Because our prophets, seers and revelators are released from office only by death, we don't get to raise our hands to thank them.
So as President Gordon B. Hinckley finally has been released from his lifelong calling as the consummate servant in the kingdom of God, here is my vote of thanks for a job well done.
There are two ways we commonly view our living prophets, and only one of them is right.
In Mormon folklore — and in the eyes of the outside world — we Mormons consider the prophets as speaking nothing but the word of God. Every decision, every act, every gesture is to be remembered, pored over, studied and obeyed, because the prophet does nothing but what the Lord requires of him.
This attitude, if it were true, would make the prophet into something of a puppet, wouldn't it? It wouldn't matter who was president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because each would act exactly like any other apostle called to serve in that position.
But human beings are not interchangeable, no matter how lofty or humble their calling.
The Lord does not dictate every action of the prophets. They must think things through, try things out, find out what is possible and wrestle with problems.
Remember when Moses' father-in-law came to him and upbraided him for wearying himself and the people by trying to do all the work of judgment himself? (Exodus 18:13-26). The prophet took Jethro's advice and, in effect, created a church organization.
Moses was just as much a prophet before he made the change as after. His character was such that he could learn. God spoke to Moses frequently, led him visibly — and yet he did not make Moses his puppet.
There was room for Moses to choose, to invent, to think. To learn and change and grow in his calling.
Joseph Smith made this explicit when he gave us the word of the Lord to Oliver Cowdery: "You have not understood; you supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. ... You must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right" (Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-8).
It matters who leads us and serves us as prophet. It matters that it was President Hinckley who led the church, during his years as president and previously, when his service was in quiet support of the calling of other prophets whose bodies were so enfeebled that they could not do all that was required of them.
Meeting the people
During the first years of his presidency, sometimes he traveled so much that it seemed he was determined to speak personally to every member of the church before he died. After so many years of seeing presidents of the church only on television, suddenly the prophet was everywhere!
Television simply wasn't enough for him. Though it was Gordon B. Hinckley, long before he was an apostle, who pioneered the use of all the media to reach out to the Saints — and to the world — he also understood the limitations of the media as well as their strengths.
Because the Lord had blessed him with robust health and clear speech, unlike his predecessors as president, he might have felt he had a duty to let the Saints hear the prophet's voice and see his face in person.
But it was also part of his character. Though he was a private man, he was not a shy one. And how could he lead Saints who he didn't know?
It can be deeply confining, to function only within the bounds of the church's hierarchy and administration. If the president hears only the voices of the same few people, then he has subjected himself to their judgment of what is important enough for him to know.
Even if the church officials and staff surrounding him have the best will in the world, President Hinckley would no more let them stand between him and the Saints than he would have let them stand between him and the Lord.
We needed to hear him; he needed to hear us. It's part of who he was.
Candor
We loved to watch him in general conference because he was not bound by a script. He spoke with dignity, but also with humor; even in his last general conference, he was himself in the way Joseph Smith was himself, refusing to let other people's ideas of how a prophet should act control the generous impulses of his own mind and heart.
Then there was the time when President Hinckley was quoted in Time magazine as saying, of the doctrine that God the Father was once a man, "I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it ... I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it"
There were quite a few Saints who got in a dither, thinking that President Hinckley was denying our doctrine. But every word he said was strictly accurate. Our church manuals do not offer lessons on this subject. We know nothing on the subject beyond Lorenzo Snow's famous couplet ("As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become").
In fact, President Hinckley was setting an example for us all: We Latter-day Saints have it as an article of faith that God "will yet reveal many great and important things" (Ninth Article of Faith).
It is often wiser to admit, with candor like President Hinckley's, when we don't know enough to talk intelligently on a subject. Some Mormons like to claim "We have all the answers," but that was never President Hinckley's attitude.
Rather he taught that we have all we need to know to live this life as God wants us to live it, and achieve the happiest future that he has in store for us. When God wants us to know more, he'll tell us, but there's no use trying to extend our doctrinal understanding through wild speculation or flights of fancy.
Self-control
I remember watching President Hinckley on "Larry King Live" on Christmas Eve 1999, when he shared the screen with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Robert Schuller.
The Rev. Schuller repeatedly goaded and jabbed at President Hinckley and the LDS claim that because we have a living prophet we have a unique claim to the truth.But President Hinckley simply ignored his jabs and gave his message — our message — in a kind and civil way.
I remember some people saying, "Why didn't President Hinckley answer him?"
Because President Hinckley, after long, long experience with the media, knew that whoever gets angry or mean on camera instantly loses the audience's sympathy. But President Hinckley, by remaining cheerfully on message and never descending to the Rev. Schuller's level, left a far better impression with the audience.
Governing the church
We have never had a president who so thoroughly understood how the church is — and must be — governed. Long before he was a general authority, President Hinckley labored for years as the single busiest employee of the church, doing, quite literally, any and every job that the brethren asked him to do.
In short, he has seen it all, and he has done it all, and he knows the limitations of what can be accomplished by Church leaders — even the prophet himself.
A friend of mine once worked with President Hinckley on an idea both of them believed would be good for the church. But after consulting with others, President Hinckley came back to my friend and said, in effect: "I could probably make it happen right now, but there's little support for it, and after I'm gone the project would probably die. We aren't going to waste the church's resources on something that will almost certainly fail in the long run."
The outside world likes to think of Mormons as robots behaving as the church programs us to. But President Hinckley, like Joseph Smith, understood that this simply does not work with Mormons, however some leaders might wish the Saints were quicker to obey. Stubbornness and stiffneckedness are not lacking in the Restored Church.
But it was not President Hinckley's disposition to seek to control the Saints' lives. His leadership exemplified what Joseph Smith once said about leading the church: "I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves."
Doctrine and Covenants Section 121 is even more explicit in saying the Saints can only be governed by persuasion, without a shred of coercion. I have watched with deep appreciation how well President Hinckley has governed the church by these principles.
Time and again, when people press for definitive answers, his reply — or the official church reply, under his direction — has been, in effect: "Read the scriptures. Pray. Consult your own judgment and conscience. The church is not going to relieve you of your responsibility to think; the church is not going to replace the role of the Spirit of God in your life."
Questions about the exact meaning of "10 percent of your increase" or hairbreadth distinctions in the Word of Wisdom have been answered this way, and we have watched the Church Handbook shrink in size as general principles have often replaced detailed rules.
After Gordon B. Hinckley joined the First Presidency, and particularly during the years when he was the primary active member of that quorum, minute regulations no longer appeared. Why?
I think it was because, like Moses, President Hinckley did not see himself as the only person who could make good decisions, guided by the Spirit of God. "Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers 11:29)
He trusted us
This is the hallmark of President Hinckley's presidency, and his years of service beforehand. While he had high standards and expected others to offer the church their very best, he never acted or spoke as if the ordinary members of the church were children, incapable of making right choices without somebody telling them what to do.(That was somebody else's plan in the council in heaven.)
He spoke to us as if our faith, our role in the kingdom, were as important to this great enterprise as his own. He expected us to act upon that faith and fulfil that role with the same rigor and vigor that he brought to any job he undertook — in which he was often, inevitably, disappointed.
But he never stopped treating us as if we were capable of learning how to govern ourselves.
Which is, when you think about it, what children on the verge of adulthood need: Not just instructions, but the opportunity to act on our own and, yes, even fail, so we can learn and grow.
The responsibility is yours, he said to us over and over again. You can do this. And, surprisingly often, we have discovered that we can.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Friday, December 21, 2007
"The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent", by Jeffrey R. Holland
As Elder Ballard noted earlier in this session, various crosscurrents of our times have brought increasing public attention to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Lord told the ancients this latter-day work would be “a marvellous work and a wonder,” and it is. But even as we invite one and all to examine closely the marvel of it, there is one thing we would not like anyone to wonder about—that is whether or not we are “Christians.”
By and large any controversy in this matter has swirled around two doctrinal issues—our view of the Godhead and our belief in the principle of continuing revelation leading to an open scriptural canon. In addressing this we do not need to be apologists for our faith, but we would like not to be misunderstood. So with a desire to increase understanding and unequivocally declare our Christianity, I speak today on the first of those two doctrinal issues just mentioned.
Our first and foremost article of faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." We believe these three divine persons constituting a single Godhead are united in purpose, in manner, in testimony, in mission. We believe Them to be filled with the same godly sense of mercy and love, justice and grace, patience, forgiveness, and redemption. I think it is accurate to say we believe They are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance, a Trinitarian notion never set forth in the scriptures because it is not true.
Indeed no less a source than the stalwart Harper’s Bible Dictionary records that “the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the [New Testament].”
So any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself. Now, a word about that post–New Testament history might be helpful.
In the year A.D. 325 the Roman emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to address—among other things—the growing issue of God’s alleged “trinity in unity.” What emerged from the heated contentions of churchmen, philosophers, and ecclesiastical dignitaries came to be known (after another 125 years and three more major councils)4 as the Nicene Creed, with later reformulations such as the Athanasian Creed. These various evolutions and iterations of creeds—and others to come over the centuries—declared the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be abstract, absolute, transcendent, imminent, consubstantial, coeternal, and unknowable, without body, parts, or passions and dwelling outside space and time. In such creeds all three members are separate persons, but they are a single being, the oft-noted “mystery of the trinity.” They are three distinct persons, yet not three Gods but one. All three persons are incomprehensible, yet it is one God who is incomprehensible.
We agree with our critics on at least that point—that such a formulation for divinity is truly incomprehensible. With such a confusing definition of God being imposed upon the church, little wonder that a fourth-century monk cried out, “Woe is me! They have taken my God away from me, . . . and I know not whom to adore or to address.” How are we to trust, love, worship, to say nothing of strive to be like, One who is incomprehensible and unknowable? What of Jesus’s prayer to His Father in Heaven that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”?
It is not our purpose to demean any person’s belief nor the doctrine of any religion. We extend to all the same respect for their doctrine that we are asking for ours. (That, too, is an article of our faith.) But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first Christian Saints, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?
We declare it is self-evident from the scriptures that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are separate persons, three divine beings, noting such unequivocal illustrations as the Savior’s great Intercessory Prayer just mentioned, His baptism at the hands of John, the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the martyrdom of Stephen—to name just four.
With these New Testament sources and more8 ringing in our ears, it may be redundant to ask what Jesus meant when He said, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” On another occasion He said, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” Of His antagonists He said, “[They have] . . . seen and hated both me and my Father.” And there is, of course, that always deferential subordination to His Father that had Jesus say, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” “My father is greater than I.”
To whom was Jesus pleading so fervently all those years, including in such anguished cries as “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” and “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”? To acknowledge the scriptural evidence that otherwise perfectly united members of the Godhead are nevertheless separate and distinct beings is not to be guilty of polytheism; it is, rather, part of the great revelation Jesus came to deliver concerning the nature of divine beings. Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best: “Christ Jesus . . . being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”
A related reason The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is excluded from the Christian category by some is because we believe, as did the ancient prophets and apostles, in an embodied—but certainly glorified—God. To those who criticize this scripturally based belief, I ask at least rhetorically: If the idea of an embodied God is repugnant, why are the central doctrines and singularly most distinguishing characteristics of all Christianity the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the physical Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? If having a body is not only not needed but not desirable by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be separated from His spirit in time or eternity? Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ. No one claiming to be a true Christian will want to do that.
Now, to anyone within the sound of my voice who has wondered regarding our Christianity, I bear this witness. I testify that Jesus Christ is the literal, living Son of our literal, living God. This Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer who, under the guidance of the Father, was the Creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. I bear witness that He was born of a virgin mother, that in His lifetime He performed mighty miracles observed by legions of His disciples and by His enemies as well. I testify that He had power over death because He was divine but that He willingly subjected Himself to death for our sake because for a period of time He was also mortal. I declare that in His willing submission to death He took upon Himself the sins of the world, paying an infinite price for every sorrow and sickness, every heartache and unhappiness from Adam to the end of the world. In doing so He conquered both the grave physically and hell spiritually and set the human family free. I bear witness that He was literally resurrected from the tomb and, after ascending to His Father to complete the process of that Resurrection, He appeared, repeatedly, to hundreds of disciples in the Old World and in the New. I know He is the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah who will one day come again in final glory, to reign on earth as Lord of lords and King of kings. I know that there is no other name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved and that only by relying wholly upon His merits, mercy, and everlasting grace can we gain eternal life.
My additional testimony regarding this resplendent doctrine is that in preparation for His millennial latter-day reign, Jesus has already come, more than once, in embodied majestic glory. In the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old boy, confused by many of these very doctrines that still confuse much of Christendom, went into a grove of trees to pray. In answer to that earnest prayer offered at such a tender age, the Father and the Son appeared as embodied, glorified beings to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. That day marked the beginning of the return of the true, New Testament gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the restoration of other prophetic truths offered from Adam down to the present day.
I testify that my witness of these things is true and that the heavens are open to all who seek the same confirmation. Through the Holy Spirit of Truth, may we all know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent.” Then may we live Their teachings and be true Christians in deed, as well as in word, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
By and large any controversy in this matter has swirled around two doctrinal issues—our view of the Godhead and our belief in the principle of continuing revelation leading to an open scriptural canon. In addressing this we do not need to be apologists for our faith, but we would like not to be misunderstood. So with a desire to increase understanding and unequivocally declare our Christianity, I speak today on the first of those two doctrinal issues just mentioned.
Our first and foremost article of faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." We believe these three divine persons constituting a single Godhead are united in purpose, in manner, in testimony, in mission. We believe Them to be filled with the same godly sense of mercy and love, justice and grace, patience, forgiveness, and redemption. I think it is accurate to say we believe They are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance, a Trinitarian notion never set forth in the scriptures because it is not true.
Indeed no less a source than the stalwart Harper’s Bible Dictionary records that “the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the [New Testament].”
So any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself. Now, a word about that post–New Testament history might be helpful.
In the year A.D. 325 the Roman emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to address—among other things—the growing issue of God’s alleged “trinity in unity.” What emerged from the heated contentions of churchmen, philosophers, and ecclesiastical dignitaries came to be known (after another 125 years and three more major councils)4 as the Nicene Creed, with later reformulations such as the Athanasian Creed. These various evolutions and iterations of creeds—and others to come over the centuries—declared the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be abstract, absolute, transcendent, imminent, consubstantial, coeternal, and unknowable, without body, parts, or passions and dwelling outside space and time. In such creeds all three members are separate persons, but they are a single being, the oft-noted “mystery of the trinity.” They are three distinct persons, yet not three Gods but one. All three persons are incomprehensible, yet it is one God who is incomprehensible.
We agree with our critics on at least that point—that such a formulation for divinity is truly incomprehensible. With such a confusing definition of God being imposed upon the church, little wonder that a fourth-century monk cried out, “Woe is me! They have taken my God away from me, . . . and I know not whom to adore or to address.” How are we to trust, love, worship, to say nothing of strive to be like, One who is incomprehensible and unknowable? What of Jesus’s prayer to His Father in Heaven that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”?
It is not our purpose to demean any person’s belief nor the doctrine of any religion. We extend to all the same respect for their doctrine that we are asking for ours. (That, too, is an article of our faith.) But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first Christian Saints, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?
We declare it is self-evident from the scriptures that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are separate persons, three divine beings, noting such unequivocal illustrations as the Savior’s great Intercessory Prayer just mentioned, His baptism at the hands of John, the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the martyrdom of Stephen—to name just four.
With these New Testament sources and more8 ringing in our ears, it may be redundant to ask what Jesus meant when He said, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” On another occasion He said, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” Of His antagonists He said, “[They have] . . . seen and hated both me and my Father.” And there is, of course, that always deferential subordination to His Father that had Jesus say, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” “My father is greater than I.”
To whom was Jesus pleading so fervently all those years, including in such anguished cries as “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” and “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”? To acknowledge the scriptural evidence that otherwise perfectly united members of the Godhead are nevertheless separate and distinct beings is not to be guilty of polytheism; it is, rather, part of the great revelation Jesus came to deliver concerning the nature of divine beings. Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best: “Christ Jesus . . . being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”
A related reason The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is excluded from the Christian category by some is because we believe, as did the ancient prophets and apostles, in an embodied—but certainly glorified—God. To those who criticize this scripturally based belief, I ask at least rhetorically: If the idea of an embodied God is repugnant, why are the central doctrines and singularly most distinguishing characteristics of all Christianity the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the physical Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? If having a body is not only not needed but not desirable by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be separated from His spirit in time or eternity? Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ. No one claiming to be a true Christian will want to do that.
Now, to anyone within the sound of my voice who has wondered regarding our Christianity, I bear this witness. I testify that Jesus Christ is the literal, living Son of our literal, living God. This Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer who, under the guidance of the Father, was the Creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. I bear witness that He was born of a virgin mother, that in His lifetime He performed mighty miracles observed by legions of His disciples and by His enemies as well. I testify that He had power over death because He was divine but that He willingly subjected Himself to death for our sake because for a period of time He was also mortal. I declare that in His willing submission to death He took upon Himself the sins of the world, paying an infinite price for every sorrow and sickness, every heartache and unhappiness from Adam to the end of the world. In doing so He conquered both the grave physically and hell spiritually and set the human family free. I bear witness that He was literally resurrected from the tomb and, after ascending to His Father to complete the process of that Resurrection, He appeared, repeatedly, to hundreds of disciples in the Old World and in the New. I know He is the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah who will one day come again in final glory, to reign on earth as Lord of lords and King of kings. I know that there is no other name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved and that only by relying wholly upon His merits, mercy, and everlasting grace can we gain eternal life.
My additional testimony regarding this resplendent doctrine is that in preparation for His millennial latter-day reign, Jesus has already come, more than once, in embodied majestic glory. In the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old boy, confused by many of these very doctrines that still confuse much of Christendom, went into a grove of trees to pray. In answer to that earnest prayer offered at such a tender age, the Father and the Son appeared as embodied, glorified beings to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. That day marked the beginning of the return of the true, New Testament gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the restoration of other prophetic truths offered from Adam down to the present day.
I testify that my witness of these things is true and that the heavens are open to all who seek the same confirmation. Through the Holy Spirit of Truth, may we all know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent.” Then may we live Their teachings and be true Christians in deed, as well as in word, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
"Good, Better, Best" by Dallin H. Oaks
Most of us have more things expected of us than we can possibly do. As breadwinners, as parents, as Church workers and members, we face many choices on what we will do with our time and other resources.
I.
We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.
Jesus taught this principle in the home of Martha. While she was "cumbered about much serving" (Luke 10:40), her sister, Mary, "sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word" (v. 39). When Martha complained that her sister had left her to serve alone, Jesus commended Martha for what she was doing (v. 41) but taught her that "one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (v. 42). It was praiseworthy for Martha to be "careful and troubled about many things" (v. 41), but learning the gospel from the Master Teacher was more "needful." The scriptures contain other teachings that some things are more blessed than others (see Acts 20:35; Alma 32:14–15).
A childhood experience introduced me to the idea that some choices are good but others are better. I lived for two years on a farm. We rarely went to town. Our Christmas shopping was done in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. I spent hours poring over its pages. For the rural families of that day, catalog pages were like the shopping mall or the Internet of our time.
Something about some displays of merchandise in the catalog fixed itself in my mind. There were three degrees of quality: good, better, and best. For example, some men’s shoes were labeled good ($1.84), some better ($2.98), and some best ($3.45).
As we consider various choices, we should remember that it is not enough that something is good. Other choices are better, and still others are best. Even though a particular choice is more costly, its far greater value may make it the best choice of all.
Consider how we use our time in the choices we make in viewing television, playing video games, surfing the Internet, or reading books or magazines. Of course it is good to view wholesome entertainment or to obtain interesting information. But not everything of that sort is worth the portion of our life we give to obtain it. Some things are better, and others are best. When the Lord told us to seek learning, He said, "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom" (D&C 88:118; emphasis added).
II.
Some of our most important choices concern family activities. Many breadwinners worry that their occupations leave too little time for their families. There is no easy formula for that contest of priorities. However, I have never known of a man who looked back on his working life and said, "I just didn't spend enough time with my job."
In choosing how we spend time as a family, we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best. A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer he asked his teenage son which of these good summer activities he enjoyed most. The father learned from the reply, and so did those he told of it. "The thing I liked best this summer," the boy replied, "was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked." Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent.
The amount of children-and-parent time absorbed in the good activities of private lessons, team sports, and other school and club activities also needs to be carefully regulated. Otherwise, children will be overscheduled, and parents will be frazzled and frustrated. Parents should act to preserve time for family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, and the other precious togetherness and individual one-on-one time that binds a family together and fixes children's values on things of eternal worth. Parents should teach gospel priorities through what they do with their children.
Family experts have warned against what they call "the overscheduling of children." In the last generation children are far busier and families spend far less time together. Among many measures of this disturbing trend are the reports that structured sports time has doubled, but children's free time has declined by 12 hours per week, and unstructured outdoor activities have fallen by 50 percent.
The number of those who report that their "whole family usually eats dinner together" has declined 33 percent. This is most concerning because the time a family spends together "eating meals at home [is] the strongest predictor of children's academic achievement and psychological adjustment." Family mealtimes have also been shown to be a strong bulwark against children's smoking, drinking, or using drugs. There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: What your children really want for dinner is you.
President Gordon B. Hinckley has pleaded that we "work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it." He continued:
"I ask you men, particularly, to pause and take stock of yourselves as husbands and fathers and heads of households. Pray for guidance, for help, for direction, and then follow the whisperings of the Spirit to guide you in the most serious of all responsibilities, for the consequences of your leadership in your home will be eternal and everlasting."
The First Presidency has called on parents "to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles. . . . The home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place . . . in . . . this God-given responsibility." The First Presidency has declared that "however worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted to displace the divinely-appointed duties that only parents and families can adequately perform."
III.
Church leaders should be aware that Church meetings and activities can become too complex and burdensome if a ward or a stake tries to have the membership do everything that is good and possible in our numerous Church programs. Priorities are needed there also.
Members of the Quorum of the Twelve have stressed the importance of exercising inspired judgment in Church programs and activities. Elder L. Tom Perry taught this principle in our first worldwide leadership training meeting in 2003. Counseling the same leaders in 2004, Elder Richard G. Scott said: "Adjust your activities to be consistent with your local conditions and resources. . . . Make sure that the essential needs are met, but do not go overboard in creating so many good things to do that the essential ones are not accomplished. . . . Remember, don't magnify the work to be done—simplify it."
In general conference last year, Elder M. Russell Ballard warned against the deterioration of family relationships that can result when we spend excess time on ineffective activities that yield little spiritual sustenance. He cautioned against complicating our Church service "with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy. . . . The instruction to magnify our callings is not a command to embellish and complicate them. To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify. . . . What is most important in our Church responsibilities," he said, "is not the statistics that are reported or the meetings that are held but whether or not individual people—ministered to one at a time just as the Savior did—have been lifted and encouraged and ultimately changed."
Stake presidencies and bishoprics need to exercise their authority to weed out the excessive and ineffective busyness that is sometimes required of the members of their stakes or wards. Church programs should focus on what is best (most effective) in achieving their assigned purposes without unduly infringing on the time families need for their "divinely appointed duties."
But here is a caution for families. Suppose Church leaders reduce the time required by Church meetings and activities in order to increase the time available for families to be together. This will not achieve its intended purpose unless individual family members—especially parents—vigorously act to increase family togetherness and one-on-one time. Team sports and technology toys like video games and the Internet are already winning away the time of our children and youth. Surfing the Internet is not better than serving the Lord or strengthening the family. Some young men and women are skipping Church youth activities or cutting family time in order to participate in soccer leagues or to pursue various entertainments. Some young people are amusing themselves to death—spiritual death.
Some uses of individual and family time are better, and others are best. We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families.
IV.
Here are some other illustrations of good, better, and best:
It is good to belong to our Father in Heaven's true Church and to keep all of His commandments and fulfill all of our duties. But if this is to qualify as "best," it should be done with love and without arrogance. We should, as we sing in a great hymn, "crown [our] good with brotherhood," showing love and concern for all whom our lives affect.
To our hundreds of thousands of home teachers and visiting teachers, I suggest that it is good to visit our assigned families; it is better to have a brief visit in which we teach doctrine and principle; and it is best of all to make a difference in the lives of some of those we visit. That same challenge applies to the many meetings we hold—good to hold a meeting, better to teach a principle, but best to actually improve lives as a result of the meeting.
As we approach 2008 and a new course of study in our Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and Relief Societies, I renew our caution about how we use the Teachings of Presidents of the Church manuals. Many years of inspired work have produced our 2008 volume of the teachings of Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of this dispensation. This is a landmark among Church books. In the past, some teachers have given a chapter of the Teachings manuals no more than a brief mention and then substituted a lesson of their own choice. It may have been a good lesson, but this is not an acceptable practice. A gospel teacher is called to teach the subject specified from the inspired materials provided. The best thing a teacher can do with Teachings: Joseph Smith is to select and quote from the words of the Prophet on principles specially suited to the needs of class members and then direct a class discussion on how to apply those principles in the circumstances of their lives.
I testify of our Heavenly Father, whose children we are and whose plan is designed to qualify us for "eternal life . . . the greatest of all the gifts of God" (D&C 14:7; see also D&C 76:51–59). I testify of Jesus Christ, whose Atonement makes it possible. And I testify that we are led by prophets, our President Gordon B. Hinckley and his counselors, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I.
We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.
Jesus taught this principle in the home of Martha. While she was "cumbered about much serving" (Luke 10:40), her sister, Mary, "sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word" (v. 39). When Martha complained that her sister had left her to serve alone, Jesus commended Martha for what she was doing (v. 41) but taught her that "one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (v. 42). It was praiseworthy for Martha to be "careful and troubled about many things" (v. 41), but learning the gospel from the Master Teacher was more "needful." The scriptures contain other teachings that some things are more blessed than others (see Acts 20:35; Alma 32:14–15).
A childhood experience introduced me to the idea that some choices are good but others are better. I lived for two years on a farm. We rarely went to town. Our Christmas shopping was done in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. I spent hours poring over its pages. For the rural families of that day, catalog pages were like the shopping mall or the Internet of our time.
Something about some displays of merchandise in the catalog fixed itself in my mind. There were three degrees of quality: good, better, and best. For example, some men’s shoes were labeled good ($1.84), some better ($2.98), and some best ($3.45).
As we consider various choices, we should remember that it is not enough that something is good. Other choices are better, and still others are best. Even though a particular choice is more costly, its far greater value may make it the best choice of all.
Consider how we use our time in the choices we make in viewing television, playing video games, surfing the Internet, or reading books or magazines. Of course it is good to view wholesome entertainment or to obtain interesting information. But not everything of that sort is worth the portion of our life we give to obtain it. Some things are better, and others are best. When the Lord told us to seek learning, He said, "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom" (D&C 88:118; emphasis added).
II.
Some of our most important choices concern family activities. Many breadwinners worry that their occupations leave too little time for their families. There is no easy formula for that contest of priorities. However, I have never known of a man who looked back on his working life and said, "I just didn't spend enough time with my job."
In choosing how we spend time as a family, we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best. A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer he asked his teenage son which of these good summer activities he enjoyed most. The father learned from the reply, and so did those he told of it. "The thing I liked best this summer," the boy replied, "was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked." Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent.
The amount of children-and-parent time absorbed in the good activities of private lessons, team sports, and other school and club activities also needs to be carefully regulated. Otherwise, children will be overscheduled, and parents will be frazzled and frustrated. Parents should act to preserve time for family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, and the other precious togetherness and individual one-on-one time that binds a family together and fixes children's values on things of eternal worth. Parents should teach gospel priorities through what they do with their children.
Family experts have warned against what they call "the overscheduling of children." In the last generation children are far busier and families spend far less time together. Among many measures of this disturbing trend are the reports that structured sports time has doubled, but children's free time has declined by 12 hours per week, and unstructured outdoor activities have fallen by 50 percent.
The number of those who report that their "whole family usually eats dinner together" has declined 33 percent. This is most concerning because the time a family spends together "eating meals at home [is] the strongest predictor of children's academic achievement and psychological adjustment." Family mealtimes have also been shown to be a strong bulwark against children's smoking, drinking, or using drugs. There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: What your children really want for dinner is you.
President Gordon B. Hinckley has pleaded that we "work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it." He continued:
"I ask you men, particularly, to pause and take stock of yourselves as husbands and fathers and heads of households. Pray for guidance, for help, for direction, and then follow the whisperings of the Spirit to guide you in the most serious of all responsibilities, for the consequences of your leadership in your home will be eternal and everlasting."
The First Presidency has called on parents "to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles. . . . The home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place . . . in . . . this God-given responsibility." The First Presidency has declared that "however worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted to displace the divinely-appointed duties that only parents and families can adequately perform."
III.
Church leaders should be aware that Church meetings and activities can become too complex and burdensome if a ward or a stake tries to have the membership do everything that is good and possible in our numerous Church programs. Priorities are needed there also.
Members of the Quorum of the Twelve have stressed the importance of exercising inspired judgment in Church programs and activities. Elder L. Tom Perry taught this principle in our first worldwide leadership training meeting in 2003. Counseling the same leaders in 2004, Elder Richard G. Scott said: "Adjust your activities to be consistent with your local conditions and resources. . . . Make sure that the essential needs are met, but do not go overboard in creating so many good things to do that the essential ones are not accomplished. . . . Remember, don't magnify the work to be done—simplify it."
In general conference last year, Elder M. Russell Ballard warned against the deterioration of family relationships that can result when we spend excess time on ineffective activities that yield little spiritual sustenance. He cautioned against complicating our Church service "with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy. . . . The instruction to magnify our callings is not a command to embellish and complicate them. To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify. . . . What is most important in our Church responsibilities," he said, "is not the statistics that are reported or the meetings that are held but whether or not individual people—ministered to one at a time just as the Savior did—have been lifted and encouraged and ultimately changed."
Stake presidencies and bishoprics need to exercise their authority to weed out the excessive and ineffective busyness that is sometimes required of the members of their stakes or wards. Church programs should focus on what is best (most effective) in achieving their assigned purposes without unduly infringing on the time families need for their "divinely appointed duties."
But here is a caution for families. Suppose Church leaders reduce the time required by Church meetings and activities in order to increase the time available for families to be together. This will not achieve its intended purpose unless individual family members—especially parents—vigorously act to increase family togetherness and one-on-one time. Team sports and technology toys like video games and the Internet are already winning away the time of our children and youth. Surfing the Internet is not better than serving the Lord or strengthening the family. Some young men and women are skipping Church youth activities or cutting family time in order to participate in soccer leagues or to pursue various entertainments. Some young people are amusing themselves to death—spiritual death.
Some uses of individual and family time are better, and others are best. We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families.
IV.
Here are some other illustrations of good, better, and best:
It is good to belong to our Father in Heaven's true Church and to keep all of His commandments and fulfill all of our duties. But if this is to qualify as "best," it should be done with love and without arrogance. We should, as we sing in a great hymn, "crown [our] good with brotherhood," showing love and concern for all whom our lives affect.
To our hundreds of thousands of home teachers and visiting teachers, I suggest that it is good to visit our assigned families; it is better to have a brief visit in which we teach doctrine and principle; and it is best of all to make a difference in the lives of some of those we visit. That same challenge applies to the many meetings we hold—good to hold a meeting, better to teach a principle, but best to actually improve lives as a result of the meeting.
As we approach 2008 and a new course of study in our Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and Relief Societies, I renew our caution about how we use the Teachings of Presidents of the Church manuals. Many years of inspired work have produced our 2008 volume of the teachings of Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of this dispensation. This is a landmark among Church books. In the past, some teachers have given a chapter of the Teachings manuals no more than a brief mention and then substituted a lesson of their own choice. It may have been a good lesson, but this is not an acceptable practice. A gospel teacher is called to teach the subject specified from the inspired materials provided. The best thing a teacher can do with Teachings: Joseph Smith is to select and quote from the words of the Prophet on principles specially suited to the needs of class members and then direct a class discussion on how to apply those principles in the circumstances of their lives.
I testify of our Heavenly Father, whose children we are and whose plan is designed to qualify us for "eternal life . . . the greatest of all the gifts of God" (D&C 14:7; see also D&C 76:51–59). I testify of Jesus Christ, whose Atonement makes it possible. And I testify that we are led by prophets, our President Gordon B. Hinckley and his counselors, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
"Politicians & pundits, please stop slandering my Mormon faith", by Ken Jennings
This is a strange season to be a Mormon. During my lifetime, I thought the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had effectively mainstreamed itself. Being a Mormon was like being Canadian, or a vegetarian, or a unicyclist - it made you a bit of a conversation piece at dinner, but you didn't come in for any lip-curling scorn.
Now, thanks to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, I can read anti-Mormon screeds almost every day, both from the secular left and the evangelical right. Latter-day Saints are either a gullible joke or a satanic menace (or, if one can handle the cognitive dissonance, both).
Romney has declined to get into specifics defending the faith. This is, I assume, partly a matter of principle (why should he have to?) and partly one of pragmatism (many of his past attempts in that vein have seemed clumsy). But this effectively cedes the field to his attackers, and may give the impression that he's staying silent because there are no good answers - or because he's not sincere about his beliefs.
Take the question Mike Huckabee cannily used to make headlines: "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the Devil are brothers?" Huckabee was widely criticized and quickly apologized, but even the apology gave the wrong impression: that he'd somehow been impolite, and not that the whole slur was off base.
The truth, Huck, is that Mormons believe that God is the Father of us all, which does, I guess, in some sense, make Jesus and Satan brothers. And by the same logic, we also believe that Moses and Orville Redenbacher and Attila the Hun and Neil Diamond are brothers. Happy now?
Then there was commentator Lawrence O'Donnell's bizarre anti-Mormon explosion on "The McLaughlin Group" this month. Unlike Huckabee, he never apologized. Instead, trying to clarify, he's dug himself an even deeper hole, calling Romney's Mormon forefathers "a long line of extreme rapists of teenage children." Not just teen rapists - now we're extreme teen rapists!
There are a lot of things you can say about the polygamy in early Latter-day Saint history, achapter many modern Mormons don't avidly defend. But O'Donnell's implicit charge - that the whole practice was a scam cooked up by dirty old men - is wrong. Early accounts show the church's founders, including Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, tearfully resisted "plural marriage." They complied not out of eagerness for some hot 19th century swinging, but from a conviction that an authentic Old Testament practice was being divinely restored. Many of these early marriages were primarily "dynastic" - ceremonial, that is, and not romantic or intimate in any way.
An equally problematic part of Mormon history has been hammered by pundits like Christopher Hitchens, who has called mychurch "an officially racist organization."
It's true that, prior to 1978, blacks could not be ordained to the Mormon priesthood. But here, too, a more nuanced view is helpful. Joseph Smith is now known to have ordained African-American men in the 1830s and 1840s. The prohibition evolved in later decades, propped up by a series of racist folk doctrines. Mormons were relieved when those teachings were repudiated. (It adds context but little comfort to note that other major U.S. denominations had racist and segregationist dogma on their books until the 1970s as well.) And today, the church has more than half a million black members, including prominent leaders, both here and abroad.
It troubles me that attacks like these will probably just get worse as the campaign heats up. It's not that I think our religion can't handle the scrutiny. I just don't think the slings and arrows of a bloodthirsty 21st century political campaign are the best way to tease out spiritual truth.
I'm tired of being a punch line and a punching bag. If the only way to get Mormonism out of the arena is to get Romney out of the race, then I'm counting the days. This is one Mormon who would rather have a little civility and tolerance than one of our own in the White House.
Now, thanks to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, I can read anti-Mormon screeds almost every day, both from the secular left and the evangelical right. Latter-day Saints are either a gullible joke or a satanic menace (or, if one can handle the cognitive dissonance, both).
Romney has declined to get into specifics defending the faith. This is, I assume, partly a matter of principle (why should he have to?) and partly one of pragmatism (many of his past attempts in that vein have seemed clumsy). But this effectively cedes the field to his attackers, and may give the impression that he's staying silent because there are no good answers - or because he's not sincere about his beliefs.
Take the question Mike Huckabee cannily used to make headlines: "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the Devil are brothers?" Huckabee was widely criticized and quickly apologized, but even the apology gave the wrong impression: that he'd somehow been impolite, and not that the whole slur was off base.
The truth, Huck, is that Mormons believe that God is the Father of us all, which does, I guess, in some sense, make Jesus and Satan brothers. And by the same logic, we also believe that Moses and Orville Redenbacher and Attila the Hun and Neil Diamond are brothers. Happy now?
Then there was commentator Lawrence O'Donnell's bizarre anti-Mormon explosion on "The McLaughlin Group" this month. Unlike Huckabee, he never apologized. Instead, trying to clarify, he's dug himself an even deeper hole, calling Romney's Mormon forefathers "a long line of extreme rapists of teenage children." Not just teen rapists - now we're extreme teen rapists!
There are a lot of things you can say about the polygamy in early Latter-day Saint history, achapter many modern Mormons don't avidly defend. But O'Donnell's implicit charge - that the whole practice was a scam cooked up by dirty old men - is wrong. Early accounts show the church's founders, including Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, tearfully resisted "plural marriage." They complied not out of eagerness for some hot 19th century swinging, but from a conviction that an authentic Old Testament practice was being divinely restored. Many of these early marriages were primarily "dynastic" - ceremonial, that is, and not romantic or intimate in any way.
An equally problematic part of Mormon history has been hammered by pundits like Christopher Hitchens, who has called mychurch "an officially racist organization."
It's true that, prior to 1978, blacks could not be ordained to the Mormon priesthood. But here, too, a more nuanced view is helpful. Joseph Smith is now known to have ordained African-American men in the 1830s and 1840s. The prohibition evolved in later decades, propped up by a series of racist folk doctrines. Mormons were relieved when those teachings were repudiated. (It adds context but little comfort to note that other major U.S. denominations had racist and segregationist dogma on their books until the 1970s as well.) And today, the church has more than half a million black members, including prominent leaders, both here and abroad.
It troubles me that attacks like these will probably just get worse as the campaign heats up. It's not that I think our religion can't handle the scrutiny. I just don't think the slings and arrows of a bloodthirsty 21st century political campaign are the best way to tease out spiritual truth.
I'm tired of being a punch line and a punching bag. If the only way to get Mormonism out of the arena is to get Romney out of the race, then I'm counting the days. This is one Mormon who would rather have a little civility and tolerance than one of our own in the White House.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
"GOP, Christianity have no room for anti-Mormon hate", by Ryan Cooper
Mitt Romney should be leading the pack of Republican presidential candidates.
He's spent more money, hired more staff and made more campaign stops than any other candidate. Some Republicans refuse to support him because he's a Mormon, a Christian denomination at odds with fundamentalist doctrine.
Mitt faces an uphill battle against an entire industry devoted toward the destruction of his beliefs. Walk into any Christian bookstore, and you'll find an entire shelf devoted to anti-Mormon literature, books and videos. Web Sites, seminars and traveling "Mormon experts" warn Christians about the church's dangerous doctrines.
Their goal is to paint a different picture of the church members. Beneath the veneer of clean living, Mormons worship pagan gods, perform cult rituals and plot to control the world — or so the anti-Mormons claim.
In his latest book, anti-Mormon guru Ed Decker urges Christians to not vote for Romney because he'll replace the Constitution with a "Mormon theocracy." Decker's films mocking church ordinances received rave reviews from sympathetic preachers and scared Christians.
Hatred of Mormons is nothing new. Persecution against members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has existed since it was founded in 1830 in rural New York.
Church founder Joseph Smith moved the headquarters to a remote area in northwest Missouri to avoid problems with New England neighbors.
Missouri residents disproved of their doctrine, their Yankee lifestyle and opposition to slavery. Church members were forced to flee the state after Democratic Gov. Lilburn Boggs issued an extermination order in 1838.
Mormons weren't allowed to stay in the disease-filled swamps of Navoo, Ill. An angry mob killed Smith and his brother Hyrum, evicting the Mormons from the country in the dead of winter. With nowhere to go, they chose the one place no one wanted: the Utah desert.
Opposition didn't stop the church from growing into one of the largest denominations in America. Jealous of their success, the messengers of hate continue to attack a church that has hurt no one.
I experienced some of their hate while serving a mission in Southern California. On two occasions, vehicles swerved onto the shoulder to hit me while I was riding my bicycle to an appointment. One person even attempted to harm me. Thankfully, many Samoans and Tongans are church members.
I also noticed it when I attended a church conference in Salt Lake City. Anti-Mormon protesters carried giant signs and heckled those walking to the Conference Center. With the help of the ACLU, these protesters fought for their right to ruin wedding photos of newly married couples at the Salt Lake Temple.
The political left often claims that the right is home to closet bigots and hate-mongers. Sadly, they're correct. Jeremiah Films, a group of social conservatives who produced Decker's movies, created other films claiming that Harry Potter and Halloween are tools of the devil, leading millions of children to hell.
The far right wants to exclude people from heaven by labeling those who aren't fundamentalists as non-Christians and exclude people from the Republican Party who don't subscribe to their hateful views as nonconservatives.
Christ didn't reject anyone who sought to believe in his teachings. And Abraham Lincoln didn't reject the Mormons, who weren't welcome in the Democratic Party.
There is no room in the big tent of the Republican Party or the Christian faith for hate. Decker and his minions can pack their bags and join the Constitution Party, which hates everybody.
He's spent more money, hired more staff and made more campaign stops than any other candidate. Some Republicans refuse to support him because he's a Mormon, a Christian denomination at odds with fundamentalist doctrine.
Mitt faces an uphill battle against an entire industry devoted toward the destruction of his beliefs. Walk into any Christian bookstore, and you'll find an entire shelf devoted to anti-Mormon literature, books and videos. Web Sites, seminars and traveling "Mormon experts" warn Christians about the church's dangerous doctrines.
Their goal is to paint a different picture of the church members. Beneath the veneer of clean living, Mormons worship pagan gods, perform cult rituals and plot to control the world — or so the anti-Mormons claim.
In his latest book, anti-Mormon guru Ed Decker urges Christians to not vote for Romney because he'll replace the Constitution with a "Mormon theocracy." Decker's films mocking church ordinances received rave reviews from sympathetic preachers and scared Christians.
Hatred of Mormons is nothing new. Persecution against members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has existed since it was founded in 1830 in rural New York.
Church founder Joseph Smith moved the headquarters to a remote area in northwest Missouri to avoid problems with New England neighbors.
Missouri residents disproved of their doctrine, their Yankee lifestyle and opposition to slavery. Church members were forced to flee the state after Democratic Gov. Lilburn Boggs issued an extermination order in 1838.
Mormons weren't allowed to stay in the disease-filled swamps of Navoo, Ill. An angry mob killed Smith and his brother Hyrum, evicting the Mormons from the country in the dead of winter. With nowhere to go, they chose the one place no one wanted: the Utah desert.
Opposition didn't stop the church from growing into one of the largest denominations in America. Jealous of their success, the messengers of hate continue to attack a church that has hurt no one.
I experienced some of their hate while serving a mission in Southern California. On two occasions, vehicles swerved onto the shoulder to hit me while I was riding my bicycle to an appointment. One person even attempted to harm me. Thankfully, many Samoans and Tongans are church members.
I also noticed it when I attended a church conference in Salt Lake City. Anti-Mormon protesters carried giant signs and heckled those walking to the Conference Center. With the help of the ACLU, these protesters fought for their right to ruin wedding photos of newly married couples at the Salt Lake Temple.
The political left often claims that the right is home to closet bigots and hate-mongers. Sadly, they're correct. Jeremiah Films, a group of social conservatives who produced Decker's movies, created other films claiming that Harry Potter and Halloween are tools of the devil, leading millions of children to hell.
The far right wants to exclude people from heaven by labeling those who aren't fundamentalists as non-Christians and exclude people from the Republican Party who don't subscribe to their hateful views as nonconservatives.
Christ didn't reject anyone who sought to believe in his teachings. And Abraham Lincoln didn't reject the Mormons, who weren't welcome in the Democratic Party.
There is no room in the big tent of the Republican Party or the Christian faith for hate. Decker and his minions can pack their bags and join the Constitution Party, which hates everybody.
"LDS god is in harmony with the Bible" by Orson Scott Card
Poor Mitt Romney.
Well, not actually poor, but you know what I mean.
Little did he know that in order to run for president, he was going to have to take America to Sunday school class.
Officially, of course, there is no religious test in order to hold public office. But in practical terms, if a candidate believes in something completely insane, people have a right to take that into consideration before voting for him.
Besides, we Mormons spend a lot of time and effort trying to get our message out there. We can't become suddenly shy about our religion just because one of our number is running for office.
Our first senator, Reed Smoot, had to go through a grueling investigation before he could be seated in the Senate. We can hardly expect the first serious Mormon candidate for president not to face a similar gauntlet.
The doctrine that our opponents would love to hang around Romney's neck is the one about human beings having the potential to become like God.
Or, as our opponents like to put it — because it sounds more insane — Mormons believe that they're going to become gods.
Now, that's just not accurate. We believe that those who repent of their sins and become perfect of heart will be, by the grace of Christ, exalted. But how many people have you known who are truly perfect of heart, desiring nothing but to serve God and their fellow humans?
I've known a few. But I'm most definitely not one of them. I'm in the category called "sinners," and I have a pretty good notion that most of us are.
We also believe that people who never heard the gospel during mortality can accept it in the next life. Certainly many who were never "Mormons" in their mortal lives will be exalted.
But that's quibbling over their phrasing. The point of contention is whether anyone can become Godlike.
It all comes down to what we mean by "God."
In one sense, we're in perfect agreement. We all point to the Bible and say, "We believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he is divine himself, and that only by his grace can we be cleansed of our sins and return to the presence of the Father.
As far as I'm concerned, anybody who believes that is a Christian. You can be wrong about a lot of the details, but all who accept Christ's divinity and try to live by his teachings are Christians.
However, something happened between the writing of the Bible and the settling of the traditional Christian doctrine of God. What came between them was Plato.
Technically, it was Neoplatonism. But I'm not writing a book, I'm writing a newspaper essaycolumn, and a lot of fine distinctions are going to be left out.
For a thorough treatment of the details, read "How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God," by Richard R. Hopkins.
Plato taught that all physical objects are unreal because they're corrupt and imperfect and doomed to change and die. The perfect chair or star or stone or man has no tangible existence — only the "idea" of these things can be real because only the idea does not change or corrupt or break or die.
Likewise, whatever we call true, beautiful or good in this world is merely a shadow of the ideal, and therefore real and unchanging Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
In Plato's view, the only god worth worshipping is the perfect ideal of the True, the Beautiful and the Good.
That god cannot have any physical presence in time and space because physicality and duration would diminish its perfection.
The Bible, however, is thick with references to the physical existence of God. We are made in his image, says Genesis. Christ went to some trouble to show his disciples that he had become a resurrected being with a body of flesh and bone. Yet somehow, within a few generations after the writing of the New Testament, "traditional Christianity" had adopted Plato's definition of the perfection of God, and treated the biblical physicality of God as metaphor.
The main point of disagreement between Mormons and traditional Christianity is that we believe in the biblical God — the God in whose image we were made, the resurrected Christ with a perfect body of flesh and bone — and they don't.
Or, rather, their theologians don't. Most ordinary Christians ignore the creeds; when they pray, they're thinking of God as a person with a face, with arms and legs, who actually exists in space and time.
They believe in the biblical God, as we do. You have to go to college to accept the paradoxes of the platonic God that traditional Christianity has embraced.
To help make the difference clear, let me use, as a parable, some "doctrines" we all learned in high school geometry class: A line is perfectly straight and infinitely long.
All lines in the same plane either touch or they don't touch. If they don't touch, they are parallel and they go in the same direction, infinitely.
Those are the only two choices with lines in the same plane: They're either parallel or they intersect somewhere.
Now here's a theological argument between a traditional Christian (TC) and a biblical Christian (LDS):
TC: The Trinity consists of three parallel lines, which touch each other.
LDS: If they touch each other, they're not parallel.
TC: Nevertheless, they are parallel, and they touch. They touch at every point.
LDS: If they touch at every point, they're the same line. Not three.
TC: They touch at every point, yet there are three.
LDS: That doesn't make any sense. Lines can't be different yet the same, parallel yet intersecting. The words stop having any meaning when you say such things.
TC: That's because you have a finite, mortal mind, which cannot comprehend the nature of geometry.
LDS: That's just crazy. The Trinity is three lines, completely distinct, perfectly parallel, so they go infinitely in the same direction. That's simple, it's clear, and it's true. In fact, we've seen the lines.
TC: That's blasphemy! You can never see the lines! They're only imaginary!
LDS: Your lines are imaginary. The lines we've seen are real.
TC: Then you are not Geometers!
And that's where the discussion always ends.
There's no way any human being could become like the platonic God. By simply existing, we are infinitely inferior to that perfection. To be perfect, we would have to shed everything that makes us individual human beings and approach the same nonexistence that epitomizes the platonic God.
The biblical God, by contrast, is approachable and embraceable. We are forever his children and will never be his equals; everything we are comes as his gift; our hope comes entirely from the grace of his Son; our understanding comes from the Holy Spirit.
After this life, all who have become perfect in their obedience to God and are forgiven their sins by the grace of Christ will spend eternity serving God in his great work of continuing creation. Only thus can the best of us humans obey Christ's commandment to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect.
We believe that all of God's children who serve him and embrace the atoning sacrifice of Christ (in this life or the next) will be taken into God's service and trusted by him with a portion of his eternal creative work. They will be like him, as adult children are like their parents.
It's why you have children, isn't it? So they can eventually take their place as adults?
That's what we Mormons believe about the nature of God. That's the God we find in the Bible. We can't find the platonic one there. They found him somewhere else.
But when it comes to choosing a president, does a person's opinion about the nature of God make any difference at all?
What makes a difference is the candidate's character: Does he actually live by the rules he professes to believe in? Does he keep his word?
Character is the only issue that matters, in my opinion. A person who professes correct opinions but has no honor won't be much good as president, while a person of honor can believe what he wants about God and still be a president we can trust.
Well, not actually poor, but you know what I mean.
Little did he know that in order to run for president, he was going to have to take America to Sunday school class.
Officially, of course, there is no religious test in order to hold public office. But in practical terms, if a candidate believes in something completely insane, people have a right to take that into consideration before voting for him.
Besides, we Mormons spend a lot of time and effort trying to get our message out there. We can't become suddenly shy about our religion just because one of our number is running for office.
Our first senator, Reed Smoot, had to go through a grueling investigation before he could be seated in the Senate. We can hardly expect the first serious Mormon candidate for president not to face a similar gauntlet.
The doctrine that our opponents would love to hang around Romney's neck is the one about human beings having the potential to become like God.
Or, as our opponents like to put it — because it sounds more insane — Mormons believe that they're going to become gods.
Now, that's just not accurate. We believe that those who repent of their sins and become perfect of heart will be, by the grace of Christ, exalted. But how many people have you known who are truly perfect of heart, desiring nothing but to serve God and their fellow humans?
I've known a few. But I'm most definitely not one of them. I'm in the category called "sinners," and I have a pretty good notion that most of us are.
We also believe that people who never heard the gospel during mortality can accept it in the next life. Certainly many who were never "Mormons" in their mortal lives will be exalted.
But that's quibbling over their phrasing. The point of contention is whether anyone can become Godlike.
It all comes down to what we mean by "God."
In one sense, we're in perfect agreement. We all point to the Bible and say, "We believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he is divine himself, and that only by his grace can we be cleansed of our sins and return to the presence of the Father.
As far as I'm concerned, anybody who believes that is a Christian. You can be wrong about a lot of the details, but all who accept Christ's divinity and try to live by his teachings are Christians.
However, something happened between the writing of the Bible and the settling of the traditional Christian doctrine of God. What came between them was Plato.
Technically, it was Neoplatonism. But I'm not writing a book, I'm writing a newspaper essaycolumn, and a lot of fine distinctions are going to be left out.
For a thorough treatment of the details, read "How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God," by Richard R. Hopkins.
Plato taught that all physical objects are unreal because they're corrupt and imperfect and doomed to change and die. The perfect chair or star or stone or man has no tangible existence — only the "idea" of these things can be real because only the idea does not change or corrupt or break or die.
Likewise, whatever we call true, beautiful or good in this world is merely a shadow of the ideal, and therefore real and unchanging Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
In Plato's view, the only god worth worshipping is the perfect ideal of the True, the Beautiful and the Good.
That god cannot have any physical presence in time and space because physicality and duration would diminish its perfection.
The Bible, however, is thick with references to the physical existence of God. We are made in his image, says Genesis. Christ went to some trouble to show his disciples that he had become a resurrected being with a body of flesh and bone. Yet somehow, within a few generations after the writing of the New Testament, "traditional Christianity" had adopted Plato's definition of the perfection of God, and treated the biblical physicality of God as metaphor.
The main point of disagreement between Mormons and traditional Christianity is that we believe in the biblical God — the God in whose image we were made, the resurrected Christ with a perfect body of flesh and bone — and they don't.
Or, rather, their theologians don't. Most ordinary Christians ignore the creeds; when they pray, they're thinking of God as a person with a face, with arms and legs, who actually exists in space and time.
They believe in the biblical God, as we do. You have to go to college to accept the paradoxes of the platonic God that traditional Christianity has embraced.
To help make the difference clear, let me use, as a parable, some "doctrines" we all learned in high school geometry class: A line is perfectly straight and infinitely long.
All lines in the same plane either touch or they don't touch. If they don't touch, they are parallel and they go in the same direction, infinitely.
Those are the only two choices with lines in the same plane: They're either parallel or they intersect somewhere.
Now here's a theological argument between a traditional Christian (TC) and a biblical Christian (LDS):
TC: The Trinity consists of three parallel lines, which touch each other.
LDS: If they touch each other, they're not parallel.
TC: Nevertheless, they are parallel, and they touch. They touch at every point.
LDS: If they touch at every point, they're the same line. Not three.
TC: They touch at every point, yet there are three.
LDS: That doesn't make any sense. Lines can't be different yet the same, parallel yet intersecting. The words stop having any meaning when you say such things.
TC: That's because you have a finite, mortal mind, which cannot comprehend the nature of geometry.
LDS: That's just crazy. The Trinity is three lines, completely distinct, perfectly parallel, so they go infinitely in the same direction. That's simple, it's clear, and it's true. In fact, we've seen the lines.
TC: That's blasphemy! You can never see the lines! They're only imaginary!
LDS: Your lines are imaginary. The lines we've seen are real.
TC: Then you are not Geometers!
And that's where the discussion always ends.
There's no way any human being could become like the platonic God. By simply existing, we are infinitely inferior to that perfection. To be perfect, we would have to shed everything that makes us individual human beings and approach the same nonexistence that epitomizes the platonic God.
The biblical God, by contrast, is approachable and embraceable. We are forever his children and will never be his equals; everything we are comes as his gift; our hope comes entirely from the grace of his Son; our understanding comes from the Holy Spirit.
After this life, all who have become perfect in their obedience to God and are forgiven their sins by the grace of Christ will spend eternity serving God in his great work of continuing creation. Only thus can the best of us humans obey Christ's commandment to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect.
We believe that all of God's children who serve him and embrace the atoning sacrifice of Christ (in this life or the next) will be taken into God's service and trusted by him with a portion of his eternal creative work. They will be like him, as adult children are like their parents.
It's why you have children, isn't it? So they can eventually take their place as adults?
That's what we Mormons believe about the nature of God. That's the God we find in the Bible. We can't find the platonic one there. They found him somewhere else.
But when it comes to choosing a president, does a person's opinion about the nature of God make any difference at all?
What makes a difference is the candidate's character: Does he actually live by the rules he professes to believe in? Does he keep his word?
Character is the only issue that matters, in my opinion. A person who professes correct opinions but has no honor won't be much good as president, while a person of honor can believe what he wants about God and still be a president we can trust.
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