Zion-Building Through Poverty Elimination

Zion has been defined as God’s people being of one heart and one mind, dwelling together in righteousness, and having no poor among them. Since Joseph Smith’s day, Latter-day Saints have made continuous efforts toward this Zion ideal, including not only assisting the poor and needy but going even further to help them eliminate poverty from their lives by becoming self-reliant. In this episode of Church History Matters, we want to trace the fascinating story of our current church system for helping the poor, beginning at its origins, where it was serendipitously born of necessity in the mind of a stake president amidst the Great Depression, to its current multi-pronged offerings, where, though most of it goes unseen, it quietly blesses countless lives.
This is the fifth episode of our 8-part podcast series on Consecration and Church Finance. For a full transcript of this episode, as well as show notes and additional resources, visit our website at doctrineandcovenantscentral.o...
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Originally published February 13, 2024
DISCLAIMER: While we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[@chrismacintosh4719]

Thanks for producing another informative episode. I enjoyed hearing the story at the end. As a teen, I thought the practice of fasting once a month and donating the money that would have been spent on food to help the poor could be the way to solve many problems in the world. From a financial perspective, funds are raised on a regular basis. From a psychological perspective, fasting helps an individual have empathy for those who go without. As a young person, I wondered what kind of problems could be solved if everyone in the world did this?

[@ryanbradley3293]

By the way, if you didn’t know, they actually made these episodes many months ago and the newest ones are on the scripture central website and come out weekly. They post these on RUclips much later than on the website for some reason. After this series, they made a long one on the establishment of temple ordinances, and lately they have done one on the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum