In Sunday school today we were talking, among other things, about the freedom of conscience that was protected under Nephite law. The teacher (I can’t remember his name since it was our first week in a new ward) made the statement that all men were equal before the law. The thought that followed in my mind was that this was the highest equality we should strive for in society – that all men would be equal before the law. We need not seek for all men to be equal in material posessions, or in educational attainment, but only that all be treated equally in the eyes of the law and that there be no legal basis for any kind of discrimination with regards to the various kinds of opportunity that a person might seek.
Tag: religion
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Government and Religion
I was reading Doctrine and Covenants section 134 today. I have read it before on various occasions, but my perspective on government has sharpened considerably since the last time I read it and it struck a chord with me as a wonderful description of the proper interaction between government and religious organizations.
We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.
We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.
We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul.
That resonates with my thoughts that government is a divinely sanctioned necessity for maintaining secular order in an otherwise chaotic world and also that the purposes of government are limited to establishing that order while stopping short of interfering with the legitimate agency of its citizens.
I wonder if any government has ever managed to avoid overstepping those very limited bounds consistently.
I was listening to a talk today in sacrament meeting where the speaker was putting great emphasis on the fact that the leaders of the LDS church seek for members to obey their leaders out of understanding rather than blindly obeying. I’m confident that most people would concede that this is the ideal for any organization. The question that came to my mind was – in cases where someone has not gained an understanding regarding why they have been asked to do something, would church leaders prefer blind obedience or would they prefer inaction from those who do not understand?
I know some people would find that question easy to answer – those who view church leaders as power-hungry would argue that they would obviously prefer blind obedience in all cases where understanding has not been attained. Since I do not see the leaders of the church as seekers of power I don’t believe that absolute answer. I would think that they would prefer blind obedience only when inaction was identical to opposition. Otherwise it seems that seeking to understand would be of greater importance in most cases than ignorant obedience.
Of course in seeking to understand there is the counsel from the Lord that “If any man will do his will (obey), he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I (whoever is declaring the doctrine or commandment) speak of myself. ” (John 7:17) This suggests that seeking for understanding would require obedience to those things that you do understand as well as an eyes-wide-open test, through action (obedient action being the assumption), in order to gain understanding of whatever the leaders are saying that you do not understand yet. The question is, is that blind obedience, or is that simply a logical, clinical test? I think of it as a clinical test.
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More Than Enough
In 2006 I wrote a post asking What kind of God do you worship? I was reminded of that post as I thought of my personal answer to the question this evening. I was watching The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd with my kids and it really hit home in the final scene.
In the scene we have a father, Helam, and son, Jacob, talking as they observe Christ among the Nephite people. Jacob is describing the Savior to Helam who has been blinded because of an accident while helping Jacob.
Jacob: You have looked for the Messiah all your life and now He is here and because of me you cannot leap for joy. You cannot even see Him.
Helam: But you can see Him. And that is enough.
At this moment the hand of Christ reaches to Jacob’s shoulder and Jacob moves so that Christ can heal Helam’s eyes.
Helam had been satisfied that his son could see the Savior, but the Savior allowed him to see as well. That is the kind of God I worship – the kind who is willing to give us more than enough of our heart’s desire if we will persist in seeking Him even more than we seek the things of the world.
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“We Talk of Christ”
Earlier this week I came across Christ.org and I really enjoyed reading what kinds of things had been written there. I plan to follow the discussion there to see if it continues to be enlightening. I also hope that it might be a source to spark my thinking when it comes to my Sunday postings as I try to avoid topics that are mainly secular in nature.
If you have any belief or interest in Christ it would be well worth your time to check out the site and see if it has anything to offer you.
Starting by referring to two posts I wrote back in January, Obi wan Liberali posts More Thoughts on Authoritarian Thinking. I have to say that, like Obi wan, I am deeply concerned about our shift towards a more authoritarian society. I also agree that the positions publicly identified as conservative are tending towards greater social authoritarianism although I’m not sure they are becoming more authoritarian economically. On the other hand, the positions publicly identified as liberal have always been likely to take an authoritarian stance economically while remaining libertarian in the social arena.
I believe that Obi wan is correct in identifying two classifications of authoritarians – most being authoritarian followers, and the minority being authoritarian leaders (he calls them dominators). Obi identifies religion as being naturally authoritarian in structure. While I agree that religion is generally authoritarian I don’t believe that this is peculiar to religion – I believe that authoritarianism is human nature.
People who strive for power are naturally going to be authoritarian leaders. Leadership based solely on logic and persuasion is not a dependable way to maintain authority. Those who rely on persuasion are not concerned about their personal authority. The reason that so many people qualify as authoritarian followers is a combination of short-sightedness and laziness. Some people are unwilling to do the work necessary to form their own opinions so they follow whatever authoritarian leader they are inclined to follow. Others are willing to do the work to form their own opinions, but they fail to foresee the dangers of supporting the authoritarian pursuits of those who are ideologically in line with the positions they have chosen.
The reason that authoritarian systems are so worrisome to me is that I view personal responsibility to be the foundation and the working definition of liberty. Authoritarianism is antithetical to personal liberty and personal responsibility. People who are unwilling to take the time to gather the information to form their own opinions will always be seeking for someone to follow politically, religiously, or in any other arena. People who will put forth that effort will enjoy the fruits of their personal liberty only to the extent that they are allowed to – meaning that they cannot enjoy the fruits of liberty in a situation where their opportunity to make choices is cut short by the system. This applies to equally economic, political, and religious systems.
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Six Months to Digest
For the first time in years I got to sit through an entire general session of conference with almost no interruption. It was exciting to actually be able to listen to each speaker rather than simply catching bits and pieces (up to a whole talk) while answering the needs of the kids. Isaac was sleeping and the girls pretty well took care of themselves with games (and a movie I think).
I also found the perfect way to take notes. I got the new embedded video stream on lds.org (we don’t have cable or reception of KSL on our TV) and shrunk the window down so that all I could see was the video. Then I opened a second window and sized it to fill the rest of the screen so I could take notes on my General Conference wiki (I love being able to link between talks and look up a list of every talk I have notes on by speaker, session, or year) on one side of the screen while watching the speaker on the other side of the screen. no more wondering for days if I spelled a speaker’s name wrong in my notes.
While I enjoyed the technical aspects of being able to take notes and listen more effectively, the best part was all the thoughts of how to do better. There were thoughts of comfort, and thoughts of prodding. I succeeded in my goal after last conference to review all the talks. Hopefully I can do even better than that in the next six months.
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Old Goals, New Goals
I have made a goal ever six months for the last couple of years to review every talk from general conference before the next general conference. I have to make the goal anew each conference because each time I fail – until now. Thanks to my introduction to ScriptureCast I reviewed the final talk from the October 2007 conference this morning. ScriptureCast allows you to create custom podcasts from the scriptures (and the last conference or two) where you set the starting point and completion date and it generates a podcast for you. They don’t have the Bible but I hope they are working to add it – though I have no information about whether they are or not. it’s nice to finally meet that goal – just in time to start over again (as soon as this week’s conference gets added).
I have been trying, with pretty good success, to be consistent at writing here. I had hope of ensuring that my blog would be consistent enough to hold the interest of those who read it, and attract responses to continue refining my thinking. At one point I had an average of more than 2 comments for every post on the blog. That may not sound like much to some people, but considering the large number of posts from when I started the blog where there was nobody to respond I felt pretty good about that. Then I went through and added something above 100 posts from my earlier blogging and the comment count was again well below the 2:1 ratio I had achieved – I’m almost back to that ration thanks to much feedback from a half a dozen regular readers.
I have recently recognized that I have been holding back somewhat because of that relatively arbitrary goal (the 2:1 comment ratio). I have avoided writing about things that don’t feel very current or likely to generate some interest. I have decided that being picky is not my strong suit and I would like to make more strides on another goal that I had made – to go through all the founding documents (especially the Federalist Papers). I have decided to push for two posts per day until I achieve that goal – one covering Federalist papers, and another like what I have been posting regularly (that way I won’t put off studying one of the Federalist papers just because I saw something interesting to write. Hopefully that study will make my other writing and thinking deeper and more grounded in principle.
Wish me luck.
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Stability Amid Change
I remember when Elder Neal A. Maxwell died followed closely by the death of Elder David B. Haight. I thought at the time that the church had enjoyed what seemed to be an unusually long period of stability among the highest leadership of the church (The First Presidency and the Quorum of the twelve Apostles). That thought returned to me after the recent passing of President Hinckley – making the fourth death among those councils in under 4 years. That, in turn, brought my thoughts to sister Ruth Faust whose husband, President James E. Faust, was the third of those four to die (6 months ago). Today I learned that Sister Faust passed away this morning – 6 months to the day after her sweetheart.
As all my thoughts coalesced upon learning of her passing I began to feel as if the Lord is turning over the highest leadership of the church to a new generation. Returning to my previous thought, I looked at a chronology of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and found that the more than 9 years without a change that ended with the death of Elder Maxwell was truly unusual. Going all the way back to the beginning of that quorum there has rarely been more than two years without some change in the quorum. Among those rare periods that exceeded two years, none were even as long as 6 years.
What a marvelous thing for the church to have those years. During those 9 years the membership of the church grew by 30% (from 9 to 12 million) and the full term of President Hinckley’s presidency it grew by nearly 50%. (Membership actually almost tripled during the full 26 years that President Hinckley was in the First Presidency – starting from under 5 million and ending above 13 million.) It’s no wonder that his death was felt so strongly by so many in the church.
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Case for Absitnence
I was surprised as I read this Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Caitlin Flanagan. I doubt it was her intent, but I found a very strong argument in favor of abstinence as the preferred attitude toward extra-marital sex. She argues that there is a double standard related to the burdens of teenage pregnancy that falls more heavily on girls than on boys.
. . . the last scene [of “Juno”] brought tears to my eyes. To see a young daughter, faced with the terrible fact of a pregnancy, unscathed by it and completely her old self again was magical.
And that’s why “Juno” is a fairy tale. As any woman who has ever chosen (or been forced) [to give a child up for adoption] can tell you, surrendering a baby whom you will never know comes with a steep and lifelong cost. Nor is an abortion psychologically or physically simple. It is an invasive and frightening procedure, and for some adolescent girls it constitutes part of their first gynecological exam. I know grown women who’ve wept bitterly after abortions, no matter how sound their decisions were. How much harder are these procedures for girls, whose moral and emotional universe is just taking shape?
Of course those who disapprove of abstinence education also want to prevent unwanted pregnancies. On that everyone is agreed. The problem that they ignore is the fundamental fact that the natural result of sexual activity is pregnancy. We can lower the chances, but we can’t eliminate them. Regardless of what they may wish, there are side effects to abortion as well.
It would be helpful for the pro-life groups to admit that their preference for adoption over abortion is not without side-effects either. The reality is that regardless of the course taken afterwards, the universal result of unwanted pregnancies is emotional pain and suffering for the mother if not for anyone else.
Ms. Flanagan wonders if there is a way to level the difference in the burdens between teenage fathers who can escape the consequences in many cases and teenage mothers who can’t. Even her own words seem to promise that the answer is no.
Pregnancy robs a teenager of her girlhood. This stark fact is one reason girls used to be so carefully guarded and protected — in a system that at once limited their horizons and safeguarded them from devastating consequences. The feminist historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has written that “however prudish and ‘uptight’ the Victorians were, our ancestors had a deep commitment to girls.”
We, too, have a deep commitment to girls, and ours centers not on protecting their chastity, but on supporting their ability to compete with boys, to be free — perhaps for the first time in history — from the restraints that kept women from achieving on the same level. Now we have to ask ourselves this question: Does the full enfranchisement of girls depend on their being sexually liberated? And if it does, can we somehow change or diminish among the very young the trauma of pregnancy, the occasional result of even safe sex?
The trauma that will always accompany unwanted pregnancy has become more common as we first accept that “boys will be boys” and then we glorify that attitude, excusing (and demeaning) young men as being unable to control themselves. We have followed that moral irresponsibility by trying to teach our girls to be boys in adopting a callous attitude about sex. Sexual activity was never meant to be taken lightly which is why it was meant to be reserved for a marriage relationship. Any other relationship and it does not matter what precautions you take, you are flirting with the consequences of pregnancy and STDs.
This is why we must teach young women to guard themselves and we must teach young men to guard the young women they care about. This teaching is not meant to be done publicly. It should be undertaken within the setting of family. No other setting can ever be fully satisfactory for the intimacy of discussion that is warranted on this subject.