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Mom and I were talking the other day, and we discussed something that has been really evident to me lately. We talked about how sometimes people with in our religion only practice it on Sundays. Every other day, people will say, do, think, act, etc. everything contrary to what our church believes, then when Sunday rolls around, they assume mormon position. Of course, it doesn't have to be that extreme, but even in the little things. I think this is absolutely ridiculous. I have seen this in a lot of acquaintances from high school. Their politics or ethics are completely opposite of what the church believes, and justify it, hiding behind the word "agency" and still continue on thinking they are in good standing.
So I pose the question. If we know what truth is, as it has been given to us from God through prophets and revelation, why do we think we still have to accept to the opposing view? There is a right and wrong, a good and bad, a yes and no, but in today's society, we are told that there is NO line what so ever, and everyone is justified. This may be true in the world's eye, but this in NO WAY translates to the Gospel. There is a solid line on right and wrong, and choosing a world view over God's law can not be softened or ok by adding the word agency.
God has given us agency so we could have a chance to choose the right. He gave us a choice, hoping that we would choose the right one, but would save us when we didn't (repentance). So, if we DO know what is right and wrong, why do we give way to the wrong?
So, this sentence is invalid: "I believe that _______ is wrong, but I don't think we should take away people's agency by going against it." If you believe that something is right, especially if it is declared so by God, than it is our calling in life to follow through, and stand up for our God, and not give way for man. Just saying you believe it is wrong isn't enough. By allowing the bad things, you have just contridicted your last statement.
NO one can take away agency. Creating laws and rules does not limit agency. It gives us boundaries and guides that will keep order in the land. Should I feel limited because I can't steal food from the store? Is it fair that I will get punished if I harrass someone?
There is a right and wrong, and we are fully aware in the church. There is no grey area with God. So lets actually live our religion, stand up for God's law. Especially today, people put their politics first, and only then see if their religion ties in. It should be the exact opposite. Religion first, and then see about your politics.
So lets be good Christians standing for what we believe in not only for 3 hours on Sunday, but every moment of our lives, as we have been commanded to do.
*Gets off soap box*
In other good news, I now have a full time job! Thanks to dad for getting me the sweet hookups! Much love!
An interesting thought...
Friday, January 16, 2009 | Posted by Elise and Jeff at 10:20 AM
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8 comments:
One day for Church, six days for fun... Chances of going to Heaven? Six to One.
Yes, I have this rant so often that all my friends and book groupies are sick to death of me. Very good thoughts and things. And way to go on the job! What is it? Are you the filing girl at USA? :)
Very good post. Mormons are so unthinking sometimes. Hopefully I always keep my standards AND my brain, and realize that I can't have one toe in the world and another toe in the Church, like so many of my associates seem to think they can do. *sigh*
I'm going to have to call that place of employment as well... See what they can hook me and my ridiculous schedule up with.
I think this is a good post and I certainly agree with the sentiment that being a Sunday-only Mormon is not going to get you to eternal life. But I'd also like to comment on some of the other points you made in this post, not in a spirit of contention but of dialog, so that hopefully we may understand eachother better.
The crux of my disagreement lies in this statement. "So, this sentence is invalid: "I believe that _______ is wrong, but I don't think we should take away people's agency by going against it."... Just saying you believe it is wrong isn't enough. By allowing the bad things, you have just contridicted your last statement."
Correct me if I'm misinterpreting this statement but it seems you believe that if we as a church believe something is wrong, then that belief should be codified into law such that those immoral things become illegal.
I think if we think about this a little more deeply we would find plenty of example where a sentence like that is quite valid. For example, "I believe that choosing not to be baptized into the LDS church is wrong, but I don't think we should take away people's agency by going against it." I mean would you really suggest that we make being a non-member illegal? While this may not technically be "taking away someone's agency", surely we could all agree that that a law like that would be opposed to the principles of the gospel. Other things we could put in that blank would be "not attending the LDS church", or "wearing tank tops", or "drinking iced tea", or "being rude to someone". Should we make laws against these things because we in the church know that they are wrong?
Now you may say those are only little thing, but where do we draw the line? What about gluttony, pride, or fornication? Now we're getting into some grievous sins. Should we make them illegal?
Well luckily we don't have to wonder because the scriptures, church leaders, and the founding fathers are all pretty clear on this subject. And their combined sentiment is that attempting to have one's personal religious belief's codified into law is morally wrong. Let me explain:
If we believe it is important for us to codify our beliefs into law, then we must afford people of other faiths that same privilege. Then what happens when we lose that battle and now live in a land where LDS beliefs and practices are illegal? In fact this is what happened in the 1800's when traditional Christian belief was intermingled with the laws of the land, and the church faced persecution as a result. Joseph Smith was arrested repeatedly for "disturbing the peace" because he taught doctrines contrary to the beliefs of local authorities. He faced judges and governors who had no qualms about mixing their religious beliefs with their rulings and so he had no impartial recourse. Perhaps in part because of those experiences, the church released Doctrine and Covenants section 134, in which the church makes clear its positions on proper government. Here are some relevant excerpts from it:
"4 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."
So essentially we believe that the government has no right to tell us what we can and can't believe, and they can't dictate our beliefs or devotion as long as we aren't infringing on the rights of others. Therefore we, in choosing which laws to establish, should not make laws that dictate forms of private or public devotion, or enforce any one religious perspective. Rather this scripture teaches us that when it comes to religion and morality, we should allow people to do and believe what they will so long as they don't infringe on the rights of others. Those two ideas (religious freedom for us and refraining from enforcing our religion on others) are necessarily connected. Another salient verse from that section is:
9 We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.
So if there was any doubt from the previous verse, this one should remove it. It is the doctrine of the church that religious influence should not be mingled with civil government, such that one religious society is fostered over another. The writings of Joseph Smith are also very clear on this point. That in government the religious beliefs and practices of one particular religion or denomination should not be codified into law since such would be a violation of the principles of the constitution, and would always result in discrimination against those without those beliefs (or those who held opposing beliefs). This is exactly what happened to the early members of the church when local governments allowed Baptist beliefs or Methodist beliefs to become law. And if you read the writings of Joseph Smith on government, there can really be no doubt that he was very strongly against laws that enforced the beliefs of any one religion or denomination.
Another example of this is in the Book of Mormon, in Alma chapter 30:
" 3 Yea, and the people did observe to keep the commandments of the Lord; and they were strict in observing the ordinances of God, according to the law of Moses; for they were taught to keep the law of Moses until it should be fulfilled...
6 But it came to pass in the *latter end of the seventeenth year, there came a man into the land of Zarahemla, and he was Anti-Christ, for he began to preach unto the people against the prophecies which had been spoken by the prophets, concerning the coming of Christ.
7 Now there was no law against a man’s belief; for it was strictly contrary to the commands of God that there should be a law which should bring men on to unequal grounds.
8 For thus saith the scripture: Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve.
9 Now if a man desired to serve God, it was his privilege; or rather, if he believed in God it was his privilege to serve him; but if he did not believe in him there was no law to punish him."
So here they had a society that was dominated by devout followers of God's law. Nearly all of them were faithful in obeying the law of Moses. Yet they did not make the law of Moses the law of the land. So Korihor went about preaching against Christ and not following the laws of God, but as Alma goes on to say, as long as he didn't murder or steal, or any of that, the law could have no hold on him. In fact the people bound him up and took him to Alma, who again reiterated that he would receive no punishment.
I think this situation is directly analogous to what we are talking about. Here the believers had a vast majority. They correctly believed that the law of Moses was the law of God and they followed it. Yet, unlike the Jews in the time of Christ, they refused to mingle their religious laws with the laws of the land. Because Alma said it would be "strictly contrary to the laws of God" to do so. Because the scriptures say. "Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve." Really, one could argue that it was the mingling of the law of Moses with the law of the land in Israel that led to Christ's crucifixion. Since it allowed them to charge him with Heresy for preaching against their faith. This is only one of several scriptural examples of this principle.
Refraining from codifying our religious beliefs into law is a critical part of maintaining religious freedom. I was reading an old ensign article on religious freedom once and I saved this quote because I think sums the "double-edged sword" issue up nicely:
“Liberty is not any one man’s possession. When a man asks freedom for himself alone, both he and his neighbor lose what he thinks he has gained. The spirit of liberty is more than jealousy for your own rights. It is a decent respect for the rights and opinions of others. We are free, not because we have freedom, but because we serve freedom. The love of liberty cannot be separated from loving your neighbor as yourself.”
If we allow our laws to be dictated by personal religious belief, then what will we do when secularists become the majority in America? Will we allow them to make laws promoting the principles of atheism? What of the muslim countries who have made the laws of their faith and their government one and the same? Do we look at that with envy, wanting to establish an LDS version of the same thing here? Or do we rightly see it as a violation of the underlying principles of free society?
Anyway, this is getting long but just one more response, to your statement:
" Should I feel limited because I can't steal food from the store? Is it fair that I will get punished if I harrass someone?"
It is not a choice between enacting laws based on LDS theology or a moral relativism so extreme that there are no laws at all. Most things that are illegal in the US are designated so because they infringe upon the already established rights of others. Murder takes away someone's right to life, stealing infringes on someone's right to ownership of property, etc. In many cases, the laws of God are legally justifiable because they were designed to result in a just and equitable society. Gay marriage is an example of something that I am opposed to because I believe its instatement would be a violation of proper legal principles as well as morality. But you'd find that if you asked any law or ethics professor at BYU, they would tell you that there is a difference between what is moral and immoral, and what should be legal or illegal. The are often aligned but not always. And they would tell you the fact that this difference exists is itself very very moral. It is a large part of the genius of the founding fathers in fact.
Sorry this was so long, but I really believe that you can't have a valuable discussion of principles such as these in sound bites and snippets. I just wanted to provide an alternate perspective here because I believe this is such an important principle. I do not believe that everything that is morally wrong should be made illegal. And in fact I believe that it is immoral and against the principles of the gospel to do so. So if I am to live my faith completely, I must fight for the principles established in D&C 134, in the scriptures, and in the constitution, which is an inspired document.
And I think we should be careful about judging someone's morality by their political perspective. We are all imperfect beings with imperfect knowledge and the world is much more complicated than we know. If General Authorities can hold political perspectives that are polar opposites to each other, then certainly we can afford those that disagree with us the benefit of the doubt. I sincerely believe that most people hold the political positions they do because they are trying their best to do what is morally right.
And also, congratulations on the new job!
... Longest comment ever. And a tad defensive.
I think the moral of the story is to choose the right, which is what God wants us to do.
My point was this: God has given us clear instructions about some things, like abortion and gay marriage(tea drinking and tank top wearing is more of a personal thing, not on a political spectrum). We do not have to give a platform to those things, as we know the truth about them. And allowing those things is not standing up for God. It is giving into the world, thinking that the word "agency" will supposidly make God understand your point of view.
Thanks! My new job is great!
It is dissapointing and confusing when LDS people don't act according to the standards that have been set up for them. It seems there are clearer lines being shown between good people and bad people, not just LDS and non-LDS. Good thoughts Elise. I'm glad all of our close friends have stayed 24/7 Latter Day Saints.
Yes sorry again for the length. I often find myself in a difficult position because a short response doesn't do an important topic justice but a long one nearly always appears combative or defensive by default. Which is not my intention.
Now gay marriage is a special case because the church has specifically come out and said it should be illegal, so obedience on this point is straightforward.
But abortion is stuck in the same place as fornication, clearly immoral, but without additional justification we can't assume it should be illegal. As demonstrated in my previous post. Now I'm not defending abortion, that's a whole different conversation that we don't have time to dive into here.
Anyway I do agree with Drew that the moral of the story is that we should just choose the right. But I would stress that "the right" for our personal lives and "the right" in politics are not meant to be the same. And unlike choosing the right in our personal lives, choosing the right politically is not black and white by any means.
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