I started writing this as a comment, but as I continued to write — I decided it would be best to make this into a post of its own.
Affecting Change:
I was once optimistic that my discussions with people in person and online could affect some greater change in the world at large. When LDSA wrote that this posts should be considered open copyright — I agreed that perhaps distributing these ideas could play a part in the ushering in of the conditions for the great and marvelous work.
I despise echo-chambers — and while I think preaching to the choir has its place [hence my participation here], I’ve always felt that ideas also need to be floated among more hostile company too [iron sharpens iron, and all that]. I’ve done letter campaigns, anonymously e-mailed copies of the 2010 CHI to anonymous askers [read the end of this comment], and participated in many different discussions online.
However, two comments were written to me today that have caused me to change my mind. One from the conversation here:
“Justin, this may make sense to you, but many people aren’t interested in putting themselves in a situation where they need to hide what they are doing from their ward/family and explain to church leaders that they are reinterpreting garment-wearing. Whether or not the church culture as a whole pays attention to the wording in the initiatory, we all know what rules you must follow regarding garments if you want to stay well-integrated into your ward.”
and the other from here,
“Justin:
In discussing the hierarchy and how some of these ideas exist in the LDS Church, it is taught, directly or indirectly.
“Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it but you don’t need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.” – Marion G Romney
“When the Prophet speaks the debate is over”. – N. Eldon Tanner
“Follow your leaders who have been duly ordained and have been publicly sustained, and you will not be led astray.” – Boyd K Packer
The “12 points” recently discussedThese types of quotes are where it comes from. Whether this is what God intended or not is obviously up for debate, but within this organization, this is how it is.
Since there are no females in this hierarchy there is essentially no mechanism to change this, unless the hierarchy itself decides to change.”
There are three topics about which people will never change their views on as a result of a single conversation they have with another person: religion, diet, and politics [This site is especially bold for trying to tackle two of them at the same time — however the same thing I’ve noticed among LDS sites is also happening within my diet community too]. For these three, change will only come after a singly large, devastating life experience or after a long course of personally-driven study and reflection. This is not the means by which we can affect change.
Tribal Connections:
This was said before, but it bears repeating here — for the people who don’t follow the comments:
I have a feeling that people, (in particular, LDS), have a hard time grasping the concepts put forth in this post (and others like it) because we don’t have a clear idea of what the future should look like. We see agriculture and money being passed around and know that these things have existed for thousands of years and we hear of prophets and righteous men and women tilling the ground, using money, etc., and we think that the gospel is designed for an agricultural, money-based lifestyle.
The gospel is flexible, adaptable to the conditions that exist among men, but it is not designed to leave men in those conditions, but to allow men to use the truths, principles and powers found in the gosepl to change them so that they match those found in the heavens.
Unless we look forward and use our imagination to envision what the future is supposed to look like, how in the world can we ever work to remove ourselves from our present, fallen condition into a more exalted, heavenly one? It seems to me that mankind is largely spinning their wheels and letting the future bring what it may, without actually striving to shape it themselves…
…That’s okay for the rest of the Gentiles, but the Mormon Gentiles have been given the restored gospel and should be more enlightened than that. We’ve got everything we need to establish the future God has designed for the Earth. We just need to organize ourselves into cohesive, gospel-based tribes and make it happen.
We only have our tribes. Even non-religous observes have noted that the collapse of this system of -isms and -archies is imminent, and that survival will be tribal.
As I noted in Connecting with Pixels, the Lord is about connecting humans to other humans. That is what activating tribal worship services, tribal family units, and a strong tribal priesthood is all about. Our online discussions are only valuable insofar as they aid each of the readers in making these connections. This is not the connection.
If we aren’t walking away from our computers and working to establish and spread our own tribes, then we have missed the mark. [The reader may already know this — I’m just acknowledging it out loud for myself.]
I’d be interested in hearing reports on how others are doing at establishing the tribal connections among their own families.
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16 Comments
LDS Anarchy 
Justin you are right and don’t worry, it is working.
We may not be communicating with a tremendous number of people. But those who believe these things will act upon them. And the other thing is we are learning from the Spirit of God not from the minds of men. That means that the same things we are learning here there are others who have never heard of us nor we of them who are learning the exact same concepts by the Spirit.
I met a family who has stopped going to church because the Nazi like control efforts from the LDS members of their ward, threatening to call child welfare services on them because the home school and have been traveling around. I was able to teach them about tribal worship and how to have all the Lord’s ordinances among them without being subject to a church.
As a matter of fact there are two families that have learned this from me and one has already begun.
I recently reestablished contact with a friend that I have known since we were teenagers. We were very close and had great times discussing gospel truths in those years. I had lost contact with him trying to please my wife at the time. So now after being gone for 20 years we find that we have progressed along the same path of truth. The same doctrines I believe regarding religion and politics he believes.
Good is coming about. Truth is spreading.
What more can we do?
The LDS church is like a sick dog who will not revive. In fact it is not the Lord’s will that it ever be restore to health. We can nurse it and pray for it and ever use the priesthood. But in fact it is God’s will that it die. Right now the dog is suffering and is in very much pain. The compassionate thing to do it take it to a vet and bring its life to an end just a little quicker. In this way we can help God out. By exposing the evil that is there we can speed the demise.
I am buying a piece of land to built places for many families, a place of refuge till we can gather to the real Zion. We are starting our tribal organization and gathering all those who wish to live the law of consecration with us. As we do this the abundance of the manifestation of the spirit will be shown forth. We can not do this in an LDS congregation because the church leadership refuses to have us live that law so the abundance of the gifts will never be seen there.
In all this the proper way to pray without doubt has had a powerful effect. Just as I stated that I knew it would. I had been thinking of a place to get land during the week previous and then spoke to a friend who I haven’t been able to contact for about 2 months. He had already put down money on the place and if I want to buy it from him it is mine. It is working. Anyone who practices these principles will have the power of God in their lives.
I suppose that building up a gospel-based tribe should be done in the same way that the church is built up. You approach people, give them the information, and then ask them to pray about it. (Or you teach them in the Spirit so that they receive a manifestation of the message’s truthfulness right then and there.) If they pray and receive an answer that what you said is true, and feel called of God to enter into your tribe (as opposed to establishing their own, separate one), you receive them into your tribe by marriage, baptism, etc. If they pray and do not receive an answer, or they say they will pray but then don’t pray, or they refuse to pray because they don’t believe a word you are saying, you just move on. In this way, no one need be convinced of anything. If the gospel is tribal in nature, its nature can be verified by confirmation of the Holy Ghost through prayer; otherwise, it can not be verified. And, once its nature is understood and accepted by them, either God will call them into your tribe via the Holy Ghost, or He will not. I say let the Holy Ghost do the convincing and calling, not me. Besides, which would you rather have: a tribal member who feels called of God into your tribe or one who is merely convinced by logical arguments?
One more thing. As gospel-based tribes will be baptizing people, you can even approach non-members. So, tribal prospects are literally everywhere.
I for one truly appreciate you sharing your vision with the rest of us. I have been on a search for several years and it is great to find like minded people. I don’t live in the U.S. so it is a little easier for us to actually break out of the LDS mind set, but there are still the family and friends.
We have called ourselves a tribe since meeting a man in Ometepe Nicaragua who taught us much about tribal living. It was great to find your site and see that you referred to tribes also.
Again thank you for sharing and daring to question, it should be done by more people.
In one of the links in the post, the author wrote:
If you are not familiar with the paleo-diet, then much of that may have not made sense. However, what caught my attention [and why I linked it in the post] is that she mentioned how industry-type folks are now demanding the paleo-community simplify [their] language and distill [their] philosophy into something politically correct and “readable.”
This is what was done to Mormonism at the turn of the 20th century. The re-branding effort that began with Woodruff’s manifesto and the canonization of the articles of faith and then culminated with corportization under Heber and correlation under Harold — was crafted to simply our doctrine and distill our theology into something universally palatable.
The same is done with chain restaurants and brand-name products. To make things widely marketable and efficient — they must be stripped down of any individuality and uniqueness. Brand-name products not only have to be the same everywhere, but they have to be appealing everywhere too. Corporations accomplish this by going with the least common denominator. This can be seen with the difference between watered-down, no-flavor brand beer as compared with diverse and unique locally-crafted brews.
The author at the above link added: I for one have nothing to sell. And I hope my writing style gets more and more obtuse and archaic. Same goes for me. The hope [that] my writing style gets more and more obtuse and archaic. made me think of the Losing Faith in LDSA Blog family of commenters a while back.
The church has utterly lost the vision Joseph Smith had for it.
Joseph was trying to get the people to get a sense of their own soverignty individually, and not be dependent on any man or woman for the light within. Now the church leaders are much more into control(of their people) because largely they ( the leaders) have lost their way.
I want to add something to my comment above (of December 17, 2010, 12:49 a.m.)…
As tribal missionaries would hold one of the offices of the Melchizedek priesthood, or would be Aaronic priests, they would have authority to baptize, confirm (for Mel. priesth.), administer the sacrament and also bestow priesthood. So, tribal missionaries could assist investigators to establish their own tribes, if these people feel called to do so. Seeding an egalitarian tribe (different than the one you pertain to) based upon the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and organized by the priesthood, seems to be as worthy a goal as bringing gospel converts to the tribe one comes from.
Yes. This is the model as I understand it. As a messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ, any converts should either join your tribe [which would include marriage and physical gathering with the tribe] or establish his/her own tribe.
These are the true “wards” and “stakes” — what the current Gentile LDS are organizing themselves into is just a mere copy of this tribal organization.
Justin – can you email me?
Mike, let me know if you did not receive my attachment.
Justin:
Perhaps you were over-optimistic, but your optimism isn’t entirely misplaced. You may not change the strongly held views of people with strongly held views, but there are a lot of us out there that recognize that something’s not right with the status quo, “and who are only kept from the truth because they not where to find it.” If the -archies must collapse, then your readers will be more prepared to continue on because of your writings — whether you’ve affected greater change in the world at large or not…
Amen Jeremiah. And it is always the Almas to and through which the seemingly unheeded words of Abinidais flow. Or to quote Tupac Shakur, “I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the mind that will change the world.” Minus a bit of the braggadocio which is a crucial element in the millenial mission of Hip Hop (To Know, To Do), we can apply that to so many situations. The most effective mouthpieces of the Lord do not always reach the largest audiences. And that is okay.
I’ve noticed from various secular sources that establishing tribal communities is getting talked about more frequently with the economy being so poor. I’ve quoted this article before, and I just read this from this article this morning:
LDSA was commented on another post about how tribes offer not only spiritual protection for saints within the church — but also offers physical protection from gangs, etc.
This is why our tribal connections are so vital to establish before it all falls apart.
I was watching a History Channel program on cults the other day and it talked about the People’s Temple (Jonestown), the Manson Family, the FLDS, the Branch Davidians, etc. Each of these cults concentrated power in a charismatic leader who then asserted authoritative control over the group. The cult leader and those who surrounded him had access to all the monetary funds, material creature comforts those funds could buy, and unlimited sex with the female followers. Everything was used as method of control, including sex, and physical and emotional humiliation and abuse was used to keep everyone in line. Those who were on the sidelines of the cult did not have access to the privileges of those who held the reigns of power.
As I watched, I started to compare these centralized group models to the egalitarian, multispouse tribal anarchy model. I found that the tribal model decentralized and shared everything with all tribal members: money, material possessions, opportunities for advancement in life, and even sex. A tribe that gets used to sharing all these aspects of life would develop a strong sense of justice or fairness in all aspects of life that would make it very difficult for them to go back to the old ways of inequality, where one man possesses more than another. The only way I can see that happening is if the tribe became wicked and lost its sense of fairness. So, a cult such as the ones discussed in that television program could not exist within an egalitarian, multispouse, tribal anarchy.
Another thought I had was that when the time comes that people have no government to rely upon and must, of necessity, form themselves into tribes, what form will these rapidly formed groups of people resemble? When people are desperate, they don’t usually stand up for their rights and demand egalitarianism, but typically they give power and authority to someone who they think can protect them. So, I imagine that there will be many tribes with charismatic leaders formed at that time, who will perpetuate many of the same inequalities found existing under the former state governments.
What post was that about tribes protecting from gangs. I read it once and it was great, but then I haven’t been able to find it again.
Zomarah — I mentioned LDSA’s comment here
and it was originally on the And thus they did obtain sole management of the government post.
Great post! I really enjoyed it!