Establishing Zion
Chapter 3 — Latter-day Efforts
The Latter-day Saint attempts to establish Zion form the most extensively documented historical record of any people trying to live celestial economic principles in modern conditions. The failures are instructive. So are the partial successes.
The Missouri experience is the foundational case. The Saints were commanded to establish Zion, gathered to do it, and failed — not primarily because of persecution, though persecution came, but because, as D&C 105 makes unmistakably clear, the whole body of the Church was held accountable. Not just the Saints in Missouri, but the congregations elsewhere who withheld their means and their commitment. The Lord's indictment was collective. The lesson is that Zion is not established by the righteousness of a vanguard while the broader community watches from a safe distance.
What followed in Utah was not the formal law of consecration but something in many ways more revealing: a sustained experiment in cooperative economic organization. Brigham Young's cooperative movement — ZCMI, the irrigation companies, the cooperative herds — succeeded where formal deed transfer had failed. It succeeded because it was voluntary, practical, focused on shared economic purpose, and built on existing relationships of trust. Lorenzo Snow expressed his characteristic midnight anxiety about concentrating individual responsibilities onto a small number of leaders — a structural problem that would plague every subsequent attempt. And Brigham Young himself was reluctant to deed his own properties to others because he could not find competent managers. The challenge was not vision. It was implementation.
The six Barnabas figures the chapter identifies — Martin Harris, Vienna Jaques, John Tanner, Joseph Toronto, Mary Bennett, Joseph Millet — each gave everything they had at a moment of genuine need. None of them were asked to be managers or administrators. They were asked to consecrate, and they did. Their examples reveal something important: the law of consecration in its most authentic expression may look less like institutional design and more like radical personal generosity at the right moment.
John Taylor put the central challenge plainly in 1879: the greatest difficulty was not knowing what to do but knowing how to do it. Nearly 150 years later, his observation still resonates. The historical record does not provide a blueprint. It provides principles, patterns, and an honest account of what has not worked — which is itself an indispensable starting point.
The Saints blamed themselves, not their persecutors, for the failure of Zion efforts. What does this self-accountability suggest about how we should approach social and community challenges today?
Brigham Young was reluctant to deed his properties to others because he couldn't find competent managers. Lorenzo Snow expressed anxiety about concentrating responsibilities onto a small number of leaders. What does this suggest about how Zion institutions should be structured to avoid the same trap?
The cooperative movement succeeded where formal consecration through deed transfer failed. What forms of cooperation available to us today most closely reflect the principles of Zion — and what would it look like to pursue them intentionally?
Which of the six Barnabas figures — Martin Harris, Vienna Jaques, John Tanner, Joseph Toronto, Mary Bennett, Joseph Millet — do you find most compelling, and why? Do you see similar examples in your own community today?
John Taylor acknowledged the greatest challenge was not knowing what to do but knowing how to do it. Does his observation still feel accurate nearly 150 years later? What progress, if any, has been made on the "how" question since his time?