What is Zion?

It's time to get rid of "My no good, very bad hour" and move on to something more cheerful - just slightly more cheerful however. I've been listening to some Hugh Nibley tapes in my car as my Dad and I are always on the road (he likes to ride). I actually love Hugh Nibley's thought and writing. He is refreshingly scourging at times and insists on shining the flashlight into the mostly unexplored corners of issues we would just as soon forget about. I've always thought of him as a modern day John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. So here are some quotes that catch my attention and are short enough to post although they barely scratch the surface:

“In order to reconcile the ways of Babylon with the ways of Zion, it has been necessary to circumvent the inconvenient barriers of scripture and conscience by the use of the tried and true device of rhetoric, defined by Plato as the art of making true things seem false and false things seem true by the use of words”.

“The earth is here, and the fullness thereof is here.  It was made for man; and one man was not made to trample his fellowman under his feet, and enjoy all his hearts desires, while the thousands suffer.” (quoting Brigham Young)

“Our gifts and talents are to be put to the disposal of the human race, not used to put the race at our disposal.”

"All my life I have shied away from these disturbing and highly unpopular - even offensive -- themes.  (Referring to the desire of the Saints to constantly mix Babylon and Zion.)  But I cannot do so any longer, because in my old age I have taken to reading the scriptures and there have had it forced upon my reluctant attention, that from the time of Adam to the present day, Zion has been pitted against Babylon, and the name of the game has always been money - "power and gain."

 From “What is Zion – A Distant View” Originally given Feb. 1973, Brigham Young University.