[P2P-F] The CenterPlace Regional Development Strategy Part 1(April 1999)

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Alan, great beginning for a promising series!! Very informative.

I'm struggling to find a title that also makes sense for non- believers,

What about: The RDLS, Zionic Theology and the Social Economy: p2p
developments  within the Mormon Church

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:01 PM, <adavans at aol.com> wrote:

> A couple of months ago Michel asked me to share a little bit of what is in
> my 'theological space' that is of some relevance to a P2P economy.  I've
> dragged my feet a bit because this piece is sectarian and sermonizing.
> Which of course is nothing to be ashamed of because I was preaching at my
> fellow sectarians....and asking them to sectarianize a little more!  I felt
> then, as I do now, that sometimes the old ways, the old radical ways, really
> are the good ways.  This said, for those not interested in theology per se,
> the installments I am sending should be read from the perspective of
> populist social movement. I myself am nothing if not a populist.
> Historically members of the RLDS were engaged in populist social movements
> and the labor movement.  Members of the RLDS Church are among the founders
> of the CIO, United Farmers of Canada and the Cooperative Commonwealth
> Federation.
>
> Some of you will probably recognize that in this period I leaned on Bishop
> N.T. Wright as well as John Howard Yoder for a theological basis for the
> RLDS and Mormon concepts of a 'zionic society.'
>
> *The CenterPlace Regional Development Strategy:Exploring the Social and
> Economic Dimensions of Zionic Culture*
>
> Preface
> "Zion" is an oft used word among us in the RLDS and "restorationist"
> fraternities.  There are perhaps as many notions concerning Zion as there
> are saints in the various restoration-based churches, and we can generally
> divide them into several broad, though at times, overlapping categories.
> Many believe Zion to be our most central "restoration distinctive" and
> define it in terms of the Gathering, the Storehouse and the "financial" Law
> of Consecration and Stewardship.  Others see Zion as an inspirational and
> useful symbol of hope which has some type of essence while its actual
> content changes to meet the needs of a changing world.  Still others see
> Zion as a quaint 19th century Mormon notion with no significance to us
> beyond that of historical curiosity and sentimentality.
>
> I fall predominantly into the first school thought mentioned above, and
> subdominantly into the second. Yes, Zion is a potently powerful and creative
> symbol, and more than that, Zion is rooted in a historical revelatory
> mandate to the Church to build the Kingdom of God here upon this Earth.
> Consequenty, I look to renewal of our Zion-building impulse and energy.  And
> despite what many of the saints may characterize as a decades-long dry-spell
> brought on by apathy and dissension at best, or flirtation with the liberal
> protestant theologies or even outright apostasy at worst, still I see signs
> of the coming renewal of zionic endeavor both within the RLDS Church and
> within civil society at large.
>
> The RLDS Church as an institution embraces peace and justice. "Communities
> of Joy" builds on relationships to foster community in the Church.  New
> energy is going into community-based social and economic development due to
> the efforts of such people as Gary Logan (Kansas City Stake President),
> pastors such as Cathy Striley (St. Louis) and the impressive number of RLDS
> ministers associated with SCUPE. All of these provide wide avenues for
> zionic endeavor, and I believe tha both the RLDS Church and the larger
> society are ready and willing to hear again "the glad tidings of Zion."
>
> Here in North America, people are searching for meaning, connectedness, and
> a wholeness that can't be found in consumer culture, globalization, and the
> politics of conservative vs. liberal, left vs. right. A cursory survey of
> books at your local Barnes and Noble bookstore will reveal such titles as
> "The Soul of Politics", "The Politics of Meaning", and even "the politics of
> meaning, life and love" and othe such terms not normally associated with
> electoral politics.  It's not that somehow has discovered a new gimmick to
> get votes. That's been left to the cynical partisan machines tha are
> "fighting" for the "soul of America."  No, a politics of the soul, a
> politics of meaning, is about a new kind of politics, a politics that
> transcends the false choices we are presented with betwixt left and right,
> transcending even the electoral process itself.  It's a politics of civil
> society that is deeper and wider than mere electoral politics,a politics
> that dwells where people really live. It's about civil organizaiton and
> civil development as opposed to mere legislation and lobbying. It engages
> the electoral process occasionally, and on community social and economic
> development for the long-term.
>
> The CenterPlace Regional Development Strategy builds on this type of
> politics. It seeks answers to the question of what type of systems and
> structures, organizations and operations, processes and "products" are
> needed to enable participation in and fulfillment of a Zionic Culture.  It
> involves a project proposal tha climaxes in the CenterPlace Communty
> Village."  The "village" is where we bring powerful and existing models
> together, such as that of the Mondragon Cooperatives, Italian Flexible
> Manufacturing Networks, Community Land Trusts and countervailing banking
> arrangements.  The village is itself a process and a product of its
> participants.  In other words,  "we build the road as we travel."
>
> The installment this weekend will be titled "Toward a Theology of Zion."
> Just as the RLDS Church was exploring liberal protestant theologies as old
> as that of the Niebuhr brothers, a revolution was brewing in biblical
> scholarship. "Biblical Realists" found that the central doctrine of the
> Reformation, "justification by fatih", was not actually central to the
> thinking of the Apostle Paul, upon whom the Reformation relied. What they
> found was that the "thrones, principalities, and powers" are central to the
> Paul's though, because they are the most important themes of his writing:
> Jesus' role as Creator(Collosians 1:15-17), Jesus' victory on the cross
> (Collosians 2:13-15) and the purpose of the Church (Ephesians 3:9-11). By
> seeing that the "powers" doctrine is central to Paul's thought we find that
> salvation by grace through faith, justification by fatih, reconciliation and
> other terms fall into place and that the terms used in Ephesians 2 and 3,
> "church", "fellowship" and "commonwealth" take on sharper and deeper
> meanings.  It also ties, by way of Ephesians 3:9-11, the "powers" firmly to
> its Old Testament parallel, Micah 4, and thus to Zion. Zion is the doctrine
> tha the doctrine of the powers points to, and Zion is the doctrine of
> salvation, par excellence.
>
> *Part 1 Toward a Theology of Zion*
> For over 160 years the Saints have aspired to build "Zion" with varying
> levels of intensity from time to time. In additon to enabling some "zionic"
> projects, the RLDS Church has occasionally reaffirmed its commitment to
> zionic social and economic development with General Conference Resolutons
> ("GCRs") calling for research and development of zionic communities and
> defining the role of the Storehouse Treasury in the process.
>
> Many of the Saints are dissatisfied with the level of progress that has
> been made and wonder why more resources have not been made available for
> zionic community development.
>
> It could be that the reason greater momentum has not been experienced by
> Saints engaged in zionic development is due largely to a lack of knowledge
> concerning functioning models that could suggest concrete steps to take.
> Fundamental misunderstandings of the Law of Consecration and Stewardship
> have been an added impediment to progress.
>
> Lack of resources has certainly not been the real problem. What if the RLDS
> Church in North America with its 200,000 or so members were a small nation
> of its own, like Luxembourg?  How might "Statistics Zion" describe our
> country?  GDP would exceed 5 Billion dollars.  Our ZionLand economy would
> generate over 3 Billion dollars in wages this year [1999].  Net private
> capital (residences, plant and equipment) would be worth 10 Billion dollars
> or so. The value of securities held by the Saints (stocks, bonds, savings,
> CDs and so forth) would be worth 10 Billion dollars or so as well. This
> year, the Saints in ZionLand would invest over 900 Million dollars in new
> homes, new business ventures and business expansion.
>
> We've been joined in our theological concerns by others, of  course.
> President Frederick Madison Smith ("FMS") and other zionic stalwarts of his
> time explored both the vast field of social economy for models and
> theological explanation appropriate to the RLDS Church.  FMS and Bishop
> DeLapp sensed that the answer to the question of what model to adopt or
> design was to be found in the Law of Consecration and Stewardship. While
> cooperatives had features that were quite laudable and went in the right
> direction, cooperatives, they felt, didn't go far enough. Socialism, or at
> least some schools of socialist thought, was unacceptable becasue of its
> perceived danger to freedom and property rights.
>
> Nevertheless, lack of functioning models to draw from did not stop RLDS
> Church leaders from exploring their options and determining how to at least
> cross over that narrow way to Zion just as often as they could.
> Experimentation was permissable as well as encouraged. FMS led the 1925
> General Conference to adopt GCR 851, a twelve point "Program for the
> Establishment of Zion" calling for the formation fo a "bureau of research
> and service" and for a "determination of the order of economic
> development."  GCR 851 was reaffirmed in the General Conference of 1956.
>
> GCR 977, adopted April 9, 1950 is concerned with the functions of the
> Storehouse Treasury and represents Bishop DeLapp's thinking on that
> particular subject. Expenses incurred by the Storehouse Treasury were to
> include the "costs for economic and community planning" for new communities
> as well as existing communities within stake jurisdictions, and for
> "development of business, industrial and agricultural stewardships" in the
> Center Place. A related GCR 1040 created a revolving fund for the
> development fo business and industrial enterprise.
>
> It was during this period (roughly mid-twenties to early 50s) of zionic
> exhortation and Zion-related GCR proliferation that a young Zion-oriented
> intelligentsia formed.  Many of the these young educated Saints were
> compadres at the University of Chicago, our very own "Chicago school" if you
> will. Among them was Raymond Zinser.
>
> Dr. Raymond Zinser set his thoughts on the "Zionic Process" down on paper
> in the early 1960s. His thoughts would reemerge and influence the Saints
> later froma wholly unexpected angle. He focused on Zion as a process
> involving a communitarian orientation, a setting for revelation, a settin in
> which to actually demonstrate the wisdom and presence of God and His Kingdom
> here upon this Earth. Undergirding the Zionic Process is a sacramental
> conception of the universe, and the sanctification of our utilitarian,
> aestetic and interpersonal lives as individuals and communities of
> believers.
>
> Dr. Zinser was preaching the Zionic Process to the Saints (often
> accompanied by Arthur Oakman), particularly to his students at Graceland
> College during a time when the RLDS Church was tentatively exploring liberal
> protestant theologies. A key player in that theological exploration was Dr.
> Paul Jones, who at the time was a United Methodist theologian at St. Paul's
> Theological School, hired by the RLDS Church to consult on the Church
> curricula. Jones became fascinated by the RLDS heritage and tradition,
> particularly with the doctrine of Zion and in 1980 he expressed to the Joint
> Council his desire the heritage and tradition be retained in its
> more-or-less sectarian purity.
>
> Dr. Jones, (now Father Jones, he was ordained to the priesthood fo the
> Roman Catholic Church some years ago), has spoken to gatherings of Saints
> since then, encouraging us to look at the doctrine of Zion with new eyes. It
> is remarkable how closely Jone's presentations parallel both Dr.Zinser's
> "Zionic Process" and his doctoral thesis which prescribed "resectarianizing"
> the RLDS Church in order to renew its Zion-building capacity.
>
> Dr. Jones speaks of "reimaging" where Zinser talks of resectarianizing.
> Both are critical of the "demythologizing" tendencies of liberal
> protestantism. To Jones and Zinser both, Zion is mulitifaceted, it is the
> Kingdom, it is a model and there is a zionic process for bringing it about
> that is communitarian in nature. Like Zinser, Jones emphasizes the RLDS
> functional theology and ministry, as well as continued revelation. Like
> Zinser, Jones emphasizes the sacramental nature of the zionic process in
> Tillich-like terms:"The goal is a culture3 where everything is symbolic for
> the ground of being." The Storehouse function and stewardship hold
> meaningful places in Jones' outlook as they do in Zinser's.
>
> The only substantial difference between Jones' and Zinser's presentations
> has to do with "reimaging" as opposed to "resectarianizing."  Jones invites
> us to conceive of Zion not so much as a distinctive of the "one true ch
> urch" so much as a concept that is being restored to the Christian Church
> as a whole.
>
> The work of Zinser and Jones both point to the theological task to be
> done. They both tie the Church, Creation and Salvation quite tightly around
> the concept of Zion, and while I'm not going to engage in this theogical
> work with anything near the comprehensiveness that it deserves, I do want to
> try to point the direction into which the theological effort could go.
>
> Since theology is the "knowledge of God" I feel it appropriate to expand
> upon the mission of Jesus Christ ("King Jesus"). It is a truism, often heard
> or implied the Church shares in the mission of King Jesus. I'm going to
> continue in that vein.
>
> God made covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that through their seed
> all the people of the world would be blessed. God made these covenants in
> order to deal with the sin and alienation introduced into the Creation at
> the Fall. Israel was to obey God and attract the nations to Zion with her
> obedience. God promised to vindicate Israel for the suffering she would
> icurr in the process. A survey of the Old Testament will reveal that by and
> large Israel was hardly obedient. There in fact was only on Israelite that
> fulfilled all the terms of the Covenant, and that was King Jesus. His
> obedience and sacrifice has given Israel a new lease on life, especially in
> relation to King Jesus himself, through the new body politic that King Jesus
> organized upon this Earth, the Church, or "Body of Christ."
>
> King Jesus was a Jew born to a Jewish mother in a Jewish homeland which was
> unhappily associated with the Roman Empire. Many Jews sought a deliverer, a
> Messiah, to rescue them from their Roman and Herodian oppressors. An angel
> revealed to the mother of King Jesus that she, a virgin would give birth
> that expected deliverer.  She responds to the angel's message as a Jew
> expecting national liberation. Mary's joyful response is known as the
> "Magnificat" and is found in Luke 1:46-55.  Mary expects justice and
> liberation to result from her son's rule and reign. Biblical scholarship
> suggests that her response to the angel's message was what could be expected
> of one voicing a Maccabean sentiment because her response seems to be
> formulaic, in fact it is a key feature of many Christian liturgies to this
> day.
>
> So King Jesus is born and moves through infancy to young adulthood. One
> day he does an extraordinary thing, recorded in Luke 4:16-21. King Jesus has
> been prepared for his ministry for 30 years and just now returned to his
> home town of Nazareth after a Galilean tour on the heels of a personal
> 'in-your-face' confrontation with the Devil. "And He came to Nazareth, whre
> he had been brought up: and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on
> the sabbath day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him
> the book of the Prophet Esaias. And when he had opend the book he found the
> place where was written [Isaiah 61:1-2] 'the spirit of the Lord is upon me,
> because he hath anoined me to preach the gospel to the poor:he hath sent me
> to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverence to the captives, and
> recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to
> preach the acceptable year of the Lord...and he began to say to them 'this
> day is ths scripture fulfilled in your ears.'  This "acceptable year of the
> Lord" of which King Jesus spoke is knwon as the "jubilee."  The jubilee is a
> time mandated by Mosaic Law to take place from time to time in which slaves
> are freed, debts forgiven and land redistributed equitably among the
> Israelites. To contemplate such an event put yourself in the place of his
> hearers in the synagogue. King Jesus is proposing to release their slaves,
> to redistribute their landholdings, and write-off the debts owned to them as
> creditors.  It is a bold proclamation, with enough political overtones to
> attract the wrath of political, economic and religious elites. The immediate
> reaction to the King Jesus' proclamation of the Jubilee was to attempt to
> stone him and throw him down a hillside.
>
> You know the rest of the story. King Jesus goes on challenging the
> powers-the-be, Pharisees, Caiaphas, Herod, the Romans, you name it. The
> climax of this challenge was the very crucifixion of King Jesus, a
> crucifixion that the Apostle Paul tells us is in fact King Jesus' victory
> over the very powers that crucified him (Collosians 2).
>
> Pay attention to Paul's talk concerning "thrones, principalities and
> powers."  The thrones, principalities and powers are central to Paul's
> worldview and he weaves the mission of King Jesus and the Church around it.
> The powers, Paul tells us, were created by  King Jesus (Collosians 1:15-17)
> and that they "systematize" through King Jesus.  Thus they are a part of the
> good creation. In other passages we find those powers to oppressing us. In
> Collosians 2, as mentioned above, King Jesus defeats the powers, the social,
> economic and political interests that cruficied him, and so we find that
> while the powers are a good creation, they are now fallen.
>
> Ephesians 3:9-11 introduces the powers to us again, this time in the
> context of the purpose of the Church, which Paul says is to demonstrate the
> wisdom of God on the basis of the Church's fellowship.
>
> Thus we find that the purpose of the Church associated with the redemption
> of the powers. Paul, ever a good Jew commenting upon Judaism as a messianic
> Jew and therefore offering a critique of Judaism from within, i shere saying
> something that ties it to its parallel passage, Micah 4, where the nations
> flow to Zion to learn of her ways, to learn war no more. Presumably because
> Zion and the Church are modeling redemtive power, and a war, poverty and
> racism ridden world can't help turning to those who have overcome these
> social, political and economic perversions.
>
> So the powers talk ties us to Micah's Zion after all, and it joins three
> key themes of Paul's writings, that is, the Creation, the victory of King
> Jesus on the Cross, and the purpose of the Church. Paul further observes
> that the Church is Israel's "successor organization" as it were (see chapte
> 2 of Ephesians). His teaching shows us that the powers are good, they are
> fallen and they can be redeemed, and that redemption comes through the
> demonstration by the Church.
>
> The powers theme also helps us place some sharper definitions on many of
> Paul's terms. First of all, the terms "Church", "Fellowship" and
> "Commonwealth" are drawn from the vocabulary of Greek politics, especially
> idealized Greek political notions. The ideal generally centered around the
> concept of the "polis" which is often mistranslated "city-state."  The
> idealized polis was based on the participation of the "ecclesia" or mass
> assembly. The work of the mass assembly or ecclesia was carried out through
> 'fellowship' or "koinonia", and the koinonia (konoi in the plural) were
> organized to carry on ritual festivals, keep the collective memory of some
> central myth alive, and to carry out policy.  It was a poitics not of
> empire, but of face to face participation, the politics of the assembly, not
> the "consul" or "senate", the politics of citi-zenship and common-wealth
> rather than that of "constituency", the politics of fellowship rather than
> bureaucracy, the politics of covenant rather than the politics of mere
> tribalism.
>
> Knowing this, we can now consider the actual content of the words Paul
> consistently uses to talk of the salvation process that the Church is
> centrally involved with. A formula emerges, where
> justification=saved=reconciled=making peace=breaking down the wall of
> partition--that is, setting relationships right, setting them in order,
> orienting them, "justifying" them. Not just our relationship with God, but
> with one another, for it is predominantly through the Church that we
> participate in communion with the Trinity, and only incidentally as
> individuals.
>
>
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