The Apostle Paul & Joseph Smith: Nauvoo Mormonism and The Re-Evaluation and Reclamation of the Flesh (Excerpts from an Article by Kai Moore)

 The following are excerpts from the article Paul’s Flesh: A Disabled Reading of Flesh/ Spirit Dualism by Kai D. Moore, followed by my comments on how this article by Moore relates to the affirmation of the flesh in early Mormonism:

Abstract 

This article considers the Pauline construction of a “spiritual body”in 1 Corinthians 15 and his flesh/ spirit dualism more generally in light of Paul’s probable disability. I suggest that this rhetoric functioned as a strategy for Paul to claim social power in his social context by deemphasizing his physical presence, and thus reflects a negotiation with cultural patterns of disability abjection rather than a meaningful part of Christian teaching. Because of the active harm done by these dualistic constructions, however unintentional such an interpretation may have been on Paul’s part, liberative Christian theologies must reject this framing and work to integrate not just “body”and spirit but also flesh …

… The need to consider these undesirable aspects of bodies points us, perhaps, toward “flesh” rather than “body,” and yet particularly from a Christian perspective, if we are to consider the place of flesh in relation to God, we must at some point reckon with the work of Paul and his emphatic statements that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15: 50) and “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8: 8). Most scholars agree that Paul is not attempting to construct a bodily ontology in this literature, nor even really talking about embodiment itself, and yet this flesh/spirit dualism endures in pervasive cultural and academic assumptions that flesh has no place in Christian thought. 

I am intrigued by the suggestion of biblical interpreters through the years— most recently Amos Yong (2011) and Martin Albl (2007)— that Paul may also have lived with a condition that would make him disabled by today’s definition. …

… Interpreters have long debated the nature of the “physical infirmity” Paul mentions in Galatians 4: 13, usually assuming that it refers to the same cause as the “thorn in the flesh” of 2 Corinthians 12: 7 (Plummer, 1915: 351). Based on a few textual hints—“had it been possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me”(Gal. 4: 15), “See what large letters I make when I am writing with my own hand!”(Gal. 6: 11)—some have speculated that his condition affected his eyesight. Adela Yarbro Collins (2011), on the contrary, draws on the research of Max Krenkel in order to argue that Paul’s “thorn” was epilepsy or another condition which involved seizures (pp. 173–176). Amos Yong (2011) considers the possibility of Paul’s disablement in some depth, using a fairly conservative definition of disability, and ultimately concludes that Paul was “physically troubled” in some way for extended periods of his life, and perhaps permanently (pp. 83–87). 

But beyond the specific details of his embodiment, I am most interested in the way Paul speaks of his communities’ reactions to his body: “though my condition put you to the test, you did not scorn or despise me”(Gal. 4: 14), “They say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible’”(2 Cor. 10: 10). He speaks defensively at times (particularly in the Corinthian correspondence) of his right to claim authority in spite of his perceived bodily weakness, contradicting the presumptions of the Greek rhetorical tradition which closely linked a strong physical presence with social power and influence (Martin, 1995: 53–55). As Yong (2011) puts it, “if Paul did have to deal with physical impairment or disability, . . . that isn’t only an individualized or biomedical experience but also a social one, which no doubt threatened to stigmatize and ostracize Paul,” as these texts suggest (p. 88). While we do not have a clear picture in the scriptural sources of what Paul’s body might have looked like or what his particular impairments might have been, it seems clear that Paul, at least in certain contexts, experienced the shape or functions of his body as socially stigmatized and therefore culturally disabled.

… Dale Martin (1995) summarizes the way Paul navigates that relationship: 

For both Paul and his ideological opponents at Corinth, the body is a microcosm structured as a continuous physiological hierarchy . . . [H] e insists on the future resurrection of the body, thereby denying the lowly status attributed to the body by Greco-Roman elite culture. At the same time he admits that the resurrected body will have to be thoroughly reconstituted so as to be able to rise from the earth to a new luminous home in the heavens. The eschatological body must be one without earth, flesh, blood, or even psyche (soul). (p. 135)

He capitulates to the educated Greek philosophical belief that the stuff of the earth, with its low status, can never hope to reach the high status of the celestial elements (Martin, 1995: 113– 114 ), and so concedes that the “body” which will be resurrected is stripped of flesh and blood as well as soul, and is constituted only of the lighter element of spirit (Martin, 1995: 128). He does not challenge the division of creation into substances of higher and lower status, nor the underlying assumption that it is the weakness and mortality of the body— precisely its nature as unpredictable and not entirely under conscious control— which mark it as low status. In this way, he creates an entirely new concept of the “spiritual body” (sōma pneumatikon), made up entirely of the most honorable substance and yet still somehow considered a “body”—introducing the conceptual possibility of a body entirely free from the realm of death, illness, or pain.

I suggest that Paul’s “spiritual body” reflects the way that Paul found social power in the Greco-Roman context—through his spiritual presence—and then used the Christian gospel to articulate an eschatological body which supported his claims to authority. That is, because his audiences in Rome and in Corinth devalued the weakness of his physical body, he emphasized rhetorical mastery and spiritual strength in the present life, and spirit to the exclusion of all other aspects of the body in the resurrection life—even conceding to the Greek cosmology that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” The weakness of Paul’s own flesh was devalued in his society, and rather than challenging the cultural worship of strength and wholeness, he shifted the theological emphasis from the visible to the invisible, from an aspect in which he was “weak” to one where he was “strong,” in the process redefining “bodies” entirely for the Christian framework. As Arthur Dewey and Anna Miller (2017) put it, Paul depicts all earthly, physical bodies as essentially impaired—and therefore rightly marked negatively—and “constructs resurrection as a ‘cure’” (p. 398) which will raise them as “perfectly abled” spiritual bodies (p. 382).

… Paul then used his embodiment as a rhetorical device, emphasizing God’s power which is “made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12: 9)—not challenging the idea that his body represented shame or low status, but rather, shifting the focus from his present weakness to his (and God’s) future power. In this world, Paul’s body was a source of conflict and dishonor. Is it any surprise that he might envision an eschaton in which his body was freed not only from what caused him pain but also from what marked his low status?

… I do not begrudge Paul in his insistence that his bodily weakness was not the only thing that mattered about him, nor even the most important thing. But in the rhetorical vigor of his attempts to throw the focus off his own flesh, Paul set the stage for centuries of theological hatred of flesh …

… Taking the book of Romans (or even the Pauline corpus) by itself, the word “flesh” (sarx) would seem to have very little to do with the human body. Rather it describes a way of life that is opposed to God’s way, a tendency toward sin, an internal struggle, “a universal symbol for the crippling competition for honor that distorts every human endeavor,” as Robert Jewett tellingly puts it (Jewett, 2007: 483). … In Paul, however, about half of his uses carry some sort of negative tone, often of resistance to God or of susceptibility to sin (Erickson, 1993: 305). For him, flesh became a doctrinal shorthand for the temptation to seek glory in the things of this world. …

… “For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want” (Gal. 5: 17).

… Paul may not have intended to make a claim about the nature of human bodies, but by choosing such an inescapably bodily term and linking it with concepts of mortality, weakness, and destructibility, as well as passion and desire, he succeeded in constructing Christian bodies as inherently conflicted and divided, urging believers to crucify their own flesh and distrust its urges. He may not have meant for literal human flesh to be implicated when he tied sarx so closely with “the law of sin,” but when his rhetorical use is so consistent that the New International Version, for instance, frequently translates sarx and related forms as “sinful (human) nature” (Kohlenberger et al., 1997: 680– 681), it is hardly a surprise that so many have read in Paul a simplistic equation of flesh = sin. …

… I have argued that Paul’s new construction of the “spiritual body” in 1 Corinthians 15, read through the lens of Paul’s own disability, represents something of a theological coping mechanism for life in a society which valued strength and physical presence so highly. But this imagined ideal body, stripped of the flesh which was a source of Paul’s dishonor, also appears throughout the Pauline literature as the implied eschatological destination of “life according to the spirit,” strictly opposed to all things of the flesh. The rhetorical opposition of “flesh” and “spirit” bears the marks of Paul’s own search for social power by the very words he chose to represent the old life in the world as distinct from the new life in Christ, which was then carried into the realm of morality by his apocalyptic fervor. Before Paul got to the word sarx, it seems to have been a fairly neutral word: just another aspect of bodies. But if Paul experienced his own body as a source of shame and discrimination, trying to throw the focus off his own flesh by creating the possibility of a future life without physical bodies at all—clearly without disability—may have been an appealing option for a passionate new convert.

… Two thousand years later, when we don’t feel the apocalyptic expectation quite so closely on the horizon, language about eschatological bodies has come to function in large part to pass judgment on our present bodies and lives. Paul gave us vocabulary to imagine the possibility of living outside of the vulnerability and malleability of flesh, and now—with the help of all these years of interpretation, misplaced emphasis, and the (almost infinite) capacity of humans to oppress one another—for some, his words have come to function less as a liberatory vision and more as condemnation …

… One of the enduring challenges for the Christian tradition has been reconciling the essential goodness of our bodies as God’s creations …

… It seems that Paul did not intend his role in this process, but he succeeded in providing the framework which would define “flesh” as the lusty, uncontrolled, shameful aspects of bodies, in contrast to the ethereal qualities of “spirit” which suddenly emerged as a future for bodies themselves. That is, in constructing the notion of a “spiritual body,” along with the possibility of suppressing the influence of “flesh,” Paul’s words created the possibility for what Mayra Rivera (2015) calls a “dream of glorious bodies freed from the weight of earthy substances and the menace of death” (p. 41). …

… The category of flesh as somehow different from “body” has functioned discursively for centuries to locate the flux and vulnerability of human bodies in something other than embodiment itself, allowing Christian thought to imagine primordial bodies with neither desire nor suffering, and eschatological bodies freed from all traces of earthiness (e.g. Robinson, 1977: 34). …

… I have argued in this article that the vehemence with which Paul differentiated and opposed flesh from spirit bears the marks, not only of the hierarchy of substances in the Greco-Roman context, but also of his own personal search for meaning and authority. While, in his time, he may have felt the need to downplay the importance of his own fleshly body, in the very different context of our own day, we have the opportunity to ask what purpose this construct now serves: whether it adds anything to our theological reflection, or whether it has outlived its usefulness for the project of understanding Christian bodies.

In contrast, Joseph Smith postponed the eschatological "End Times" until he was at least 85 years old. Rather than equate flesh with sinfulness Smith’s scriptures argue that Adam fell that mankind might have joy and in a letter to Nancy Rigdon, Smith explained that God is more liberal in his views. He divinized flesh as spirit matter and God the Father himself has a body of flesh and bone. Smith intended the Book of Mormon to be published together with the New Testament, likely because of the subtle shift in it's consciousness through its affirmation of the body and strong men of stature who utilized their masculine strength and power to defend their families, their country and democracy. Parley P. Pratt in turn forcefully rejected this idea of depraved lusty bodies in need of becoming ethereal bodies in his essay Intelligence and Affection (see excerpt here) found in the pamphlet An appeal to the inhabitants of the State of New York : Letter to Queen Victoria. As I argued in The Secret Doctrine of God

The article by Kai D. Moore quoted above, while clearly not written by a Mormon, goes on before the conclusion to basically present a solution to the anti-body problem, which solution is the same solution found in original 1840s Mormonism, as the writer states:

A re-evaluation and a reclamation of the flesh are essential for theological anthropology. Unless we can begin to imagine human bodies as flesh, simultaneously infused with spirit, we will be unable to reconcile the sometimes-frustrating reality of those bodies with their centrality to personal identity …

This is basically the vision of Nauvoo era Mormonism, the re-evaluation and a reclamation of the flesh.

If on Atheism We Construct Our Reality and are Make-Believing in Human Rights and the Guilt or Innocence of Criminals as Americans (when on Atheism there is Actually No Objective Meaning in Life, No Personhood or Free Will, and no Objective Morality or Rights and that's all Make-Belief with Atheism); then Why Not Make-Believe in God, Meaning in Life, Personhood and Free Will, for the sake of Mental Health & Civilization?

Dr. Phil once said, "There is no reality, only perception." There's an excellent YouTube documentary called Everything is a Remix that I recommend; as it helps one understand using an analysis of the movie Star Wars, that everything is a remix of something else. I've come to the conclusion that we are all creating our own reality. The Buddhists in China create their reality. Americans create their reality. Thomas Jefferson sat down and literally wrote up the Declaration of Independence like an artist creating a new reality, which would dictate the next several centuries of the United States. Joseph Smith sat down and dictated Scripture that has organized the LDS/Restoration Churches for decades. Each of us forms our own reality. 

Let me be clear though that I am not saying that we create our own laws of physics or mathematics. 1 + 1 equals 2, and yes, what goes up must come down. What I am referring to is perception and cultural values, the language of dreams, symbolism, poetry, and religious parables, etc. For example, the ethical underpinning of the Declaration of Independence, that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable Rights (to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) is not a scientific statement but a supernatural claim; it is a form of cultural artistry, the forming of a civilized culture through make-believe concepts like "inalienable Rights." 

It's All Make-Believe or Make-Create

An artistic person sits down and will often draw up the plans for a painting, a script for a movie or plans for a building or a city. They draw rough sketches and then add colors and then it is built or created. Some guys in Jerusalem wrote out some sketches and stories based on word of mouth about Jesus, what he was remembered to have said or did; and then those artistic sketches so to speak became a world religion called Christianity that beat out all the other religions and gods in the marketplace of ideas! We create our reality. Religion is not about facts, it's about the power of the imagination and human creativity and the power of ideas to create culture.

I used to think, "Well, I'm going to be rational and scientific and only stick to the cold hard facts." Well turns out that I can't even get away from "make-believing" in the world of science. Because if you're going to go with the hardcore scientific facts and pure reductionism, then you as a person do not even exist. This is illustrated by the character Rust Cohle (played By Matthew Mcconaughey) in True Detective Season 1:

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In one of the episodes, the atheistic nihilist Rust Cohle uses a beer can to illustrate

how the atheistic sciences and philosophies say we don't exist as a person. He cuts the beer can into a figure of a human in order to illustrate that according to atheistic philosophies, we are not a self but are make-believing we are a “person,” we pretending we are a Self:

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Hardcore science just says that you're a bunch of atoms and your mammalian form evolved from other mammals back down to pond scum. You don't even technically exist as a person but you are creating your own sense of identity through a feedback loop in your brain; and your perception of the world isn't even real. So even if I am an agnostic or atheist and go with the science, I'm still engaging in make-belief or belief-creations by forming a self concept or believing in my objective personhood. I'm make-believe in my self, me as a real Me, an objective "I," a person; when all the atheistic sciences and philosophies say I don't really exist: as I don't have a soul and I'm just a collection of atoms and chemical processes pretending to be a self. 

According to secular rationality and scientism, I don't even really love anybody either. My brain is making up a concept of this other "person" (who is not a real person but is also a collection of atoms) and my brain wiring is chemically "firing" so that I feel like I am in love but its really a delusion, a chemical "high." For when I feel that I have fallen in love or I love a family member, that is just chemicals in my brain and evolution that hardwired me to pair bond and feel close to my genetic kin. So this whole concept of romantic love is all just make-belief, me just creating these concepts and ideas in my head which is not literally real. Yet the truth according to "science" is our brain needs to believe in our selfhood and love is real in order for us to reproduce and perpetuate the species. In other words, evolution "wants" me to believe in the illusion of the Self and the illusion of Romance. 

So if "rational science" tells me I don't really exist in the platonic sense as a person, an objective entity as a self, but my brain is engaged in make belief ("making it up") regarding my personhood, and the people I love don't exist either as static real persons, and the love I feel is not real love but some evolutionary chemical processes, and yet I cannot even function as a human being without these illusions, and Nature evolutionarily "designed" me to form illusions in order to function and reproduce; then I might as well utilize this illusiory function Nature gave me for my benefit, and "make believe" what makes me feel good and empowers me. So if make believing that there's a God and and my life has meaning and purpose and intrinsic worth as a Soul, if that feels true to me and gives me positive energy and vitality through somethimg uplifting to believe in, then I think it would be stupid to not utilize what Nature instilled in me; as for me, such religious ideas are just as beneficial to my life as is belief in the self, the law and justice, and romantic love, etc. So I might as well just make-believe, i.e. create something that makes me happy and fulfills me; and go with what I know best: which is LDS Christianity.  

The Suspension of Disbelief within the Theater of Existence:

I readily admit that the Christian Thought World is a Theatrical World based on faith or the suspension of disbelief. But I think that atheistic philosophy and science is also a world of make-belief. Just study quantum mechanics to see what I mean.

In The Willing Suspension of Disbelief, Ed Hooks discusses the willing suspension of disbelief in theatrical transactions:

In a nutshell, the willing suspension of disbelief means the people in the audience know that what they are seeing on stage or screen is a pretend reality, but they are pretending that they do not know that. They accept the given premises of the story being told in order to empathize with the actors.

An example would be knowing that Superman cannot, in reality, fly – and then pretending that you don’t know that.  The storyteller tells the audience that, in this story, a man can fly.  The audience suspends its disbelief and goes along with that premise.

A theatrical experience is a unique thing.  Think about it, focusing for the moment on the legitimate theatre:  Actors, audience members, tech crews all come together at the same time in the same place for a common purpose.  Their meeting is not any more random than meetings at church, synagogue or mosque.  The purpose of this meeting is to share a theatrical experience, and all parties – including the audience members - have to work together to make it happen.

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It is in this shared experience of the suspension of disbelief, that the movie experience happens; and similarly, it is the same with the practice of faith or exercising the imagination in a theatrically similar religious context which entails a suspension of disbelief. In other words, the "spiritual theater" at church becomes experientially real through the shared audience experience of the believers, just as much as the jury is engaging in theatrical make belief in deciding the objective guilt or innocence of a person. Just as we can't create civilized society without the "theater" of courts of justice, I believe that we evolved to engage in a similar theatrics when it comes to religion. This is what makes faith so powerful and causes people to be healthier and happier; as their suspension of disbelief in a religious context is what Nature designed their brain to do from a scientific perspective.

The atheist who condemns such suspension of disbelief is hypocritical in my view, when they themselves suspend their disbelief and choose to make believe in actual inalienable Rights, their existence as a Self and the existence of romantic love; which they suspect are all illusions and nothing more than the perceptual results of evolutionary processes and brain chemicals. Yet, in order to function and support civilization, they willfully enter the theatrical production of Rights, selfhood and romantic love; all taking place in their imagination through faith as the functional assurance of things hoped for, the perceived evidence of things unseen or unproven.

Law and Justice as Mythmaking

The fact is our justice system is a theatrical experience involving the suspension of disbelief. If we went with the cold hard facts and science and rationalism, and concluded there is no God and there is no soul, there would be no objective Right and Wrong. The US Declaration states we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable Rights. The Bill of Rights is predicated on this concept of objective Right and Wrong based on belief in the soul. In a court of law, Justice is served when a person is believed to be guilty or innocent: because it is believed on faith that they have a soul and know right from wrong and had the free willed conscious ability to choose otherwise than they did. It is an object of faith that the criminal could have made a decision otherwise than they did. Atheistic neuroscientists often argue that the concept that anyone could be guilty of freely choosing to commit a crime, is a matter of faith; because they argue that we are all determined biologically and cosmically and never can make 100% Free Will choices. They argue that we are not souls but merely Gene Machines, programmed and conditioned by blind forces in Nature.

So before you make fun of the religious for suspending their disbelief and creating a theatrical world of Good and Evil, remember that if you believe in the law, justice, and the court systems, you are also engaging in the suspension of disbelief and acting on faith. Remember, that outside Christianity or theism, you are not a soul but are make-believing you are a self. So, if according to atheistic philosophers and scientists, Law and Justice are make-believe mythlologies and illusions, and "inalienable Rights" are make-belief and illusions, and we are “laboring under the illusion of having a self” (as Rust Chole puts it) -- and in in fact we ultimately don’t even exist except as transitional evolutionary forms, as mere copy machines spitting out genes like xerox copies only to be dismantled and discarded -- and yet we form such beliefs in order to function as civilized citizens, then isn't faith in unproven assertions like Rights and personhood, a good thing? 

In courts of law, judges wear black robes and the court says “all rise” when he enters to show respect and reverence; and the court precedes as if the defendant is a person (has a soul) and knows Right and Wrong (which exist at metaphysical realities). This is as much an enactment of religious theater as the LDS temple endowment is! Without such theatrical make-belief, there could be no ethically functioning secular cities and lawful citizens; and so too, without LDS beliefs many Latter Day Saints and Restoration sects could not be as ethically successful and cohesive as they are. So if the atheist thinks he doesn't have any metaphysical beliefs he is probably mistaken.

 In Conclusion:

If God and the soul is an illusion, and religion and/or "spirituality" or a belief system is a construct of the mind and should be rejected because it cannot be scientifically proven according to atheists; then by that logic the concept of the Self is an illusion and therefore the concept of an objective meaning in life is an illusion and life is ultimately meaningless.

On atheism, we have no inalienable Rights as American citizens but our entire court systems of "justice" is a made-up charade, a magic show full of smoke and mirrors with men and women playing "judges" in religious-like black robes acting like religious saints judging the guilt or innocence of others; as if people have free will as a soul but we are pretending when according to atheism there is objective Right and Wrong or Good and Evil, which does not exist.

In reality, our American "morals" and "humanistic values" are actually based on Judeo-Christianity, as Nietzsche argued; and this is backed by the scholarship of Tom Holland (see below). For on atheism, we are all genetically determined cellular robots programmed by nature and physics, without a soul or free will. We are no different from the bugs or the monkeys or saber tooth tigers. We are pretending (or make-believing) to be civilized citizens with human Rights. We are pretending to be a person (having personhood), and pretending to be able to make choices and that we can decide the guilt or innocence of people in courts of law. In other words, we are pretending that we can judge people as to their guilt or innocence.  On atheism, not only is there no meaning, no morality, no self (personhood), but love itself is a sickness, a kind of addiction according to atheistic science (see below for more details).

So if we are already pretending and make-believing and constructing reality by engaging in the illusion of free will and human Rights as Americans, how can the American atheist make fun of the "spiritual" person who just goes one step further and make-believes they are more than a cellular robot but an actual soul (a real person) with inherent dignity with actual human Rights; and Good and Evil exist objectively and we are endowed by the Creator with these human Rights that embed morality into something objective and authoritative, as contained in the American "spiritual" document, The Declaration of Independence? 

Suggested Reading & Viewing:

Consider these book covers (that contain hundreds of pages) and these videos, on these subjects, that make make the point in greater detail:

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Read an extract of the book Love Sick here (note that I have not read, and thus do not endorse, the rest of the content on the website that contains this linked article. It is just the best source I could find that summarizes the book Love Sick for the purpose and intent of this blog post).

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How your brain constructs reality | TED Talks

In this TED Talk playlist are these videos:

How your brain invents your "self" by Anil Seth

23 minutes 10 seconds

Who are you, really? Neuroscientist Anil Seth lays out his fascinating new theory of consciousness and self, centered on the notion that we "predict" the world into existence. From sleep to memory and everything in between, Seth explores the reality we experience in our brains -- versus the world as it objectively might be. 

…

Do we see reality as it is? by Donald Hoffman

21 minutes 40 seconds

Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman is trying to answer a big question: Do we experience the world as it really is ... or as we need it to be? In this ever so slightly mind-blowing talk, he ponders how our minds construct reality for us.

…

Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality by Anil Seth

16 minutes 51 seconds

Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience -- and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we're all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it "reality." Join Seth for a delightfully disorienting talk that may leave you questioning the very nature of your existence.

And this book:

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Nietzsche verses Joseph Smith on the Poor and Unfortunate

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody (Oxford World's Classics) by Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), and Graham Parkes (as translator), we read in Part 4, section 8 The Voluntary Beggar the following (note: the original footnotes by Parkes are interspersed in the section itself):

... behold, there was a man sitting on the ground who seemed to be urging the cows not to be afraid of him, a peaceable man and sermonizer on the mount,* from whose eyes goodness itself was preaching. ‘What do you seek here?’ cried Zarathustra in consternation.

*sermonizer on the mount: there are several allusions in this chapter to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7).

‘What do I seek here?’ he answered. ‘The same as you are seeking, you disturber of the peace! Namely, happiness on earth. 

‘To that end I want to learn from these cows. … 

‘Except we be converted and become as cows, we shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.*

*the Kingdom of Heaven: cf. Matthew 18: 3, where Jesus says to his disciples: ‘Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven.’

For there is one thing we should learn from them: chewing the cud. 

‘And verily, if a man shall gain the whole world and not learn this one thing, chewing the cud: what is he profited!* He would not be rid of his misery

*what is he profited!: cf. Matthew 16: 26, where Jesus asks: ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’

… And as [Zarathustra] spoke thus, he kissed the hands of the one to whom he [the sermonizer on the mount] was talking, his eyes overflowing with tears, and altogether behaved like one to whom a costly gift and jewel falls unexpectedly from Heaven. …

‘Do not speak of me, you wondrous man! Dear fellow!’ said Zarathustra, restraining his tenderness. ‘First speak to me about yourself! Are you not the voluntary beggar who one day threw away great riches– 

‘– who was ashamed of his riches and the rich, and fled to the poorest, that he might pour out his heart and plenty to them? But they received him not.’* 

*But they received him not: cf. John 1: 11: ‘He came unto his own, and his own received him not.’

… answered the voluntary beggar: ‘today when all that is base has become insurgent and coy and in its own way haughty: namely, in the mob’s way. 

‘For the hour has come, well you know, for the great, bad, long, slow mob-and slave-insurrection: it grows and grows! 

‘Those who are base are now indignant at all beneficence and small donations; and let the over-rich be on their guard!

‘Whoever today, like big-bellied bottles, lets drops fall out of all-too-narrow necks:– people today are happy to break the necks of such bottles.

[Kaufman translation: Now the base are outraged by any charity and any little giving away; and the overrich should beware. Whoever drips today, like bulging bottles out of all-too-narrow necks-such bottles they like to seize today to break their necks.]

‘Lascivious greed, bilious [nauseous] envy, aggrieved vengefulness, mob-pride: all that flew in my face. It is no longer true that the poor are blessèd. But the Kingdom of Heaven is with the cows.’ 

‘And why not with the rich?’ asked Zarathustra temptingly, warding off the cows who were trustingly nuzzling their peaceable friend. 

‘Why do you tempt me?’ answered the latter. ‘You yourself know it even better than I. What was it after all that drove me to the poorest, O Zarathustra? Was it not disgust with the richest among us? 

‘– with the convicts of riches, who glean advantage from every piece of rubbish, with cold eyes and lewd thoughts; with this rabble which stinks to high Heaven,

‘– with this gilded counterfeit mob, whose fathers were pick-pockets or carrion-birds or rag-pickers, with females compliant, lascivious, forgetful:– for they are all of them not far from being whores– 

‘Mob above, mob below! What are “poor” and “rich” today still! I have unlearned this distinction– I fled from it all, farther, ever farther, until I came to these cows.’

The voluntary beggar is Buddha according to some interpreters, but I think it's clear from the Christian language that it could also be Jesus or a combination of both Jesus and Buddha. Zarathustra, as I see it, is making the argument that Jesus had compassion on the lower classes of people and they turned against him and crucified him; and today they have grown into a mob of ungrateful takers. So now this version of Jesus by Nietzsche is disgusted by how they have turned out and so he now goes to the docile cows.

Zarathustra then points out the resentment of this character (the voluntary beggar) playing Jesus and/or Buddha, saying:

‘You seem to me rather a man of plants and roots. Perhaps you crush grains. But you are certainly averse to pleasures of flesh and rather love honey.’

‘You have divined me well,’ replied the voluntary beggar, his heart relieved. ‘I do love honey, and I also crush grains, for I was seeking what tastes delightful and makes one’s breath pure: 

‘– also what takes time, a day’s and mouth’s work for gentle idlers and lazybones.

‘Of course these cows have taken it farthest: they invented for themselves chewing the cud and lying in the sun. They also abstain from all heavy thoughts, which distend the heart.’ – 

‘Well then!’ said Zarathustra: ‘you should also see my animals, my eagle and my serpent– their like is not to be found on earth today.

Nietzsche is thus, on my interpretation, contrasting the philosophy of Jesus which is fit for grazing docile cows (as prey animals) and his philosophy: represented by the predatory animals of the eagle and serpent.

Nietzsche (as Zarathustra), then encourages Jesus and/or Buddha (as the voluntary beggar) to essentially leave the "rabble" behind, to essentially leave the one sheep behind and focus only on the 99 sheep (as the parable of Jesus has it in Luke 15). In other words, instead of caring for most people, focus on the few elite sheep who overcome their sheepishness. Thus Zarathustra says:

‘But now straightway take leave of your cows, you wondrous man! dear fellow! hard though it may be for you. For they are your warmest friends and instructors!’–

I interpret this as Nietzsche having an imaginary conversation with Jesus and/or Buddha, and saying the following in my own words:

Look, the soulless worthless rabble among the poor lower classes turned on you Jesus/Buddha and don't appreciate almsgiving. This is why you are now sermonizing to cows. Your life-philosophy encourages a docile serenity not fit for complex humans capable of jealousy, hate, resentment and revenge. The poor are not blessed indeed because as time went on all the charitable giving became more prominent after you died, and the poor have just become poorer and are envious of the rich and powerful and want to destroy them; which is an attack on life itself which seeks to grow and expand powerfully. Sustaining the rabble simply becomes the watering of the weeds of producing yet more rabble (that chokes the powerful) the more you give to these weeds charitably. You can't change them and they will turn on you. Leave the rabble (the weak and unsuccessful lower classes) behind; let them decay and die off like withered leaves on the tree of lives in order to make room for the more healthy and bright growing green leaves of the higher humanity that shall spiritually evolve into the Superhumans.

Hence in my view, Nietzsche is giving a philosophical grounding for the endorsement of the strong and elite upper classes that oppress and subjugate the lower classes. Compare the Temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11 (Revised Standard Version):

4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,

‘Man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

‘He will give his angels charge of you,’

and

‘On their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! for it is written,

‘You shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve.’”

11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

Nietzsche also writes about being annoyed himself by beggars saying, "Beggars should be abolished. It annoys one to give to them, and it annoys one not to give to them” (Source: "On the Pitying," Thus Spake Zarathustra). 

He then laments that the average person, the lower and middle class, or the "rabble" will always be with us in the section below (words in bold my own for emphasis):

XXVIII. THE RABBLE.

Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.

To everything cleanly am I well disposed; but I hate to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of the unclean.

They cast their eye down into the fountain: and now glanceth up to me their odious smile out of the fountain.

The holy water have they poisoned with their lustfulness; and when they called their filthy dreams delight, then poisoned they also the words.

Indignant becometh the flame when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbleth and smoketh when the rabble approach the fire.

Mawkish and over-mellow becometh the fruit in their hands: unsteady, and withered at the top, doth their look make the fruit-tree.

And many a one who hath turned away from life, hath only turned away from the rabble: he hated to share with them fountain, flame, and fruit.

And many a one who hath gone into the wilderness and suffered thirst with beasts of prey, disliked only to sit at the cistern with filthy camel-drivers.

And many a one who hath come along as a destroyer, and as a hailstorm to all cornfields, wanted merely to put his foot into the jaws of the rabble, and thus stop their throat.

And it is not the mouthful which hath most choked me, to know that life itself requireth enmity and death and torture-crosses:—

But I asked once, and suffocated almost with my question: What? is the rabble also NECESSARY for life?

Are poisoned fountains necessary, and stinking fires, and filthy dreams, and maggots in the bread of life?

Not my hatred, but my loathing, gnawed hungrily at my life! Ah, ofttimes became I weary of spirit, when I found even the rabble spiritual!

And on the rulers turned I my back, when I saw what they now call ruling: to traffic and bargain for power—with the rabble!

Amongst peoples of a strange language did I dwell, with stopped ears: so that the language of their trafficking might remain strange unto me, and their bargaining for power.

And holding my nose, I went morosely through all yesterdays and to-days: verily, badly smell all yesterdays and to-days of the scribbling rabble!

Like a cripple become deaf, and blind, and dumb—thus have I lived long; that I might not live with the power-rabble, the scribe-rabble, and the pleasure-rabble.

Toilsomely did my spirit mount stairs, and cautiously; alms of delight were its refreshment; on the staff did life creep along with the blind one.

What hath happened unto me? How have I freed myself from loathing? Who hath rejuvenated mine eye? How have I flown to the height where no rabble any longer sit at the wells?

Did my loathing itself create for me wings and fountain-divining powers? Verily, to the loftiest height had I to fly, to find again the well of delight!

Oh, I have found it, my brethren! Here on the loftiest height bubbleth up for me the well of delight! And there is a life at whose waters none of the rabble drink with me!

Almost too violently dost thou flow for me, thou fountain of delight! And often emptiest thou the goblet again, in wanting to fill it!

And yet must I learn to approach thee more modestly: far too violently doth my heart still flow towards thee:—

My heart on which my summer burneth, my short, hot, melancholy, over-happy summer: how my summer heart longeth for thy coolness!

Past, the lingering distress of my spring! Past, the wickedness of my snowflakes in June! Summer have I become entirely, and summer-noontide!

A summer on the loftiest height, with cold fountains and blissful stillness: oh, come, my friends, that the stillness may become more blissful!

For this is OUR height and our home: too high and steep do we here dwell for all uncleanly ones and their thirst.

Cast but your pure eyes into the well of my delight, my friends! How could it become turbid thereby! It shall laugh back to you with ITS purity.

On the tree of the future build we our nest; eagles shall bring us lone ones food in their beaks!

Verily, no food of which the impure could be fellow-partakers! Fire, would they think they devoured, and burn their mouths!

Verily, no abodes do we here keep ready for the impure! An ice-cave to their bodies would our happiness be, and to their spirits!

And as strong winds will we live above them, neighbours to the eagles, neighbours to the snow, neighbours to the sun: thus live the strong winds.

And like a wind will I one day blow amongst them, and with my spirit, take the breath from their spirit: thus willeth my future.

Verily, a strong wind is Zarathustra to all low places; and this counsel counselleth he to his enemies, and to whatever spitteth and speweth: “Take care not to spit AGAINST the wind!”—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

(Source)

Compare this to The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents Volume 2, where in the introduction the authors point out that in these early documents on the life and philosophy of Joseph Smith, one learns that they "illuminate his [Joseph Smith's] vision of Zion--a righteous, poverty-free community ..." In the The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals Vol. 3, we read Joseph's journal for the following date of 21 May 1843 Sunday:

I love that man better who swears a steam as long as my arm and administering to the poor & dividing his substance, than the long smooth faced hypocrites

In other words, for Joseph Smith being good is not about being pious and acting holier than thou as much as how you treat others, especially the poor and those in need. In 3 Nephi 26: 19, in the Book of Mormon, after Jesus teaches the people, it says they "they taught, and did minister one to another; and they had all things common among them, every man dealing justly, one with another." This emphasis on mutual respect and commonality, and everyone should esteem their neighbor as themselves (see Mosiah 27:4; D&C 38:24–25). D&C section 38 goes on to state:

26 For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am ajust? 27 Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.

Compare this to section 29, On the Tarantulas where Nietzsche has his Zarathustra say:

"With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice unto me: "Men are not equal." And neither shall they become so! What would be my love to the Superman, if I spake otherwise?

Sparknotes explains this section this way:

Chapter 7: On the Tarantulas

 Zarathustra calls those who preach democracy, equality, and justice "tarantulas": secretly, they spread the poison of revenge. By preaching equality, they seek to avenge themselves on all those who are not their equals. Life thrives on conflict and self-overcoming. If we were to make everyone equal, how could we strive for the overman [Superhumans]? ...

... Nietzsche considers the idea of justice to be the invention of those who cannot secure justice on their own. Democracy ensures that the weak do not have to suffer the abuses of the strong and that the strong cannot oppress the weak. At least, that's what democracy is supposed to do.

In other words, Nietzsche as an honest atheist had abandoned all traditional ethics (derived from Christianity) and rejected democracy and American notions of inalienable Rights and fairness and equality, for the Greek Agon and the cold hard reality of evolutionary strife within warring species. Since his Superhumans are a new species of humans, they are to replace the Last Man as the future evolutionary trajectory; and in the process the weak and unequal to the strong, need to be sacrificed to produce the Superhumans. For more details see Unpublished Fragments from the Period of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Summer 1882–Winter 1883/84): Volume 14, where we read in a review of the book the following:

The volume consists of 599 pp. of translated text, 111 pp. of notes, an index of persons, an index of subjects, and an 80 p. Translator’s Afterword. The focus of my review will be on this Afterword; I will let more qualified readers comment on the translation. The Translator’s Afterword is mainly, but not exclusively, concerned with the rendering of Nietzsche’s term Übermensch, in the past translated variously as “superman” or more recently “overman”. Loeb and Tinsley elect to use “superhuman”. In doing so they admit to “contradict[ing] in many ways the reading of Nietzsche’s term Übermensch that was first proposed by Walter Kaufmann in his extremely influential study of Nietzsche’s philosophy …” - Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Kaufmann coined the translation “overman” Loeb and Tinsley correctly state that Kaufmann, writing immediately after WWII, was concerned to rehabilitate Nietzsche from his association with Nazi ideology and the contamination of his ideas by racist, eugenic ideas of a superior master race. Loeb and Tinsley write “According to Kaufmann, Nietzsche’s Zarathustran concept of superhumans is identical to his concept of superior individuals and is best exemplified by the figure of [the German poet] Goethe.” By identifying the overman with specific historical individuals, some nefarious, others laudable, Nietzsche, according to Kaufmann, was not advocating a eugenic policy of breeding overmen, but rather pointing to their spontaneous, if not random, appearance in the course of history. Loeb and Tinsely write that Kaufmann’s interpretation of “overman” is “… in the sense that it refers to a great man like Goethe who has overcome (mastered, sublimated) his animality (his passions, instincts, impulses) and thereby attained self-mastery and become truly human.” Loeb and Tinsley point to inconsistencies in Kaufmann’s argument, his supposed ignoring the development of the concept of overman in Nietzsche’s thought, and his downplaying of any evidence to the contrary in Nietzsche’s writings. Loeb and Tinsley’s translation of “superhuman” is supported by a well argued philological thesis regarding the history of the word “Übermensch”. They feel it does better justice when considering the use of the term in Nietzsche’s works as a whole (which they catalog as being surprising little outside of Thus Spoke Zarathustra). However they go on to argue that “superhuman” is a better translation because it fits with a thesis that Nietzsche actually meant a new species of humans, superior to present day humans in much the same way that humans of today are superior to animals. They are superior because, according to Loeb and Tinsley, they have “ … no viable competitors in the universal struggle for power. But they want to feel more power still, and so they are driven to create something greater beyond themselves, that is, a future species that will be much more powerful than they are. They must therefore breed stronger offspring and then select themselves out of existence by seeking the greatest risks and dangers - thus leaving their descendants to flourish and repeat the same cycle until eventually a new species has emerged.” This is not an unfamiliar line of thinking associated with Nietzsche and is similar to the one Kaufmann was at pains to dispel. Kaufmann might have pointed out that Loeb and Tinsley rely somewhat on the notes and fragments they are translating to support this thesis, something that Kaufmann argued against - stating that Nietzsche did not include them in the final published versions of his writings and never intended for them to be published separately or taken as his final thoughts. I think that one can accept the translation “superhuman” and keep an open mind regarding the above contrasting interpretations. However it shows how difficult it can be to feel totally comfortable with Nietzsche's philosophy. Which interpretation the reader feels more comfortable with will probably be determined by what attitude they bring to his works. Consideration of the issue ultimately demands a full immersion in the study of Nietzsche’s writings. ...

I read the Afterward discussed above myself, and it is clear to me that Nietzsche very clearly meant a new species and thus Superhumans, or Parke's Overhumans are better translations than Overman.

We read in the compilation of Nietzsche unpublished notes, THE WILL TO POWER, BOOK IV:

2. The Strong and the Weak

871 (Nov. 1887-March 1888)

The victorious and unbridled: their depressive influence on the value of the desires. It was the dreadful barbarism of custom that, especially in the Middle Ages, compelled the creation of a veritable "league of virtue"--together with an equally dreadful exaggeration of that which constitutes the value of man. Struggling "civilization" (taming) needs every kind of irons and torture to maintain itself against terribleness and beast-of-prey natures.

Here a confusion is quite natural, although its influence has been fatal: that which men of power and will are able to demand of themselves also provides a measure of that which they may permit themselves. Such natures are the antithesis of the vicious and unbridled: although they may on occasion do things that would convict a lesser man of vice and immoderation.

Here the concept of the "equal value of men before God" is extraordinarily harmful; one forbade actions and attitudes that were in themselves among the prerogatives of the strongly constituted--as if they were in themselves unworthy of men. One brought the entire tendency of the strong into disrepute when one erected the protective measures of the weakest (those who were weakest also when confronting themselves) as a norm of value.

Confusion went so far that one branded the very virtuosi of life (whose autonomy offered the sharpest antithesis to the vicious and unbridled) with the most opprobrious names. Even now one believes one must disapprove of a Cesare Borgia; that is simply laughable. The church has excommunicated German emperors on account of their vices: as if a monk or priest had any right to join in a discussion about what a Frederick II may demand of himself. A Don Juan is sent to hell: that is very naive. Has it been noticed that in heaven all interesting men are missing?-- Just a hint to the girls as to where they can best find their salvation.-- If one reflects with some consistency, and moreover with a deepened insight into what a "great man" is, no doubt remains that the church sends all "great men" to hell--it fights against all "greatness of man."

(Source)

For more information see https://www.the-philosophy.com/nietzsche-will-to-power 

Joseph's philosophy is the opposite of Nietzsche's emphasis on the elite rising to the top at the expense of the weak or less fortunate.

Nietzsche rejected Christian morals, belief in God, and the afterlife. In his view the only reality was cold and indifferent nature and nature operated through this cosmic constant, the will to power. Thus he writes in his notes:

And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

In the book, Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism: The Cult of the Superman, author Abir Taha argues that Nietzsche basically wanted to create a pagan "spiritual" philosophy where the strong artistic geniuses and warrior tyrants subject and enslave everyone else. Nietzsche thus fully embraced atheism and evolution, so that if there was no God, no soul and no afterlife, we are just evolved organisms subject to evolution; and so to affirm Life, we need to form of a life philosophy or "spirituality" that embraced nature red in tooth and claw, and its evolving aspects. In the process, ideals of justice, fairness, and democratic equality are nonsense in the jungles of nature of predator and prey, and only occasionally mutualism among species amidst the over cycle of life forms feeding on life forms. In contrast, Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon, where a character named Korihor as an anti-Christ is treated as a villain who disrupts civilized society with his anti-theism. In Alma chapter 30 in the Book of Mormon, it says Korihor "was a Anti-Christ" (verse 6) because basically he sought to disrupt Law & Order, and the laws against criminality and the belief in the Christ which grounded objective notions of Right and Wrong (as "all things which are good cometh of Christ ..." according to Moroni 7:24). Thus Korihor says to the people in Alma 30: 14-16:

Behold, these things ... are foolish traditions of your fathers. How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ. ... it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so. And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that ... every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime. And thus he did preach unto them, leading away the hearts of many, causing them to lift up their heads in their wickedness, yea, leading away many women, and also men, to commit whoredoms—telling them that when a man was dead, that was the end thereof.

Note that this actually sums up Nietzsche's philosophy quite well, as he argues against notions of objective Right and Wrong, and has a section (the Pale Criminal) on how criminals don't commit actual moral crimes because they don't have a soul nor fee will and are just pre-determined. And Nietzsche's notions of the will to power and the strong subjugating the weak and his rejection of equality is very much in line with Korihor saying, "very man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength." Interestingly, Nietzsche also describes himself as the Antichrist. Hence, Joseph's philosophy is against anti-theistic notions of there is no God and no soul nor afterlife, so no Right or Wrong, and everyone man should prosper over others through their genius and conquer through strength, hence might makes right. Joseph Smith taught self-reliance and power and strength as well but in the name of building the ideal of Zion. So that while Joseph Smith's philosophy was enlivening and positive about our human nature and instincts, he also was a compassionate person who cared about human relationships and the betterment of society. Smith truly believe that Christianity was a unifying theology and life philosophy that could unite Americans and his own family.

Radical Egalitarian Equality (No Rich Class or Poor Class)

Going back to D&C section 38, like the historical Jesus before him, we see Joseph's early life in poverty makes it so he detests unfairness and classism, and thus Jesus says through the voice of Joseph:

25 And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself.

26 For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?

27 Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.

The later Utah-based LDS Church would pretty much abandon this radical communitarianism yet the sentiment does live on within the LDS Church in providing relief to poor members. And even though Smith later builds a mansion, it was not for his selfish desire as some critics have argued, but instead it was designed for boarding people for free, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_Mansion_House 

So that Joseph's emphasis on power and dominion in his writings is always in the context, not of selfish egoism (like with Nietzsche and Rand), but of the spirit of esteeming the other as yourself, and building Zion.