BioSphereIII here we come!

Believeing it to be the duty of the latter day Saints to consecrate and dedicate all their properties with themselves unto God in order to become lawful heirs to the Clestial Kingdom of God It was under such a view of the subject that I consecrated before the Bishop of the Church of the latter day Saints in Clay County Dec 31st 1834. The following is a coppy of the Consecration: [followed by list of items and their value]

So to follow up ji’s list, I submit the following:

-It is, I believe, erroneous to say that only men participated in this consecration. The United Firm directors were male, but I suspect that most of the leaders in Utah were male as well.

- Wile it is true that United Firm directors were confidential, the identities who consecrated were not secret. If you had a stewardship from the Bishop, it was not confidential.

- In Joseph’s day, the Firms were also community based, (Kirtland and Zion) but generally the Church was also community based.

- I simply disagree with the characterizations of property ownership.

Now, let me say that I fully agree with Ardis, in that there were many sorts of United Order experiments that involved various levels of participation. It would be great if we were more careful in how we discussed them. This is one problem with people trying to get rid of words such as “communal.” It is hard to describe what was going on in individual cases if one is so unwilling to use descriptive language.

Thanks for spelling out the differences so cogently, ji.

- In J.S.’s day, the United Order involved only a small handful of members, men only. In B.Y.’s day, there were hundreds, men, women, and children.

- J.S.: The names were hidden. B.Y.: The names were public.

- J.S.: The members were scattered and worked separately. B.Y.: The members were gathered together.

- J.S.: The United Order was for the business of the Church as a whole. B.Y.: The local United Orders were community-based.

- J.S.: Members earned incomes outside the Order and the Order existed for the benefit of the Church. B.Y.: Members earned their livings within the local Order for the benefit of the local Order.

- J.S.: The members acted as individuals and lived separately and owned their own homes and businesses. B.Y.: The members lived communally and property was owned communally.

As I see it, about the only commonality was that they were all Latter-day Saints. Brigham Young was not a member of the United Order in Joseph Smith’s day.

We err when we take our understanding and definition of United Order from Brigham Young’s day and impose it on Joseph Smith’s day. I wish we better distinguished between the differing definitions and practicings of the common term “United Order”.

I appreciate the efforts of those early Saints to magnify their callings and build Zion.

[chris, your other comment violates Keepa's comment policy and will not be publicly posted, although it will remain visible to you. I think perhaps the challenges of a blog like Keepa may not be suitable to your temperament, and suggest that you find other uses for your time. -- AEP]

However, Keepa is not a forum for political discussions, so I am calling a halt to further discussion of communism, and whether or not there is any relation between communism and the communal aspects of the various manifestations of Brigham Young’s version of the United Order beyond the similarity of label.

I will say, chris, that your understanding of the way those United Orders functioned is common, but no less mistaken. The United Order of Kingston, with which I am intimately familiar — it’s not saying too much to claim that I am more familiar with it than is any other living person — was communal in exactly the sense of that word used in this post and the majority of its comments. It was only coincidentally familial — many but by no means all members had some connection to the family of Thomas Rice King. The documents speak philosophically of everyone’s donating their property to the Lord and expecting the blessings of heaven therefor, but the same documents spelling out the practicalities of how that property would be used and what could or could not be withdrawn should someone leave the order make abundantly clear that the property was held and operated by a community, one run by civil directors, not the Lord and not by ecclesiastical or even familial/patriarchal authority. When someone wants to “prove” a political point about the difference between communism and the United Order, it’s very easy to pick and choose bits of those documents while entirely overlooking other bits and, more importantly, the overall meaning and purpose of the documents as a whole.

Such picking and choosing is blatantly obvious in the writings of JRClark, ETBenson, and others you mention, and is the falsification of the historical record I referred to. Acknowledging their political bias and how it was expressed doesn’t negate their priesthood or their authority or my respect for either.

Arrington, Leonard J., Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May. Building the City of God: Community & Cooperation Among the Mormons. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co, 1976.

It does not seem to be in print, but you can often find a good used copy or a copy in a library. And after reading it, you should be able to say more about the topic than providing one or more out-of-context quotes.

BTW, the word “communal” does share a common root with “communism” but its meaning is not identical.

Communal:
• shared by all members of a community; for common use: a communal … kitchen.
• of, relating to, or done by a community: communal achievement.
• involving the sharing of work and property: communal living.