That’s an interesting hypothesis, Geoff J. My wife advances that one, but I disagree. There’s no doctrinal basis for understanding what the resurrected beings will be doing on Earth during the Millennium, but I personally don’t think that we’ll be resurrected here, travel immediately to the Kolob system to live, and then come back to live here after the Millenium. I think that we’ll live here

Even so, your approach raises its own problems. For example, where will resurrected beings get currency to spend on things while they visit — say, if they want to take a mortal friend who needs help out to lunch. If the resurrected beings have to earn the currency then they’ll pose the same problem for part time employment as I discuss above for full-time employment. If they get special currency from the Kolob system, then it will contribute to inflation because it won’t represent any segment of real productivity.

The when you throw the translated folk into the mix things get even stickier. Imagine all the pro women’s basketball leagues: MWNBA, RWNBA, TWNBA… oy

No doctrinal basis?!? What about my youth Sunday School teacher who taught us that people will be birthing and raising (not to mention procreating) like crazy to get all those spirits and dead kids grown up? What about my YW leader who showed us the diagram of how EVERY Church building on earth could be turned into a temple and all the youth on earth would be employed 24 hours a day baptizing for the newly revealed dead’s names? What about the Left Behind series. I think we have ample information, my friend.

Maybe the Lord will reveal the missing key to make collectivism work. And I’ll bet sports will be the last thing on anyone’s mind. And anyone who has a problem with those might not be resurrected until they can deal with it… :)

In the millennium, maybe we’ll find out resurrected beings drink Diet Coke.

#10: Or rather, that resurrection is effectuated by means of Diet Coke…

During the Millenium, mortal beings will do the same thing inferior humans do now:

1. Become carnival workers
2. Teach 7th grade English
3. Become motivational speakers at the MTC
4. Write for Mormon blogs

Joseph Smith taught that resurrected beings will visit the earth, not live here (Gospel Principles Chapter 44).

I don’t think it solves the problem, and I certainly don’t think that it’s a settled doctrinal question.
However, the best information we have (Joseph Smith, and cited in the gospel manual for new members) are far better sources than anything that says that they’ll actually live here. I respect Talmage, but I think a Joseph Smith/Gospel Principles support is considerably stronger than Talmage support.
Note that in my comment I said nothing about that solving the problem…I merely provided evidence supporting the idea that they won’t actually live here, since that evidence had not yet been cited here. I wasn’t trying to suggest anything else.

A resurrected Olympics would be awesome. It would give a whole new meaning to the 100 free if people could run on top of the water…

I fully expect this blog post to be plastered on the walls of various churches to prove that Mormons are sacrilegious pagans.

Resurrected people don’t need to eat, don’t get sick, don’t sleep, all wear the same type of indestructible clothing, and need little in the way of shelter, so there will be much less need to pay them a wage comparable to mortals. There won’t be competition for jobs because resurrected beings have no need of jobs.

Indeed during the millenium we will be living the United Order. There will be no force collectivism but a consecrated effort where wealth will be the benefit of Zion and lifting the poor. There will be more agency for those who enter the oder to excerise righteous stewardship in providing self sustainment and surplus wealth will be contributed to the Order. Why wait for the ressurrection? Let us embrace this concept now by working toward it.

Please go to http//www.mormonzionproject.wordpress.com. Therein contains some thoughts of the Brethren about this subject.

Sorry for the serious response.

DKL.. Are you LDS? Incredible. Many of your thoughts are alien to LDS culture and true history especially among the Brethren. May I suggest some home work . Please read “Building the City of God” by Arrington, then maybe we can have sense of civil and enlightened discourse. Zion economy is an mix of free enterprise and collective endeavor.

Keep reading your scriptures, LDS history , and Conference talks and you will not go wrong.

Law of Consecration: God’s Utopia

Marion G. Romney, “Living the Principles of the Law of Consecration,” Tambuli, Jan 1980, 1

The law of consecration was revealed early in this last dispensation. On the second day of January 1831, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord said to his infant church, not yet a year old:

“Let every man esteem his brother as himself.

“For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?

“Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.” (D&C 38:25–27)

Thirty-eight days later, 9 February 1831, the Lord revealed the law of consecration as the means by which the inequality between the rich and the poor could be removed. These are his words:

“If thou lovest me thou shalt serve the and keep all my commandments.

“And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support that which thou hast to impart unto them, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken.

“And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me; and they shall be laid before the bishop of my church and his counselors, two of the elders, or high priests; such as he shall appoint or has appointed and set apart for that purpose.

“And it shall come to pass, that after they are laid before the bishop of my church, and after that he has received these testimonies concerning the consecration of the properties of my church, that they cannot be taken from the church, agreeable to my commandments, every man shall be made accountable unto me, a steward over his own property, or that which he has received by consecration, as much as is sufficient for himself and family.” (D&C 42:29–32)

The basic principle and the justification for the law of consecration “is that everything we have belongs to the Lord; therefore, the Lord may call upon us for any and all of the property which we have, because it belongs to Him … (D&C 104:14–17, 54–57)” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., in Conference Report, Oct. 1942, p. 55)

The intent of the law of consecration was that every man is to be “equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs.”

(D&C 51:3) Under it, every man, including the poor, was to receive a “ ‘portion’ … such as would make him equal to others according to his circumstances, his family, his wants and needs.

“The land which you received from the bishop by deed, whether it was part of the land which you, yourself, had deeded to the Church, or whether it came as an outright gift from the Church … and the personal property which you received, were all together sometimes called a ‘portion’ (D&C 51:4–6), sometimes a ‘stewardship’ (D&C 104:11–12), and sometimes an ‘inheritance.’ (D&C 83:3)” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., in Conference Report, Oct. 1942, p. 56)

The Saints in Jackson County, Missouri, organized a “united order” and attempted to live the law of consecration. They failed, however, and were expelled from Missouri.

The Lord explained the reason for their failure and afflictions as follows:

“Verily I say onto you who have assembled yourselves together that you may learn my will concerning the redemption of mine afflicted people—

“Behold, I say unto you, were it not for the transgressions of my people, speaking concerning the church and not individuals, they might have been redeemed even now.

“But behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them;

“And are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom;

“And Zion cannot be built up unless it is the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself.

“And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer.

“Therefore, in consequence of the transgressions of my people, it is expedient in me that mine elders should wait for a little season for the redemption of Zion—

“That they themselves may be prepared, and that my people may be taught more perfectly, and have experience, and know more perfectly concerning their duty, and the things which I require at their hands.” (D&C 105:1–6, 9–10)

So ended the first attempt to implement the law of consecration.

In October of 1936, about one hundred years after the termination of the law of consecration experience, the First Presidency of the Church announced the organization of the welfare program.

President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., its principal Planner said concerning the welfare program and the united order:

“We have all said that the Welfare Plan is not the United Order and was not intended to be. However, I should like to suggest to you that perhaps, after all, when the Welfare Plan gets thoroughly into operation … we shall not be so very far from carrying out the great fundamentals of the United Order.

“In the first place I repeat again, the United Order recognized and was built upon the principle of private ownership of property; all that a man had and lived upon under the United Order, was his own. Quite obviously; the fundamental principal of our system today is the ownership of private property.

“In the next place, in lieu of residues and surpluses which were accumulated and built up under the United Order, we, today, have our fast offerings, our Welfare donations, and our tithing, all of which may be used for the care of the poor, as well as for the carrying on of the activities and business of the Church. After all, the United Order was primarily designed to build up a system under which there should be no abjectly poor, and this is the purpose, also, of the Welfare Plan.

“In this connection it should be observed that it is clear from these earlier revelations, as well as from our history, that the Lord had very early to tell the people about the wickedness of idleness, and the wickedness of greed, because the brethren who had plenty were not giving properly, and those who had not were evidently intending to live without work on the things which were to be received from those who had property …

“Furthermore, we had under the United Order a bishop’s storehouse in which were collected the materials from which to supply the needs and the wants of the poor. We have a bishop’s storehouse under the Welfare Plan, used for the same purpose.

“As I have already indicated, the surplus properties which came to the Church under the Law of Consecration, under the United Order, became the ‘common property’ of the Church … and were handled under the United Order for the benefit of the poor. We have now under the Welfare Plan all over the Church, ward land projects. In some cases the lands are owned by the wards, in others they are leased by the wards or lent to them by private individuals. This land is being farmed for the benefit of the poor, by the poor where you can get the poor to work it …

“Thus you will see, brethren, that in many of its great essentials, we have, as the Welfare Plan has now developed, the broad essentials of the United Order. Furthermore, having in mind the assistance which is being given from time to time and in various wards to help set people up in business or in farming, we have a plan which is not essentially unlike that which was in the United Order when the poor were given portions from the common fund.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1942, p. 57–58.)

Considering that we are not now required to live the law of consecration and that we have the welfare program which, as President Clark said, if put “thoroughly into operation … we shall not be … far from carrying out the great fundamentals of the United Order,” I suppose the best way to live the principles of the law of consecration is to live the principles and practices of the welfare program.

These principles and practices include avoiding idleness and greed, contributing liberal fast offerings and other welfare donations, paying a full tithing, and complying with the purpose for which the First Presidency organized the program, which they thus stated:

“Our primary purpose was to set up, in so far as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be reenthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.” (In Conference Report, October 1936, p. 3.)

Oh. Ok. Now I understand. That changes everything.

Tim, Your answer is in post #28. They probably lived the higher celestial law of Zion, which does not exclude free market economy. Please refer to my blog http://www.mormonzionproject.wordpress.com.

Brother,

Bart

re: 28

You don’t really believe that living the “principles and practices of the welfare program” (whatever in the world that means)is akin to living the law of consecration, do you? What utter nonsense. The welfare program principles you describe sound like the good old Yankee values of hard work,thrift and helping the poor. What’s so revolutionary or inspired about that? Our American ancestors long before Joseph Smith or J. Reuben Clark shared those same values and taught them, ad nauseum I’m sure. Where’s the inspiration in repackaging traditional American values into a Church welfare program?

Maybe I’m an illegal alien in Mormon culture, but I don’t understand your connection between the Church welfare program and the thankfully abandoned law of consecration.

Below is good example of a sucessful cooperative order.

http://www.mcc.es/ing/index.asp

I am sure about your commentary but I assume yoou are making reference there is an effort in Church history to move away from cooperativism and focus on individualism and why this happened Leonard Arrington within his book Building The City of God treats this subject quite well. There is another book by Lucas and Woodworth . “Working Toward Zion” which gives examples of poor Saints starting their own cooperatives. Again Marion G. Romney gives implications we are moving toward more of a cooperative order. See post #28

In my experience with LDS culture, we are an exceedingly cheap people. (To be sure, some would label it frugal/thrifty. As an example, I know several fellow members who think nothing of adding an hour of driving time simply to avoid a $2.00 toll to get to the DC temple!) So, I don’t know what would be more challenging for Christ: reinstituting and managing a new United Order/Law of Consecration or managing the problems posed in the OP. Tough call, but I think managing a United Order composed of cheap Mormons would be way more challenging.

B. Tippetts,

Here is my response to your thought that the welfare plan is akin to the Law of Consecration is utter non sense.

I said no such thing and hold no such thought. You must have me confused with someone else. You clearly have yourself confused with Marion G. Romney.

My question was about the changing perception of the role of government in church welfare and your opinion of it. If you care to actually read my question, think about it, and answer on your own then I’d be happy to read your response.

Sam B. (43)

Traveling to the DC temple from the Philadelphia area there is a $2.00 toll for the Harbor Tunnel to get through, or under, a part of Baltimore. There are additional tolls in Northern Maryland ($5.00) and Delaware ($4.00) but they are easily avoided without adding an hour of driving time, at least for those of us who live in the Western Philadelphia suburbs. It’s the folks who will drive around the Baltimore beltway to avoid the Harbor tolls that crack me up, easily adds an hour to the trip, imo.

You could not be more right about the DC Beltway-a nightmare. While I will miss the DC temple once the Philadelphia temple is up and running, I will not miss the long drive.

B. Tippetts,

No, that is not correct. My question has to do with your personal opinion of the recent shift that the Church has made towards directing members to receive government benefits, which in the past has been regarded as the evil dole. I don’t want a citation or a 20 year old talk that was given before this change took place. I want to read your thoughts. If your thoughts are simply a reflection of what you’ve read then please say so and this conversation will end as I can’t very well carry on a conversation with a static document.

B Tippets,

You seem to be unfamiliar with the current implementation of the policy, which in my experience is for members to be sure receive all the government benefits that they qualify for.

Well I have heard of this before while discussing with LDS LEFT Yahoo Group. (Believe me they still think I am a closet Republican) I believe though government should be the last resort. Taking advantages of government assistance probably does not involve welfare assistance but job training , undemployment comp,student loans.etc. And If there be any assistance it should be temporary. Can you quote Bishop manual on this or give reference of what is offical Church policy?. The goal of the welfare program is to move members toward self reliance.

B. Tippetts,

I’ll look it up in the manual, but I can tell the practice in my current ward (suburban Utah) and in my previous ward (east coast city) is to help make sure people are getting the benefits they are entitled to under the law.