Episode 138: D&C 39 – Section 57

2 Comments on “Episode 138: D&C 39 – Section 57”

1. 
   Duke of Earl Grey Says:
   December 18, 2016 at 3:38 am

   D&C 57:3, identifying Independence Missouri as the “center place” of Zion, the New Jerusalem, and specifying the exact site of the temple to be built there, is hugely significant.

   Though Mormons love their Salt Lake Temple, which is often spoken of as “The Temple”, being the meeting place of the modern apostles, and the site of all their super holy, usually only hinted at, but no doubt legitimately real, sacred experiences, it’s the as yet unbuilt temple in Independence that will be “THE TEMPLE”. When THE LORD comes suddenly to his temple, as prophesied in Malachi, and referenced again in the Book of Mormon and D&C, this is the specific temple Mormons believe Malachi had in mind.

   So basically, the Second Coming will not happen until this New Jerusalem Temple is built. It’s like the ultimate sign of the times. If you want to light up the apocalyptic synapses in the Mormon brain, just say the phrase “Jackson County”. (Saying “Zion” doesn’t work anymore, ever since early Utah Mormons stuck the name everywhere, on their bank, on their department store, on a national park, etc. It’s kind of a mundane word these days.)

   Your most zealous Utah Mormon believes that one day, Prophet/President Whoever’s-Turn-It-Is will stand up in General Conference and announce that it’s time for all the Saints to move to Jackson County, to finally build up Zion and prepare for the Second Coming. There’s a popular idea that when the time for the return to Zion comes, the trek will be done on foot, a sort of exact reversal of the pioneers’ exodus to Utah. This thought apparently exists because most of the church leaders’ prophecies of the event were made back in the 1800s, back before, you know, horseless carriages and such. Also, I guess the idea is that if the trip back is too easy, how will you weed out the unfaithful?

   It’s hard to say what the current LDS leadership’s expectations are for the building up of Zion. I think their spiritual concern is to make every member of the church a super obedient robot, thus fulfilling the necessity that the people of Zion be of “one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18). As far as temporal matters are concerned, I think the game plan is to just keep accumulating money and real estate until Jesus tells them they have a sufficient Kingdom of God for him to work with when he gets here.

   All in all, I think it’s convenient for the LDS church that the Mormons were kicked out of Jackson County within just two years of the D&C 57 revelation, and would not ever build this temple. It gives a fire to the Mormon imagination that still hasn’t been quenched, something to keep working towards, because if Zion had been merely the Utah we have today, instead of some exotic future Missouri we can’t behold with our natural eyes for the present time, how disappointed would everyone be?

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   • 
     Gottfried TheHirsute Says:
     January 22, 2017 at 4:51 am

     I’ll be the “second witness” to Duke’s comment. When I was growing up in the Church in the 70s, we fully expected that we could be walking to Missouri (my family lived in Wyoming at the time) at a moment’s notice. When I was in high school, I taught a Sunday School lesson to my fellow classmates on “the Signs of the Times” using the section on that topic in Bruce R. McConkie’s “Mormon Doctrine” as my text. It listed 51 ‘signs’ that needed to “come to pass” [DRINK] before the Second Coming could happen, the building of the temple in New Jerusalem being the last (or next to last. I can’t quite remember, and I don’t have that book handy). I determined that 46, or possibly 47, of the signs HAD ALREADY OCCURRED, so you all better take this church stuff seriously and get ready to walk, ’cause it’s coming any day now!

     35 years later, and the count hasn’t changed. Hmmmmmmm…

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