As a very active member of the LDS (Mormon) faith (former Missionary, active weekly attender, holder of a volunteer calling, etc), as a person who lives in Utah, and as someone with business and investment experience, I'll give a few thoughts. You can take them for what they are worth knowing my background.
First of all, in my area, people who talk like Mr. Hall generally scare the daylights out of us. I work with some rather wealthy Mormon investors (Peterson's, Sorenson's, Marriott's, Romney's) in a technical capacity and I have never run into Mr. Hall. But I have met plenty of people who believe they are resurrecting some idea from Joseph Smith. They generally use these sorts of ideological fallacies to attempt to extract investment money from well meaning but less than experienced middle class Mormon "investors" (read: retirees with 401k's and pensions). It's sad but in Utah one of the best places to find a crook or a fraud is in your church congregation.
Second, there was a time early in church history when Mormon's had a really hard time finding a safe place to live. There are a few reasons for this (in the world according to me, again take it with a grain of salt). In the early days of the church, Mormon's would ALL move together. Look at Nauvoo, IL, as a good example. It started out as a single road village that was in essentially the swamp lands along the Mississippi River and in no time grew to tens of thousands of people who all thought very similar to one another, and more importantly controlled politics together. That had to be scary for the residents of villages, counties, and states that we would move into. So people fought back against the Mormons. Of course there were also some horrible massacres against Mormons [1] [2]. Nevertheless, moving together, planning communities, and sustaining ourselves was a big deal at the time.
Now, things have changed. The church actively teaches that you are to build up the church community where you are. You are to participate in local and national politics according to your own conscious and education. We should not all gather in one spot but help in our communities bother civicly and religiously. I have not heard a Church leader in public or private in my lifetime even hint at the idea of moving together to a planned community or "Utopia".
One final note. Mormon's (myself included) are generally very conservative. There is no doubt about that. With that, one of the things that really stuck out in the article was this idea that anyone moving to this community would give up all they had for the greater good in some communist style ownership and profit sharing scheme. That is nearly laughable. Many of the more wealthy church members I know are generous and knowledgable philanthropists but they are not going to suddenly wake up and say "A ha! A scroll from Joseph Smith which says we should make planned communities and turn over all of our wealth to said community!" [3] Mormon's are conservative and often unapologetic capitalists.
This is either someones delusion or someones horrible scam.
[3] Yes there is some historical precedence for a communistic Mormon idea called the United Order, aka the United Order of Enoch, which is honestly where some of Mr. Hall's ideas came from. There are some within the Church who believes we will at some point live in this way. The idea is well outside of the scope of my comment here and suffice it to say, the United Order cannot be overseen by some random guy who read a document in a library.
>It's sad but in Utah one of the best places to find a crook or a fraud is in your church congregation.
That's true of many scams - and it applies everywhere, not just Utah. I've seen it happen.
It's easier to get people to believe in unproven lies when they are perfectly willing to believe in other unprovable things (basically the definition of faith). And no, that doesn't apply to all people of faith, but I would be willing to bet it's higher than more rational people.
> one of the things that really stuck out in the article was this idea that anyone moving to this community would give up all they had for the greater good in some communist style ownership and profit sharing scheme. That is nearly laughable.
I know you added a footnote to this but how is it laughable? That is exactly what the law of consecration was/is. It has never been denounced that I know of. It was postponed due to the saints inability to follow it. Afaik, mormons still believe that the law of consecration is a divine construct and will be brought back once the saints are faithful enough to obey.
> We should not all gather in one spot but help in our communities bother civicly and religiously. I have not heard a Church leader in public or private in my lifetime even hint at the idea of moving together to a planned community or "Utopia".
Really? I was always taught that in the last days all of the saints will be called to gather in Zion (Missouri). That sounds pretty similar. In fact I used to know people in the mormon church that had 50 gallon barrels of gas stashed away for when armageddon hits and they need to b-line it for Zion.
I know that what this guy is doing doesn't fit into the Mormon structure/hierarchy because it isn't coming from the top but it isn't that these ideas are coming from left field.
If you want I can provide sources for this stuff but anyone raised in the church has heard these ideas since day one and I know that you have too.
> I know you added a footnote to this but how is it laughable?
That's a good question and you are right. I also happen to believe in the Law of Consecration (aka The United Order of Enoch). However, the fact that Mr. Hall would suggest it is the laughable part.
It is exactly for the reason you stated "I know that what this guy is doing doesn't fit into the Mormon structure/hierarchy". Exactly. People can decide whatever they would like about my faith and my deeply held beliefs, as well as those of my religion. But my faith and beliefs go far deeper than "Someday we will live the Law of Consecration". My personal faith says that the structure and hierarchy of our religion is built and managed by God himself and that he will direct the work involved with the Law of Consecration in his own time and own ways and that I will know when that time is right because of my faith and closeness to Him. A random church member cannot bring about the Law of Consecration.
> Really? I was always taught that in the last days all of the saints will be called to gather in Zion (Missouri).
This is an interesting one. I wouldn't say I was "taught" this as much as I was told this from time to time by people who were, again, rather laughable. This is such a common LDS church myth that the church itself put out an explanation with some great references [1]. There are plenty of crazy people in the world, Mormon and non-Mormon. I have a neighbor who believes a 2 year supply (another suggestion the church gives) actually means a 2 year supply of ammunition for his firearms because he believes this will be "the only currency after the great destruction". I personally keep a two year supply more in line with what is suggested by Dave Ramsey. To each their own, I guess.
Now, just to curb some of the comments that I might receive from this. These are my beliefs and this is my faith which I have gained over a large swath of my life. I did not gain it randomly and I understand others might not believe what I do and may think I am crazy/delusional/"a sheeple" or whatnot. I understand you might not agree. I am fine with that, my faith doesn't require you to.
Thanks for suggesting this, that part was not clear to me at all.
That said, if you have to sign your entire net worth over to the collective for the time that you are in, maybe it's still "your capital" on the year-to-year timescale, but it's socialism on the day-to-day scale.
And I would also suggest that there is still room for coercion even if you are allowed to liquidate your holding. I was heartened to see that the option to leave is a feature. But that's a value that they would have to hold throughout every design decision for the community and the contract. It's one thing to say "people should be able to leave", it's another to repeatedly sacrifice other design goals to make it easy to do so. Where there is friction, it can add up to coercion.
First of all, in my area, people who talk like Mr. Hall generally scare the daylights out of us. I work with some rather wealthy Mormon investors (Peterson's, Sorenson's, Marriott's, Romney's) in a technical capacity and I have never run into Mr. Hall. But I have met plenty of people who believe they are resurrecting some idea from Joseph Smith. They generally use these sorts of ideological fallacies to attempt to extract investment money from well meaning but less than experienced middle class Mormon "investors" (read: retirees with 401k's and pensions). It's sad but in Utah one of the best places to find a crook or a fraud is in your church congregation.
Second, there was a time early in church history when Mormon's had a really hard time finding a safe place to live. There are a few reasons for this (in the world according to me, again take it with a grain of salt). In the early days of the church, Mormon's would ALL move together. Look at Nauvoo, IL, as a good example. It started out as a single road village that was in essentially the swamp lands along the Mississippi River and in no time grew to tens of thousands of people who all thought very similar to one another, and more importantly controlled politics together. That had to be scary for the residents of villages, counties, and states that we would move into. So people fought back against the Mormons. Of course there were also some horrible massacres against Mormons [1] [2]. Nevertheless, moving together, planning communities, and sustaining ourselves was a big deal at the time.
Now, things have changed. The church actively teaches that you are to build up the church community where you are. You are to participate in local and national politics according to your own conscious and education. We should not all gather in one spot but help in our communities bother civicly and religiously. I have not heard a Church leader in public or private in my lifetime even hint at the idea of moving together to a planned community or "Utopia".
One final note. Mormon's (myself included) are generally very conservative. There is no doubt about that. With that, one of the things that really stuck out in the article was this idea that anyone moving to this community would give up all they had for the greater good in some communist style ownership and profit sharing scheme. That is nearly laughable. Many of the more wealthy church members I know are generous and knowledgable philanthropists but they are not going to suddenly wake up and say "A ha! A scroll from Joseph Smith which says we should make planned communities and turn over all of our wealth to said community!" [3] Mormon's are conservative and often unapologetic capitalists.
This is either someones delusion or someones horrible scam.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haun%27s_Mill_massacre
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Executive_Order_44
[3] Yes there is some historical precedence for a communistic Mormon idea called the United Order, aka the United Order of Enoch, which is honestly where some of Mr. Hall's ideas came from. There are some within the Church who believes we will at some point live in this way. The idea is well outside of the scope of my comment here and suffice it to say, the United Order cannot be overseen by some random guy who read a document in a library.