Zion City

For some reason, I've been seeing a lot of things that relate to Zion City in the news.

My information comes from Kathlyn Gay's Communes and Cults.(Twenty-First Century Books: New York, 1997) but if anyone else has heard of it, I'd appreciate the info:

Zion City, Illinois was established in 1901 as a theocracy. The sect passed ordinances against alcohol, tobacco, and "profane, blasphemous, or obscene language in any public place, or upon any street." The police carried miniature bibles, like police today carry copies of the Miranda act.

They fought vaccination, claiming "All of you [will be damned] to hell who attempt to vaccinate your children for smallpox." The state militia was enventually sent to enforce it.

Rev. Voliva also preached against belief in a spherical earth and the law of gravity. He would throw objects in the air and when they fell, he proclaim it God's will, not some fancy scientific theory.

The church republished a booklet "One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe" by William Carpendar, to combat the satanic belief that the earth is not flat as the Bible clearly states.

Eventually the Zionist Church was torched and today Zion City is just another suburb.