Recently in my Elder’s Quorum meeting, the Instructor asked us to look through 4 Nephi, Chapter 1. The chapter describes a society that, following Christ’s visit to the Americas, had 200 years of peace and prosperity. The Instructor asked us to point out the defining characteristics of that society. I immediately noticed verse three.
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.
4 Nephi 1:3
Members of the class mentioned such things as fasting and prayer and miracles, but no one mentioned the most obvious and most important characteristic of this ideal society. The people held “all things in common.” It occurred to me that, sitting in an Elder’s Quorum in Utah, in a room full of Republicans, no class member would ever mention material equality as a good thing, even with the scripture right in front of them.
Eventually the Instructor mentioned the item that everyone was skipping over. He said, “And they had all things in common,” but a class member spoke over the Instructor with a different item for the list, and the Instructor let his own comment drop.
A bit later, the Instructor moved on to the later verses in the chapter which described a later time when the society began to become corrupted. The text records that riches and pride had caused the people to begin to be divided into classes. The Instructor read verse 25.
And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them.
4 Nephi 1:25
This blatant attempt by the Instructor to present what the Gospel actually teaches about worldly goods was bound to evoke a response in this class. A tall, white-haired gentleman, who happened to be sitting right next to me, spoke up and challenged the Instructor with a question that was completely off-topic and irrelevant to the lesson, “Do you know the difference between Progressivism and the United Order?”
“Oh boy,” I thought, “here we go….” The Instructor very calmly said, “Why don’t you tell us.” The white-haired gentleman replied, “Love.” This allowed the Instructor to simply nod his head in acknowledgement of the answer and move on with the lesson.
An in-class political debate was thus deftly avoided. I kept my mouth shut. Here, however, I choose to speak out and point out a few things:
1. The answer “Love” was, of course, complete nonsense. While love (charity) is certainly necessary for a successful implementation of the United Order, to imply that NO political Progressive is EVER motivated by true feelings of charity was judgemental, mean-spirited, and simply wrong.
As a long time Democrat, union activist, and public school teacher, I know and have met many open-hearted, generous, charitable, and yes, loving, Progressives. They sincerely want to help people and make the world a better place. Many of them devote their lives to that cause.
2. I doubt my white-haired Quorum member has any first-hand knowledge about the political/social movement known as “Progressivism.” He must not have any progressive friends or I presume he wouldn’t have been so callous in public. I strongly suspect that all he knows about “Progressivism” was taught to him by “Conservatives,” or by “conservative” media, or perhaps by 50-year-old talks by Apostle (not President) Ezra Taft Benson, who was often corrected by the First Presidency.
By definition, “Progressivism” simply means “reform to improve society.” It advocates scientific, technological, economic, and social “progress.” Historically, the Progressive movement was a response to the extreme concentration of wealth during the “Gilded Age” of the 1890’s. Progressives worked to counter the abusive power of big business by working to empower labor and consumer groups.
The Book of Mormon warns repeatedly against those who seek “power and gain.” In fact, 4 Nephi describes how concentrated wealth, and the pride and corruption it inevitably brings, not only ended a 200 year period of peace and prosperity, but triggered events that eventually completely destroyed the nation!
3. Conservative sources in the Church always go crazy about the United Order and bend over backwards insisting that it has nothing at all in common with those scary bogeymen progressivism, socialism, or, heaven forbid, communism. While there are, of course, important differences, the similarities are easy to see. We should be able to discuss the similarities and differences openly and rationally without the hysterical denial.
4. The real reason conservatives fear and ignore the United Order is that, as unabashed capitalists, they really don’t want to give up their pursuit of money and share everything equally. It was obvious in my quorum meeting that the class members were actively choosing to ignore the central point of that chapter of scripture. Their eyes glazed over. They didn’t want to see those verses, let alone discuss them. 4 Nephi does not exactly promote socialism, but it certainly does not advocate capitalism.
5. The LDS Church will never be able to establish the United Order and build a Zion Society as long as dogmatic, stubborn, selfish, materialistic, unloving, and intolerant political conservatism dominates the social and political views of the “Saints.”
Source: Fourth Nephi, The Book of Mormon, ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Joshua Zeitz, “Progressives Should Read Progressive History — So They Don’t Blow It This Time,” Politico Magazine, June 1, 2019.
LDS are still in the tight grips of Ezra Taft Benson (remember those awful conference talks?) and Cleon Skousen. If I could get the SP-USA on the ballot here I would run as a socialist!!!
A popular current thought is that the United Order failed because of human weakness. Correlated to that is the idea that only during the Millenium when the political and church are combined under one head, Christ, will it be successfully established.
Fawn, Yes, but which comes first? Many Christians seem to believe (and act like) we have no responsibility to improve the world because Jesus will “fix everything” when He comes. Brigham Young taught that we need to build a Zion for Jesus to come to. I’m saying we have a long way to go and we need to wake up and get busy.
Oh Zion. Where is thy sting?
In looking at the national scene, we have overwhelming Evangelical support for an administration that cuts taxes on the wealthiest, deregulates to let them pollute in ways that affect the health of the poor, lies about who pays the tariff (in practice it is a regressive tax on the poor and middle class), and morally terrifying treatment of refugees and non-citizens. It is all to easy to imagine that the Statue of Liberty, and the “give us your …. poor” has been replaced with a statue of Cain. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Not a time for silent acquiescence.
I think it would be nice if everything in the gospel would fit together in a neat little package and people would see the correlation between the scriptures you talk about and progressive/united order/all things in common. Still we have other scriptures like the parable of the talents and the three degrees of glory that may cloud issues having to do with equality or having all things in common. For example I had a bishop say to me when we were talking about how people drive big trucks and have huge homes and how that figured into having all things in common or being puffed up and prideful. He said, well they worked hard and so they deserve it if they want it. He implied that it’s OK if you voluntarily choose to have a smaller truck or house but it’s wrong if you force someone to do it.
I guess the crux of the matter is that people don’t really understand what Capitalism or Socialism really is other than the former is good and the later bad. The reality is that people can be exploited in either system. It’s easy to place good/bad values on the USA vs. Cuba or Venezuela but it’s harder when you compare the USA with the Scandinavian countries. There we have to actually ask ourselves hard questions and think deeper about the answers. Take for example Health Care. If you compare our taxes with theirs and add the cost of health care to it, who is getting the better deal. Does anyone ever lose their house because of a health issue? Do businesses have to bear the burden of healthcare? Does someone have to stay in an unhealthy marriage because they can’t afford their own health care? These are just some examples of deeper questions.
The fact is, Scandinavian countries have longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality, greater access to health care in general and to specialized care, more vacation days and they are happier on the “happy” index than we are in the USA. WHY? It boils down to a group of people doing in a secular society what we’ve only talked about doing in our religious society but ignoring in our “real” lives.