Our Gang (or important representatives thereof)The First Amendment does not actually mandate a separation of Church and State except to the extent that it forbids Congress to establish a religion and further forbids it to prohibit the free exercise of religious belief. It guarantees freedom OF religion, but it does not now nor was it ever intended to guarantee a freedom FROM religion. It has always been perfectly alright for organized religions to urge their people to vote for or against given causes or to donate funds for supporting or resisting such causes. And for a couple of centuries it has been considered perfectly appropriate for The Ten Commandments or other quotations from the Mosaic Code or from the law that replaced it in the Meridian of Times to be engraved in stone on public buildings. It is not necessary to strip the majority of its rights in order to protect those of minorities.
I am saddened to see some Latter-day Saints becoming uncomfortable with the position which the Prophet took in favor of Proposition 8 in the recent election in California. Two similar propositions were passed in other states. Some Saints seem to be embarrassed to stand with the Church in this thing. They seem to wish that they could be politically correct in the eyes of the world and simultaneously be considered faithful to the principles of the Gospel.
This can never be. Inevitably, the principles (or lack of same) by which the world lives and judges will come into conflict with the doctrines of the Church and expected behaviors of its membership. This does not prevent the members from disagreeing with each other on political issues. Even in the leadership of the Church there have been examples over the years of political division among the brethren. But this division is purely political. It does not become a schism (to employ a much-used and oft-needed word from European Catholic history) in the establishment of doctrine and policy in the Lord's Church.
After all, it is His Church. We are members of it, because we believe that He called Joseph Smith to be His prophet of the Restoration. We believe that the current president of the Church is also a prophet just as literally and just as authoritatively as Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Isaiah, or any other such person. He speaks for the Lord. He speaks with authority. If he didn't, I wouldn't bother to be a member of this Church. It would be pointless to join or become active in a Church which is without Godly authority. Its doctrines would be powerless to comfort me regarding life, death, or the purposes of each of them. It would only be a sort of club for humans who think the same way about existential questions. Such a Church could not authoritatively seal me to my wife and children and to my siblings and parents. And in the difficult end times which seem to be approaching so quickly, such a Church would be powerless to give me saving counsel or comforting assurances.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's Church. It is not a democracy of any kind. It is a perfect theocracy. Its organization is perfect and its God is perfect. Its membership of imperfect people would be badly served by anything less than a Church which gets its organization, doctrines, and direction from the living God.
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Thank you and Amen
What makes me saddest about this issue is how those in favor of Prop 8 and the like make the claim that only their stance is based on religious grounds, and that those who oppose such measures base their decisions on anything but religious grounds. The following comes from an op-ed I wrote in regard to HJR-2, Idaho's Marriage Amendment: "While it is true that the church’s strong stance on sexual issues does compel the members of the church to adhere to certain guidelines, it has never been the practice of the church to seek to legislate those standards, nor does the church condone the forced adherence of any member to any of the church’s beliefs. The reason the church avoids such arrogant and oppressive actions has to do with the point I believe needs further discussion: the church’s theological foundation on the freedom of choice.
It is often difficult in the modern church to know where official church doctrine ends and the church culture begins. A case in point would be the admonishment by the church that those young men who pass the sacrament wear white shirts. Now, there is nothing true about the color white, nor is it a more “Christ-like” color. If a Deacon does pass the sacrament in a shirt other than the color white, it does not mean that the Deacon has sinned, nor does it invalidate his service to the congregation or the ordinance of the partaker of the sacrament. White has come to represent purity and godliness in the church culture, as it has in most of American culture, yet it does not indicate that the churches doctrine defines white as the only true color. Other cultures see colors such as black as the color that represents purity, while white represents death. My point is that while it is the doctrine of the church to have every member seek after purity, it is not the doctrine of the church that such purity can be achieved through the wearing of certain colors. The wearing of the color (culture) merely represents the seeking of purity (doctrine).
The doctrine of the church that I believe to be its fundamental doctrine is that of the freedom of choice of all of God’s children. According to Mormon theology, before Earth was created, there was a great council held in Heaven, at which two approaches to salvation were discussed. One approach would compel each of us to adhere to the commandments of God. No one would be lost, but no one would learn to love God, or learn anything for that matter. The other approach would allow us to make our own decisions. We would find out on our own the love of God, as well as the repercussions for breaking the commandments. The future of all humankind hinged on this decision. As we know, according to church teachings an unbelievable third of those present chose to live under the first plan. The remaining two-thirds (all those who have or will come to Earth) chose the second plan. Before anyone dismisses the importance of this event, we should remember what it took to ensure that the second approach was implemented. There was no peaceful voting on the issue at hand. It took a war to protect our freedom of choice, a war, we are taught, God himself took part in. And whose side was he on? Was he with those who would compel adherence to God’s understanding? Absolutely not. He fought on the side of those preserving the freedom of His children, knowing that it was in their best interest to learn for themselves to seek out God’s will, rather than have it forced on them. Only after this battle was over would the continued progress promised to His children be realized. It took a battle to protect His children from the overly-zealous efforts of those claiming to be doing the right thing, in His name. They were obviously confused about what God really wanted them to do. Therefore, it is with this understanding that I cast my vote against HJR-2, a resolution which can only be seen as the legalization of forced adherence to religious tenets.
I am reminded that according to church doctrine, I was one of those who fought for our freedoms in that council in Heaven. I find it ironic, yet disappointing, that I am required to fight the same battle all over again."
As you can see, I feel I am acting in as religiously based manner as anyone, and I feel I am following the Prophet as much as anyone in that I am doing what the leaders say by testing them using Moroni's promise. In September of '98, President Faust pened the message from the First Presidency in that month's Ensign. He made it very clear that we as members have not only the right, but the obligation to question our leaders. He also quotes Brigham Young, who was "more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security. … Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not”
Also, please do not mischaracterize my opposition in this issue as me feeling uncomfortable or uneasy to stand up for the church. It's so much bigger than that and to say such things really trivializes the emotions and motivations of many of your family and friends.
I am delighted to see you standing up for the agency of the individual, Jake. It truly is a most basic tenet of our religion and has been since before the creation of the earth. As you points out, we all had a choice of whether to follow Lucifer's plan, or Christ's plan. The two thirds of us who chose to support Christ's plan and to obey His law in this life were certainly exercising individual agency in that decision.
In the days of the Puritans and the Separatists who first colonized Virginia, as ALL the English holdings were once called in honor of Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, virtually all facets of life were dictated by public laws which were dictated by the hierarchy of the local religion. Failure to attend Church, idleness, or preaching anything contrary to the orthodoxy of that religion could result in physical punishments. Was this a violation of an individual's right to choose whether to obey? No. The choice was still there. Gossip and wind up in the dunking chair. Was it cruel? Yes, I think it was pretty awful. But was that person's agency denied? No. By joining that community, the individuals all agreed to follow its laws, however extreme or even crazy they may seem to us today.
Today's Latter-day Saints believe in "obeying, honoring and sustaining the law." They even seem to believe in participating in the making of law, a process called legislation. There are many LDS legislators at all levels of government, not only here in the U.S., but in other nations as well. And every piece of legislation they ever pass -- every one -- is based in whole or in part on someone's idea of right and wrong, morality vs.immorality.
Even if it's just an ordinance creating a change in the zoning laws, it would never have been drafted into a bill in the first place unless some group had thought it to be right. It would never have faced opposition unless some other group had thought it to be wrong.
In the nineteenth century the Idaho legislature passed a bill forbidding voting rights to those who believed in "celestial marriage." I recall voting on a referendum in 1982 to rescind that law. It had finally been decided by a large enough number of people that the law had been wrong all along. Indeed, it had not been enforced for many decades. So, just as it had been passed by angry people who thought, however stupidly, that they were doing something right, it was rescinded by other people who thought it was wrong.
In an email yesterday, Jake, you quoted an uncredited relative as saying, among other things, "Who am I to tell someone they can't be happy?" You are a citizen, and you are a moral being. These two offices not only allow you to participate in the passage of laws but require you to take an active part in the legislative process when an issue is referred to the people. (A referendum.)
Often we are on the losing side of some public policy changes. The passage of many state and federal laws has made me less free as a firearms owner than I would have been even just thirty or forty years ago. There was a time when no one even considered the idea of forbiding or restricting the ownership of firearms as a means of improving public safety and combating crime. Today it is almost a knee-jerk reaction at every level of government when the issue of public safety is discussed.
This affects my freedom and happiness. It is more and more complicated for a well-intentioned person to travel with his legally owned firearms these days without running afoul of some state or local law. Witness the fellow in Denver during the political convention in August whose cased and locked firearms were the excuse for his being arrested and detained for some days.
But, although the law he accidentally broke was phenomenally stupid, he openly acknowledged that he had screwed up and he apologized. As law-abiding citizens we must strive to live the laws. As Latter-day saints, we must try even harder.
In the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve's Proclamation on the family, the word family is carefully defined. Either that proclamation is the revealed word of God or it is not. We cannot and should not force homosexuals to believe that it is divine writ, but we can obey it ourselves to the extent that we try our level best to shape the world around us in the image of God's word. There is no doubt that others are trying their best to shape the world in the image of their beliefs.
As to the oft-quoted line from Brigham about how he feared that the Saints would become numbly obedient without ever doing any thinking or receiving any spiritual confirmation themselves, yes, that would be a terribly wrong way to live. But neither do we need to question everything or even nearly everything that comes forth from Church Headquarters. If we have a testimony that our canon of scripture is true and if we know that President Monson is a living prophet called and authorized to speak by God, then there are some things it would be absurd to doubt. For many Latter-day Saints, the issue addressed in Proposition 8 on California's ballot seems to have been such a subject.
Growing up with 5 brothers taught me that one should never step into a fight between two brothers. Especially when the two brothers are so alike that they can only see the differences between them. Each brother taking a side and trying to prove he is right to the other one. With my brothers, one would invariably switch sides in the middle just to frustrate and humiliate the second brother. Not that that is going on here, as you both seem to stay on your side, but I do see a tendency to prove each other wrong, and gently humiliate your brother in the mean time.
Aside from this, I feel a need to say a few things. Not to stick up for my husband mind you or to step into this ongoing argument you two have, I just feel strongly about these things.
Jake, when you talk about the church asking “those young men who pass the sacrament ‘to’ wear white shirts” I became horribly upset. I remember when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I had 4 teenage brothers at that time, and I remember watching TV and hearing President Harold B. Lee talking about the young men wearing white shirts and a tie to pass the sacrament. I remember how proud families were to have their sons pass the sacrament in their “new” white shirts, even if they were too big or not quite white. For centuries people had kept the “white” shirt for dress. Wearing a white shirt was a way to show respect, a way to show others that you cared for them and their feelings. In no way has it ever meant that the Deacon or Priest was pure or that it validated their service. The reason the priesthood was asked to wear a white shirt to administer and pass the sacrament was to show respect to the ward members and our Father in Heaven. It was not about representing purity and Godliness. It was a way of showing respect, pure and simple.
Jake, when you say, “Also, please do not mischaracterize my opposition in this issue as me feeling uncomfortable or uneasy to stand up for the church. It's so much bigger than that and to say such things really trivializes the emotions and motivations of many of your family and friends.” I would not want to trivialize your feelings for I know how much your brother loves you, and therefore, I would not want to hurt him by hurting you. You have the right to believe what you want, and so do we. I wonder if we can find a subject to discuss that shows each other love and respect, and at the same time, does not look so much like a fight.
He started it!
Nuh-Uh! Wasn't me. Maybe it was Johnny with that big sign in his yard. (Tee-hee-hee.)
Okay, I wasn't prepared for the "He started it!" and blaming Johnny comments, and shot water out of my nose from laughing so hard. I love both of you bozos so much! Even that trouble maker John. Geesh! Where does he get off!
Wow! I can see I need to spend more time with Cheryl and her family and get to know Jim. I'm not sure we've ever had anyone in the family who is quite so eloquent. Around our house it was always a matter of volume rather than eloquence that proved your point.
Jake - I'm sorry but your response was too long and did not hold my attention past the third sentence. But then, it's been a long day and I'm getting really tired.
I am grateful for the kindness and generosity of Eve's comments. Now if I can just figure out who she is...
I believe that I am the "uncredited relative". I don't remember what else I said, I don't keep old emails much, no space on my computer. Jake, feel free to share it if you are so inclined. I would ALSO like to know who Eve is. Any guesses?
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