United Order

Brigham Young's proposal to build the temple in St. George was approved at the church's October 6, 1871 conference, which is just two months before workers placed the final stone in the tower of the St. George tabernacle.

And the newly organized United Order in St. George helped make this ambitious new project possible.

Just five weeks after the temple was approved, Workers broke ground and construction began moving ahead.

The cornerstone was laid on April 1st, 1874.

Yeah, and just like Nauvoo, they dedicate the font before the temple is finished.

So Erastus Snow dedicates the font, and then on August 11th, it was put to use for a particularly interesting purpose.

Members who were entering the United Order in St. George were invited to be re-baptized.

So Charles L. Walker recorded the occasion in his journal.

Yeah.

And then all the changes with particularly the United Order, which was a system Gnomes and I were both into.

I think we got in around, I was around 10 years old.

She was around 14.

It was not fun.

Right.

How did they choose people to be in the United Order?

Oh, my God.

That's changed a little bit today.

And Christianity, or even with Latter-day Saints, the idea of the united order and the law of consecration.

These are not the same thing.

They're not even close.

Okay, this is important and this would be an interesting book to read It's called a radical convergence Latter-day Saints and their utopian socialist origins Okay, this is a misnomer That this is not a utopian socialist origin.

It might be utopian origins but it's not utopian socialist origins and And this is the problem, because you have Latter-day Saints in that time that are, you know, in 1912, for example, that are still looking at what they had been trying in the past.

There were several attempts at a communal type of living, right? The United Order, of course, the Law of Consecration, and different efforts and programs that were put into place.

Now, in 1890...

Moving ahead two years to April 34.

In April, April 23rd, we get Section 104, which is a publishing cooperation where the United Firm and the United Order are reorganized again after the destructions earlier.

In 1838, on July 8th, we receive section 119, where tithing is broadly generalized and defined in a way that includes our consecrated efforts.

That same year, 1838, in October, is when the extermination order is given and the saints have to leave.

that everyone is a steward over his own property, not just those in these different organizations that are trying to fund the buildings.

By 1860 to 1883, Brigham Young and John Taylor organized these church cooperatives in Utah.

And some people have mistaken that united order with the law of consecration.

But I was so grateful for President Gordon B. Hinckley's clarification of this in 1996.

[laughs]

Um, and then his final one is about the United Order in 1874, about how we need to establish this and the Lord won't bless us fully-

Oh

... till we have it.