Origin of The Controversy
From its beginnings, the Latter Day Saint movement has been concerned with the idea of Zion, though the exact nature of this concept has varied from denomination to denomination and even from generation to generation. Frederick Smith, president of the Community of Christ during the 1920s, wished to apply principles of the newly emerging fields of sociology and social welfare to his church's concept of Zion. Holder of a Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University, Smith was deeply interested in the Social Gospel movement, which endeavored to apply Christian ethics to problems including social justice, health care, and care for the poor, for the orphans, and the elderly. In broad terms, Smith felt the need to address these issues as part of the overall call to "build Zion," which had formed a cornerstone of the Latter Day Saint movement since its inception under Smith's grandfather, Joseph Smith Jr.. In this way, Smith hoped to modernize his predecessor's vision of building a literal city of Zion in Independence, Missouri.
However, since many church members did not share Smith's modernistic vision of Zion, the RLDS leader faced the possibility that his dreams might be stymied through the opposition of other church authorities, or of the biennial General Conference. In contrast to the larger and better-known LDS church, the Community of Christ had a longstanding tradition of dissention and debate within its organization based upon its interpretation of the concept of "common consent". In contrast to the Utah LDS membership, who tend to stress unquestioning conformity to the directives of church leadership, some RLDS laity and clergy held that even after adoption of a policy, members might continue to debate or even ignore its provisions if they felt it to be wrong. More authoritarian and blunt-spoken than his father, Joseph Smith III, Frederick Smith accepted the right of members to debate church policy prior to its formulation, but not afterwards.
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