Scouting in the Handbook of Instructions, but they leave the implementation in the hands of local stakes. One of the primary functions of the website is to encourage attendance to Philmont, BSA’s premier training facility, by stake leaders. The Church feels that if local leaderships attend Philmont, they will buy-in to the mission of the BSA. The problem is that many don’t. If a stake doesn’t have buy-in, it’s likely a ward bishop won’t, and even if they do, many Priesthood leaders don’t see it as a priority. This affects implementation of the program down to the very troop level. Yet, there’s resistance at the top to strong-arming the local leaders into promoting Scouting. Discretion is allowed.

Girls/Gays/and God
Many people just don’t like Scouts, even in the Church, because of its perception as a nationalistic organization that is right wing, sexist, and homophobic. This is probably a small percentage. There are those however, that resent the Church’s promotion of Scouting at the neglect of the Young Women. Members with girls in their family often feel this perceived unfairness. Boys get to do all the fun stuff; girls just get to make glass grapes, bandanas, and canning jar crafts. Very few people know, however, that the BSA is open to girls 14 and up, but that the LDS Church will not allow girls into its own BSA programs.

Fundraisers
Once a year, each ward is “required” by the Church to help with the Friends of Scouting (FOS) campaign. In a Church where fundraising drives for programs and building funds used to be the norm, this is an anomaly to today’s modern Church budget program, where program funds are allocated based on attendance, and tithing is socialized from the central Church. Where does FOS go? Very few Mormons know. Much of FOS goes to pay for professional salaries with about half of the raised monies paying for salaries that translate into services performed—that professional Scouters are held to very rigorous achievement standards that are more stringent than any other not-for-profit. Indeed, many do not make the corresponding connection that much of tithing goes to pay for LDS “civic service employees” with very few achievement standards. They think it all goes to temples and ward houses. Wards will raise $250,000 – $350,000 in tithing a year without bating an eye, yet only contribute $1,000 – $2,000 in Friends of Scouting contributions and nitpick over each personal contribution of about $10.00 annually and want to follow every last dime to the end of the row. Again, this is an issue of mutual exclusivity between adherence and belief in the LDS Church and a disconnect with trusting the BSA, a small potatoes, non-revealed, gentile organization. You can add to this discontent the lack of service wards perceive from their local executive who only comes around demanding money and paperwork, and the ironic fact that many LDS stakes don’t allow local LDS scout troops to raise money for their own outings. It can be quite perplexing.

I Had a Bad Experience
Many people just had a bad experience with Scouting. They had a bad Scout leader, a lousy time in their troop as kids. They hated merit badges, or the fact that their dad didn’t let them drive until they earned their Eagle. Sometimes you have worse problems such as molestations of scout trips, hazing, homosexual behavior amongst the kids, etc, despite the fact that the BSA performs background checks and disapproves of behavior that is not “morally straight.” This hypocrisy nudges people to hang up their badges and say no to scouting forever. The BSA has the same problem as the LDS Church with respect to the doctrine being good, but the implementation often being poor.

There are probably other issues and concerns that stir people to dislike Scouting. I want to hear any other issues, problems, additions, or clarifications to the problems I have listed above. In my next post, I will outline why Scouting works for the Church, why it is still involved, and why it will probably continue to be involved.

*Dislaimer: I do work for the BSA, but I was also a volunteer for 8 years prior. My comments are not intended to represent the BSA or its local Councils. They are my own musings, and as such, should be taken this way. I do believe in the organization or I would not be working for it. My employment with the BSA is a choice.

According to Bushman, early Mormon converts were imminent millennialists. Even Joseph himself was sure of its coming. The establishment of the Church of Christ and the gathering to Kirtland was seen as an event that would insulate them from the calamities that would come in a very short. In fact, many other charismatic millennial sects were doomed in this time period. Mormons were a bit different. The imminent feeling abated with the construction of the temple and Joseph’s and the Church’s feeling that a sort of second coming occurred with that seminal event and the visions that took place thereafter. This didn’t satisfy some converts such as Ezra Booth as many apostatized after the promised Second Coming didn’t take place after the construction of the temple and the failure of Jackson County.

Now the focus became work, missionary efforts, Priesthood organization, and sanctification of the Saints etc. that was essential to take place to prepare for the political inevitability of the Church of Christ. The Church entered into an era of a more protracted imminence. Some of the doctrine issued through D&C balance protracted imminence and historical futurist necessity. Some of these doctrines are:

• The necessity of mass Jewish return to the Holy Land prior to the Second Coming
• A New Jerusalem must be built—attempted but never accomplished
• Great calamities – earth tremble, moon blood, stars fall, etc. macro level
• Poor and meek shall have the gospel preached to them, gospel in every nation (completed or not, experts argue)
• Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness, Lamanites blossom as the rose
• Economic consecration enacted – yes, that means the Church will not be practicing the holy and sacred American capitalist system.
• The concept of 1,000 year seals, the 7,000^th seal to start at the end of the 6,000 year, roughly around 2000 AD.
• Joseph has a strange revelation where 1890 is the magic year, his 85^th birthday, which he interprets as it won’t come before that time. Others following him weren’t so ambiguous.

Space is limited to the Doctrine and Covenants, yet ideas such as the Church filling North and South America prior to the Second Coming and it filling up the Rocky Mountains were other ideas espoused by Joseph Smith. It is clear that for most, imminent premillennialist fervor took a back seat for decades while a more utopian growth and survive phase was implemented. The saints looked to God to protect the work from a wicked Missouri/Illinois, and then American government than they looked to God for his imminent arrival.

In the 1870’s and 1880’s you see a shift. First, the key date of 1890 was fast approaching. Second, with the passage of the anti-polygamy laws and no where else to run, Mormons saw themselves as making their last stand—with the necessity of God intervening. Orson Pratt, Charles C. Rich, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and others of the Priesthood began making dire predictions, having dreams, giving “morning of the first resurrection” blessings, and forecasting doom and gloom. That all ended with the Manifesto. The Church was now back in balance with a protracted imminence, albeit with a Faustian bargain of sorts—missionary work being more important than standing by the nature of the fundamental doctrine of plural marriage. That didn’t settle so well with many of the fundamentalists that were IN the church at the time. Soon, they went OUT of the Church over these very issues.

So mainstream LDS culture transitioned to a missionary church—with little controversy—into a banal Utah/western monoculture—into an adjusting international Church. Premillenialism has sat where it is sitting now, with protracted imminence. The Church has been hedge-betting for more than 100 years—straddling a Mormon version of amillennialism with premillenialism from a cultural standpoint. In essence, they believe premillennialism but they practice amillennialism.

Historical premillennialism has checked off most of what needs to be done, both from a Christian and Mormon perspective. The only thing left are the calamities and war (at the macro level), establishment of the New Jerusalem, and the Temple in Jerusalem. Some of the other ideas as outlined in my first post on neo-FLDS are based on dreams, visions, and questionable sources that are valid only in individualized spirituality by the reader. Someone with neo-FLDS tendencies would search for historical premillennialist holes to fill the narrative so that context to current events can give a generalized feeling of acceleration towards the Second Coming. While these things may not be official history or doctrine, they may still be useful. Fitting them together such that contradictions don’t ensue is one key to interpreting the truth of any vision or dream claim. And, like Star Wars novels are to George Lucas’s movies, you can’t overrule the Bible, Book of Mormon, or D&C with a found vision or dream from an ancestor’s journal. There must be harmony. This is a key for the true believer who is searching for last days prophecies.

Epilogue

Most of my family are mainstream Mormon. Like them, many mainstream Mormons are premillenialists in a general sense. They think it will happen but they don’t worry about it. They envision a sort of meshing of premillennialism with a general creeping utopian amillennialism from the point of view of Church progression. In other words, one day Mormons will watch all of the calamites happen on CNN, just as if it was the Gulf War—then fly off to Cold Stone for a family night treat. They think there will be some general mayhem, but that will be in Europe and Africa, and possibly New York City, but they see the calamities as being general and spread out and not disrupting of civilization. They are more concerned with their Calvinistic destiny of working hard, being prosperous, raising families, and seeing them on the other side. The latter-day premillennialist element of the Church is paid lip service, but in practice, it is largely symbolic. There really is no working toward Zion from an economic/political sense, even from a personal standpoint, which is what we’ve been commanded to do in the temple. Finally, although there is doctrinal mainstream belief for food storage, debt abatement, and general preparedness, the priority for these concepts culturally falls into the dark netherworld zone of practices such as searching Scottish microfiche for Middle Age ancestry—in essence it is done by hobbyists. One author noted in the Southern Utah area suggested on radio that perhaps less than 10% of active Mormons have their food storage as outlined by prophetic counsel. If that’s true, it would show how protractedly imminent mainstream Mormons think the Second Coming is.

Neo-Fundamentalists do not see a peaceful transition for the Church to the millennium. They see major disruption of our culture and economy that allows for a reinvention of the Church in the ways outlined politically in the Doctrine and Covenants. They see the realization of a Constitutional Theocracy known as Zion. For the traditional Mormon, calamities are viewed through a micro level. Tsunamis in Asia would therefore account for the “seas heaving themselves beyond their bounds.” A fundamentalist perspective would see a far greater catastrophe, one that would ruin the world economy and kill millions, not just thousands. Calamities are on a macro level are very personally felt. This is why they go to such lengths to be prepared for this inevitability.

My personal feeling is if in 10-15-25 years we see no trend towards events that signal the second coming, there will be a crossroads for the Church. The “Latter-day” thing may have to be dropped, and we may enter into a new form of neo-Catholicism in our concept of a millennial reign. Of course, my personal feeling is that the narcissistic nihilistic tendency of the wider culture, the Balkinzation of America, and the demographic Dark Age coming in 50 some odd years will help strengthen the premillennialist tendencies of the LDS culture. We actually may see the change visualized by NFLDS believers even without the utopian flavor.

What I want to do today is to take the reader on a journey of Christian millennialism.  In my next post I will discuss LDS millennialism, which is a hybrid of Christian pre-millennialism and Owenite socialism and has had its own ebbs and flows. 

Christian millennialism has its roots in four to five main scriptural areas: Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Matthew 24, and Revelations.  You have Joel, Zecheriah, Hosea, and Malachi also, but they are minor players.  Each zenith of millennialism has brought with it a corresponding societal apologetic for the fervor—in the manner of some sort of actualization of promised utopia—but has never been able to quash the idea that a literal millennium will someday take place.

Premillenialism is the first incarnation of millennialism.  Its roots are messianic Judaism and it extends through to the early Christian epoch.  Simply put, premillenialism views the current age as prior to the millennium, where Christ will return as he had ascended and reign for 1,000 literal years.  The time frame is uncertain, but an early writer, Hippolytus of Rome, exclaimed that it would be after the end of the 6,000 years, although according to Matthew 24, the interpretation of “generation” indicated that the premillenial epoch would be ending within 100 years of Jesus death, which is where the confusion begins.

Persecution of Christians helped to foster premillenialism and a sense of messianic rescue similar to that of Judaism.  As creedal Christianity comes on board, with Constantine, and eventually Justinian, premillenialism was cast aside in favor of a preterist view (all of Revelations is now fulfilled) of the millennium—that it had politically been accomplished by the Kingdom of God—the Catholic Church.  The millennium was alas, symbolic.

Preterism lasted until the Reformation, when the concepts of amillennialism< and utopianism evolved to replace it.  The idea was that the Church would accomplish through economic and political means, either a symbolic millennium, through dialectic of changing, align the world more with Christian principles. The fundamental takeaway from preterism, and amillenialism is that they were establishment philosophical thought processes to explain transitions to utopia.  The Calvinists, Puritans, Quakers, etc. were all proponents of idealizing the millennium on earth prior to the advent of Christ.  I believe this idea eventually under girded Hegel and Marx albeit through secular and economic means.

In the 19^th century brings us to the Second Great Awakening.  Finally the masses were studying the Bible and it was no longer for monks, priests and scholars, and you have for the first time since the Nicean creed, a resurrecting of premillennialism. Revelations was seen as a futurist interpretation, not a symbolic or already realized text.  Differences in premillenialism exist—wide differences, all based on numerology.  Daniel talks about 1,490 times (be that years or weeks or day) it all depends on the type of premillenialist you are as how you interpret the numbers.  You also see 69 weeks, 3 days, 7 years, etc. as repetitive times that premillennialists try to divine the future (or past) from.  In the 19^th Century, the eschatology was fervent and imminent, all built around Daniel and Revelations, pinned to Catholic domination as the “tribulation” period as part of a dispensation.  The years 1844 and 1846 were big years.  Adventists waited in 1844 for Christ to appear—which then spawned the Jehovah’s Witnesses—who have in turn re-applied the numbers to get other years such as 1918.

The biggest problem with 19^th Century premillenialism was the inability to divine the numerology—where do you link the initial number too, and what does the number represent—all questions in the dark.  It also ignores other end-times prophecies that are outside of the numerology, such as Israel being established as a political kingdom prior to the advent, and the issue of the 6,000 years and Apocalyptic literature that coincides with the numerology.

Thanks to John Darby, Evangelical Christianity has been able to solve this by front-loading all of Revelations, Daniel, and Ezekiel with pre-tribulational dispensational millennialism (I know it’s very long).  Our world rolls quietly by until the church is “raptured” and Revelations begins.  This is the “Left Behind” group and it is fairly recent as a cultural force (50+ years).  In this version of premillenialism, all of these scriptural predictions start the clock after the rapture.  The numerology is very specific and in terms of 7 short years of tribulation and then Christ comes.  The benefit to this eschatology is that it doesn’t have to have egg on its face with poor predictions of imminent doom, and can’t rely on a yet certain date to begin the countdown.  The downside is that these Christians are being promised by their leaders that they’re going to be spared the Apocalypse by a rapture—thus no need to prepare food storage or bunker down.  So if some sort of Apocalype comes, be it divine or man-made, and there is no rapture, pre-tribulational dispensational millennialism may have a short shelf life.

Finally, let’s talk about historical premillenialism, which is where Mormons and some Christians fall.  Historical premillennialism takes history into context and sees Revelations and Daniel as a history of premillennialism where each age, each epoch, each 1,000 years has its time to shine in Revelations.  Where Mormons and Christian historicists disagree is in the timing of the Kingdom of God.  Christians of this stripe believe that President Hinckley’s “rock that rolls forth to fill the whole earth,” hits the statue after the advent, whereas Mormons believe that it was formed in 1830 and will smash the statue prior to the advent.  Both are restorationists, Evangelicals are more symbolic, have more of a believers Priesthood, with a new political kingdom (Israel) after the second coming.  Mormons believe the new spiritual Israel that will rule prior and during the Millennium and is embodied in Mormon Priesthood.  Both Christian and Mormon historicists make numerology incidental and just look at fulfilled prophecy as indicators of the imminence of the Millennium.

The point of this post is to help the reader understand, other than symbolic and utopian millennialism, end-times eschatology and premillennialism has been fairly recent (albeit broad)—relegated the past 200 years, and really to the last 30-50 years since Israel and the 1948 UN Charter.  The proximity to the historical conceptions of the Apocalypse (as defined by the wars of Armageddon, Gog and Magog) are closer to an interpretive fruition than they have been in the recent centuries (probably since the Crusades).  Add to that the rise of natural disasters, global warming, and man-made disasters (nuclear/biological holocaust) and you a have a pretty good recipe for premillennialism.

In my next post on Neo-Fundamentalim, I will outline the historical LDS/Christian transitions and peculiarities of premillennialism among the mainstream and fundamentalist LDS.  I will also do my best to outline its historical progression from 1830 until now.  (Since you are all scholars, you can correct me where I may go wrong).

Now so that we don’t get confused, the paeleo-fundamentalist separatist types are not those that I’m discussing (FLDS, Apostolic Brethren, etc.). Living in Southern Utah I anti-interact with polygamist sects all over WalMart and Deseret Industries. Culturally they seem more aligned with a closed worldview that doesn’t interpret current events through any modern thoughtful dialectic. If you meet many of them, lifestyle, not orthodoxy, comes to mind, although they are also millenialists in the classic LDS sense and would probably be integrated into the NFLDS society when and if certain futuristic scenarios occur. They are cult-of-personality and isolationist, technology-avoidant types who don’t interest me as much.

Neo-fundamentalism would be similar to the New Order Mormonism you see among liberal cafeteria-style Mormons, albeit of a more reactionary bent. They are stake presidents, bishops, run-of-the-mills, and even exmo and types; the more vocal ones tend to be rural and less educated, thus dismissed as provincial. I was first introduced to this community via my mother-in-law, who is a true believer-albeit with a predilection toward kookiness (another fault is the tendency to attract those who have psychiatric disorders). But I have seen more sane varieties. They align themselves rather loosely through a network of half-baked themes, with the economic, political, and preparedness ones more convincing. They run websites such as

• http://www.greaterthings.com
• http://www.latterdayconservative.com
• http://www.abysmal.com
• http://www.unitedpartyofamerica.org

Note: They always have some annoying patriotic midi-file attached to it.

A good exponent of what they believe can be elucidated with these following points:

They believe in a general fallen or hidden state of Priesthood leadership from Salt Lake—although you see many strains of “God withholding his light until the modern cultural church falls apart”, and then God will then “thus saith the Lord” again from the current prophet or new prophet outside the structure. This way they can obey and believe the modern prophet—they just feel like God is limiting his light and truth for now—kind of like living the lower law of Mormonism. Sometimes they comprehend this dichotomy as the fact that we’re in the missionary phase of the Kingdom (post-Manifesto), which supplanted the genesis phase (pre-Manifesto), which will in turn be supplanted by the Kingdom phase after the great calamities come upon our current system. We are currently in what they sometimes call the LDS mini-apostasy.

Neo-fundamentalists are a hard political entity to pin down, although they are anti-war libertarian constitutionalists in general. They seem to hate Republicans as much or more than Democrats—or maybe it’s just whoever is in power. They despise communism, but also attack macro-capitalism, monopolists, and banking entities as well. Indeed, communists and big business are really one in the same side to these guys—a great cabal of international financiers and powerbrokers. They can be so far right that they swing back to the far left as well. If you’ve ever heard of the Nazi Green party, you can see a silly example of this. NFLDS also subscribe to the idea that the modern LDS church is dabbling in the New World Order. They take the Book of Mormon secret combination warnings very literally and use the Alma/Helaman/3 Nephi war chapters an eschatology to study end-times. We are somewhere in Helaman currently.

Preparedness is a house industry: Two years of food, two years of clothes, oil and gas buried in underground tanks, trailers for a quick getaway, and compounds in the remote areas with wells as refuge for remnant saints. They have undefined currency in gold stashed somewhere when our currency collapses, so they can buy and sell without being forced to take the Mark of the Beast. They obsess over alternative energy and off-grid technologies (to their benefit, I should add.) They have their own version of the evangelical “Left Behind” concepts of anti-Christ and the tribulation, albeit a Mormon version. The step-by step eschatology is a futuristic progression that follows:

1. A new Great Depression, mark of the Beast, one world currency (imminent, like in the next one-to-five years). 2012 is a big year here (Mayan calendar, BOM parallels). The dissolution of America as we know it.
2. A new World War—World War III that lasts around thirteen months, starts with China, Russia, and Iran, that devolves into a new American civil war. This new war will feature Republicans fighting Democrats (see supposed Joseph Smith vision), red vs. blue state, race vs. race, rich vs. poor. A corresponding war is also the Ezekiel war in Israel, started by Iran and Russia that ends in Israel’s triumph. SeeJohn Taylor vision here and Cardston Temple vision here.
3. A series of Earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires that alter the continents (Satan is setting up the global warming argument to help explain this and blame America/capitalism for it).
4. Utah society being destroyed by a series of earthquakes and a great flood. The faithful remnant saints flee to Sanpete County, Utah. Visions, healings, miracles and prophecy skyrocket. Other tent cities and refuge sites pop up close to temples where the faithful flee with their food storage. Some areas are specifically named.
5. Polygamy and consecration will be re-established at this time. See Isaiah 4:1
6. After three years (Daniel, Revelations) of hardship the rebuilt constitutionally theocratic Church emerges and many go back to Missouri where it will have been swept clean to build up Jackson County. Jesus second coming begins by appearances at New Jerusalem and Spring Hill, Missouri.
7. The world will fight against this. Evangelicals will fight against this, still waiting for the Rapture, or upset it hasn’t happened will unite the rest of America to fight against this new Mormon “theocratic” threat-but will not prevail.
8. The “Lamanites” will come from Central and South America, overwhelming the stricken American continent, and join Zion. The lost Tribes will also appear from the North and come to the New Jerusalem before heading back to Israel.
9. In the meantime, all the Biblical Revelations Jerusalem stuff is happening-the temple will have built in Jerusalem during or after the big earthquake/tsunami/world war period. The Mormon gospel is now being preached to the Jews and the two prophets appear; Armageddon happens; Jesus on the Mount of Olives appears and saves the Jews from Armageddon.
10. After a period of time, Jesus comes in glory, and the wicked burn, but no man knows the time or day, etc. etc. of that occurrence.

The eschatological progression is based upon Revelations as historical pre-millennialism with a small mix of post-tribulation millennialism, and relies heavily upon Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. It is also a function of prophecy from the Book of Mormon, D&C, lost dreams and visions from the early prophets, such as the John Taylor vision about the destruction of America, and the George Washington Son of the Republic vision. Other dreams from regular members of the church as well as non-members are used if they fit the template. They allow wide variety of non-orthodox and split-off groups to thrive, including groups such as (I’m not kidding) Baptists for the Book of Mormon, the Church of the Firstborn, and the Baha’i faith. Anyone that accepts prophecy is basically included, as long as the “Thus saith the Lord’s” types of prophecies are accepted. Indeed, the foundation of this movement is that everyone is a proto-prophet.

Neo-fundamentalists believe that the first step in their eschatology is imminent, and have thought so for over 15 years, when you see the first signs of it appearing. The key opener is the George H.W. speech as the signal to begin the New World Order after the success of the Gulf War. You see a corresponding rise in neo-fundamentalism since then. Cleon Skousen is one of their closet founders, and you can hear him espouse NFLDS doctrine from the pulpit of BYU devotionals. Ezra Taft Benson was probably an influence and unbeknownst founder as well until he became prophet, when he moderated. With current events such as the menace of Iran, the dollar failing, gold skyrocketing, the Mexican border failing, a resurgent Russia and growing China, the bankruptcy of the American banking industry, an imminent bad recession, and climate change, their template is surging. A no bigger proponent of neo-fundamentalism than that of LDS radio host Glenn Beck has jumped on the bandwagon. On his national radio program, he details this in his concept of the Perfect Storm. He is an alarmist about the imminence of the “apocalypse” and survives on national television and radio by doing it in a humorous and self-deprecating manner. To put it in perspective, more people hear this Mormon on a daily than all Mormons that listen to Gordon B. Hinckley twice a year; and maybe more Mormons too.

The future of neo-fundamentalism may be limited. It all depends on world events. If Russia’s menace is a paper tiger, or if the Middle East ultimately pacifies, or if China moderates, or if America returns to a more federalist concept, their movement may dissipate. It has a shelf life, and right now, because of current events, they are on the up tick—they’ve even given me pause, one who used to just laugh at them as kooks and conspiracy theorists. With Glenn Beck as an unwitting expounder of their apocalyptic ideals (not theologically, but practically), and with current economic conditions they are strengthening and they are starting to have some real credibility as an LDS subculture.

Here’s an interesting scenario. Say something like a Beck’s Perfect Storm occurs; our infrastructure could shut down overnight. We see things like this in popular culture, and could easily imagine it happening with our global economy. The movies are awash with apocalyptic scenarios; witness the recent I Am Legend (Bird Flu or Smallpox biological attack) or Live Free or Die Hard (infrastructure meltdown). Those ideas of the NFLDS aren’t silly or kooky. They are very practical and realistic according to our modern integrated economy. When the infrastructure shuts down, they go into the next mode and hunker down in their Vermont-like citadels such as in I Am Legend. They establish quasi-governmental entities. The quandary for an unbeliever will be that of a self-fulfilling prophecy versus true destiny. Indeed, even though these things could happen in our society just based on the nihilism of one terrorist action, it would cement in the minds of a Neo-fundamentalist the divinity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints even if it isn’t directed by any divine dialectic. It would vindicate a few of these aforementioned prophecies, and reestablish segments of the LDS church that ensconces the political and economic. Intellectualism would give way to mysticism and theocracy as it did in the old days, thus neo-fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists of all strains largely ignore the intellectual-discursive elements of Mormonism. Sound reason and logic may be all well and good, but fate is the ultimate arbiter of truth, so they are content to wait and let the intellectuals, ideologues, and pragmatists hash it out. They are content to preach and discuss in self-vindicating circles. They will either be proven or they will not by futurist-history. My next post will be about the historical ebb and flow of this sort of fundamentalism, because it has existed many times before, and has failed many times before. What makes this new millenialist fervor different?