393: Utopia and Collapse (Come Follow Me, BoM Gospel Doctrine Lesson 42)

Engaging Gospel Doctrine

These chapters include an account of the happiest, most righteous, productive years in all of Book of Mormon history, the model utopian society that endured almost two hundred years after Jesus’ appearance. Unfortunately, we only read about that time period (which surpasses the time covered by Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and 3 Nephi!) for eighteen brief verses. Why don’t we have more about this ideal period? How much could we learn from such a successful society? What can we apply from the details we have?

In addition to talking about this Zion society, we will also discuss:

• The Three Nephites!
• Fun thought exercise: If you could ask God for any “desire of your heart”, what would it be? What do you think are reasonable constraints for this question?
• The idea of “gospel” and “Church” of Jesus Christ
• The sobering end-times admonitions in 3 Nephi 29-30
  

This episode is longer than the rest, but the wide ranging, engaging and satisfying discussion with Sara, Jenne, and Carl is worth “staying after class” for!

Class Reading: 3 Nephi 27-4 Nephi

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You can access my Lesson Notes here.

Here are links to some of the things mentioned in our conversation:

• William Wilson’s entertaining and insightful Dialogue article about the Three Nephites.
• Terryl and Fiona Givens: The God Who Weeps
• Peter Diamandis: Abundance
• Half the Sky documentary on Netflix. Here’s some additional material (though not the movie) on PBS.
• For those who are interested in more ideas about the value of religious myth along the lines of the Paul Tillich quote I mentioned, this site with sermons by Richard Holloway is great.
• Peter Singer: The Life You Can Save
• The Bodhisattva Vow
• Lake Baikal
• Jainism