I wrote a little something about the economics of Zion, in the sense of this term that is used in the RLDS Restoration Branches movement. The Zionism discussed here is not Israeli Zionism about Jerusalem: it is Latter Day Saint Zionism about Independence, Missouri. So anyone who is not in the target audience of this post should either skip it or else read it with an understanding of who the target audience is: Restoration Branches movement members. I bring up the Rice Christians dilemma in a Latter Day Saint context. OK, here it goes: To the extent that I think about Zionic living, I try to think literal and practical. The whole idea of Zion that is in most church members minds is incredibly vague and general. I think its important to sharply distinguish things that are realistically achievable in the here and now from vague spiritual pronouncements and expectations of instantaneous perfection on everyones part. We arent perfect. This is a fact, and perfection isnt the choice of a moment. It takes time and practice. It also isnt typically the achievement of an individual all by themselves, but an achievement of a group working together. Much has been said about the spiritual side of things, but not enough thought has been put into the physical side of it. Im also not talking about after the Second Coming of Christ. The question I want to bring up is: What can we actually do, in a literal physical sense, to start the process of redeeming Zion NOW? On the immediate, practical, physical side of that distinction Ive just drawn, (which is the side of it I want to discuss here) I gather that people think building up Zion seems to involve Restoration people founding their own society centered around Independence which involves establishing our own industries that cooperate with one another with the goal of economic self-sufficiency. People also hope this would hopefully move us towards achieving some sense of collective or shared ownership such as the Doctrine & Covenants demands, as we all gradually become responsible enough to handle it by becoming more righteous. Remember that becoming more righteous takes time and effort, just like becoming a great athlete, scientist or artist. It isnt something we just decide to do and then boom, weve done it. Its not simple or easy. If you interpret the scriptures to say that it is then either your interpretation is wrong or the scriptures are wrong, because this is a fact. It takes time. We obviously cannot, in the meantime, simply jump in to collective ownership as some people seem to want. History clearly teaches us that collective ownership absolutely does not change human nature. Thats where Karl Marxs economic program was wrong. Thats how the Pilgrims nearly all starved to death. It is only a changed human nature that will enable collective ownership to become practical. Collective ownership will not enable a changed human nature to become practical. Now, I have to bring up a conceptual problem in this whole scheme of Zionic living that few people have thought of. Lets assume we could overcome the obstacles in our way. Lets assume we got to a point where we owned most of Independence, having established our own industries in every important field, so that the world saw that we had an economic system that worked. Lets even assume that we can overcome the free rider problem and the incentive problem, which have historically plagued all previous collective ownership schemes. How do we handle trade? We obviously cant start this endeavor up without buying from and selling to the rest of the world, in order to get from a state in which we dont have these industries to a state in which we have got them. So we cant just be isolated and decide to only trade with church members. What if, once we have our own economy going and people see that it is successful, so that it becomes economically beneficial for an individual to become a part of our economy, people (such as our trading partners) want to join our economy without joining our church? If we require that people join our church in order to be a part of our economy and it is economically beneficial to be a part of our economy, then this creates an incentive for people to join our church in order to be a part of our economy without really believing in the churchs doctrines, and thus without really joining Christs church spiritually. Thats bad. But if we say people can join our economy without joining our church then our economy may not work, and we may lose control of it. In what sense would it be our (or the Lords) economy if anyone can be a part of it, even enemies of God? This problem isnt just a hypothetical. We are faced with it now in the form of Rice Christians. Rice Christians is a derogatory term for certain individuals and villages in third world countries who basically exploit missionaries by converting to religions in order to create economic ties with people in first world countries and reap the economic benefits of those relationships. For example: two villages need help. One of them has converted to Christianity and the other hasnt. Which village does a church in the U.S. help first? Well, it would be the one they hear about first and most often, probably, and that would almost certainly be the one that converted to their religion. So when the second village sees that the first village converted to Christianity and they got help to dig a new well the very next year, and the second village needs a new well, they might get together and decide to convert in order to get a new well dug, without necessarily believing that Christianity is really true in any sense. Some villages (and/or individuals) convert to several contradictory religions at once in order to get several of these deals with different churches going at the same time. This creates a second problem: the more people that this kind of program expands to include, the more expensive the program gets, which severely limits its reach because while our donors pockets are deep, they arent bottomless. The instant any area stops receiving economic aid, that area is liable to fall away from Christianity back to whatever religion is the most advantageous. It creates a situation for Gods army like that of the British in our American Revolution: the British only controlled the land that their soldiers were physically standing on. The instant British troops left an American town, that town would fall back into American hands. Since Britain did not have enough troops to occupy the entire continent, there was no way they could realistically win once the American people decided they wanted independence. This is why Washington could retreat and retreat and retreat without ever losing the war as long as his army continued to exist. Thus, Britain was defeated, in a sense, by its lack of resources. I would call the Rice Christian conversions scams but in fairness, life in a third world country can get pretty desperate. Its hard to really blame some of these people who are dealing with problems that us in first world countries dont have to even worry about. But it creates a horrible dilemma for spreading the gospel. How can we do our best to convert people based on spiritual repentance rather than based on economic benefits?
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 17:59:38 +0000
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