Transcend May. Transcend for Latter-day Saints. Edifying Latter-day Saint Elected Officials, Community Leaders, and Active Citizens

Transcription

1 Transcend May Transcend for Latter-day Saints Edifying Latter-day Saint Elected Officials, Community Leaders, and Active Citizens Session Two, May 2005

2 Transcend for f Latter tter-day y Saints Session Two, May 2005 (Sutherland Note: The theme of the May session of the 2005 Transcend Series was "Limitations, Tradeoffs and Ideals: Understanding Philosophical Frameworks." First among the Intellect sessions this year, the May session was designed to help elected officials and community leaders with the philosophical context of governing. The old expression of "ideas have consequences" was foremost in our minds in designing this interesting session. Clearly, there are practical boundaries to our ideals for government. There also are often unintended consequences that arise in between the creation of ideas and their applications. The May session began with a breakfast keynote address by Sutherland Institute Scholar and Brigham Young University Professor Ralph Hancock on "Reason and Its Limits in Two Revolutions." (You can find this address on our web site at We asked Professor Hancock to contrast the American Revolution with the French Revolution - why one succeeded while the other failed. Professor Hancock was followed by another Sutherland Institute Scholar and Southern Utah University Professor Bryce Christensen during the session's morning seminar. Professor Christensen was asked to speak on Utopian thinking, to address its nature and to deconstruct its meaning. Lastly, our afternoon workshop, where participants are asked to apply aspects of what they have heard earlier, was led by former Sutherland Institute Trustee Jim Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins led participants through three contrasting essays on education: one in support of public schools, one in support of market approaches to schooling, and one in support of home schooling, each by preeminent scholars. Understanding philosophical frameworks is essential for Latter-day Saints in public service. Beyond the obvious benefits of accurately seeing the distinctions between a variety of worldviews (e.g., being better able to understand others, discerning the nuances of other opinions, and communicating effectively), understanding philosophical frameworks is especially important for Latter-day Saints as we seek to influence the world around us while maintaining the integrity of our gospel-centered mission. Is there an LDS framework to political philosophy? If so, what is it? Is it a realistic expectation that Latter-day Saints can have a unity of belief in political matters? We hope this edition of Transcend for Latter-day Saints will help you answer these and other questions - Paul T. Mero, president, Sutherland Institute) Transcend 2005-May -1- Sutherland Institute 2005

3 From Identity to Integrity: The Quest for Unity We began the April issue of Transcend for Latter-day Saints on the question of political unity. Can Latter-day Saints be unified politically? Should they be? We concluded that unity is possible, at minimum, as long as we focus on our identity as Latter-day Saints; that is, as long as we focus on spiritual unity in conformity to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this edition we revisit the question of unity (without escape). Whereas last time we concluded that our way of being can unify us spiritually, and that our practical politics will naturally flow from our way of being, this time we address that natural flow. In this edition we are interested more about the integrity of our unity, rather than simply the Spirit of our unity. In other words, what is the appropriate philosophical framework for our unity? For April s edition we asked, Can a Latter-day Saint be faithful and publicly advocate in behalf of abortion? Homosexuality? The welfare state? Socialism? Democrats? Ted Kennedy? And why, when this question of faithfulness is raised, do we always turn to question the sacred cows of the political left? Couldn t we just as easily ask the question, can a Latter-day Saint be faithful and publicly advocate in behalf of big families? Traditional marriage? The free market? Conservatives? Republicans? Orrin Hatch? And concluded that, Clearly, there are good reasons why we focus on subjects such as abortion, homosexuality, the welfare state, etc. when we attempt to draw a correlation between faith and politics. Simply put, our faith dictates our politics in many cases. For instance, Latter-day Saints should be purists in defending religious freedom. Why? Because our faith demands it. Likewise, we should be unwavering stalwarts for constitutional government and the rule of law. To be able to draw this sort of conclusion means that we must have some integrity between the correlation of faith and politics, some kind of gospel basis that leads us to an even more practical integrity of unity in politics. Recently published is a fascinating book about the decline of Europe (and the same potential for American decline) titled, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God by Catholic historian and Pope John Paul II biographer George Weigel. Mr. Weigel asks readers, Why did Europe have the twentieth century it did? Why did a century that began with confident predictions about a maturing humanity reaching new heights of civilizational accomplishment produce in Europe, within four decades, two world wars, three totalitarian systems, a Cold War threatening global catastrophe, oceans of blood, mountains of corpses, Auschwitz and the Gulag? In a nutshell, and I suppose an entirely inadequate summary of his answer, the author points to atheistic humanism as what happened to Europe. Its peoples simply repudiated the 1500 year history from whence they sprang. Rather than building upon a unique historical heritage of Christianity, Europe chose to become Transcend 2005-May -2- Sutherland Institute 2005

4 Christophobic. Its peoples consciously abandoned their religious and moral traditions and turned to reason. No doubt there are many reasons as to why this happened. But the point is it happened. Europe has turned from God and His plan of salvation. A key sign of this modern-day apostasy is Europe s declining birth rates. Eighteen western European nations have negative natural increase, more deaths than births. No western European country has replacement-level birth rates. As of 2004, Germany s birth rate was 1.3, Spain s 1.1. These rates are dramatized by the statistical reality that the difference between a 1.5 birth rate and a 1.4 birth rate is the equivalent of a stable population and one that declines by one-third as each generation passes. Say goodbye to Europe as it has been known for a millenium and a half. This decline is all because a people self-secularized their lives, culture, and politics. But that s Europe. Surely the same thing would never occur in America. Or at least the same thing would never occur among Latter-day Saints. Would it? As we write, a microcosm of this experience is happening in little Cedar Hills, Utah, population 7,800; almost entirely Latter-day Saints. For nearly 30 years of incorporation, Cedar Hills has had no commerce to speak of; no retail businesses, no gas stations, no grocery stores, no nothing except homes filled largely with LDS families. Recently, however, an excitement has hit Cedar Hills. Some residents, including a majority of its elected officers, are seeking to fill a commercially-zoned piece of land with retail businesses. This push was simply a reflection of a prior Master Plan created by city planners to promote commerce in the tiny city. Other residents, some supporting commerce and some opposing it, are having problems with the proposed development. Specifically, these residents are objecting to unrestrained commercial development that includes retail stores that would seek to sell alcohol and remain open on Sundays. As fascinating as this drama is in unfolding, a very interesting cultural and religious anomaly has emerged Latter-day Saints in favor of the unrestrained commercial development are arguing that religious and moral beliefs about liquor and Sunday commercialism are irrelevant to the public debate. They argue that the public debate should be based on reason and economics alone. Religious sentiments, they say, are not applicable there. The argument settles on this point, as they put it: a right to personal religious belief exists but the right does not extend to its imposition on others. In other words, Latter-day Saints may not believe in drinking booze and shopping on Sundays, but this sentiment does not extend socially to nor should bind others. Hence, their reasoning goes, Latter-day Saint residents of Cedar Hills must allow the sale of booze and must allow shopping on Sundays (were retail stores to even exist in Cedar Hills). The minutia of the arguments back and forth are mind-numbing, though it is democracy in action. The detail, as well as the arguments themselves, are least important in answering our question of LDS unity in politics. Retail development or no retail development, the most important and relevant aspect of the Cedar Hills drama is that Latterday Saints are self-secularizing. On their own, they are removing God from politics, religious sentiment from the public square, and personal morality from influencing their neighbors. In essence, they are doing exactly what Europe has done throughout the 20 th century. Before you know it, peculiar (and I mean that in the good way) little Cedar Hills will resemble the rest of public humanity godless in their public expressions and motivated by reason and money alone. Transcend 2005-May -3- Sutherland Institute 2005

5 Oddly enough, for such a patriotic community like Cedar Hills, these Latter-day Saint advocates of booze and Sunday commercialism find little to nothing in the merits of constitutional law that permits such public prohibitions. Nothing is stopping these citizens from the public expression of religious and moral sentiments except themselves. Two camps one filled with Latter-day Saints self-secularizing, arguing to repress their own religious and moral sentiments and bowing to unrestrained commercialism, and the other filled with Latter-day Saints expressing their collective faith in the public square each convinced the other is seriously wrong. Whence unity? Where is Zion? To find and maintain the integrity of our unity we need a center point. In the social context of Zion (i.e., unity) that center point may very well be the plan of salvation. Perhaps if we define this great plan of happiness, then might we find the integrity of unity we seek? What is this plan all about? How is it manifest in our lives? How does it naturally unfold? And how can we uphold its integrity? The purpose of the plan of salvation is to help you become more like Heavenly Father. Coming to Earth is a very large part of becoming like Him. We need a physical body and we need to be able to exercise our moral agency to develop divine attributes. We will falter in our quest to become like Him so He gave us a Mediator in the being of Jesus Christ. His Son embodies the attributes and characteristics of the Father to be like the one is to be like the other. There is no mistaking the example in front of us. There also is a social order to the plan of salvation. All of Heavenly Father s children are a part of His family and our mortal experience is organized in families as well. The plan of salvation includes the processes of family life marriage, birth, child rearing, support and protection, intergenerational bonds, etc. This is the core of our social relationships within the plan, whether in mortality, pre-mortality, or immortality. As such, the family is the fundamental unit of all eternity, but especially relevant now regarding our mortal lives wherein we are provided a microcosm of eternity. There is an order to the plan that brings happiness to one s soul. The more we reflect that order, the happier we are. It should not be surprising that an eternal order might have its effects on the mortal or natural order of things. For instance, it should not be surprising that empirical and experiential evidence clearly shows that families more closely following this eternal or natural order of things are the healthiest and happiest people on Earth. Science, after all, is the study of the natural order. For our purposes here (i.e., in recognizing and addressing our potential for an integrity of unity in things political), we should recognize that within God s plan for man, The family is the fundamental unit of society.the health of any society lies in the strength of its families. When we strengthen our families, we strengthen our communities and our nations. ( The purpose of life section to The plan of salvation pages to Good family relationships strengthen individuals, communities, and nations page.) There are many aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we might focus on to establish an integrity of unity, especially in scripture. In this effort we are often tempted to rely on one scripture or another to center our unity on things political. It might come in the area of the Word of Wisdom, or the area of war and peace, or the area of charitable care and wealth and poverty. We often see these attempts for unity in the area of freedom and agency. Transcend 2005-May -4- Sutherland Institute 2005

6 All of these aspects of the gospel are clearly in play to one degree or another in comprising an integrity of social unity. After all, these matters influence our spiritual identity. But there is one aspect of the gospel that is at the center of them all and, not surprisingly, emanating from the broad plan of salvation: the family as the fundamental unit of society. Given its stature and importance as the center point in our temporal and spiritual lives, recognition of the family as the fundamental unit of society becomes a beacon for the integrity of our unity in things political. Hence, our Church proclaims, We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society. This has political meaning. Lastly, the plan of salvation is both an individual and social exercise. We alone, without others, cannot return to our Heavenly Father. The ideal of Zion emphasizes this sociality within the gospel plan. In political terms of integrity of unity we are obliged to see the world around us socially, even in terms of Zion. The disturbing matter in the Cedar Hills debate, mentioned earlier, has little to do with the ultimate decision of its residents. The more crucial matter concerns the thoughtfulness applied to the social requirements of Zion. The problem is more about a confident and accurate expression of religious and moral sentiment than it is about policy. The problem there among its Latter-day Saint residents is a lurking self-secularizing that neutralizes religious sentiment. To self-secularize is to undermine Zion. To deny a Latter-day Saint identity is to betray the core of who we are as Latter-day Saints. It is as if to say, We are confidant of the great Plan personally, but not so confidant about how it applies in our lives socially. The European decline has the same roots. Only Europe has moved from self-secularization to complete and utter repudiation of its historic identity. The integrity of our political unity can be found and maintained as we focus on the purpose of our Latter-day Saint existence the plan of salvation. Our political identity would reflect this purpose if we have integrity. There are human decisions and behaviors that are complementary and others that are antithetical to the plan of salvation. To be complementary, our political and policy decisions should naturally flow from this plan with family at its center point. There may be very good reasons for denying your own religious or moral sentiments in the public square, but those reasons should be external to who you are, not who you are. There may be exigent times when it is better to conform to antithetical views than it is to faithfully express your LDS identity. But if such suppression, or even denial, emerges from within us (as with the self-secularization occurring in Cedar Hills), then we should be concerned about our public integrity and our potential for social unity. PTM Transcend 2005-May -5- Sutherland Institute 2005

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