now is the time to make real the promises of theocracy

Some people have argued that a potential response to the current lack of alternatives to capitalism – it being the ‘only game in town’ – would be to accept defeat and admit that for the time being there may be no alternative to the market. The only thing one can do, therefore, is ‘develop strategies that seek to build areas of opposition and resistance within the larger interstices of civil society – either at the global or local level’ (Jenny Pearce, 2002, in Civil Society and Development, A Critical Exploration).

now is the time to make real the promises of theocracy

The beauty with mormonism is that it started off as a restorationist movement. The kingdom was actually restored on earth. The prophet was given keys to lead God’s new chosen people out of captivity and poverty and into the promised land of prosperity and social justice. Mormonism’s millennial objective was exactly that – to present the world with a social alternative and demonstrate to all that it was actually possible to build a just and ideal society based on revelation from God and based on a series of covenants that latter day saints would make with God and with their fellow-believers in order to live in a society (a kingdom in fact) where there would be freedom and justice for all.  

forgotten kingdom

 

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”. 

– John 14:27

Perhaps too many are interpreting this scripture as only relating to the Holy Ghost and spiritual things. Sometimes I think that Jesus was much more literal than people would give him credit for being. Many LDS church leaders refer to this peace from the Holy Spirit as an inner peace – the inner peace of knowing, of having a testimony, and sometimes, but not always, the peace of understanding the will of God. Now imagine for a moment that Jesus meant literally that his peace, the kind of peace that the world does not give you, was actually an explanation for the way by which we may build the Kingdom of God on Earth, or the peaceable kingdom, today. 

“Now here is wisdom, and the mind of the Lord – let the house be built, not after the manner of the world, for I give not unto you that ye shall live after the manner of the world.”

– Doctrine and Covenants 95:13

The mind of the Lord

In our zion formula, being of one mind means structural peace (or just conditions) – as opposed to structural injustice. I think that the Lord is teaching us here that there is an alternative to the kind of ‘neoliberal peacebuilding’ that is going on today in the world, where one argues that we will reach some ideal or just society through socially responsible capitalism (good luck, I say). Michael Cox predicted in 2002 that the world was facing an imminent social breakdown: it certainly did not take long – and it could get much worse.

Many on the left are also realizing that without a vision of a different society, nothing can fundamentally change. So here is a proposition: could latter day satyagrahis present an inclusive, even perhaps a pluralistic faith-based/value-based alternative to capitalism by building the peaceable kingdom? These model-communities, or zion communities, could go hand in hand with ideas and practices found in environmentalism (green mormons), feminism (feminist mormon housewives), anarchism (LDS anarchists), gandhism (latter day satyagrahis) and other positive (mormons for equality and social justice) and communitarian (LDS cooperative, mormon worker) alternatives to capitalism. What do you think, brothers and sisters? You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one!

See also ‘what the heck was the united order‘: interesting proposition that perhaps the United Order was neither socialism, nor capitalism, but a potential third way.