JOY LIES IN ANOTHER DIRECTION’: HUGH NIBLEY’S CALL TO LEAVE BABYLON AND BUILD ZION Whether anticipating the subject of his last public discourse as he did in his contribution to BYU’s Last Lecture Series in 1971 or contemplating breakthroughs he would like to see in BYU’s Spheres of Influence speech in 1984, when Hugh Nibley has looked to the future, the theme has always been the contemporary “affluenza” binding the Latter-day Saints to Babylon and the hope that we’ll begin living the law of consecration and work to establish Zion. Although it wasn’t until rather late in his life that Nibley forcefully addressed these themes in his writings, he has been approaching Zion all his life.

Boyd Petersen, Fred K. Christensen