Zion: "Communal" or Zion Community Continued

[_Droopy]

It seems clear to me what King Benjamin said is that if a beggar asks we give. We do not judge.

Yes. If the beggar asks us, then we give and do not judge. Claims of "the poor" upon a society or community as a whole, however, through either Church or secular systems of welfare provision, may be quite another matter, which is, indeed, what we appear to see in the numerous scriptural caveats to the provision of such services. Provision of such services is not, according to everything I've read or seen as far as GA teaching and official counsel to ecclesiastical leaders on the subject, absolutely unconditional.

If you say "you are a lazy idler and I won't give" you are under condemnation at least according to King Benjamin.

Yes, I would be, if I, as an individual, turned away individual beggars on principle and refused their solicitations. The Church, however, is in control of and responsible for the provision of welfare that involves large quantities of the wealth of others. There is also the question of using fast offerings for the maintenance of dysfunctional, destructive lifestyles and social pathology at the expense of others who wish to help the poor and needy. Under normal circumstances, while I, at any given moment, can have no direct knowledge of the moral, psychological, material, or spiritual condition of an individual "beggar," a Bishop does. No provisions are ever made without a thorough understanding of the recipient, his circumstances, and his background.

To wiggle out of it you need to plead to a whole lot of other passages that have nothing to do with what Benjamin said and then twist and apply it to make it mean something it doesn't.

1. Why is it that the passages I quoted are not relevant to a claim on economic resources in Zion?

You must still deal with D&C 88:38-39, which attaches bounds, conditions, and governing specifications to all kingdoms and to all laws including, necessarily, the gospel laws governing the concept and practice of charity, like those governing all other gospel principles and ordinances, must also come within the orbit of these higher, ordering and delimiting laws.

Grace is another great example. Many Mormons leaders have ruined the pure teachings of Christ's grace as it relates to salvation by adding on layers of stuff that just ain't there.

Which means, in essence that, as I'm speaking with one who has, for all intents, apostatized from the Church, the doctrinal arguments I"m making regarding the Church's doctrinal teachings on charity and welfare and the gospel laws and rules governing its provision in different senses, is pretty much moot, as far as you are concerned. You will not accept claims and statements from the modern GAs, but you will attempt to base your own argument on texts from the Book of Mormon, the "keystone" text of the very Church you have left, the very same text that establishes the principle of modern revelation, or the "rock" upon which the Church is built.

Loran:

Further, your criticism here would seem to be self negating, as the same prophet from whom came the Book of Mormon, and King Benjamin's words, is the same prophet from whom came the following:

“the idler shall not have place in the church, except he repent and mend his ways.” (D&C 75:29.)

Uh I thought Joseph Smith just translated what someone else said. If such is the case your argument makes no sense.

King Benjamin's teachings of charity and the "bounds and conditions" set in the D&C and by Elder Packer to the claims upon the substance of others of a certain sub-group of the poor, based upon individual personal, moral and spiritual characteristics, are all the revealed word of God through the same Spirit. All truth is one, and hence your playing of different apostles and prophets from different ages and cultures off against one another is an intellectual dead end, as you are dealing with eternal principles.

The caveats regarding idlers modify and provide some of the "bounds and conditions" to the general principles Benjamin and other prophets have stated.

And according to the apologists they also mix lots of their own ideas and opinions in. So was Packer's talks and Romney's talk on par with Book of Mormon canon?

I would have to say yes, as it is in harmony and consistent with literally everything taught by the General Authorities regarding welfare, as a body, since the inception of the welfare program in the 1930s.

Of course, there is one way to find out with certainty.

All I know is Benjamin said give freely and don't judge or withhold because you think they deserve the situation they are in. Seem pretty straight forward to me.

In my or your personal cases, that is true. In the cases Elder Packer is speaking of, you will notice, A Bishop, Branch President, or Stake President will have actual knowledge of the spiritual condition they are in, and make different determinations, based upon gospel principles, according to their motives, behavior, and integrity as petitioners for the property of others.

Loran:
Further, the context of the King Benjamin material would appear to be an appeal to individuals in their personal relations with "the beggar" and people in need, not a general rule for the church as an organization managing large scale welfare services across an entire population.

So you and I need to be more kind and charitable with our limited means than the Church does? That does not seem right to me.

"The Church" doesn't provide welfare. Individual Bishops who are responsible in seeing that such limited resources are used wisely and to their best effect do. There is personal responsibility and accountability involved with charity, just as with all other forms of human conduct. I can do whatever I please with my resources. I can empty my bank account and walk around town handing the money out to poor people. I can go broke and impoverish myself and my wife. I can lose my house and land.

A Bishop is not authorized to do that, because he feels "kind," with the resources of others, however. He cannot give money and food to people selling drugs in a crack house just because they are "poor.'

Look, I understand the idler issue and I think the goal should be to help the idler not be such. But when I controlled the FO funds I never denied anyone food or shelter. Then we worked on the other issues.

We can help the idler do that, if the idler will accept such help. This doesn't change the fact that, for the scriptures, the idler has no place in Zion and no entitlement claim on the substance of others.

[_Droopy]

Elder Packer Continues:

When the Church welfare program was first announced in 1936, the First Presidency made this statement:

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

President Romney has emphasized, “to care for people on any other basis is to do them more harm than good. The purpose of Church welfare is not to relieve a Church member from taking care of himself.” (Welfare Services Meeting, October 5, 1974.)

A few comments and observations:

1. Distribution of community wealth does not seem to be the main emphasis here, but moving the poor into economic self sufficiency in which wealth distribution becomes unnecessary.

2. Idleness is here described as a "curse" to be "done away," and that care for the poor, "on any other basis" than those that have come to the Lord's Church through revelation to his authorized servants, can be actually destructive (and indeed, we know this to be the case given the well established history of the Great Society).

Packer's points here seem clear: idleness, when it is volitional and indicative of personal characteristics and values, is a corrupting and corrosive influence in society, and a moral/ethical question arises as to the use of fast offering funds, which involve the free will use of the resources of others, to help some who are poor because they prefer to live at the expense of others and will trade greater prosperity to do so if they gain more leisure time and can work less, or not at all.

Other ideologies claiming to "help the poor" create negative and destructive side effects, and even the opposite of the conditions they set out to alleviate.

Human motives, incentives, and values can be corrupted and debased if welfare is done in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons.

This brings us back to one of David's major claims, that being that a core purpose of the UO is to eradicate poverty through the redistribution of wealth.

A thorough perusal of the statements and counsel of the Brethren since the inception of the modern welfare program, however, provides us with no such major thesis. The basis of the UO, in its economic aspect, is to eradicate poverty through the creation, generation, and encouragement of economic self sufficiency and economic independence.

To the degree that distribution of wealth from the Bishop's storehouse is a feature of Zion, its purpose is to eradicate the residual poverty that exists in a Zion community, including both those who are intermittently out of work, and those who cannot, for reasons beyond their control, work and contribute to their own support.

[_Jason Bourne]

Which means, in essence that, as I'm speaking with one who has, for all intents, apostatized from the Church, the doctrinal arguments I"m making regarding the Church's doctrinal teachings on charity and welfare and the gospel laws and rules governing its provision in different senses, is pretty much moot, as far as you are concerned. You will not accept claims and statements from the modern GAs, but you will attempt to base your own argument on texts from the Book of Mormon, the "keystone" text of the very Church you have left, the very same text that establishes the principle of modern revelation, or the "rock" upon which the Church is built.

Why is it Loran, even when you try you cannot resist labeling someone who does not buy into your view as an apostate. I was actually thinking I might enjoy this discussion a bit with you. How wrong that was. You just cannot resist a jab even if it is subtle. You just end up leaving a bad taste in my mouth. No wonders you have been banned twice from that other board. When I posted there I never came close to being banned, not once.

I have not left the Church. There may be things in it I do not like or am not happy with. But for me it is still the best way to worship my God and His Son Jesus Christ. I have not left, I serve, I attend, I pay tithing, I give a generous fast offering, and so on and on.

Maybe I just do not accept YOUR spin on what GAs say, and spin you do. Have you been a bishop? Have you sat across the desk from someone needing desperate help? Have you struggled with whether or not to help someone? Have you been criticized for assisting an active family where the husband had brain cancer and could not work and where the wife did not want to go to work because she did not want to leave her kids? Send the wife to work I was told, or comments about how they would like to have the luxery of keeping their wives home or on and on and on. I could tell you the comments people made about other people. Have you sat across from someone who had no heat or might be kicked out of their house and you knew that they got themselves into the situation? Would you let them freeze in 10 degree or less weather even if they were an idler? Or would you get them some heating oil then go to work trying to get them to work and put themselves into a better situation once they were warm and had food in their belly. I had times I had to cut people off and I did so. It broke my heart at times though. We always tried to get people to a better place. At times it worked and at times it did not. Until you have to manage the funds that you want to pontificate about how and when and who should or should not get what your theoretical gospel of conservative free market policy is bunk. Pure bunk. So tell me, what have you done with this? If not as a bishop have you worked as part of a PEC/Ward Welfare committee working with those who need help and need to improve? Have you assisted a bishop in teaching someone job skills or how to budget, or clean up for a job interview or find training for a job? I am talking real people here with real needs. Tell me Droopy what have you done? No more theories and pontifications. Unless you have boots on the ground with this what you say means little to me. Speak up or cease the endless theoretical posturing. Maybe you have worked in this area in your church life. If so I am interested in hearing.

So, Call me an apostate if you want for believing what King Benjamin said as well as following what the man who is currently prophet has taught-If you are going to err when managing the welfare funds err on the side of generosity. Who knows, maybe I was a crappy bishop. But I'll be damned if I was ever going to let someone starve, freeze or be out on the street when they came asking for help. I could do little to help them improve when they were in that situation. And by the way, I do not think I even helped anyone who did not want to improve. But some were so deep into their problems that just moving a few steps up the ladder took a monumental effort.

[_Droopy]

Why is it Loran, even when you try you cannot resist labeling someone who does not buy into your view as an apostate.

But you've already admitted, in a recent post, that you have, in some very fundamental ways, intellectually and as to your faith in its core truth claims, left the Church. Why backpedal now?

I was actually thinking I might enjoy this discussion a bit with you. How wrong that was. You just cannot resist a jab even if it is subtle. You just end up leaving a bad taste in my mouth. No wonders you have been banned twice from that other board. When I posted there I never came close to being banned, not once.

As I say, you've already publically admitted that, in on a number of doctrinal and historical issues, you no longer support the Church in its religious truth claims.

I have not left the Church. There may be things in it I do not like or am not happy with. But for me it is still the best way to worship my God and His Son Jesus Christ. I have not left, I serve, I attend, I pay tithing, I give a generous fast offering, and so on and on.

You have not left literally, you mean?

Maybe I just do not accept YOUR spin on what GAs say, and spin you do.

Whatever Jason, but this is intended to be a philosophical and doctrinal discussion without personal rancor, huffing or puffing. My quip about your perspective on the Church is based on your own recent statements that, in a number of core areas, you know longer accept the Church's teachings. Your comment on grace above is yet another indication. If you don't like my mentioning this, I won't mention it again, but it's relevant because if you don't accept fundamental, foundational gospel concepts at the outset, then my defending one Church principle in the light of others you reject puts us in completely different worldview frames from within which we will not even agree on metaphysical basics. Beyond that, consider the matter closed.

Have you been a bishop? Have you sat across the desk from someone needing desperate help?

No, but I've been that person needing desperate help from several Bishops.

Have you struggled with whether or not to help someone?

Yes.

Have you been criticized for assisting an active family where the husband had brain cancer and could not work and where the wife did not want to go to work because she did not want to leave her kids?

I'm really not talking about personal anecdotes or the views of other LDS who may not know what there talking about or have personal rancor against the family in question for other reasons. I'm discussing here gospel principles as they relate to welfare services and the bounds and conditions of giving to the needy. I've known Church members who stick their noses into the business of others from afar without knowing what their talking about, but that's not relevant to this discussion.

Have you sat across from someone who had no heat or might be kicked out of their house and you knew that they got themselves into the situation?

Yes, me, on a number of occasions. But again, how is this relevant to the thrust of this thread. One major theme here is idlers in Zion. This does not mean people who have "gotten themselves into the situation" through poor judgment or even sin.

Would you let them freeze in 10 degree or less weather even if they were an idler? Or would you get them some heating oil then go to work trying to get them to work and put themselves into a better situation once they were warm and had food in their belly. I had times I had to cut people off and I did so. It broke my heart at times though. We always tried to get people to a better place. At times it worked and at times it did not. Until you have to manage the funds that you want to pontificate about how and when and who should or should not get what your theoretical gospel of conservative free market policy is bunk. Pure bunk.

Jason, take this Edward Kennedy moral grandstanding to the Terresstrial Kingdom, and hash it out there. I'm in here because I'm sick of getting banned and browbeating for responding in kind to this kind of irrational ranting and moral posturing.

But I'll be damned if I was ever going to let someone starve, freeze or be out on the street when they came asking for help. I could do little to help them improve when they were in that situation. And by the way, I do not think I even helped anyone who did not want to improve. But some were so deep into their problems that just moving a few steps up the ladder took a monumental effort.

Yes, yes, I've been there. Now, after all of the great swelling moral breast beating about people starving to death and freezing in the streets as rich CEOs drive by in their limousines casting pennies at the groaning wretched of the earth, I'd like to get back to the core subjects of the OP, which is the fact that the scriptures themselves and the consensus teachings of the modern prophets and apostles all place certain, if vague limitations upon the reception of Church welfare. Even if this does not reach into individual charity, it does appear strongly to apply in a Zion community and context, not only as to present conditions, but in the sense of a fully UO based society.

[_moksha]

Kevin's quotations from the Book of Mormon effectively undercut Droopy's premise, at least from a Mormon point of view, but Droopy was referring to the modern inspirations brought forth by Elder Packer, Cleon Skousen and the Society. So there.

As I've argued above, they simply represent an attempt to isolate, decontextualize and amplify a specific principle or mandate at the expense of the gospel as a system.

Excellent point. That bringing of a dog eat dog approach into Church ethics does indeed undermine the Gospel as a system or way of life. Let atheists like Ayn Rand have their celebration of greed, but let those following the Gospel continue in their good works.

[_Buffalo]

But you've already admitted, in a recent post, that you have, in some very fundamental ways, intellectually and as to your faith in its core truth claims, left the Church. Why backpedal now?

In a fundamental way, you've left the church, because you reject every single scripture that deals with economic issues.

[_Jason Bourne]

But you've already admitted, in a recent post, that you have, in some very fundamental ways, intellectually and as to your faith in its core truth claims, left the Church. Why backpedal now?

It is a moving target Droopy. And yes I recall on a very bad day wondering about a number of things. And this will be my last comment on this thread since we should not make it personal in this forum. So I will just say some days I feel closer to the roots of my faith and other days I do not. And by the way the Church does teach grace and it has been obscured. I refer you to Robinson's books Believing Christ and Following Christ as well as Millet's Grace Works! If you want to debate the role of grace and works from and LDS standpoint at some point let me know.

Never the less, whether one believes entirely the claims of the LDS Church or Christianity one can still have an understanding of what the canon says about one thing or another and debate it and discuss it. So why you need to continually bring up my horrific apostasy really seems irrelevant to whether or not we can discuss this. One can still debate and discuss the issues. I have done so with the passages from Mosiah. They say what they say. You have to bring a lot of other stuff in to get around the what Benjamin said that really have no bearing the passages. He was talking to the Church. He did not distinguish between some corporate body or the individual as you attempt to do here. He simply said to give to the poor.



However that said I am in partial agreement at least in theory with what you say. I do not believe we should continue to give to someone who is not willing to work to improve their lot. I do not believe Benjamin or any other passage is a vote for mandatory redistribution of wealth. I believe we are told to voluntarily give up our wealth to bless those not as fortunate so hoarding personal wealth may be considered sinful. I do not know enough about the UO to opine but it seems as if it is a quasi free market with control by the church on exactly who gets what based on needs and perhaps wants to a limited extent. That seems a far cry from the free market system you are all in favor of.


Edited to add: I do not believe my illustration of real life experience is not pertinent to the discussion. This is an issue that touches real people and real lives as you are apparently aware. It is not a rant at all. I can tell you my perspective was much different before I started dealing with real people with real needs. It softened a much harder line stance that I had. Theory is nice and principles and guidelines are wonderful. But real experience can Trump it.

Last of all what about Pres Monson's comment about erring on the side of generosity?

[_Jason Bourne]

Elder Packer Continues:

When the Church welfare program was first announced in 1936, the First Presidency made this statement:

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

President Romney has emphasized, “to care for people on any other basis is to do them more harm than good. The purpose of Church welfare is not to relieve a Church member from taking care of himself.” (Welfare Services Meeting, October 5, 1974.)

A few comments and observations:

1. Distribution of community wealth does not seem to be the main emphasis here, but moving the poor into economic self sufficiency in which wealth distribution becomes unnecessary.

2. Idleness is here described as a "curse" to be "done away," and that care for the poor, "on any other basis" than those that have come to the Lord's Church through revelation to his authorized servants, can be actually destructive (and indeed, we know this to be the case given the well established history of the Great Society).

Packer's points here seem clear: idleness, when it is volitional and indicative of personal characteristics and values, is a corrupting and corrosive influence in society, and a moral/ethical question arises as to the use of fast offering funds, which involve the free will use of the resources of others, to help some who are poor because they prefer to live at the expense of others and will trade greater prosperity to do so if they gain more leisure time and can work less, or not at all.

Other ideologies claiming to "help the poor" create negative and destructive side effects, and even the opposite of the conditions they set out to alleviate.

Human motives, incentives, and values can be corrupted and debased if welfare is done in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons.

This brings us back to one of David's major claims, that being that a core purpose of the UO is to eradicate poverty through the redistribution of wealth.

A thorough perusal of the statements and counsel of the Brethren since the inception of the modern welfare program, however, provides us with no such major thesis. The basis of the UO, in its economic aspect, is to eradicate poverty through the creation, generation, and encouragement of economic self sufficiency and economic independence.

To the degree that distribution of wealth from the Bishop's storehouse is a feature of Zion, its purpose is to eradicate the residual poverty that exists in a Zion community, including both those who are intermittently out of work, and those who cannot, for reasons beyond their control, work and contribute to their own support.

Droopy,

Just for context here, don't the comments by Packer and other more recent GAs comments about the welfare system come after the UO? In other words it seems they may be speaking of something entirely different. The UO may have been a wealth distributions system where as the current welfare system is not. Or the UO may be a wealth distributions system as is the current church welfare system but limited in its outreach in that those who are lazy, idlers and refuse to take steps to improve are not to be assisted. Thus there is still wealth distribution in play but it is somewhat selective in its application.

[_Droopy]

Excellent point. That bringing of a dog eat dog approach into Church ethics does indeed undermine the Gospel as a system or way of life.

"Capitalism" is not a "dog eat dog" system. This leftist superstition may be quite effective in turning others away from a serious study of free market economics in an emotional sense, but its nothing more than the internal justifying mythology of a counter-ideology.

Let atheists like Ayn Rand have their celebration of greed, but let those following the Gospel continue in their good works.

I'm not at all sure Rand "celebrated greed." After reading several of her works, it is certainly clear that she celebrated the creative, constructive, civilization building aspects of individual liberty and property rights. However, this is probably moot, as I've not brought Objectivism into the discussion, as it is not, for a few salient reasons, my model of free market and liberty based economic and social order (Rand's critique of the Left, however, despite her own blind spots and unbalanced view of certain major points, are among the most scathing and accurate in all libertarian literature).

[_Droopy]

In a fundamental way, you've left the church, because you reject every single scripture that deals with economic issues.

Upon what do you base this assertion?