Mormon Bloggers

In an effort to educate, define and advocate, I enter upon today’s post with a heart full of hope for the future of America. In recent weeks, circumstances that would have been difficult to foresee even at Christmas time when I reflected upon the topic of peace on earth, uprisings across the world have been sparked, ignited and are now raging in full fury. Much of the rhetoric linked to these uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya are linked to the word “democracy.” This wave of unrest in opposition to dictators is exactly what Joseph Smith was talking about in the revelation cited in the link above. Democracy as a form of government is easy to define — in simplest terms it’s whatever the majority consensus decides. Without giving an exhaustive exegesis of the history of mankind, suffice it to say the discussion over agency, the right to choose between good and evil, identified and championed by the Constitution of the United States of... Read the rest of this entry »

In the 2009 October General Conference, Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve gave a talk titled “Moral Discipline.” In this talk he made a fascinating statement that has stayed with me in the intervening months: “The societies in which many of us live have for more than a generation failed to foster moral discipline. They have taught that truth is relative and that everyone decides for himself or herself what is right. Concepts such as sin and wrong have been condemned as “value judgments.” As the Lord describes it, “Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god” (D&C 1:16). As a consequence, self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments. One columnist observed that “gentlemanly behavior [for example, once] protected women from coarse behavior. Today, we expect... Read the rest of this entry »