Establishing Zion
Chapter 6 — The Role of the Church in Zion
What is the Church's role in a Zion society? The answer has evolved significantly over the course of Latter-day Saint history, and reading that evolution carefully reveals not a retreat from Zion but a maturation toward it.
In Nauvoo, the Church functioned as something close to a civil government. The Nauvoo High Council passed ferry resolutions, set lot prices, contracted a schoolhouse, and supervised poor relief. The boundary between ecclesiastical and civil authority was blurred by necessity and circumstance. That arrangement could not and did not last — and the Lord did not intend it to. The arc of Church history since Nauvoo has been a deliberate focusing: the Church doing what only the Church can do, and leaving to families and individuals what they must learn to do for themselves.
Joseph F. Smith framed the governing law of the Church with precision: it is the law of love. Not administrative efficiency, not institutional management, not program delivery — love. A community governed by love from within is fundamentally different from one managed by institutional authority from without. The former produces covenant people who choose Zion. The latter produces compliant members who wait for direction. The difference matters enormously for whether Zion can be built and sustained.
The 2020 General Handbook represents the clearest modern articulation of this maturing vision. It places the work of salvation and exaltation — including caring for the poor and needy — squarely in the home, with the Church providing spiritual resources rather than leading the work. This is a significant shift in emphasis. The Church is not the primary actor; the family is. The Church's role is to strengthen and resource covenant families so they can do what Zion actually requires of them.
President Nelson's repeated calls to cherish covenants above all other commitments point in the same direction. Covenant people do not need to be managed. They have internalized the law of love and act from it freely. The progression from Nauvoo's blended ecclesiastical-civil authority to today's family-centered, home-led model is the progression toward the configuration Zion actually requires — transformed people, living from covenant, building Zion from the inside out rather than waiting for institutional direction from without.
The historical detail of the Nauvoo High Council functioning as civil government is worth dwelling on. It is a reminder that the Saints have always had to work out, in real conditions and under real constraints, how to organize their common life. The solutions appropriate to Nauvoo in the 1840s are not the solutions appropriate today. What is constant is the underlying principle: institutions must serve people, and the people must become capable of governing themselves by the law of love.
The arc of the Church's role — from de facto civil government in Nauvoo to spiritual resource provider today — is read as maturation rather than retreat. Do you agree? What does it mean for the Church to have moved into the configuration Zion actually requires?
Joseph F. Smith framed the law governing the Church as the law of love. How does a community governed by love from within differ from one managed by institutional authority from without? What would it take to become the former?
The 2020 General Handbook places the work of salvation and exaltation squarely in the home, with the Church providing resources. What would it look like for your family to lead rather than follow in this work?
President Nelson's call to cherish covenants above all other commitments is read as a direct summons to the consecration Zion requires. What specific commitments in your own life compete with covenant priorities — and what would it mean to reorder them?