Procure For Zion: A Mormon Theology Of Hope Portrayed By Joseph M. Spencer Displayed In Manuscript

Spencer has turned out yet anotherstar work on Mormon scripture, This book is gorgeous. The writing gets a little thick and overtly philosophical in the first few chapters, but it's worth pushing through to watch Spencer lay out the law of consecration in the second half of the book.


This book, besides being informative and intellectually stimulating, was also spiritually transformative, It has me convinced that hope is the theological virtue least understood and discussed among Latterday Saints, but also the virtue that we most desperately need.


I'll be rereading this book over and over again, Simply spectacular. In this book Joseph Spencer analyzes the law of consecration through a close and detailed reading of selections from Paul's letter to the Romans and Joseph Smith's revelation now canonized as sectionof the Doctrine and Covenants.


The first few chapters especially bear the marks of Spencer's academic trainingcontemporarty French philosophy, I struggled through the early chapters to get past some of the jargon and I suspect at least a few other readers will become frustrated with what seem like arcane arguments.
I think beginners will have to read these early chapters slowly and repeatedly in order to grasp what's going on, I know I will. That said, perhaps most useful in these early sections is the way Spencer challenges longstanding individualist interpretations of Paul's teachings, Salvation is a communal endeavor in Paul's world, as in Joseph Smith's, which Spencer outlines using some of the best Pauline scholarship on offer today.


This book really picks up steam and hits its stride when Spencer turns his attention to Joseph Smith's revelations concerning the law of consecration.
Spencer closely analyzes changes Smith made to the revelations, grounding his theological readings in the messy historical circumstances that gave rise to them.
Above all, Spencer is challenging the common LDS perception that the law of consecration has somehow been put on hold, that the law of tithing is a temporary fillin, and that we are simply waiting for some future day when Mormons will again undertake to radically reform the economic behavior of Mormons themselves and then the world.


Of course, when it comes to actual concrete applications of living the law of consecration in the present, since it has never actually gone away, Spencer has much less to say.
Which means the hardest work remains to be done! Hopefully, this book will provoke more thought and discussion on these matters.

Years ago, I was lucky enough to participate in a close conversation about Mormon teachings about consecration with Joe Spencer.
I learned a great deal from those conversationsand when, much later, I found the substance of many of those conversations reflected in this book of Joe's, I was intrigued.
At first, though, I wasn't very impressedon a quick read through For Zion, I thought I saw a lot of echoes of things we'd talked about before, a few new insights, and then a lot of speculation which really didn't fit in with the topic at hand namely, consecration and the Zion economy.
A nice book, was my judgment, but not a very good one, Fortunately, however, Joe's book was nominated for an Association of Mormon Letters award which I am one of the judges for, and so I was obliged to go back and read this book again, more closely.
And what I found really impressed meenough for me to feel obliged to eat a little crow,

The disconnect which I thought I saw before was between the first half of the bookwhich is a close, sometimes overly dense, theological reading of Paul's discussion of "hope" in his letter to the Romansand what I originally took to be the primary point of the book, which is a historical, textual, and theological consideration of the Joseph Smith's writings about the sort of ideal social and economic relations ones characterized by equality and support for the poor that Mormons ought to aspire towards.
This time through, that disconnect didn't strike me as significant at all I still think his "Interlude" focusing on the Book of Mormon between the two sections of the book doesn't accomplish what he clearly hopes it will, but really, that's a small point.
On the contrary, I can much more clearly see now how the kind of radical, transformative, "objectless" hope that he sees Paul calling those who have accepted the gospel of Jesus to embrace, really does connect strongly with not just the ideal but also the actual practice of recreating one's social and economic existence around a collective, communitarian, almost monastic determination to get away from "the economy of the idol trade" and instead embrace a notion of stewardship that leaves "ownership" almost entirely aside perhaps only subjectively, but perhaps also literally.
The result is a powerful and genuinely insightful treatment of Mormon teachings about love and equality, one I'm going to have to think about for a while, especially about the possible connections it may have for me, anyway with the work of Charles Taylor, John Milbank, and James K.
A. Smith.

Joe is not, ultimately, a Hugh Nibley he tiptoes up to the edge of outright condemnation of American Mormonism, but is appears ambivalent about actually looking over it.
There is an apologetic dare I say almost Panglossian tone to his treatment of Smith's revelations on consecration, and how they were edited and changed in the early years into something different than what they originally were.
I can't deny that Joe lands some good punches against the sort of selfexcusing nostalgia that Mormon leftists like myself too frequently make use of, but I would have liked to have seen him apply the same critique against the implied even if unintended quasimystical quietism that affects his own writings and that of other contemporary Mormon theologians like Adam Miller.
But heysaying someone "isn't quite Hugh Nibley" is hardly a criticism! This is a much finer and more thoughtful and even more practical, though I'm not sure Joe himself recognizes that book than I'd originally supposed.
I apologize for that, and am happy to recommend it to every theologically inclined member of our shared faith, This book is heavy in philosophy and has some indepth

readings of consecration, It was a good book to read, but is not for the light of heart, Unless you plan to fully engage with the book I would pass,

I read it over too long a span I must admit, so it probably lost some of its cohesiveness, but he does put together a good view of what the intent of what consecration was and how we have ripped it to shreds as an LDS people by just throwing it out as something we don't do until the millennium.


Here is a little taste, If you like this thick drink of theological wordsmithing, I would highly recommend the book to you,

"It would thus seem that the classic theological triad of faith, hope, and charity can be mapped onto the temporal triad of the past, the present, and the future.
Where faith is a certain trusting orientation to a past revelatory eventan event in which a divine word of promise was deliveredhope is a certain anticipatory orientation to a future transformation of the world, an orientation made possible by ones full trust in the word of promise.
Love comes to supplement the weave of faith and hope by giving it a point of contact with both God and the world in the experience of Gods love, one walks with the original maker of the promise that issues in the word of faith, and one is turned toward all those to whom Gods love extends in the promise of transformation.
The works of love, as Kierkegaard calls them, are thus the present manifestation of the entanglement of pastoriented faith and futureoriented hope.
" Spencers analysis of the explicitly temporal nature of Pauls hope and the relationship between Gods covenant with Israel, the Restoration, and the law of consecration is illuminating and powerful, at times radical but necessarily so.
A muchneeded approach and analysis,/Joe Spencer makes me see things in my Mormon religious tradition that were hidden in plain sight, No one else I have read can do that quite like him, Spencer's mind is brilliant, and his work here on the theology of hope extends an invitation to participate in a consecrated christian life that is difficult to refuse so don't!.
His readings are sharp, creative, and illuminating, Not to be missed. A lovely, sweet, heartfelt theological work on hope

Starting with Paul, moving to Abraham and Sarah, Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith's law of consecration.


The link to consecration is not obvious, but the link is strong, The work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben helps provide the intellectual heft, I hadn't heard of him before, but he's on my radar now,

At root, Spencer calls on us to live our lives in the world but also on a sacred plane.
That was Paul's agenda not to flee the world but to consecrate it, Joseph Smith's too.

Theology I always have to take in doses, but I felt connected with Spencer's agenda, I especially loved his storytelling of scriptural authorship Paul trying to legitimate his vision after the Corinthians' licentiousness damaged his credibility.
Or Mormon trying to tell his story through his abridged record, Or Joseph Smith establishing and then revising what is now Section, in light of realworld obstacles, This helped me understand how scripture is revealed, often unfolded in time, and often in conversation with local conditions, trying to realize God's vision even when it seems impossible.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, My rating is not due to knowing the author personally and having immense respect for him, and it is in spite of my being an atheist who does not put a lot of stock in the idea of divine inspiration.
I genuinely think this is an engaging, challenging, insightful book, and like other theological works I really enjoy, it presents ideas and analysis which stimulate the mind, enrich our understanding, and provoke us to action, no matter what "worldview" we hold, all without sacrificing the particularity of the theological commitments which inform the work.
Wisdom is most apparent to me when an understanding has universal reach AND particular application, and in this way, I think this book is full of wisdom.


I would quibble with a couple of moments, in particular, the attempt to present hope as objectless yet with content.
While this is not an incoherent possibility, it's not clear to me that Spencer really does identify an objectless hope, and furthermore, it's not clear that objectless content escapes the conundrums that it is supposed to.
So I would want to think more about the indeterminate and provisional nature of the content of hope in different terms.
Nonetheless, the motivations for this move are wellpresented and in need of consideration, .