History Of Zion Illinois

Zion City in Illinois is commonly, considered historical for its utopian beginnings under the leadership of Rev. John A. Dowie.Jansen argues that Zion is historical for much more...Zion City is the first true Garden City built on the Ebenezer Howard idea in the United State.

As a theocracy, Zion City maintained a well-disciplined community where life was based upon Dowie's interpretations of Old Testament regulations of moral and religious matters, and by 1905, it had grown to six thousand Dowietes from around the world, many attracted by Dowie's phenomenal healing ministry. This in-depth look at Zion City is not a study of Dowie the man but of the greater Dowie era, with the city itself as the focus of the work.

History of the founding of Zion, Illinois by Dr. Dowie.

Zion did not spring up by chance along a rolling river or upon a hilltop. The land in which Zion City planted its roots was sought out by a surveying team and then purchased by Dr. John Alexander Dowie for the sole purpose of building a religious utopia. Before the first spade of soil was turned, attention was given to every detail, from utilities to commercial areas and educational institutions and (most importantly) the temple. In less than a decade, Dowie and his followers built a self-sufficient theocracy that sheltered its inhabitants from the outside world. Indeed, Zion boasts a unique history and is a most intriguing study in the successes and failures of a planned city of God.

The inability of American society to tolerate the peculiar institutions embraced by Mormons was one of the major events in the religious history of nineteenth-century America. Zion in the Courts explores one aspect of this collision between the Mormons and the mainstream: the Mormons' efforts to establish their own court system--one appropriate to the distinctive political, social, and economic practices they envisioned as Zion--and the pressures applied by the federal legal system to bring them to heel. This first paperback edition includes two new introductory pieces in which the authors discuss the Mormon emphasis on settling disputes outside the court, a practice that foreshadows current trends toward arbitration and mediation.