On the afternoon of Saturday, April 14, 1973, I attended a stake leadership conference for the New Brunswick Stake of New Jersey. I was in attendance in my capacity as a clerk for the Princeton ward. My wife, Karen, and I had both graduated from BYU the year before. We had moved to Princeton where I was employed at the Ingersoll Rand Research Center.

After the leadership meeting, there was a general session for the adults of the stake. President Harold B. Lee was going to be the speaker at that session and the Sunday session. The church had built a brand-new Stake center. President Lee was attending because he was going to dedicate the new building.

The drive from our apartment to this new stake center was over 30 minutes. Karen was pregnant at the time. As she was not feeling well, we decided that she would stay home. I would stay for the Saturday night session on my own instead of coming back to pick her up.

The leadership meeting went over its scheduled time. When the session finally ended, all but 5 of us left the building to go and pick up their wives for the evening session. Of the 5 who were left, I was the oldest at 26. The others were younger students at the local universities. After about 10 minutes of us 5 sitting and talking to each other, President Lee came in with an assistant. He remarked that we were the only people present, and we explained to him that everyone had left to pick up their wives.

President Lee first took off his overcoat, and then his suit coat. He sat down with us in the chapel. To our surprise, he started complaining about how he was very frustrated because he could not get the support he needed from church employees, stake presidents, and the 12 to make changes to operations in the church that he thought were necessary. He gave us several examples but the one that stuck in my mind was that he had decided that the church should not be in the education business.

He had approached the state of Idaho and had gained their approval for taking over Ricks College in Rexburg. However, word had leaked about his plans. He had then received 10,000 letters of protest from church leaders and members opposing his decision. He had further found that even the Twelve Apostles would not support him.

The president also told us that he planned to get Ricks College to be a State of Idaho college and then BYU a State of Utah school. This would follow the previous pattern of turning schools over to local governments. The church would no longer be involved in education just like they were no longer in the business of running hospitals.

The five of us were of course stunned at his openness with us. We just sat there without saying anything and let him vent. He went on for about 20 minutes until others started to flow into the assembly hall. In closing, President Lee challenged the five of us to study church history and the revelations of Joseph Smith. He asked us to use this to try and figure out how the church should be organized because what he was up against wasn’t working. With that, he left us and went and sat on the stand and put his suitcoat back on. Within 10 minutes the assembly hall was full again and the session started with President Lee presiding.

After that momentous meeting with President Lee, I learned that in the previous week, at the General Conference, he had expressed some frustration about resistance within the system. He had called on the members to support the church leaders. As a young man, it seemed impossible to me that the President and Prophet of the church would have any issues getting things done as he desired.

The next year I began an evening MBA program sponsored by my company. I spent 4 years going to night school learning the principles of organizational behavior. I learned that resistance to change is proportional to the size and complexity of the organization. My newly acquired knowledge enabled me to understand that even though he was President and Prophet, President Lee would still have to convince a bureaucracy with entrenched procedures and systems. This would be hard for any leader to change.

The role organizational complexity plays in inhibiting change is well documented by authors such as Edgar Schlein. Other sources that detail the phenomenon of organizational change and how organizations can cope with it are listed below:

• Kurt Lewin — developed the “Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze” model of change management, foundational in understanding resistance to organizational change.
• John P. Kotter — Leading Change outlines an eight-step process for successful organizational transformation, addressing resistance as a key challenge.
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter — The Change Masters explores the dynamics of change in organizations, including factors that contribute to resistance.
• Richard Beckhard and Reuben T. Harris — Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change provides insights into overcoming resistance.
• Peter Senge — The Fifth Discipline discusses systems thinking and the learning organization, emphasizing how understanding underlying structures can help address resistance.
• Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch — Organization and Environment explores how differentiation and integration affect change processes.
• Jeffrey Pfeffer — research addresses power dynamics in organizations and how they create resistance to change.

Unfortunately, President Lee passed away later that year. None of the objectives that he had told to 5 startled young men were ever put into practice by the church. In fact, both Ricks College and BYU grew. Today, church leaders face a much bigger issue: very few of the church members can attend these very expensive and exclusive schools, except for a few lucky ones who are highly subsidized by everyone else creating an unintended “elite”.

I accepted President Lee’s challenge. I began right away to study church history and all the revelations of Joseph Smith including the “Plat of Zion” and the “House of the Lord” revelations that were never canonized. The rest of this paper is a result of over 50 years of diligent continuous study. This of course is my interpretation of the revelations, and I expect that most readers will not agree with my conclusions, at least not at first. After all, it has taken me over 50 years to come to these conclusions; I do not expect that there will be any mad rush for anyone, especially leaders of the church, to understand, especially on their first reading.

I have made several mistakes along my path of learning, studying, and acting on the concepts that I have learned from this study. For instance, through the NewVistas Foundation, I was unable to preserve 1,000 acres of land in Vermont around the birthplace of Joseph Smith for a way in the future community patterned after the “Plat of Zion”.

The local and then the Vermont State legislature passed a unanimous resolution, which placed restrictions on the land that I had purchased. The restrictions prevented any community from ever being built on the site even if it was, as I had promised in writing, to be land preservation for a community that would be more than 100 years in the future.

The LDS church also came out publicly against the NewVistas concept and the foundation’s Vermont land purchases, without ever reviewing the concept or contacting me to discuss it. They viewed it as a public relations issue that from their point of view was an embarrassment to the church. This was despite my numerous assurances to anyone who asked and statements on all my websites and literature that this was a personal project that I alone was responsible for and that I had never consulted with nor been involved in any church-related organization.

My experiences over the past 50 years have convinced me that the Zion contemplated in the revelations of Joseph Smith cannot and will not be established by the LDS church. The LDS church has become very temple-centric. In due course, I expect that it will exit education and all other non-essential secular programs to focus on the ordinances offered in their temples which oddly enough are designed “after the manner of the world” instead of as prescribed by vision. D&C 95:13 states “Let the house be built, not after the manner of the world. Therefore, let it be built after the manner which I shall show unto three of you, whom ye shall appoint and ordain unto this power.”

The focus on Temple ordinances will open the possibility for “Zion” to be set up by others. Financially and legally independent communities will be initiated by a few LDS members on their own initiative in combination with 100 times more participants from other faiths, and many who do not believe in God but are excited about the concept of having all things in common and no poor among them so that all who participate will be of one heart and mind concerning the key principles that create a Zion community.

These communities will be compatible with the LDS church’s focus on temple ordinances by providing compatible facilities at much lower cost through part-time, as-needed rent instead of very expensive exclusive ownership of expensive temples.

This very low-cost approach for providing part-time facilities that are needed for the LDS temple ordinances would enable the church to redefine key concepts. For instance, since the church would not need much funding, it would be able to redefine tithing as (10%) of “interest” (which in 1838 was 6% of net worth) as D&C 119 (1–5) commands instead of sticking with what tithing evolved to be on a person’s “income”. This current definition of tithing is one of the biggest reasons why converts leave the church shortly after joining because it is impossible for most members, especially the poor, to remain faithful members because of the very heavy regressive financial burden of tithing on income.

The driving force uniting those who will participate in this future Zion, which we have renamed NewVistas, will be social and economic forces that will require solutions that don’t exist anywhere within any existing government or political theories. The revelations of Joseph Smith prescribe a unique approach to economic and social organization that the world desperately needs.

My analysis of D&C 42, 57, 94, and 95 is conducted within the context of the Plat of the City of Zion, and the Plan of the House of the Lord. As I will discuss in this presentation, these two revelations had the potential to seminally influence, at the very least, the development of LDS theology.

The following analysis of D&C 42 comprises a line-by-line analysis of the original revelation, how it was altered, why it was altered, and the repercussions of these changes. Only then can we fully appreciate the momentous nature of this revelation.

It is possible for honest honorable people to create a society that has: “all things are common” and “no poor among them.”

The verses 31–34 in the original revelation read as follows:

A side-by-side comparison of the original “LAW” in comparison to the current LDS D&C version is shown below. Joseph changed the original in consequence of law suits by members who wanted out of the communalism he was practicing as a result of influence by Sydney Rigdon in favor of re-distribution vs. what the revelation actually specified.

From Productive Consecration to Redistribution/Communalism

D&C 42, revealed on February 9, 1831, and often referred to as the “Law,” represents the foundational revelation for the economic system for the City of Zion. Joseph had received the revelations about Enoch and his City of Zion. As a result, he was anxious to establish one himself as he viewed himself as a similitude of Enoch and even adopted “Enoch” as his new name. This revelation was promised in January of 1831 in Section 38:32: “Wherefore, for this cause I gave unto you the commandment that ye should go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be endowed with power from on high.”

Sidney Rigdon first met Joseph Smith in December 1830. He traveled to New York with Edward Partridge to meet Joseph Smith after being introduced to the Book of Mormon and the Restoration by missionaries, including Parley P. Pratt. This meeting occurred before the revelation of D&C 38. Joseph Smith was excited about his meeting with Sydney and about the fact that several hundred from Sidney’s congregation had joined the church in Kirtland. He was also excited about the communal practices of Sidney.

The reason for the Lord telling Joseph in 38:32 that he would give them the Law once he got to Kirtland was to slow Joseph down a bit and try and help him realize that the Law that the saints were to follow was different than the communalism he was learning from Sydney.

The original language of the Law prescribed a system of “consecration” — an investment with a covenant and a deed between the community bishops and the participant which “cannot be broken,” i.e., was to be honored, and was to show what had been consecrated (invested). It also provided that there would be a “stewardship” — ownership of a business, enough for the wants and needs of that steward.

This further provided the capacity for economic growth that, if implemented as revealed, could have provided the needs and wants of the growing number of community stewards while fostering prosperity for all and maintaining the scriptural goal of “all things in common” and “no poor among them”.

However, the early Saints’ misunderstanding of the original requirements, legal issues that Joseph ran into as members sued him to get their property back, and acquaintance and existing practice of communal living led to edits to the revelation, shifting its focus from an investment-driven system to a redistributive model rooted in communalism.

The original language defines that a formal detailed legal agreement (covenant) is to be entered between the participant and the bishops, ensuring that the contributor retains rights to the value of their consecrated property. The deed and agreement promised that the participant would receive from the community a return on their investment (interest or profit sharing). The interest would be received from the community capital Bank set up by the bishops with help from the elders acting as agents. There is a tithing tax of 10% of the interest paid out by the community capital bank to the participants (Investors) that is used exclusively by the Village Branch Presidencies to assist the poor in their branch so that there is “no poor among them”.

Appointment of Stewardships

This community system required the bishops (banks) with the help of other community agencies, including two “elders” to assist stewards in forming and running successful businesses that were tailored specifically to the individual’s talents and skills so that they can be successful enough to meet their needs and wants, ensuring both sufficiency and autonomy through secure and fair rental agreements between the steward and the community.

Another requirement that was not specifically mentioned but would later become an issue for Joseph was an agreed-on way for a person to exit the system without loss of their earnings and their original investment plus any interest owed. The lack of this type of agreement forced Joseph to make the edits that changed the very nature of the original concept.

Implications of the Original Model

Investment Structure: The bishops were expected to learn about (109:7), set up, and run community banks. They would receive consecrated properties from stewards as capital and provide deeds and covenants as guarantees of a deed to the participant for the value of their investment and a guaranteed return on that investment. The covenant and deed would also provide a way to exit and get back their investment plus interest if they decided to withdraw (2% maximum withdrawal per month until completely bought out by the community). This would prevent “runs” on the bank and give the community time to buy the investor out by regular payments over 2 years.

Leveraged Growth: The banks would leverage the invested assets by a factor of 10–25, by providing loans to community agencies who would then use the loans to purchase land, buildings, equipment, supplies, livestock, infrastructure, and other things needed by “stewards” to run their businesses. The agencies would then rent those assets to the “stewards” of the community.

Sufficient Stewardships: Each steward rents assets from the community agencies that are sufficient not only for their needs but also for their wants, aligning with the scriptural promise of abundance. The “stewards” are assisted by the community agencies so that they have a much higher chance of their businesses being successful.

Changes to Section 42

The version of Section 42 that we have now reflects significant edits from the original revelation of Feb. 9, 1831, that shifts the “law” from an investment-driven system to a redistributive model. The following changes were made:

Missed Opportunities

With approximately 1,200 Saints in Independence, Missouri, and an average net worth of $200 per person, the community’s total capital was $240,000. Consider what a properly implemented banking model could have achieved:

By failing to implement this system, the Saints remained financially vulnerable, culminating in the failure of the illegal Kirtland Safety Society in 1837. Agencies could have rented assets to stewards, enabling productive use while generating income for the community. The original system placed a responsibility on leaders to generate returns greater than the initial contributions, ensuring that every steward received sufficient resources to meet their needs and wants.

Plat of Zion’s Details on the Law’s Implementation

A key verse in the original D&C 42 reads, “the Bishop of my church & two of the Elders…” A striking fulfillment of this revelation is the fact that, as we have figured out the detailed responsibilities of all the 1,920 public servants, we have found that every new participant is going to invest all their net worth (over an agreed-on period) in the Capital Bank which is one of the bishops (who operates as Agency 8 in the community). In addition, every participant will be living in a branch, 10 of which make up a village. On their apartment floor, a participant will live with their captain of 10 (who is a service extension of the Human Relations Agency, or agency 1) who will assist them in social and business needs.

The captain will take the participant to the village presidency responsible for “stewardships” (responsible for business formation and referred to as one of the Elders in the plat) to assist them in getting their business up and running, assisting with advice on contractors, supplies, markets, and other important details. The village presidency of four, which served agency 2, will control the systems that the participant will use for this. Once the business plan is approved, the participant will work with another village presidency of agency #3 so that they can rent equipment, building space, fixtures, tooling, supplies, and raw materials.

Therefore, once a participant has entered the community (admitted by agency 1), they need 3 signatures and contracts: with the Capital Bank (to invest their net worth), the Stewardship agency, and the Business operations agency. All 96 villages have these presidencies. Therefore, each participant is assisted by different elders, but they all invest their assets with the same Capital Bank. All these processes take place online via the operating system.

The second revelation included in this analysis is codified in the Doctrine and Covenants as D&C 57. It was revealed through Joseph Smith on July 20, 1831, in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. The revelation designated Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, as a gathering place for the Saints at that time. It provided specific instructions for establishing “a” city of Zion including directives for purchasing land and constructing key public buildings. Independence was a center place and a beginning, just as Kirtland and other centers (D&C 88) were called in later revelations.

Below is the full text of D&C 57, with commentary to elucidate its directives and significance.

Another important revelation in the context of the establishment of Zion is D&C 94, revealed on May 6, 1833. The revelation outlines specific instructions for the early Latter-day Saints regarding the establishment of sacred buildings and the organizational and physical structure of the city of Zion in the land of Kirtland. Since another “beginning” had been designated as Independence, Kirtland was yet another beginning of the city of Zion. Considering that the Plat had already been revealed, D&C 94 can be viewed as attempting to get the saints to “operationalize” parts of the pattern. Below is the full text of Section 94, accompanied by commentary.

The 2 identical courts in each of building #5 and building #17 can hold exactly 480 public servants, as detailed below:

Public servants serve each of the 4 demographic groups of the community: (A) Partnered male — Building #5 lower court; (B) Partnered female — Building #5 higher court; (C) Single females — Building #17 lower court; (D) Single males — Building #17 higher court.

The early saints were in a hurry to get going, and in this haste, did not understand that the 55 × 65 feet inner court was just that — an inner court. They put the East and West pulpits, together with the chairs, into this inner court. However, the pulpits and the seats on the West and the East were meant to be on their own 16.5 feet East and West courts. A 16.5-foot outer court was needed all the way around to provide room for hallways, bath/changerooms, elevators, and stairs.

Because of these errors/modifications, the Kirtland temple ended up much smaller than the 88′ × 132′ specified by the Plat. The church has never figured out the reason for a lower and higher court since they never built the 2nd building that was commanded in D&C 94 and 95. They did not see with their own eyes 4 identical courts which needed to be filled with public servants.

A month after D&C 94 was revealed, D&C 95 was given. The revelation admonished the saints for delaying the construction of the temple as revealed in 1832 (D&C 84). The revelation also included important details on the development of the City of Zion, in addition to further details on specific building dimensions.

The Plat has (3) 15-acre blocks in the Middle of the community. The block furthest North is for the bishops and their storehouses. The middle block is for the (1–12) Melchizedek presidencies of 4 and the south block is for the 12 Aaronic Presidencies of 4 (13–24). On the back of the plat document are the names of the rows of the “houses of the Lord.” For instance, the names of buildings 1–3 are: “The house of the Lord for the Elders in Zion an ensign to the nations.”

The 24 seats on the stands in each of the 4 courts mirror this same pattern and are where the Presidents who serve in these 24 community agencies sit. Since there are 4 courts where the 3 presidents of the demographic presidencies sit next to each other, the 4 who occupy the same seat from each court form the operations presidencies of 4 who have their 4 offices together in the building # of their agency on the 1st floor on the East side of the building. All 1,920 public servant “Presidents” have a specific seat in a specific court and a specific office in a specific building.