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Gedurende de 19e eeuw wilden Heiligen der Laatste Dagen christelijke
modelgemeenschappen in het leven roepen zoals beschreven in de schriften,
waar leden gemeenschappelijke bezittingen hadden (Handelingen
2:44-45; 4 Nephi 1:1-3). Het Boek van Mozes noemt dit een "Zion"
gemeenschap, een volk dat één van hart was, en waaronder geen arme was
(Mozes 7:18). Pogingen van de Heiligen om
Zion te vestigen brengt de leer in praktijk dat ons stoffelijk bezit een
geschenk is van God dat met mensen in nood gedeeld moet worden (Mosiah
4:16-22). Alhoewel de heiligen er niet in slaagden het ideaal van
Zion waar te maken, maakt ze nog steeds onderdeel uit van een van onze
tempelverbonden.
De schriftuur van de Herstelling predikt vol vuur economische gelijkheid.
We worden eraan herinnerd dat een celestiale levenswijze van ons verwacht
dat we gelijkheid nastreven in stoffelijke zaken, niet slechts in geestelijke
zaken (LV 78:6-7). Het feit dat sommigen meer
bezitten dan anderen is er de oorzaak van dat de wereld in zonde ligt
(LV 49:20). Gods plan van rentmeesterschap
roept ons op om aardse goederen naar behoefte te delen, "opdat de
armen zullen worden verhoogd, doordat de rijken nederig zullen zijn"
(LV 104:15-18). Deze leringen stuwen de Heiligen
voort armoede uit te roeien in de naam van gelijkheid, gerechtigheid en
christelijke naastenliefde. Het maandelijks vasten biedt een minimale
gelegenheid ons in solidariteit met de armen te oefenen, en onze bezittingen
te herverdelen al naar gelang behoefte.
| Aanverwante Onderwerpen:
|
 Eén
in Christus |
|
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| Because I Have Been Given Much (Hymns
219) |
I see a world where every man's a brother.
I see a world where every man will share.
I see a world where not one soul is left alone or cold,
a world where every man is loved and clothed and fed. . .
.
A little more love will make it happen,
a little less me and a little more you,
a little more love.
| Carol
Lynn Pearson, The Order Is Love (1971) |
|
James H. Moyle: Revolution
is threatening this very nation because of the unsatisfied demand
of the many for social justice, or as we would put it, the lack
of brotherly love that the Savior advocated when he said to the
wealthy young man, "Give unto the poor that which thou hast."
Under his inspiration his followers established a Christian socialistic
system in which there were no poor and no rich but all things were
held in common. That same system was revealed anew and an attempt
made to establish it by the great prophet of this age, Joseph Smith.
|
| Conference Report,
October 1931, 40-41 |
Hugh Nibley: For the
last days everyone has been invited to work for the kingdom with
singleness of purpose and to enjoy the free lunch of the Saints.
. . . The extra food on the rich man's table does not belong to
him, says King Benjamin, but to God, and he wants the poor man to
have it (Mosiah 4:22). The moral imperative of the work-ethic is
by no means the eternal law we assume it to be, for it rests on
a completely artificial and cunningly contrived theory of property.
. . .
[T]he world as we know it is the very antithesis of Zion, in which
we should all be living at this very moment. I have cited a few
passages from the Pearl of Great Price, Old Testament, New Testament,
Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants to show that whether
we like it or not, in all those five dispensations of the gospel
the free lunch was prescribed for all living under the covenant,
and at the same time very special kinds of work were assigned to
each and all of them, the object of which was not lunch but the
building up of the kingdom and the establishment of Zion. Our real
temporal wants, we have been told repeatedly, are few, and they
are taken care of by the law of consecration. . . . No one is more
completely "of the world" than one who lives by the world's
economy, whatever his display of open piety.
|
"Work We Must, but
the Lunch Is Free," Approaching Zion (Salt Lake City & Provo:
Deseret Book & FARMS, 1989), 238-39,
241-42, 248-49 |
| Derek A. Cuthbert: More
than half of the people in the world live in countries where the per
capita income is less than three hundred dollars—not per week
or per month, but per year. In some countries in Africa, it is less
than one hundred dollars per year. We must reorient ourselves to become
a Zion society with one heart and one mind and no poor among us. |
From Every Nation:
Faith-promoting Personal Stories of General Authorities
from Around the World (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990),
78 |
Alexander B. Morrison:
But is the establishment of Zion only a golden dream, forever unobtainable,
ever receding before us like an illusion? To the Latter-day Saints,
who believe in the eventual perfectibility of mankind, there can
be a Zion on earth, as there has been already, albeit only twice,
and that but briefly. We are thus under sacred obligation to awake,
arise, and get to work; to make its attainment "our greatest
object"; to "push many people to Zion with songs of everlasting
joy upon their heads." (D&C 66:11.) . . . As always, the
greatest and most difficult task will be to change ourselves.
|
| Visions of Zion
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1993), 17-18 |
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