In the early years of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its members embarked on an ambitious attempt to live in a communal system they called the United Order. The United Order was more than just a Utopian experiment, like those of the Amana Colonies or the Icarians. According to “world-class organization and management guru Peter Drucker… the Mormons are the only utopia that ever worked.”
The United Order was a covenant organization that incorporated private property rights and principles of religious stewardship, recognizing that God is truly the “owner” of all things. Members of the Church practiced principles of consecration, in which they donated surplus properties to the benefit of the entire community. The orders operated as a corporation and each member and family were shareholders. As the corporation prospered, all the members of the orders prospered together. Unlike other Utopian systems, this one was not communistic or socialistic in nature. It might be more appropriately considered a form of “cooperative capitalism.”
Communities of Latter-day Saints formally lived these principles in frontier Missouri during the mid-to-late 1830s with some success. After their expulsion by mobs following the infamous “Extermination Order” by the State’s governor in 1838, the Saints practiced the principles in Nauvoo, Illinois in a less formal sense. After the migration to Utah, several united orders were formed to help the Mormon pioneers cooperatively attain prosperity.
There is an interesting quote by Lorenzo Snow at the end of the full article. President Benson said: “The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah” (Ensign, November 1980).
Now here is some random speculation to consider. Could the minimum buy-in to enter the United Order (when it is started again) be a 1-year supply of food per person? Could the three-month food supply (recently pushed by the church) be to survive a specific calamity that will soon occur (which is why it would be considered the more urgent of the two)? Just some points to ponder.
I’m not sure about the “buy-in” part. ^_^.
Why not? In the early days of the church, you had to first contribute to the United Order before you could participate. Not only that, but the contribution had to be great enough to show your faith (literally, it had to be a sacrifice).
Consider a situation where disasters, wars, and disease have destroyed all you have, except your food storage and then the church asks you to give that and join them in the United Order. Do you do it?
I meant, that the “buy-in” must be more than that. I’m referring to the spiritual requirements of entering the United Order.
Oh, I see. You are right. I guess I just took that part as a given without explicitly stating it. My bad.
Just thought of another possible situation. What if everything seems fine and your doing ok economically and have a house with a little land and a decent income. Then the church asks you to abandon everything and donate a years supply of food and move somewhere else to join the United Order (I have ancestors that joined the church under very similar circumstances). Again, this is a sacrifice. Would you do it?
Yes.
I was actually asking it as a rhetorical question–as food for thought, if you will. I didn’t mean for you to actually answer; however, it is nice knowing others have already made up their minds, too!.
When I was writing my book, “Building the Ark: Preparing Today to Live in the United Order,” it occurred to me that there may have been lots of members of the Church in Noah’s dispensation. If you read Genesis carefully, you’ll discover that he and his family were on the ark for more than a year. They needed a year’s supply of food, not only for themselves, but also for the animals!
Suppose that, to get on the ark, members needed to be “temple worthy” tithe-payers and have a year’s supply of food. That would probably have excluded a lot of people who otherwise were “good” members of the Church.
Today, as we look around our wards and stakes, we can see that about half the members on the rolls actually attend services. Maybe half of those are tithe-payers. Many more are buried in debts because they purchased big homes, new cars, iPods, big screen TVs, and other luxuries. Even fewer still have any food storage at all. They’re not going to be able to get on the United Order’s “ark” when the time comes. That’s scary to contemplate.
Another notion I think is important about food storage and consecration. At some point, there may be a move by the government to deal with “hoarders” of food. If and when that should occur, consecration solves the problem. It’s not our food anymore. It would become part of the United Order to which we’d belong. Everyone would share and we’d be able and privileged to help our neighbors from our bishops’ storehouses. Having done all we could do, “manna” from heaven is always a possibility.
Keep an eye on the headlines. There have been major food shortages in various countries. Prices on grains like rice and wheat have soared. Russia announced just last week that it would not be exporting any of its wheat crop this year. This bodes ill for Europe and Africa who rely on it. Acreage of all crops planted in the US are way down. Food prices have gone steadily upward in an otherwise deflationary market. It is very much at the point that, rather than spending a thousand dollars on stuff for Christmas for your kids, you’d be well advised to scale back on the toys and buy food and store it.
How serious is it? In April 2008, the Wall Street Journal published this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB120881517227532621.html
I’m pleased to see such an article posted.
My understanding of the Law of Consecration and the United Order is that we have been called and have covenanted to live the Law of Consecration and as we give up selfish notions and our incorrect thinking is replaced with turning our will and hearts to living as Christ exemplified we will gravitate to each other and be guided together and will naturally be living the United Order. This is how we will be prepared to dwell with the Savior when He comes. If we will allow our self to be educated by the spirit by conforming to the principles that we have been given we can begin to live the Law of Consecration and we will be a Zion “people” and prepared at the second coming.
Good work as always Greg – but that reference to “communal” near the beginning does not accurately reflect the United Order (although I am not familiar with some of the distortions that occured which may very well have been communalistic). But Church leaders have clearly stated that the Law is not communal in nature.
The United Order was an establishment of a Religious Protection for the Individual.
The Law of Consecration under the United Order was an establishment of a Religious Interposition. Like States Rights and Constitutional Law Protecting and Enumerating the Sovereign Individual’s Fundamental Natural Rights, Religions and Churches are Protected Organizations that couldn’t be Regulated, Taxed, Infringed or Obstructed as long as they were not violating Individual’s Liberties with Force, Fraud or Coercion.
This would have been the perfect legal establishment for a Religion in this specific Nation to ensure that the Actions and Production of the Individuals are not corrupted and used for evil purposes. That the Sacred Temple could remain Sacred in Thought and Deed.
The Army invaded and forced the civilians to adopt a different form of government and Public Domain, the standard centralized form of Regulation and Legal Practices.
The Church never could recover and practice the Covenants that would have kept their tax dollars from killing over 50% of Black Babies in the Womb, To keep their lives sacred production from teaching that control and regulating Freewill is necessary and good.
Good site thanks for the perspectives, Keep Ringing the Bell.
-sovereignthink
The Power of a Religious Revolution (Article)
http://sovereignthink.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/the-power-of-a-religious-revolution/
Could the “Law of Consecration” be set up today?
In this time of great uncertainty and high unemployment would an economic order founded on the principles of the “Law of Consecration” be the answer for so many that are struggling in these times?
I read a paper written by a man that was living through the “Great Depression” at the time of his writing.
In his paper he wrote of his idea that lands and equipment that was acquired by the counties for taxes be leased to the unemployed based on their ability to pay so they could support their families.
He talked about the unemployed banding together, working the farms and setting up businesses, first feeding their families from their labor on the farms, then sharing the profits. His plan was branded as communist and rejected by the people in charge.
To me his plan was a great idea to help people become self sufficient. I wonder if the attitudes have changed any in 60+ years.
Could we do this in these troubled times?