Marriage Equality

This post is published at Wheat & Tares — but I wanted to post it here for my own records.  So — if you want to comment on it, please do so over there.

Interviewer: But did [Oscar] Wilde identify himself as gay?

Stephen Fry: No, I don’t think he did. He talked about his nature — he was aware of what people’s natures were, to have sex with their own kind. He wasn’t an idiot — he was fully aware there was such a sexual orientation, but the noun “homosexual” did not yet exist in the English language.

I think Wilde had that advantage that he lived in a time when people were not nouns. You didn’t ascribe labels to them. While he was aware of his nature and never apologized for it, he didn’t shout it from the rooftops in the manner of a modern actor with a Larry Kramer sort of gay sensibility.

And I think those who try to read that into Oscar won’t find it there. You might as well wonder why Oscar didn’t have a Web site. He was more mature than our age is. I mean, he had very little interest in sins of the flesh, or he realized that it isn’t very important whether you call them sins of the flesh or not. The only things that matter are sins of the spirit. In that sense Oscar was quite religious.

That’s what so ironic — the religious complain about sins of the flesh, but sins of the flesh are not the kind of thing that Christ would object to. What you do with your penis or your bottom or anything else is so supremely irrelevant in a moral sense. It’s what we do with our personalities and other people that matters.

I still haven’t heard a convincing argument on how allowing gay marriage would affect my marriage in a negative manner.  It bothers me that we’re so focused on the hot button issue of “gay marriage” that the real issues affecting marriage [like spousal abuse, poverty, emotional fulfillment, etc.] end-up being ignored.

I think [despite what evangelical Americans will suggest] that the scriptures are largely silent on the issue homosexual relationships.  The scriptures that do condemn “men lying with men as with a woman”, etc. refer more to the practice of either:

• sex-rituals [as in, not among married couples]
• using anal sex to show “domination” or “subjugation” over a conquered group
• the physical lust for the pleasure of the sex-act

So it’s possible that those scriptures are condemning those behaviors — not “homosexuality” as such.  As Stephen Fry is explaining in the quote above, homosexuality as a sexual orientation and same-gender relationships based on marriage covenants of fidelity between same-gender couples simply did not exist until relatively recently.

Marriage is not about religion because atheists marry.  Marriage is not about procreation because the infertile marry.  I’d like to say that marriage is just about “love” between two people who desire to get married – however, the problem is we have allowed the State to license marriage and ascribe civil benefits to obtaining that license.  Cohabitation, shared beliefs, procreation, love, etc. – do not require legal permission from the government.  Civil rights and IRS benefits, however, do.

Marriage is basically the formation of a “corporation” between individuals.  This “corporation” gets legal benefits from the State [like any other corporation].  I don’t get upset every time a business incorporates — so why should I get upset when people want to incorporate a relationship?  The prohibition against same-gender marriage isn’t an issue because they’re not allowed to live together and love each other.  It’s an issue because the government’s involvement in marriage means that same-gender couples are not allowed to enjoy civil privileges:  receiving insurance through the spouse’s coverage, visitation rights in a hospital, adopting a child, filing jointly for income tax, taking family leave when the spouse is sick, making arrangements after death, etc. because their status is not legally recognized by a State-issue license.

Obviously, the solution to many of these problems is ejecting the State out of our home, family, romantic, and sex lives.  We have such a problem because with the power of civil benefits, the State is seen as legitimizing what relationships matter and which ones don’t.  The church should be at the forefront of getting the State and Marriage divorced because we [with all other Abrahamic religions] believe that humans were gathered into families prior to the establishment of civil governments.  Whether a couple is considered married “in the eyes of God” or not can have nothing to do with a State-issued license.  Thus, a good first step in this direction would be to no longer require a marriage license to perform religious services like for-time marriages and eternal family sealings.

But even if we want to be secular about it – the historical basis of the “family” was multihusband-multiwife tribes that shared food, labor, childcare, and sexual partners — not our present narrative of the two-parent nuclear family with a college-educated urban employment and a suburban house, with the 3 or 4 kids and a dog.  The church adopted itself into that institution [which is politically-termed “Pro-Family”], and re-framed our “Eternal Families” narrative to garner wider recruitment in the wake of the 1890 Manifesto and renunciation of polygyny.

The church, as presently organized, is a gerontocracy — so leadership today represents a 1950′s era American-style Mormonism from a Utah-centric, cis-, hetero-, anglo-, middle-class privileged lifestyle point-of-view.  And so, with the power concentrated in the hands of these few, we get a gospel presented in those terms only — with nothing for people whose narratives differ either slightly or greatly from that.  I think that with legalized gay marriage in the US being standing a good chance in the near future, the church could be at the forefront of presenting a family doctrine of fidelitous sexual ethics for both straight and gay members.

However, doing so would necessitate a re-evaluation of the stated positions on:

• what the fundamental purpose of marriage covenants really is
• what God’s design for getting adults together into families is really all about
• and what is He wanting us to do/foster in human society by organizing ourselves this way

Because presently the regurgitated, stock-responses are not internally-consistent with themselves:

• We parrot traditional American Christianity by saying that marriage is about One-man-and-One-woman, but we’ll all allow marriages after a spouse’s death and after a divorce [which would be serial monogamy — not a true mono-].
• Then, as LDS, we take it further by sealing polygynous and polyandrous eternal families through our policy of sealing any deceased person to all spouses they had while living [which is, again, not one man and one woman].
• And we’ll also use the natural law argument along with the other Christians to attempt to tie the purpose of marriage families together with reproduction — when many couples are infertile, or marry after reproductive age, and many couples are not economically-sound enough to provide for the maintenance of large families [especially when we keep them separate with sanctions against plural husbands and wives], and there are plenty of already-born children who aren’t cared for well-enough and could be adopted instead.

I think LDS are unique in the position of being able to associate marriage covenants with fidelity, cooperation, commitment, service, intimacy, fellowship, emotional fulfillment, and companionship — without needing them to be hetero- and monogamous.  And I think we can associate “the family” with greater purposes than reproducing children to fill-up the earth.  And while I think that marriage has a God-given “purpose” — I think it needs to be better associated with people having happy, loving, consensual, and faithful cooperative-unions.  If anything’s an “abomination”, it’s not homosexuality — it’s unions where people are taken advantage of, abused, lied to, cheated on, etc.  That should be illegal.  That should be a sin.

The problem is we get more interested in the outwardly-observable behaviors of the flesh — when the only things that really matter are state of the spirit or the heart.  The religious complain about sins of the flesh, but sins of the flesh are not the kind of thing that Christ would object to.  What you do with your penis or your orifices or anything else is absolutely irrelevant in a moral sense — especially when compared to our personalities and how we relate to and treat other people.

Next Article by Justin:  What, on Earth, are you Doing, for Heaven’s sake?

Previous Article by Justin: Using the Word of God as your Tribal Law

Using the Word of God as your Tribal Law

When YHVH, the God of heaven and earth, organized for Himself [from among the tribes of humankind] a family-based nation state to call “His Own” — those 12 tribes were given the word of God [now called “The law of Moses“], written on stone tablets, and later on papyrus, to be their customary mores and their common tribal law.  Thus, were any group today endeavoring to establish a gospel-based tribe unto the Lord, that group should use the written “Law of Christ” to build upon.  This is because, when all is said and done, how closely a tribe conforms to the scriptural patterns will be the key variable for determining its long-term success.

The Lord’s people are always judged by the written word:

It is the he written nature of the word of God that makes it what we’ll be judged by.  Meaning, there is a difference between what is spoken and what is written.  And the Lord judges us most according to the words that are written, not spoken.  The first thing Alma did when he escaped from king Noah’s court was write the words of Abinadi.  Why?  Because once written, they became a scriptural canon [or “measuring stick”] by which the people could now be judged.  When the same Alma was again confronted with iniquity in the church — he inquired of the Lord and received a revelation, which he wrote down so that he could judge the people by them [Mosiah 17:4 and Mosiah 26:33].

Nephi wrote:

wherefore
for this cause
has YHVH god promised me
that these things which I write
shall be kept and preserved
and handed down unto my seed
from generation to generation
that the promise may be fulfilled unto Joseph
that his seed should never perish as long as the earth should stand
wherefore
these things shall go from generation to generation
as long as the earth shall stand
and they shall go according to the will and pleasure of god
and the nations who shall possess them
shall be judged of them
according to the words which are written

[2 Nephi 25:21-22]

And YHVH has said:

for I command all people
both in the east
and in the west
and in the north
and in the south
and in the islands of the sea
that they shall write the words which I speak unto them
for out of the books which shall be written
I will judge the world
every person according to their works
according to that which is written

[2 Nephi 29:11]

And Yeshua told the Nephites:

for behold
out of the books which have been written
and which shall be written
shall this people be judged
for by them shall their works be known unto others
and behold
all things are written by the father
therefore
out of the books which shall be written
shall the world be judged

[3 Nephi 27:25-26]

And finally — in the fifth book of Moses, it is written:

and it came to pass
when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book
until they were finished
that Moses commanded those of the tribe of Levi
who carry the ark of the covenant of YHVH
saying

take this book of the law
and put it beside of the ark of the covenant of YHVH
your god
that it may be there for a witness
against you all

[Deuteronomy 31:24-26]

These sayings show that all people, all nations, the entire world — and more especially the people of the Lord — will be judged by the written word of God.  For this reason, any tribal group should use only the scriptures as their template.  We cannot look to the current, generally-accepted church practices for structure, guidance, and conformity.  Creating a scaled-down version of the same thing that exists in the larger church should not be our goal — rather it should be something that significantly different, yet still totally grounded in the word of God.

Now this doesn’t mean that every tribe that establishes itself according the written word will operate in the same manner or have an identical structure.  Because the gospel is a framework that allows all people within it to exercise their agency in righteousness.  So although it has bounds and limitations, there is a lot of leeway given so that each group can have the variety and diversity required to suit all the conditions and circumstances unique to each tribe.  As long as a tribe stays within the framework of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it will be operating under the principles of righteousness — even though it may function quite differently than another gospel-based tribe.

Following the scriptural patterns is much more important in establishing a gospel-based tribe than following the customs of the modern LDS church today or the country in which you live.  In other words, no one will be judged after death according to how closely they were conforming to what “the Church” was doing and teaching in their day — or by what was “legal” or “illegal” in their day.  Rather, all will be judged by how closely they were conforming to what is written in the scriptures, and what was written on their heart/conscience.  And this principle is the same whether we’re talking about the individual or for the tribe as a group.

In Romans 14, Paul writes:

receive any one who is weak in the faith
without having doubtful disputations
for one believes that he may eat all things
and another
who is weak
will abstain from eating meat
do not let the one who eats meat despise the one that doesn’t
and let not the one who chooses to not eat meat judge him that does eat
for god receives both

who are you to judge another man’s servant
it is by their own master alone that everyone stands or falls
and each shall be upheld
for god is able to make everyone stand

one person esteems one day above another
another esteems all days alike
let everyone be fully persuaded in their own mind
the one who regards the day
does so unto YHVH
and the one that doesn’t
is doing that for YHVH too
he that eats meat
eats it unto YHVH
for he gives god thanks for it
while he that doesn’t eat
abstains for YHVH
and gives the same god thanks

for none of us live unto ourselves
and none of us die to ourselves
for whether we live
we live unto YHVH
and whether we die
we die unto YHVH
whether we live or die
therefore
we belong to YHVH

to this end
the messiah died
rose
and was revived
that he might be the lord of both the dead and the living

but why would you judge your own sister or brother?
or why would you disregard your brother or sister?
for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of the messiah
for it is written

as I live

saith YHVH

every knee shall bow to me
and every tongue shall confess to god

so then everyone of us
shall give an account of own self to god
let us not
therefore
judge one another anymore
but judge this rather
that no one put a stumblingblock
or an occasion to fall
in the way of another
I know
and am persuaded by our master
Yeshua
that there is nothing unclean in and of itself
but to the one that esteems a thing to be unclean
to that person it is unclean
so if your brother is grieved by the eating of meat
walk charitably
and do not destroy a person for whom the messiah died
just because of your diet choices
let not your good be evil spoken of

the kingdom of god is not food and drink
but righteousness
and peace
and joy in the holy ghost
anyone who serves the messiah
in this things
is acceptable to god
and approved among others
let us
therefore
pursue things that make peace
and things wherewith one may edify another

matters of practice
like food choices
do not destroy the works of god
all things indeed are pure
but it is evil for someone who would do something
that would offend their conscience
it is good
to not eat meat or drink wine or to abstain from any other thing
whereby your neighbor would stumble
be offended
or be made weak

do you have faith?
then have it to yourself before god
happy is the one who does not condemn himself
in the things he allows himself to do
it’s the one who doubts that will be damned
if he partakes
because he’s not acting with faith
because whatsoever is not of faith is sin

[Romans 14]

Paul is saying that matters of practice such as:

• observing holy days (or not)
• avoiding certain foods or drinks (or eating/drinking whatever)

are not matters that pertain to our walk with God.  Where we will be judged is in our actions towards others (how we acted towards them) and how we acted in relation to our own consciences.

Saints of God may legitimately disagree on certain particulars of religious devotion and on the exact physical form that a life that’s been turned-over to God is “supposed” to take.  The proper response to that variability among believers is not judgement or self-righteously rubbing one’s own divergent practices in the faces of the others — but it is accept that variation with patience and charity and to do all things that foster edification and joy among the differing groups.

“Gospel-based” tribes:

So — when I write about the “GEMTAM” as a model of gospel-based, egalitarian, multihusband-multiwife anarchical tribes — I don’t mean to equate “gospel-based” with “LDS chruch-based”.  And the “anarchy” means that each tribe should be free to work out the details of their own tribe and make modifications to the model as they see fit and as suits their circumstances suit them best.

The main chapters of the GEMTAM book will be written so as to give the principles of the model in a concise manner using the letters in the acronym “GEMTAM” — and to show how each letter is scripturally-grounded.

However, I’d say that the principles of the gospel [upon which an enduring tribe should be based] need not be “LDS church”-principles.  Rather, they’ll be the principles of the gospel upon which any deist, humanist, or non-theist could see the value in:

• honesty
• forgiveness
• love
• patience
• meekness
• kindness
• fairness
• sacrifice
• etc.

And even then — one is still free to build a tribe that is not based on gospel principles if they are so inclined [and I’m sure they’d have success because the other principles like egalitarianism, marriage fidelity, plural kinship bonds, and common consent have such strength that they’d still see success] — it’s just that it’s the establishment of righteous tribes, established on the foundation which is Christ, that we desire for everyone — because I feel that only those such tribes will be everlastingly enduring.

Next Article by Justin:  Marriage Equality

Previous Article by Justin:  Lukewarm = Good for Nothing

Community, Intimacy, and Connection

The Mormon Archetype of Zion:

And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.

The ever-present archetype in Mormon culture of the “City of Enoch” – of that first city of Zion that was taken up into heaven:

Zion, in process of time, was taken up into heaven.

and that is promised to return at a point when there is another city of Zion on the earth to meet them:

And the Lord said unto Enoch: As I live, even so will I come in the last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance, to fulfil the oath which I have made unto you concerning the children of Noah; And the day shall come that the earth shall rest, but before that day the heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the heavens shall shake, and also the earth; and great tribulations shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve;

And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; and truth will I send forth out of the earth, to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten; […] and righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, unto a place which I shall prepare, an Holy City, that my people may gird up their loins, and be looking forth for the time of my coming; for there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem.

And the Lord said unto Enoch: Then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and they shall see us; and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other; And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made; and for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest.

This romantic archetype is played out in various historical instances throughout the scriptural record.

After Alma fled into the wilderness, the community of believers that joined with him:

were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward. And it came to pass that whosoever was baptized by the power and authority of God was added to his church.

And it came to pass that Alma, having authority from God, ordained priests; even one priest to every fifty of their number did he ordain to preach unto them, and to teach them concerning the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.  And he commanded them that they should teach nothing save it were the things which he had taught, and which had been spoken by the mouth of the holy prophets.  Yea, even he commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people.

And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another.

And thus he commanded them to preach. And thus they became the children of God.

[…]

And the priests were not to depend upon the people for their support; but for their labor they were to receive the grace of God, that they might wax strong in the Spirit, having the knowledge of God, that they might teach with power and authority from God.

And again Alma commanded that the people of the church should impart of their substance, every one according to that which he had; if he have more abundantly he should impart more abundantly; and of him that had but little, but little should be required; and to him that had not should be given.  And thus they should impart of their substance of their own free will and good desires towards God, and to those priests that stood in need, yea, and to every needy, naked soul.

And this he said unto them, having been commanded of God; and they did walk uprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.

After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the community of believers in Judea:

continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.  And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.  And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

After Jesus’ visitation with Lehi’s descendents in the Americas, the disciples of Jesus there:

had formed a church of Christ in all the lands round about. And as many as did come unto them, and did truly repent of their sins, were baptized in the name of Jesus; and they did also receive the Holy Ghost.

And it came to pass […] the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another.  And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift.

Joseph Smith’s Desire for Zion:

These “Zions” where there are no rich and no poor, where all impart of their substance freely with one another, having no contentions, and having all things common [not “in common”, I think there’s a difference] have been a big part of Mormon history and collective culture.

The passion for that kind of community is behind a lot of what Joseph Smith was doing while he was alive – trying to get a united order of unrelated believers in Christ bound together by covenant into a whole new people-group.  A tribal community bound by covenant, in an effort to get away from the traditional order of a “church” of unrelated believers in this-or-that set of creeds.

For verily I say unto you, the time has come, and is now at hand; and behold, and lo, it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place and in the land of Zion — For a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church, to advance the cause, which ye have espoused, to the salvation of man, and to the glory of your Father who is in heaven;

That you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things.  For if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things;

For if you will that I give unto you a place in the celestial world, you must prepare yourselves by doing the things which I have commanded you and required of you.  And now, verily thus saith the Lord, it is expedient that all things be done unto my glory, by you who are joined together in this order;

[…]

Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, to prepare and organize yourselves by a bond or everlasting covenant that cannot be broken.  And he who breaketh it shall lose his office and standing in the church, and shall be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until the day of redemption.

But history has shown the Gentile church of God to be a hard-hearted and faithless bunch.  They are content with having one man sit atop the power-pyramid and habitually obey what he says – they receive equal “experience quotient” from images and representations compared to what’s being imaged and represented.

They rejected this consecration and never really got around to plural marriage as a genuine priesthood order of joining groups of like-minded strangers into bona-fide tribes of Israel – but rather kept it only as a social convention.

Polygamy became required for polygamy’s sake alone.  Polyandry was also out-right rejected, without which polygamy does not build joint-stewardships – just enlarges any one man’s single stewardship.  And so:

behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them; And are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom; And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself.

Failed Attempts to Recapture Zion:

Mormon history is full of examples of believers going off to form “United Orders” – communal groups where they attempt to live the “higher law” of consecration, meaning to share all that they have with everyone else in the community.  These endeavors have always met failure, and it’s because of one common feature that connects them all – they have always attempted to do so while keeping many small, separate families.

If they are monogamous LDS, then they’ll keep many small, separate monogamous families – and if Mormon fundamentalists, then it’ll be many, small separate polygynous ones.  But the separate-family feature is always the same.

However, without a covenant-based structure in which I may bind myself as a joint-steward with another to share our all commonly with each other according to the principle of charity – such a celestial, “Zion” community will never happen.  It’ll all go well so long as the circumstances go well, but by-and-by the end cometh.

For less-radical LDS, a common goal is to stay where they are and try to get their local ward to be the vehicle that produces a celestial community, or Zion.  One may see sacrament meeting talks and lessons on using fast offerings to “impart of our surplus”, on reminding us that there is no prohibition from leadership against using Welfare Services to live the “higher law” of consecration at a time when we’re only required to live the “lesser law” of tithing, and on trying to come up with way to make our church experience a more open place and have more of a “Zion-like” atmosphere.

Zion requires great intimacy and connection among the members.  The church lacks this intimacy and connection because we are all still strangers.  The only way to achieve Zion, or even a Zion-like atmosphere at church, is for members to all be connected to each other through covenants.  As it stands, the church only connects us to Christ through covenants, but not to each other.  As long as we remain unfettered by covenant relationships with each other, we will never achieve Zion and our words and deeds at church will never approach the level of intimacy and sharing required of that ideal.

So we may arrive at the point where we are no longer:

strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

People desire this sense of community, connection, and intimacy – yet we are all still strangers.  I received this as a revelation last week, and I’m willing to state it here as a prophecy – and it’s that:

nothing we are currently doing with church will ever produce the kind of Zion-like community we read about in the scriptures.

The gathered body of believers is supposed to be the result of these feelings of community – it can never be the means we use to achieve it.

Why does he always end-up talking about polygamy?

The level of intimacy and connection required to have the kind of community where what’s mine is yours [and yours, mine], where we all deal with each other based on the principle of charity, having no contention, imparting of our substance freely one with another, etc. – is something only arising out of kinship [or family-bonds].

For example, my entire paycheck goes into one bank account that my wife is free to spend on whatever she feels will satisfy her needs and the needs of our children.  Her and I already share all things common, I impart of my substance [and my time, my attention, my affection, etc.] freely with her and our children, etc.  In other words,

The family is the basic unit of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the most important social unit in time and eternity…

meaning, living in such a Zion-like community starts the moment a man marries a woman.  The two are gathered in Christ’s name, there He will be in the midst of them [Matthew 18:20] – and the twain shall be one flesh [D&C 49:16].

This connectivity is the key.  However, if such a community starts with the basic-unit of a man marrying a woman – then how can we expect to grow the community on any different sets of principles [other than men and women marrying]?

So that– if I had two wives, then the second wife would receive just as free of access to my time, talents, resources, and love as my current wife does.  If my wife receives a second husband, then I expect his entire paycheck to go into that same account – and for him to devote that same level of intimacy to my wife and her children, as I do.  Because this is the covenant-obligation we place ourselves under in marriage.

While I don’t think plural marriages need to be a “hill-to-die-on” for this whole idea [I’m all for anarchy, local solutions to local problems, letting people tailor their situation to particular circumstances, etc.] – I can state declaratively that any group that would out-right and from the get-go forbid plural marriages will always be limited — will always approach but never arrive.

Admittedly, one does not just generate a new spouse out of thin-air.  So I can agree that it’s good to start [perhaps] with a focus on getting people getting unplugged from wires and satellites, on getting outside more, on getting together with real human-beings more, etc.  That’s approaching a real kind of community with people in a positive way – people, who can then come to know each other well enough to begin to desire courting and joining together as plural spouses.

If the church actually wanted Zion, then I think most would be surprised over the number of both LDS and non-LDS who would be ready to sign on for it — if it meant living for a higher purpose.  But they don’t.  Marching orders are to get as much education as you can, so you can make as much income as you can, so you can pay more in tithes and offerings.  It’s to just stay where you are and live out as normal of a life as you can — but with just a bit of Mormon flare to it [e.g., serve a two-year mission, civilly marry in a temple, pay 10% of your paycheck to the church, do your home and visiting teaching, keep a current temple recommend, etc.]

Eternity is NOW, and we can make a heaven of it or we can make a hell of it:

The “idea of Zion” [just wanting to talk about Zion] is keeping us separate.  We see a paradisaical, Zion community as this pie-in-the-sky utopia that we can just sit around, occupy our time, and wait for Jesus to return and have it all fall in our laps.  We think our separateness is just fine to settle for here-and-now because one day we will have Zion in which to be together.  Just having the “idea” of it all is what’s keeping us apart and wasting all the life that we could be living, right now.

When I think Jesus has been the one just waiting –waiting on us to get a culture of heaven established here on earth – to have things “on earth” as they are “in heaven” – so He doesn’t end-up killing us with such a culture shock.  One should learn to swim before being plopped out in the ocean.  It would be best to know how to drive before getting behind the wheel of a car.

Instead of thinking, “Oh, we’ll just get it all figured out after we die [or after Jesus returns, etc.]” – we’re supposed to be doing it all here, all now – otherwise we’ll drown when we’re immersed in Zion in the future.

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