One Heart and One Mind

The ward I work with on the high council is having ward conference in a couple of weeks, and I am responsible to teach the priesthood lesson. The topic, in general, is Zion. As I have thought about this subject, it occurred to me that we often talk about Zion in vague generalities. I don’t find this very productive, so I want to get more specific. I am going to ask a few questions to get people thinking in more detail.

As described in Moses 7:18, referring to the city of Enoch, “the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there were no poor among them.” Based on this definition, I plan to ask the following questions (with other embedded questions to steer the discussion a bit):

1. What prevents us from being of one heart and one mind?

2. What could we do to become more unified in our thoughts and desires?

3. What prevents us from dwelling in righteousness?

4. What could we do to become more righteous?

5. What are some of the causes of poverty?

6. What could we do to eliminate poverty among us?

I actually had a trial run with these questions in my own ward a few weeks ago, where I assisted our ward’s high councilor with his lesson. We ran out of time and didn’t go into much depth on the final two questions, but I can imagine they might lead to some very fascinating differences of opinion.

Today, though, I want to offer a few thoughts about the first two questions.

So, what does prevent us from being of one heart and one mind?

The first response I got in my own ward was “politics.” This is true, especially in today’s volatile political climate. But why do people disagree about politics (which often means social and economic issues)? Often, I believe, it is because people have different values and beliefs as well as different perceptions of life, and life is complicated.

Some Church members have the naïve assumption that all we have to do to achieve unity is to accept the gospel and live by its principles. But this is simplistic thinking, and it probably explains why most of our discussions of Zion are so general and unrealistic. Let me suggest something.

Zion is a society. Well, duh, you say. But sometimes we don’t understand what that means. All societies are extremely complex. Even when most members of a society share common goals, they often disagree with each other about how to achieve those goals. Why is this so? Because sometimes we have competing goals. Let me use a simple example. I think we would all agree that two desirable goals in our society are freedom and relief from suffering. The problem is that when we grant too much freedom, people inevitably suffer. For example, if we grant corporations freedom to pollute, people drink polluted water and breathe polluted air, and some, even many, will get sick or die. So, when trying to negotiate the tricky terrain between these two goals, we have to draw lines somewhere. Where do we draw those lines? In our current American society, Republicans shift the line toward corporations, allowing them more freedom to pollute. Democrats tend to shift the line closer to those who might suffer from pollution. This indicates two different sets of values.

These two competing goals—freedom and relief from suffering—have many other battlefields. Gun control is one. Health care is another. Global warming can be viewed through the lens of these two goals. So can taxation and so-called entitlement programs and hate-speech. And there are other pairs of competing goals. Prosperity and equality can compete with each other. So can ownership and fairness.

So far, all of the ideas I’ve mentioned assume that unity is a good thing. Last week, Angela C. over on BCC discussed a book that has a fascinating thesis: that consensus leads to sloppy thinking and suboptimal solutions. Sometimes dissent is healthy and produces better outcomes. So, what does this say about our Zion goal of being of one heart and one mind? Would Zion be a better society if we had a few nonconformists among its citizens? I suspect it might be.

What I hope to achieve with my lesson is to portray Zion as a real society that experiences the same challenges that every society faces, not some pie-in-the-sky perfect place where everything is hunky-dory. I just don’t think that’s realistic. For instance, most Church members don’t consider the fact that Zion will have a government. What sort of government should Zion have? And if we’re serious about creating a Zion society in the twenty-first century, Zion will have a health-care system. What sort of health-care system would Zion have? Now that’s something we ought to think about. But that’s a topic for another day. I’ll let you know how the priesthood lesson goes.