Of Careers and Stepping Away

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Asked to give up successful careers, they all did.  Decades ago one was a world renowned heart surgeon.  Today he is president of a worldwide church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with some 16 million members.  His name is Russell M. Nelson.  At 96 years he is still vigorous, going about the world doing good.

One of his colleagues had been a Justice on the Utah Supreme Court.  Dallin H. Oaks stepped away from that post and his legal career when asked to assist in leadership of the Church, which he has now done for 36 years.

His colleague, Henry B. Eyring, has a Ph.D. and MBA in business administration from Harvard.  He left the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to serve for six years as a college president.  Since 1980, he has been involved in spiritual education at all levels of the Church, with the exception of 7 years to help manage the Church's physical operations.

The youngest of these three men is 87.  All three gave up their successful careers to devote their full attention to religious matters, for decades.  None expected to be Church leaders.  They never applied for those responsibilities.  None of them retired from their jobs.  They were asked, and they stepped away in the prime of their professions.  They had faith that the Lord had something even more important for them to do.  They were invited to serve in what they would in an instant tell you was a more pressing calling.

These three are members of what is known as the First Presidency, the highest council of the Church.  They were called to their current positions after first serving as members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.

Their colleagues on the Council of the Twelve have similar stories.  None planned to be leaders in the Church.  Some had careers in the automotive, real estate, investment, health care, airline, and banking industries.  Others came from occupations in education, on college faculties and as college presidents.  Another was president of a chemical company, another in manufacturing, yet another a heart surgeon specializing in cardiac transplants.  One of these had a career in international relations, in and out of government.  And one was an accountant and auditor—nothing meant by mentioning this profession last.

Departure from a vibrant career is not expected of everyone.  For all but a few, our chances may be no more than doing the marvelous good each day that our jobs may offer, as well as helping our families, neighbors, and communities.  The daily potential is endless, and the joys of job and service taken together can be great.  

Still, there is inspiration in the dedication of those who were asked to give up their careers and did so.  They are giving their all—retaining the preeminence of service to family, which may not be surrendered—to the opportunities to bless others whom the Lord puts before them.  Wonderfully, the Lord also, each day, puts before us opportunities to bless.  Through our work and our service we strengthen our communities, as the Lord would have it.

Of Religion and Liberty

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

In recent days the Supreme Court of the United States, in two related decisions, gave a welcome reaffirmation of the constitutional protection of the free exercise of religion.  The cases involved practical application of the principle First Amendment right.  One case, Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, involved the Obamacare Act and contraceptive insurance coverage.  The other, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, concerned religious schools and their employment policies.  Both cases were decided by strong 7-2 votes. 

Readers will look to other forums and formats for the specifics of these interesting decisions.  I raise them as noteworthy inasmuch as governments in the last few months have acted unkindly toward religion and its exercise, much to the harm of people and the  jeopardy of their other rights protected in the First Amendment.

Not only is freedom of religion and the exercise thereof found in the First Amendment to the Constitution, it is the first freedom mentioned.  Free speech, freedom of the press, freedom peaceably to assemble, and the right to petition the government follow next, in that order.  This is not necessarily a ranking of importance of these five freedoms.  All are essential, but I would suggest that the latter four are strengthened by freedom of religion and will be put at risk without a vigorous regard for that freedom.

This is not hypothetical.  As an experiment to deal with the unknown effects of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) many state governments (and the federal government to a lesser degree) engaged in an abrupt and progressive impairment of the constitutional rights of nearly all within their jurisdiction.  Of the five freedoms of the First Amendment, governments applied or tolerated the harshest limitations on religion and its practice.  Churches were closed, its members forbidden to meet together, even in small groups.  Administrations of religious rites considered sacred were blocked, even in application to the dying as well as the living.

In my congregation, in my church, we gather, we fellowship with one another, we sing together, we pray together, we teach each other, we provide service to one another, we follow the pattern of what Jesus Christ did and calls upon us to do in the practice of becoming kinder, more loving people.  Government restrictions have made that very hard to do, and are unable to replace it with anything.

One of the leaders of the church, David A. Bednar, an Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lately said this in remarks on the importance of religious practice:

Latter-day Saints are hardly alone in this need to gather. . . Our Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Evangelical friends gather for mass, baptisms, confirmations, sermons, and myriad other religious purposes.  Our Jewish friends gather for worship in their synagogues.  Our Muslim friends gather in their mosques.  Our friends in the Buddhist, Sikh, and other faith traditions likewise have sacred places to gather and worship together.

And because gathering lies at the very heart of religion, the right to gather lies at the very heart of religious freedom.

In the United States and elsewhere, in this experiment into which we were rapidly immersed, people “throughout the free world,” as David Bednar reminded, “learned firsthand what it means for government to directly prohibit the free exercise of religion.”

Science, including the science of self government, requires us to learn from our experiments.  What have we seen in the social laboratory within which we have been living?  While freedom of religion has been curtailed, other liberties have eroded.  Freedom of speech has been restricted; people have become very careful about speaking their minds, avoiding certain words, even limiting their associations with neighbors, and they do not like it.  Communication even on social media has been censored. 

Press freedom is no longer robust.  Media broadcasters are careful to avoid use of newly minted proscriptions of this or that phrase or word, with correspondents and announcers disappearing from their jobs almost overnight for violation of some new taboo.  People have become increasingly mistrustful of “the news.”

Many assemblies are prohibited.  Where allowed, numerical limits have been imposed on how many people can assemble in the same place.  More nettlesome, as is the usual case with the violation of rights, restrictions are applied and enforced unevenly, some favored and others not.

Governments, especially local governments, turn deaf ears to constituents raising concerns with the application of restrictions.  Arrangements for schools run by local governments are in confusion. 

Overall, people feel isolated, alone, helpless, and, for too many, hopeless.  They look for and find temporary relief in acts of rebellion, minor or otherwise.

This is where freedom of religion can be seen as important to the other freedoms.  Churches have often in western societies been a counterweight to government tyranny, which is why the governments of Europe tried for centuries to control them.  As the Red Army imposed its Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe, persecution and control of religion were a priority. 

The first amendment prohibits government control of religion, specifically to preserve freedom of the churches, which in America has also worked to accommodate variety of religious practice.  All of the churches, together, need the first amendment to thrive, as do their members.  No other human organizations are as organized, enduring, and meaningful to people.  Without vigorous, free religions, people are left alone to defend their other rights, with alternative organizations that at best are anemic by comparison.

In the words of David Bednar, “With goodwill and a little creativity, ways can almost always be found to fulfill both society’s needs and the imperative to protect religious freedom. . . . Never again can we allow government officials to treat the exercise of religion as simply nonessential.”

Of Humanism and Religious Freedom

Can a creed that claims to be non-religious be itself a religion?  Is the professed irreligion of the leading social elites not only a religion but America’s state religion, reinforced by Federal, state, and local governments?

Consider a typical school commencement ceremony, whether college or high school.  A speaker declares that we must leave all talk of God behind, toss into the dustbin the dogmas of religion that divide us, and embrace a view of life that brings people together in a common cause of humanity, a village of fellow passengers on this tiny planet as it wends its course through the universe.  At another similar commencement ceremony a different speaker declares that we should rise above the hates and lusts of mankind and embrace the love of God, join together in our common heritage as children of the family of God, learning to live with each other here that we may all the better live with our Heavenly Father in the eternities.  Which of these, today, is likely to receive the greater applause and public commendation?  Which of these speakers, on the other hand, is more likely to be censored and not even permitted to present his views, perhaps under threat of a lawsuit?  Or, to make the question easier to answer, which is more likely to receive favorable coverage in the media?

Expressions of skepticism about God and His existence are embraced, praised, and rewarded in contemporary American society.  Declarations of faith in God meet anything from patronizing smiles, to hostility, to punitive sanctions under the prevailing culture.  The predominant American society, while professing to be neutral about religion, has some very strong opinions about religion and its expression.

In a land of constitutional free speech, that allows no state religion, this should seem an odd discussion, a throwback to history.  Cursory familiarity with the historical chronicle would bring to mind other places and times when an incautious word on religion could earn a speaker severe punishment, not excluding cruel execution.  Deviation from the local religion was certainly risky business anciently.  We also may recall tales of the Spanish Inquisition and the bloody controversies of the Protestant Reformation, as well as the perennial anti-Semitism that has followed the House of Israel throughout its Diaspora.  Social revolutions have dealt harshly with religion, from the French revolution to every communist regime, while clumsily endeavoring to create new secular religions (that failed miserably to engage adherents).

The malodorous plant of state religion followed the colonists to America, but it had trouble taking root, particularly among the English colonies.  The freedom of wide open spaces, and the need for an armed populace, made oppressive government difficult to maintain.  Thomas Jefferson considered the establishment of legal guaranties of religious freedom in Virginia to be among his life’s most important achievements (the other being the founding of the University of Virginia).  The principle of that law was later made a part of the United States Constitution with the adoption of the First Amendment.

The public outcry from media and politicians (with little echo from the general populace) over recent efforts of states to reinforce freedom of religion against encroachments by regulatory dicta and court edicts strongly suggests that there is one—and only one—protected national religion in the United States today.  It needs no protection offered by these state laws, because its tenets are the motivating heart of the government actions threatening all of the other religions.  It goes by many names—as do many broad religions—and includes a variety of sects, also not uncommon among religions.  For facility of discussion, I will refer to just one of its appellations, Humanism.

The religion of Humanism has a core belief—shared by all of its sects and denominations—that man is the measure of everything.  Man decides what is truth, what is good, what is real.  Yes, that is more than a bit narcissistic, which is probably the key to its attraction, particularly among the intelligentsia and the elites.  The chief corollary to this main tenet is that God does not matter, whether you believe in Him or not (some Humanist sects tolerate a belief in God or some sort of Supreme Being for reasons of nostalgia and to broaden popular acceptance).

Humanism has an elaborate set of dogmas, commandments, taboos, and rituals.  It has its own liturgical language, which is required to be used, for example, in all doctoral dissertations—especially those in the social sciences, though its linguistic hegemony is now reaching to hard sciences as well—and in more colloquial versions observed by all media outlets, especially broadcast journalism.  Humanism has its sacred texts along with its college of revered and beatified Humanists of yore.

I was going to write that Humanism has its own seminaries, but, frankly, that includes nearly all colleges and universities in the nation.  The clergy of Humanism is largely self-appointed, though it has intricate, Byzantine hierarchies, with no one at the top for long, though all presume to speak for everyone.  The clergy are supported by varieties of orders of acolytes and sycophants, the gathering of disciples a key method of rising in Humanism’s hierarchy, and the loss of disciples a sure path to disfavor and obscurity.

While most religions preach exceptionalism, exclusivity, or preeminence, whether in faith or favor with God, Humanism may be the most intolerant of all.  Being the state religion, it uses the full power of legislatures, regulators, law enforcement agencies, and the courts to advance its cause and bring in to line people who disagree with its tenets and prescriptions, who violate any of its taboos—particularly who utter any of its taboo words—or who remark on the foibles of its revered demigods.  Significantly, any practice by any other religion that interferes with Humanism must yield to Humanist demands, not excluding the profligate use of federal, state, and local moneys to fund its projects, prescriptions, and priests.

Therein lies the explanation for both the desire of various state legislatures to reaffirm religious freedom and the inveterate and fierce hostility to these efforts from the media and a bevy of national celebrities.  Freedom of religious belief and practice is a threat only to an established national religion, erecting obstacles to forced conformity with the state church. Failure of efforts to reaffirm the protections of the First Amendment will result in an increasingly intimidating society, constraining intellectual freedom and unauthorized religious observance to a degree unseen in the United States since 1787.

In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  Those words are the most prominent inscription in the Jefferson Memorial.  Jefferson might get into trouble saying such a thing at a modern commencement ceremony at the University of Virginia. 

Of Old Time Religion and What’s Good Enough for Me

Is there a revival or camp meeting song more popular than “Old Time Religion”?  Maybe, but few, and few serve so well to stir up so quickly good feelings about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Try getting the song out of your head after singing or even listening to it for a while—not an easy task.  It is bouncing around in my head even as I write.

Like a good campfire song, it lends itself easily to new verses improvised on the spot by each singer in turn.  Because of that, I do not know that there is an official set of lyrics. 

All of the variations you might hear or sing begin with—

Now give me that old time religion.

Give me that old time religion.

Give me that old time religion.

It’s good enough for me.

That lead verse sets the pattern.  After it come verses like the following:

Makes me love everybody.

Makes me love everybody.

Makes me love everybody.

It’s good enough for me.

I particularly like that thought, because the religion of Jesus Christ is designed to change us so that we do love everybody.  The greatest gift of God is charity, the pure love of Christ.  If a religion is unable to bring about that change in people, then it is not the religion taught by the Savior.

Here is another verse that I like:

It was good for the Hebrew children.

It was good for the Hebrew children.

It was good for the Hebrew children.

It’s good enough for me.

Some modern religions seem to have forgotten the Hebrew children.  You cannot have the true “old time religion” without including them.  As Moses and the other Old Testament prophets taught, the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was the religion of Jesus Christ.  It was Christ—referred to as the Messiah and as Jehovah in the Hebrew scriptures—who as the God of the Old Testament gave the Hebrews their religion, the religion of direct revelation from God that brought them out of Egypt, and it was good enough to bring them prosperity whenever they followed it.

Of course, the old time religion of God is even older than the Hebrew children, since it was the religion taught by God to Adam and his descendants, observed by Noah and his family on the Ark.  There were other old time religions, but they were not good for anybody, with no power to save in heaven or on earth.

And when the Hebrew children forsook the old time religion and instead embraced the pagan religions of their neighbors, the Lord could not protect them.  Many rediscovered God’s old time religion once they were in exile in Babylon.  That lies behind another stirring verse:

It was good for the prophet Daniel.

It was good for the prophet Daniel.

It was good for the prophet Daniel.

It’s good enough for me.

It was good for all of God’s prophets and taught by them.  That included the prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles and prophets of the church Jesus established during His mortal ministry.  This verse captures that spirit:

It was good for Paul and Silas.

It was good for Paul and Silas.

It was good for Paul and Silas.

It’s good enough for me.

That old time religion, of Apostles and prophets who spoke directly with God, and through whom the Father continued to speak regularly to His children, had power to save.  As the song continues,

It will take us all to heaven.

It will take us all to heaven.

It will take us all to heaven.

It’s good enough for me.

I am very grateful that God’s old time religion of prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ is on the earth once again, just as it was anciently.  I will add my own verse:

It will help us follow Jesus.

It will help us follow Jesus.

It will help us follow Jesus.

And that’s good enough for me.

Of Personality and Order

While making no personal claims to psychological insight, I have found great value in the Jung-Myers approach to understanding human personalities.  Part of that approach identifies four major personality temperaments toward which each of us gravitates to one degree or another.  The work of Carl Jung and Isabel Myers—and many others building on that work—has elaborated the theory that in the world of people there is a variety of personalities all interacting and contributing to the social richness of humanity.  None of these four temperaments is “right” or “wrong.”  They are just different, and that difference is valuable and, moreover, worthy of understanding so that we can get along better in our interactions with each other.

I have seen all four of these temperaments in my small family of a mere 7 souls.  I consider the variety enriching to our family more than frustrating.  This insight has helped me understand where my children are coming from when I might otherwise think that any one of them has been replaced by a space alien.

Using that framework and watching my fellow travelers through life over decades of interaction, I have personally found it useful to describe the four temperaments in the following way, with regard to each person’s approach to his environment, or the world around us.

·         First (in no order of priority or relative value), there are those who come to grips with their world by seeking to be in harmony with their environment.  My wife is in this category.

·         Second, there are those who primarily seek to enjoy their environment.  I believe that two of my daughters are in this group.

·         Third are those who seek to organize their environment.  I think that I would consider myself as being in this group, along with perhaps a son and a daughter.

·         And a fourth group would be those who seek to protect themselves from their environment.  I believe that one of my sons would be found here.

Again, I emphasize that no temperament is better than the other.  They are just different.  And we need them all.  Moreover, some of each can be found in the attitudes of any one of us from time to time.  The point is which approach is dominant in the way we each live our lives.  Together, they all contribute to the success of our society.  That is to say, that whatever our temperament, we rely upon our brothers and sisters who have different temperaments to help make us and our society complete.

I do not consider this to be an accidental development but an essential element of God’s plan for the society of His children.  In several places in the scriptures God reminds us of the variety of gifts that He has given, emphasizing that we can and need to embrace and profit from each gift, all taken together.  “For the body is not one member, but many,” the Apostle Paul explained, and no part of the body can say to the other, “I have no need of thee” (see 1 Corinthians 12:14-21).

But does not all of this difference lead to disunity and perhaps even chaos?  It can, and has, but it does not need to.  Any personality trait, any temperament, any gift, if taken to the extreme or out of balance can result in harm to others.  There are plenty of examples in the long history of mankind of one taking advantage over another, either into anarchy or tyranny.  This is one of the structural failings of absolute monarchy or dictatorship, where too much of the society is guided by one person and his or her approach to the world.  The temptation to fit all of the people into that mold is natural and hard for the dictator to resist (if he even recognizes it).  On the other hand, there would be chaos if all had full license to live their preferences in disregard of others.

Many of the commandments of God are intended to help us to keep our differences in balance and to maintain the close society that allows us to be fully enriched by one another.  One of the chapters in The Book of Mormon explains this process as being the establishment of order by means of the ordinances of God (see Alma chapter 13).  The similarity in the words is not accidental. 

Entering into the kingdom of God is nothing more nor less than making a solemn covenant—pledged and witnessed by the physical ordinance of  baptism by immersion—to accept God’s commandments for a society of order as defined by God, an order that accommodates all human gifts and temperaments and organizes them into an harmonious whole.  The two greatest commandments of the kingdom of God are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves (see Matthew 22:37-39).  In this system there are universal standards to bind us to one another by binding ourselves to our Savior Jesus Christ, who sacrificed to give us all the freedom to choose and be what those choices make us.

This verse from Alma chapter 13 describes the matter this way:

Now these ordinances were given after this manner, that thereby the people might look forward on the Son of God, it being a type of his order, or it being his order, and this that they might look forward to him for a remission of their sins, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord. (Alma 13:16)

Within the Savior’s order of peace there is full room to be at harmony with one’s environment, to enjoy it, in a well organized whole, where all are safe and at rest from fear.  Indeed, in the Kingdom of God is the one place where we all can have it all.  There is nowhere else like it for any of us.

Of What I Believed and What I Found

Until the day that I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ I had not affirmatively adhered to any of the various creeds of the denominations of Christendom, none of them in particular, but I have always had faith in God and Christ.  My parents, acting upon the best knowledge and light that they possessed at the time, had me baptized when but a few days old into the Lutheran church (I think that it was the Missouri Synod, but I am not sure of that).  I was quite short of sin at the time of my infant baptism, a claim that I confess I could not make when I approached the waters of baptism on my own volition later in my youth. 

Also upon the initiative of my parents, and without any resistance on my part, I was a regular and active attendee at the protestant churches my parents attended.  I sang in youth choirs, and I tried to pay attention to the weekly sermons.  Often I would sit by myself on the front row, right in front of the minister’s podium, and watch him go page by page through his text.  I regularly attended Sunday School and was involved in the lessons.  It was at one such Sunday School where as a little lad I was taught by the Sunday School teacher, my mother, to build my house upon a rock.

In my childhood I grew up in suburban communities, richly endowed with a wide variety of Christian churches and sects, and when as a youth we moved to western New York I became acquainted with still others.  My experience was that people chose their protestant church in accordance with what suited them as to location, music, oratorical powers of the minister, the fellowship of the members, the physical facilities of the local building, worship customs and practices, meeting hours, and a variety of other factors.  Whether one denomination was “true” in comparison with another was not a question that I recall ever being raised.  The general attitude that I could discern was that each and all of the denominations were recognized as possessing no more or less truth of consequence as any other.

I do not remember a beginning to my faith in Christ or my assurance of the presence of God.  I recall them as much as I can recall anything from my earliest memories of my earliest thoughts.  What I was taught in my childhood reinforced that faith.  Indeed, if the churches taught anything, it was to have faith in God and in Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, I thought of more.  More than occasionally I pondered why the churches of the day were so different from the Church of Christ as described in the New Testament.  None of them was even close in resemblance.  I imagined that it would have been marvelous to live in the days when Apostles of Jesus Christ walked among men and when the gifts of the Spirit were abundant.  I also pondered, even as a child, the situation of people in China and elsewhere who had little knowledge of Christ and no access to His saving ordinances.  The churches offered no solution to the problem of these people other than to try to reach them by missionaries as much as possible.  But what was the fate of those who missed out in the meantime?  I never heard the question asked or an answer offered.

I was also taught by my mother to pray.  Prayer was a part of my daily routine.  I had a deep reverence for the Holy Bible, a copy being one of the first books I ever “bought” (by redeeming a book of green stamps).  The churches I attended taught from the Bible, particularly recounting the stories.  As I got older, I sensed, however, a hint of embarrassment on the part of minister and teacher about relying upon the Bible too literally.  We were not encouraged to bring a copy with us to church or class.

All of that changed after my mother invited the Latter-day Saint missionaries to come by and tell us something about their church.  She really had my brother in mind, since at the time he was wrestling with all of the distractions of young manhood.  She felt that they might do him some good.  When the missionaries arrived, I was home and he was not.  I listened and learned.

What the Latter-day Saint missionaries unfolded to me was the ancient Church of Christ in its fullness, all restored on earth today.  Once more living Apostles walked among men, with all the same gifts and powers of the Spirit manifested as they were nearly 2,000 years before.  The scriptures came alive, the Holy Bible resumed its place as a standard reference for daily living and communion with God, its messages and miracles embraced into real life rather than mere moral tales of antique lore.  As they did anciently, the living prophets and Apostles were revealing more from God, guidance directly relevant to our current and modern conditions, all fully in harmony with what God had always said.

One example I learned and had until then never been taught was news of the work to spread the message and redemption of Christ to all people, wherever and whenever they lived.  As the Bible taught and as modern prophets taught, those who left this life without access to the gospel of Christ would hear that message in the world of spirits, where they lived and waited for the day of resurrection to come when the Savior returned to the earth, as He promised.  None were to be left out, all to have as full a chance to receive God and Christ as would any other.

Echoing what I had always believed, the Latter-day Saints proclaimed that Jesus Christ was the Savior of all the world and of all mankind, His religion not just a faith for a segment of the population in one part of the world.  Together with the Holy Bible of the ancient east The Book of Mormon was a testimony from the ancient west that salvation is in Jesus Christ and in Him alone, proclaimed by two societies of antiquity separated by an ocean but united in the same witness from God of the divinity of His Son.

To these ancient testimonies of Christ were added the modern testimonies of men and women who knew.  The Latter-day Saints gained through their faith personal knowledge born of personal revelation of the Savior Jesus Christ.  Through prayer and many personal unimpeachable experiences their faith had grown to solid assurance.

To their witness I add my own, gained in the same way.  Building upon my own faith in Christ, exercising the familiarity with personal prayer taught me by my mother, I acquired just as the saints of old days and modern times a deep personal knowledge and assurance that God is real, that Jesus Christ is resurrected and the Savior of all, and that His Church is on the earth again possessing and manifesting all that it had anciently.

I found the true and living Church of the true and living God.  The interaction has made my life richer and better, deeper and full of value.  Since and from that discovery I have been gaining every good thing.

Of Agnostics and Manmade Religions

Atheism is intellectually weak minded, if it is what its professors claim it to be, that is the assertion or affirmation that there is no God.  The adherents of that religious doctrine (atheism must be acknowledged a religious doctrine, an organized system of belief with regard to God and man’s relation to God) do not merely believe for themselves that there is no God but make an unjustifiable claim to knowledge and then affirm and advocate what they cannot possibly know.  Surely they can choose not to believe that there is a God, but how can they know that God does not exist anywhere and that no one has met God?  Adherents to the atheist doctrine demonstrate a good amount of blind belief in unproven theories. 
 

The most that they can possibly prove or know is that they personally have not found God yet and that this lack of discovery has caused them seriously to doubt.  Unless they can be everywhere at all times and understand all things (which would be nigh unto godhood itself) they cannot say with intellectual honesty that God does not exist.  They cannot get further down the road of atheism beyond the signpost of agnosticism.  I understand the challenge of proving a negative, and affirming a negative is even bolder, but atheists themselves claim to have met this challenge, a claim that they have never substantiated.

Agnosticism is another thing, if engaged in honestly.  Honestly, it is an admission—or even affirmation—that one does not know.  The agnostic can explain why he does not know, what avenues he has unsuccessfully explored to know.  What he cannot honestly do is claim to know all that can be known or what others know.  The agnostic strays into the same errors of the atheist if he claims that because he does not know God then no one else can.  How could he possibly know that?  How can his experience circumscribe the experience of others, including the experience of those he has never met?  He can espouse theories as to why he disbelieves the claims of knowledge of others and even why he believes that others could not know, or even why he has lost hope that others know, but he cannot prove his theory, again unless he can be everywhere and know all things.  The agnostic cannot honestly pretend to knowledge that he does not have about the knowledge or experience of others.  Not all agnostics do.

Agnostics do have a point viewing the global and historical variety of manmade religions, which present a deep well of disappointment to those seeking evidence of the Divine.  When Jesus Christ spoke directly in person to the young boy Joseph Smith in 1820 the Savior ratified to Joseph much of the factual assertions of the honest agnostic.  The Savior declared to Joseph that all the religions then on the earth were creations of men, not of God, that “they teach for doctrines the commandments of men” having little more than “a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” (Joseph Smith-History, verse 19).  Many of the religions of 1820 exist today, while inventive men have been working diligently since to create many more.

There was much justification for the agnostic in 1820.  There is increasingly less today.  The fact that all of the religions 190 years ago were manmade does not mean that God Himself could not establish—or reestablish—His own church and religion on the earth.  In fact, 2,500 years ago God promised that He would do just that.  When the prophet Daniel interpreted the dream of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, he prophesied that in the last days God Himself would establish on earth His religion, symbolized in the dream as a stone “cut out of the mountain without hands” that would roll forward until it filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:28-45).   Daniel then prophetically declared to the king, “the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.” (Daniel 2:45)

Which means that to honest atheist and agnostic alike, the message is beware lest you stop looking too soon, for the good news is that aside from the religions of men God has done His own work and revealed Himself to His children, as He promised long ago.  These things can be known today, certain and sure.

Of Holy Ordinances and Meaningful Lives

One of the benighted ideas that American society inherited from the benighted 1960s is the idea that marriage and other sacred religious ordinances are just meaningless ceremonies.  Forty years later the tracks of trouble and sorrow caused by this and related assaults on marriage should be readily apparent, yet the concept survives, supported particularly by people who see life as a carnival of selfish delights, where one grabs for all of the gratification that he can—and then dies.

That is after all a doctrine of isolation and death.  Sooner or later the commitmentless self-centered world view ends in death, leaving a heritage of broken kewpie dolls, regrettable memories, shallow relationships, and psychological emptiness.  In fact, periodically statistics show us that it shortens the mortality ride.  For those who follow that lifestyle—and most of America’s social leaders do and increasingly seek to impose it on everyone else—life seems short, cheap, and a despairing struggle for meaning of some sort.  When it is over there is a profound sense of loss, not only the loss in terms of the end of life but in terms of the loss of a lifetime that has been lived so bereft of redeeming value.

Many of the acolytes of this doctrine of death throughout the ages have been desperate to extend life but only to live it with more emptiness.  Others who are overcome along the way by the vacuum of meaning in the lifestyle have sought to end it all sooner than later, only to find that they have brought their empty life view with them into yet another life in the world of spirits, where they fearfully await the tallying up of their lives’ events into pitiful sums of value.

Our Heavenly Father instituted sacred ordinances from the beginning as tools to convey and reinforce meaning, each ordinance pointing to the Source of meaning in this life and in the eternal worlds to come. At the core of each sacred ordinance is a covenant and promise between God and man.  The form of each ordinance from God is designed to point the mind to Jesus Christ, whose atoning sacrifice in Gethsemane and on the cross gave meaning and value to this life.

Baptism, the first sacred ordinance offered to men and women in this life, is a useful example.   Through baptism we accept the vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ in our stead so that we do not have to suffer for our sins, in exchange for a covenant and promise that we will change our lives and refrain from sinning, a promise that we will turn away from the meaningless life of self-indulgence to a life rich in meaning and value focused on love, kindness, achievement, and development of virtue.  We are briefly “buried” in water, simultaneously burying our life of death and washing away its filthiness.  We arise from the water to newness of life, cleansed from our sins.

The marriage ordinance provided by God is an eternal pledge between husband and wife of perpetual faithfulness and dedication to the happiness of each other, as a foundation for living a joint life forever, a fitting and appropriate platform for bringing children into the family.  These covenants and promises are made by husband and wife to each other and also to God, whose power changes and unites hearts to reinforce faithfulness and to give these promises power that extends throughout eternity.  Taken altogether, this becomes a highly significant and holy ordinance with profound impact on the memory and the heart.  Compare that with the world’s version:  hey, want to live together?

Glorious versus pitiful.  The pattern is repeated for all of God’s ordinances versus men’s substitutes, the holy versus the hollow. 

Of the Authority of God and the Witness of Christ’s Resurrection

In May 1829, Jesus Christ sent John the Baptist—slain by command of Herod but resurrected by the will and power of Christ—to bestow on a new prophet, Joseph Smith, the same authority to baptize in the name of God that John the Baptist held during his own mortal ministry. Shortly afterward Christ similarly sent Peter, James, and John to confer on Joseph Smith the same authority from God that had been bestowed upon them under the Savior’s hands. When the Apostles of Christ were gone, their authority also was lost. In 1829 they returned that authority to the earth.

Every week, in congregations all around the world, that authority is exercised to channel the blessings of God to the modern day disciples of Jesus Christ. One of these priesthood blessings is the privilege of renewing promises made at baptism by remembering the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Acting under the direction and authority of Christ His authorized servants bless and administer the emblems of the body of Christ—broken and then resurrected—and of the blood of Christ shed for the sins of many. All who receive these emblems with sincerity of heart in remembrance of Jesus Christ receive forgiveness of sins and direct spiritual communion with God, and they exercise the same spiritual gifts that the faithful followers of Christ exercised in ancient days.

The thousands of men who administer those emblems to thousands of congregations did not take it upon themselves to act in the holy place of Jesus Christ, made sacred when He offered the bread and cup to His Apostles the night before His death. They had hands placed upon their heads and received authority from others, who in their turn had hands placed upon their heads by those who in turn in the same way received the authority of God, all the way back to those who received that authority under the hands of the Savior Himself. For us in these latter days, one pair of those hands belonged to Joseph Smith, who received the authority of Christ from the hands of those upon whose heads hands were placed shortly before they were nailed to the cross on Calvary.

Just as anciently, eye witnesses today are proclaiming once again to the world the living Christ who was slain and who was resurrected and lives to guide and bless all who will be guided by Him. These are not learned men preaching from their study of the scriptures—though they have made in depth study of the scriptures a daily practice of a lifetime. These are men who know the Christ, who speak from personal knowledge and association with the Savior, Jesus Christ, and who proclaim what they know as well as what they believe.

I will give two examples of many. Keep in mind that these examples are not theories or learned dissertations by the doctors of religion. These are direct, personal, and tangible revelations of God, the way that God has throughout the ages revealed Himself.

The first is from The Book of Mormon, a record written in an ancient era but revealed anew in modern times. Some time after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His ascension into heaven, a large group of ancient Americans were gathered near their Temple in a place that in their language they called Bountiful.

. . . and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; . . . and he came down and stood in the midst of them. . . .
And . . . he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying:
Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.
. . . I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world . . . .
Arise and come forth unto me, that you may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.
And . . . the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails . . .; going forth one by one . . . , and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety . . . , that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.
. . . And they were in number about two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did consist of men, women, and children. (3 Nephi 11:8-11, 14, 15; 17:25)

The second example of many was a modern event, in fulfillment of ancient prophecy. Near the very end of the Old Testament, this prophecy is recorded, from the Prophet Malachi:

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple. . . (Malachi 3:1)

Who would build this latter-day Temple, and when would the Savior come to it? In their deepest poverty the modern-day followers of Christ, who had received baptism by those authorized by Christ Himself, were commanded by the Lord through the Prophet Joseph Smith to build a Temple in Kirtland, Ohio. One week after the Kirtland Temple was dedicated, Joseph Smith and his colleague, Oliver Cowdery, were praying in the Temple, on April 3, 1836. This is the second example I offer you of the Savior, Jesus Christ, revealing Himself to us in these latter days that we might know Him. This is from the personal testimony of Joseph and Oliver:

The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened.
We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; . . .
His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shown above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying:
I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father. (Doctrine & Covenants 110:1-4)

I have been to the Garden Tomb, in Jerusalem. I have looked in. It is empty. Jesus is not there. He is risen, as He said.

I have not seen Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith did, and he proclaimed the living Christ to the world. I have heard and received the testimony of Joseph Smith. By the gift of the Holy Ghost, bestowed upon me by the priesthood authority of Christ, I know that his testimony is true, by the same way that people anciently knew that the testimony of Paul, or Peter, or John was true. I too know, for myself, that Jesus Christ lives, that He suffered for me in my place, as He did for all who will receive Him. I know that Jesus Christ was resurrected.

Because of the resurrection of Christ, I will be resurrected, too, and so will you.

Of Churchianity and Priestcraft

While driving to church meetings this past Sunday I was surfing through the radio stations to find something wholesome and uplifting, in keeping with the spirit of the Sabbath day. That is not so easy to do. At least, I seem to remember that when I was a child Sunday morning radio and even television were almost reserved for worship programs. It is easier today to find politicians and sports figures—and their commentators—on Sunday morning radio and television; I will leave it to you to conclude whether those are the new predominant objects of worship.

With a little persistence I did find a couple of programs on the AM dial, and their messages were memorable. The first featured a religious figure with a call-in talk show in which he gives religious-psychological counseling to troubled callers. The one example I heard was from some woman who was living with a man, the father of at least a couple of her children, who was now involved in a sexual affair with some other woman. The caller wanted out of the relationship, but she was dependent on financial support from the non-husband father. She felt trapped, and indeed she was. The host of the program gave what seemed to me some sensible advice, which he admitted was common sense counsel that just about anyone could have given to the woman.

After that point I guess that the caller line must have thinned out, because the host proceeded into a prolonged criticism of organized religion, what he called “churchianity.” He took pride in the fact—pride is the right word—that he was not associated with any particular religious denomination. His argument, to sum it up, was that Jesus did not belong to any church and did not form any church, that He just went around counseling and helping people and then moved on. As the host explained, some people “fell away” but others “made it.” The host complained that organized religions are just businesses, and people do not need them. He took a while to say all of this, but that is the gist of it.

It is a wise practice to consider that in every criticism there is at least an element of some truth, and it would be wise to look for it and profit from it. The kernel of truth, however, does not justify accepting all the rest, any more than the bait justifies swallowing the fisherman’s hook. The churchianity critic is correct that too much of religion today, as was also found anciently, is a business. Paul and his missionary companions were menaced by mobs in Ephesus when his preaching of the resurrected Jesus Christ threatened to upset the business of the idol makers for the cult of the Greco-Roman goddess Diana. Martin Luther was driven to his break with the Roman Catholic Church in great part due to the church’s apparent selling of forgiveness. The Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred in Illinois by a mob inspired by local clergymen worried that restoring the ancient church of Jesus Christ was threatening their trade in manmade religion. And there is no lack of examples today of preachers seeking popularity for praise and profit.

It is true that Jesus Christ never intended His religion to become a business. He railed against professional preachers who made a business out of salvation. That is called priestcraft, and it was the leadership of the corrupt priestcraft of His day who conspired to have Jesus crucified. It is wrong, however, to conclude that Jesus Christ did not establish a Church. As Jehovah of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ called prophets and priests, had them ordained under divine commission, and by revelation instructed them on their duties. You have to overlook much of the books of Moses and reject Moses himself not to acknowledge that.

Similarly, during His mortal ministry on the earth, when the priesthood among the ancient Jews had become corrupted and turned into a business, Jesus Christ withdrew his authority from the old priests and established a new Church, with apostles and prophets. Observe how the Apostle Paul described it to the members of the Church of Christ in Ephesus:

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye are also builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

I am not sure how more clearly Paul could describe an organized religion, “the building fitly framed together”. If Jesus Christ did not build a church, then what do we do with the apostles whom He ordained, and the Seventy whom He called to assist the apostles? In fact, without the Church of Jesus Christ, we would not have the scriptures that tell of His ministry nor the spreading of the gospel of Christ throughout the Roman world and beyond.

It would perhaps not be inappropriate to mention at this point that the churchianity critic concluded this portion of his commentary by mentioning that regular payments from his listeners of $5 and $10 would allow him to continue his campaign against the business of religion. In another post I may discuss the other program I heard yesterday, where the announcer offered the exact date of the Judgment Day.

Of the Power of Change and the Power of Christ

Change is in the air. It is autumn, the leaves have begun their brief flash of color before gliding to the ground to be swept away.

Fall is also the season when politicians promise change. The mood predominating among the electorate this year seems to be disillusionment with Change. They want change from Change—that is, from Change that makes things worse and reinforces what is bad in Washington. At least for now, voters are showing a strong preference for candidates who do not fit the usual political mold, who reject solutions imposed from Washington. Such moments do not come very often, and like the autumn they seem to pass too quickly.

Yet with all of this discussion of the change apparent in nature and the political world, it seems strange to find those who doubt the ability of people to change. Properly understood, the plan of God for His children is all about change.

The central message of Jesus Christ and of all of His prophets has been the need and possibility for people to change, to change their world by changing themselves, from the world of unhappiness and distraction, to a life of purpose, growth, and deep joy. All who have drawn close to the Savior have experienced change, have drawn upon His power to change, and the closer they drew to Him the more that they changed and became more like Him.

Consider the early Apostles who lived while the Savior walked the earth. Mere fishermen (Peter and John) were turned into inspired leaders whose testimonies have endured for two millennia. A tax collector (Matthew) was converted into a human benefactor. A persecuting zealot (Paul) turned into a powerful missionary. In earlier days, a slave (Joseph) became viceroy of Egypt, a fugitive from Pharaoh’s court (Moses) became the mighty lawgiver who led Israel from bondage, a shepherd (David) became King of Israel. The change in these whom history calls great was repeated among millions of their less well-known compatriots.

In our own times, an untaught boy (Joseph Smith) became a wise prophet and religious founder, a craftsman (Brigham Young) became the greatest colonizer of the West. Again, these are more prominent examples among millions of others similarly changed through the power of Christ, the more effectively changed the closer that they approached Him.

When I was in college a friend explained to me her disillusionment with her church, which in her view told its members to be good but somehow lacked the power to transform them. It lacked the power of Christ, who made change of life possible. As the ancient American prophet Mormon explained in a letter to his son, Moroni, through Jesus Christ our sins can be forgiven, our past can be overcome.

And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God. (Moroni 8:26)

There is power, the greatest power on earth, the power to change the greatest creations on earth, the children of God. There is the power to transform men and women and make them fit to live with the Father in His presence forever, “that ye may at last be brought to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the holy prophets who have been ever since the world began, having your garments spotless even as their garments are spotless, in the kingdom of heaven to go no more out.” (Alma 7:25) Thank God that power is on the earth.

Of Organized Religion and Living Apostles of Christ

Sign me up for organized religion, if God is the organizer. I have little interest in being part of the religions of men or observing the commandments of men, and I understand why others are put off by manmade religions. Equally, I find it hard to see why someone would not want to be part of a church that is run and organized by the Savior Jesus Christ, the Author of all good, the Source of all knowledge, the fountain of all love. What is there not to like? All that can be desired, all that really matters, all that is really joyful, is there.

The Apostle Paul described Christ’s church—its organization and purpose— in a letter to the saints in Ephesus:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive . . . (Ephesians 4:11-14)

It is clear that Christ intended His church and all of its parts to continue until all of God’s children became like Christ. And it also seems clear that without this church and its various parts, the children of God would become vulnerable to the doctrines and teachings of men.

Fortunately, Christ’s church is on the earth again, with all of the component parts that made up His church anciently, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, together with the other important offices, “Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20).

This past weekend, as they do twice each year, the apostles and prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ gathered in conference and spoke to all the world. Their words were a combination of the timeless and the timely, just as they were anciently. Test them and try them. They can be found at this website:

http://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng

While the messages are spoken for all, as you listen carefully you will invariably hear messages spoken directly to you. For me, one of those messages was delivered by the Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He spoke of the sin of pride, reprising the words delivered more than a decade ago by the Lord’s prophet at that time, Ezra Taft Benson. He described the difference between two ways in which we use the word "pride." First, there is what we call pride, which is really rejoicing in the accomplishments and achievements of others, the pride we feel in our children, in our spouse, in our fellows, a pride that unites us. That is far different from the pride denounced by God throughout the ages, the pride that separates us from our fellowmen, the pride of comparison and hostility that has, in the words of Ezra Taft Benson, enmity at its roots.

The cure is humility. But the apostle did not mean the self-demeaning attitude that some mistake for humility. In his inspired words, “Humility is not thinking less of ourselves; it is thinking less about ourselves.” Working with, and among, and together with others, reaching out beyond ourselves, this true humility is a great antidote to the pride that would separate us, because it is built upon charity, the pure love of Christ.

This was a simple but powerful message, as were the many others presented. Whether on family and marriage, faith, deliverance from addictions, financial security, the power of gratitude, or the worth of the individual, the cures for the problems of society were offered through words inspired from heaven.

I could have received or enjoyed little of this left to my own devices. It was made available in an eternal abundance through the religion organized by Christ and offered to all of God’s children. And for that I am grateful.

Of Geography and the God of All the Earth

A colleague this past week had a religious conversation in which an old academic chestnut was brought up. This was the one that begins with the undiscerning observation that the different religions are in fact pretty much all the same. Step two in the argument is that all religions basically teach the same thing, such as to be a decent person and kind to your neighbors. Step three in the argument is needed to explain why, then, if they all teach the same thing are there so many different religions. The third step is the assertion that the different religions are manifestations of different cultures or civilizations around the world. Judaism, so the argument goes, is the manifestation of an ancient culture from the area of Palestine, Christianity the religion of Europe and its colonies, Islam the religion of the Middle East, Hinduism the religion of India, and so on. The final step of the argument is that—and therefore—there is precious little in the way of “truth” in religion and certainly not enough to argue about.

No doubt you have heard the argument before, and as you consider it you very likely can see how thin of an argument it is. I have nearly always encountered it as a variety of argument intended to end rather than engage in conversation.

With regard to the first two parts of the argument, there certainly are similarities among religions, but it seems that the more knowledgeable one is about a particular religion the more prone he is to see how different it is from others. Religious converts are particularly good experts on differences in religion, the differences being powerful enough to motivate a change of beliefs and not infrequently a change in their entire way of life. The sameness tends to be seen more by those who are more casual about their religious knowledge.

As to the third and fourth elements of the argument, it is one thing to recognize geographic and cultural influences in religions and quite another to assert that the discovery of these influences means that the quest for religious truth is a waste of time and effort. To begin with, geography fails even as a superficial explanation for religious difference. How does it explain different religions that are embraced by large numbers in the same region. India is one very clear example, where several religions have tens of millions of adherents. It also poorly explains how Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have such close geographical ties that they have had and continue to have bitter disputes over the same sacred sites, most especially Jerusalem.

This is not to say that one cannot find original roots of particular religions in one place or another. After all, the religion had to start somewhere, with someone or some group living in some place on earth. From that place the particular religion spread to other places and people.

But now I present a different case. What of a religion that has its rising in two different locations, on two separate continents oceans apart? That is the case with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. With the testimony of the Holy Bible and The Book of Mormon taken together we have two witnesses—one from the Old World and one from the New World—that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of the world. No other religion can or does make that claim. Each volume of scripture is an ancient record of God’s dealings with His children, teaching the same plan of salvation through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His resurrection from the dead. In the writing of these records there was no comparing of notes between the separate series of authors, no communication other than through God and His Holy Spirit.

Whatever the geographical explanation of religion might claim, its claims fall to the ground in the case of Christianity. There truly is something different about the doctrine of Christ. It comes with the tangible testimony of dual volumes of scripture that proclaim with two voices from two hemispheres the single message that Jesus Christ is the God of the whole world and not just a part of it. As Christ explained to His disciples in ancient America,

Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men . . . ? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. (2 Nephi 29:7, 8)

Of Modern Apostles and Abundant Life

As a child I remember pondering how wonderful it would be to live on the earth in the days of the Apostles. I thought that it would be a great thing to know them, to see their pattern of life, to hear their witness of Jesus Christ, and through them to hear revelation directly from God.

So it was a personal thrill when I was a young teenager to learn that Apostles of Jesus Christ live and walk on the earth again, that we are their contemporaries, that we may associate with them, hear their clear and unequivocal witness of Jesus Christ, to learn directly through them what God would have us know and do.

I have since met several of these modern Apostles. They have the same authority and power directly from the Savior that Jesus extended anciently to Peter, James, John, Paul, and others of the Apostles whom the Savior chose to represent Him to the world.

While these messengers of the Christ cross the continents testifying of Him, twice a year they gather together in conference and proclaim their inspired messages for any and all who would hear. Here are a few gems from their most recent counsel and declarations. Heeding their words will lead to a richer, more abundant life.

The Apostle Richard G. Scott reminded us that, “Father in Heaven knew that you would face challenges and be required to make some decisions that would be beyond your own ability to decide correctly. In His plan of happiness, He included a provision for you to receive help with such challenges and decisions during your mortal life. That assistance will come to you through the Holy Ghost as spiritual guidance. It is a power, beyond your own capability, that a loving Heavenly Father wants you to use consistently for your peace and happiness.” He explained how to enhance our ability to receive that personal revelation.

The Apostle David A. Bednar emphasized the deep need for people today “to become more diligent and concerned at home by telling the people we love that we love them. Such expressions do not need to be flowery or lengthy. We simply should sincerely and frequently express love.” That may not be new counsel, but is there more important counsel for families today? If you could talk directly to God, would He not tell you to do that?

Another Apostle, Dallin H. Oaks, said, “The effect of God’s commandments and laws is not changed to accommodate popular behavior or desires. If anyone thinks that godly or parental love for an individual grants the loved one license to disobey the law, he or she does not understand either love or law.” He demonstrated how God’s laws are an expression of His love for us, guidance that shows us the way of lasting happiness.

The Apostle M. Russell Ballard had counsel for fathers and sons. To the sons, he counseled that they trust their father, take an interest in their father’s life, and that they ask their father for advice. To the fathers he counseled, listen to your sons, pray with and for your sons, and dare to have the “big talks” with your sons. Many of society’s ills today could be prevented by improving the communication between fathers and sons.

These and the other modern day Apostles of Jesus Christ said much more and gave further inspired counsel. You can find their complete remarks at this website:

http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1117,00.html

Perhaps their most important message was expressed by the Apostle Robert D. Hales:

As a special witness of the Only Begotten Son of our loving Heavenly Father, even Jesus Christ, I testify that God lives. I know He lives. I promise that if you and those you love will seek Him in all humility, sincerity, and diligence, you will know with a surety too. Your witness will come. And the blessings of knowing God will be yours and your family’s forever.

Of Organized Religion and Self Worship

It is not uncommon in American society, and likely in others as well, to hear someone say that he, “does not believe in organized religion.” The statement is usually intended as a conversation stopper, at which it usually succeeds, because it is not clear what is meant by the phrase. It is hard to continue a conversation on that basis.

If it means anything more than, “Leave me alone, and let’s talk about something else,” that is, if it is to be taken as intelligent, meaningful communication, then it probably means one of two things. It may be worthwhile exploring in further conversation which of the two meanings the speaker actually intends.

It could be that the speaker means that he believes instead in disorganized religion. It would be worthwhile asking if this is what he means. That would lead to further questions and discussion. If the speaker in fact does believe in disorganized religion, then it would be fair to ask what he believes in other than in himself. If he believes in the religious views espoused by some other person, that very agreement becomes the first step of organization, the union of belief by more than one person. Every organization is an agreement of two or more people on something, a plan, a program, a belief system. So a true believer in disorganized religion has to have a religion by, for, and of himself, or his religion starts to become organized. I am reminded of the animated Christmas movie, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” in which Rudolph and a misfit elf agree to be “independent together.”

Alternatively, it may be that the speaker means to say that he believes in no religion at all, organized or otherwise. This view is in practice hardly credible. Few people if any have no belief about God and man’s relation to God. That includes those who assert either that God does not exist or that His existence cannot be known. Such a belief is a religious view about God and man, and one that involves reliance on some very fundamental theories that require more than evidence to believe. That is to say, for a thinking man, religious belief of some kind—some set of beliefs about God and one’s relationship to Him, pro or con—is inescapable. The question of the existence of God is fundamental. You either believe that He is or you do not, and that belief leads directly to a long set of follow-on beliefs extending throughout one’s approach to life. Sounds like religion to me. Atheism is a religion, and while atheists may assert that one cannot prove the existence of God (a claim I would firmly dispute) and therefore His existence can only be taken on faith, the atheist in turn fails to prove that God does not exist and can only support his belief in the nonexistence of God with something akin to what he would call faith.

The individual who says that he believes in no religion can seem to be very much like the one who believes in disorganized religion. He has his own religion by, for, and of himself—unless he belongs to some organization of other people holding similar beliefs about the non-existence of God, in which case he does believe in and belong to an organized religion after all.

Of course, the professed disbelief in organized religion could mean—and I suspect that it usually does mean—that the speaker does not prefer to affiliate with a group of people with similar beliefs if they have a formal or obvious system of organization. It is not really organization to which the person objects, but rather to particular forms of organization, to certain methods or formalities of organization.

If this is the case, then the speaker must fit into one situation or another. Either the speaker objects to more obvious organizational structures, because he prefers to be led along with as little perception of it on his part as possible—a kind of religious life with blinders on, involving some unadmitted surrender of freedom and will—or he prefers an organization that makes no demands on him, whether as to belief or conduct.

In the latter condition the person is once again little distinguishable from the believer in disorganized religion, choosing to be a god unto himself, a sole determiner of a religion by, for, and of himself. At this point I must add that how anyone can truly believe in a religion of his own creation is beyond my comprehension.

In some cases at least—and I think that these include the more part of the more honest in heart who claim disbelief in organized religion—those who say that they do not believe in organized religion may mean that they have yet to find an organized religion in which they can believe. This is a very different matter, and it is logically and religiously justifiable, if one does not cease looking before finding the truth.

This was the situation of the young boy, Joseph Smith, and of many others of his contemporaries. They held themselves apart from the various organized religions of their day, religions that claimed to worship a God whose teachings and commandments the religions did not follow and whose authority they did not possess. A fair analysis of the teachings and fruits of these religions could justifiably lead many an honest man to reject them and could cause hope to dim of ever finding the true and living God and His representatives on the earth.

To any such modern truth seekers I together with many others proclaim that God has revealed Himself to man, in modern times as in times of old. We announce that God has again called prophets and apostles authorized and empowered by Him, Jesus Christ, to endow all who will to enjoy the presence and influence of God and His full blessings. This God is a God of order, of peace, with all of His works and efforts organized for the blessing of His children in eternally meaningful activity in this life and in the life to come. This God is knowable, reachable by all who sincerely seek Him.

Of Prophets and Revelation

One of the more bizarre notions found in religious discourse is the one that holds that the heavens are closed, that God who for thousands of years spoke through prophets does not do so anymore. If God ever spoke through prophets anciently--and the record and evidence are strong that He did-- then why would He be silent today?

Three arguments are offered:

1. He has said enough, and nothing more needs saying, at least not from a direct Divine Source.

2. The prophets were intended to prepare the way for Christ, and after His mortal ministry and atonement the mission of the prophets had been accomplished.

3. We all are prophets (or can and should be)--God speaks to everyone without any prophet needed to stand in between man and his God.

Those who hold to the first argument carry the burden of demonstrating that man would not benefit from more of the word of God. If man could be helped by new revelation from God, then the love of God would surely provide it. The new and perplexing challenges to human happiness in our day suggest a deep need for continuing revelation.

In ancient times mankind was perplexed by many challenges to happiness--and the Lord spoke through prophets to help His children overcome those challenges. The fact that the human condition is no different (unless even worse) would seem to argue for a continuation of the same help from God. Moreover, the enormous--and often angry--disagreement over what God said and meant in the past would suggest a great need for God (who loves His children enough to be clear in His messages to them) to continue to speak to man with the clarity of contemporary language and modern relevance.

Regarding the second argument, it may be true that there is less of a need for a prophet while the Savior personally dwells on the earth. The Savior need not speak through anyone when He can do so directly. Speaking through prophets is what the Lord did prior to His mortal ministry, but what did He do after He ascended to heaven? Did He close the heavenly door behind Him and speak no more to man? If the risen Lord were to continue to speak to man from the heavens, He would speak through someone who would share it. That man would be a prophet. The record is clear that He continued to speak through His apostles and prophets after He returned to the presence of the Father. The Apostle Paul was converted long after the Savior's resurrection and ascension, and the word of God was spoken powerfully through Paul. In the ancient Americas there were many prophets who continued to transmit the word of God after the Savior's earthly ministry. Clearly the work of God did not end when the Savior returned to Heaven. It continues and will continue even until He returns to earth, and He will speak to guide those engaged in His work.

The third argument is a partial truth. The Lord wishes and intends for us all to be prophets. The concept of continuing revelation is not reserved for just one man on earth at a time. Moses, thousands of years ago, was confronted by this misconception when the man who would succeed him in leading Israel, Joshua, urged Moses to forbid others in the camp of Israel from prophesying. Rather than express any jealousy of his rights to revelation, Moses taught Joshua an important lesson about revelation, responding,

Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them! (Numbers 11:29)

Having established this principle, however, it must be understood that God is a God of order. Each person--man, woman, child--is privileged to receive revelation for his or her own sphere of responsibility. Parents may receive revelation for themselves and also for their family. It would be absurd and chaotic to suppose, though, that God would reveal to them His will for someone else or for another family. The Lord wants us all to be prophets, to be possessed of His spirit to receive direct revelation for our own walk of life. He has never meant for all of His children to receive revelation for each other or for the whole world.

As an orderly God, for matters involving the whole world the Lord speaks through someone whom He has called to receive revelation for the world. Moses was the one chosen by God to lead all Israel, and Moses had no fear that his responsibility for leading Israel would be diminished were all to receive revelation for their own individual conduct. As the Lord chose Moses to speak for all Israel in his day, the Lord has chosen men today through whom He speaks to all the world.

The first weekend in April, the Lord's prophet spoke to all the world, as he regularly does. His message was broadcast throughout the world. You can find the message on the Internet, at this link:

http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,49-1-1032,00.html

It could be that, while God speaks through a prophet today, men's attention is just as distracted now as it was when God spoke in the days of the ancient prophets. Now, just as then, those who pay attention will find the way to a happier and more successful life. Do we need guidance from God any less today than did the early Christians in the days of the Roman Empire? Fortunately God still speaks through prophets, as always.