Theodemocracy in practice (Abraham 3:23-24)

[deacon blues]

Book of Abraham, Chap. 3:22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

Brigham Young (April 18,1844): "It is the prerogative of the Almighty to differ from his subjects in what he pleases, or how, or when he pleases, and what will they do; they must bow to it, or kick themselves to death, or to hell. He [JosephSmith] can disagree with the whole church as he has a mind, and how? Because he is a perfect committee of himself. We have elected our prophet to be our Prophet, Priest and King, but did we choose him? Or, did he choose us? Jeses said, ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you. Our prophet has chosen us, and what this people receives through him is law. He believes that if God was to speak to day he would say that our prophet should be appointed Prophet, Priest & King, and let him appoint what council he pleases. He cannot see the difference between a religious or political government, Suppose we take our families and go where there is no other inhabitants, and begin to govern ourselves. There is provisions for every character. If he do not do right he shall be tried by the authorities &c and what would be the necessity to get up a constitution to govern us when we have all the revelations and laws to govern us, and punish us according to our crimes, We may say we will have a constitution because it is fashionable, but he would rather have the revelations to form a constitution from, than any thing else we can get." (Joseph Smith Papers, Council of Fifty, p. 120)

Brigham's comment here presumes a very thin, faint distinction between prophet and god. The temple endowment has people swear allegiance, not to God, but rather to The CHURCH of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We can study the History of Utah from 1847-58 and see theodemocracy in practice in relative isolation. Depending on one's point of view and expectations, one could say it was successful or perhaps not. If one compares it to the "City of Enoch" or "4th Nephi society" it appears, to me, to fall short of expectations. Is this because reality always falls short of fantasy?

[moksha]

Where does the democracy part enter this equation? Wouldn't a better word fit be Theomonarchy or Theoplutocracy (assuming the current group of fifteen prophets, high priests, and kings)?

[deacon blues]

Exactly. Joesph called it Theodemocracy but it walked, swam and quacked like a monarchy/dictatorship in Utah