Son. Dad, the bishop talked with me this morning about receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood. He said that one of the things I should do is talk to you about what it really means to have the priesthood.
Father. I’m grateful the bishop gave you that assignment, Paul, because priesthood is very special to me. We have discussed the priesthood many times before, so where would you like to begin? Do you have some special questions?
Son. Let’s pretend I have never heard about priesthood before. Could I ask you some basic questions to help me see the whole picture at once?
Father. Fire away.
Son. First of all, what is it?
Father. Simply stated, priesthood is the delegated power and authority to represent Jesus Christ.
Son. But why Jesus? Why don’t we represent our Father in heaven?
Father. Are you thinking about the fact that all human beings are children of God the Father?
Son. Yes. And so is Jesus.
Father. That is true, but there is something different about our Savior. He was our eldest brother when we lived with our Heavenly Father. Then he was given a very special assignment. He was chosen by the Father to organize this earth, to people it with others of the Father’s children, to govern it, and to bless, through the atonement, each person who would come here. The rest of us didn’t get that assignment; it was a stewardship given to one person only.
Son. You don’t mean that he has to do all those things all by himself!
Father. No, indeed. He has many who help him, and that is precisely where priesthood comes in. But the Savior is the head. He is the one to whom the Father has given total responsibility for this earth and all things that pertain to it. The Father so loved us that he sent Jesus to create this world, then sent him into this world to suffer and die that he might save us.
Son. But why was Jesus chosen to be that one, the Savior?
Father. I’m sure I don’t know all the reasons, but one I do believe: I think the Father chose Jesus to represent him because of the great and pure love that Jesus had in the premortal existence. Jesus loved the Father and obeyed him in all things. But he also had a pure love for others, for us. Because Jesus’ love was pure, with no shred of selfishness or self-seeking in it, the Father knew he could trust Jesus to be solely responsible for this earth.
Son. Didn’t anyone else have that pure love?
Father. My guess is that there were others. But the Father’s house is a house of order. He appointed one only to be the head. When he, the Father, speaks to men, he has only one thing to say to them at first. He says to men, “This is my beloved son. Hear him.” (Joseph Smith 2:17; see also, e.g., Matt. 3:17, 17:5.) Those who keep that commandment can receive all blessings on earth and in heaven through him, through Jesus Christ. Thus the Savior has become the great High Priest, the only source of the blessings of the Father for this earth. When we receive the priesthood it is the Savior’s authority we receive. That’s why it is called “The Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God.” (See D&C 107:3)
Son. I can see why there should be only one person to represent the Father. But I’m still worried about all the other people who also had, or have, great love for the Father and for others. What happens to them?
Father. I believe that many of those who also have that pure love are the noble and great ones that father Abraham mentioned. The Savior makes them his rulers on earth. (See Abr. 3:22-23.)
Son. That’s kind of hard to believe when you look at some rulers during the different dispensations of time.
Father. Indeed, if you look at most temporal rulers. The scriptures aren’t talking about kings, generals, and presidents, however. The Savior’s rulers are those who he appoints to transmit the blessings of eternity to their fellowmen. They are the bearers of his priesthood.
Son. You are saying that the Savior chooses out of the people of this earth certain ones of those who have pure love and gives them his priesthood so they can bless others? That sounds good, but I have a hard time relating that idea to what I see in the Church. I see some good people who have the priesthood. But I also see some others who don’t seem to have much love for anybody, let alone pure love.
Father. ‘Tis high to be a judge, Paul. But I agree with you. We can’t honestly say that everyone who has been ordained to the priesthood is what he ought to be.
Son. The way you are describing it, it sounds as if a person would have to be perfect to exercise the Savior’s priesthood fully.
Father. Scary though it sounds, that is very near to the truth as I understand it. When the Savior was telling his disciple in Judea about what is expected of us, they began to despair and asked, “Who, then, can be saved?” His answer is the only hope; he told them that with man, such perfection is impossible, but that with God all good things are possible. (See Matt. 19:23-26.) Does that answer make sense to you?
Son. I guess that means men can’t be perfect unless God helps them.
Father. Right! That is part of what the scriptures mean when they say we are saved by grace — but only after we do all we can. (See 2 Ne. 25:23.)
Son. I hate to be pessimistic, but I still can’t believe that most of the people I know in the priesthood have a perfect love.
Father. Paul, the thing that is remarkable is not that some people don’t have that perfect love: the miracle is that some do. It helps if we separate beginnings and endings.
The beginning is that no human being as he is naturally upon the earth is smart enough or good enough to represent the Savior perfectly and show forth the pure love in blessing others. So there needs to be a process of enlarging and purifying someone who is to represent the Savior.
The beginning of that process is accepting the gospel; we must confess our weakness and covenant with the Savior in baptism to take upon us his name, to remember him always, and to obey all the instructions he gives to us. Those are the promises you priests repeat every time you consecrate the bread in the administration of the sacrament.
Son. Yes, I remember those ideas. But are promises enough?
Father. Not enough, but the necessary beginning. When we make those promises at baptism we are then given the blessing of having, and the commandment to receive, the Holy Ghost.
Son. When we are confirmed?
Father. Right. The privilege of having the Holy Ghost is one of the most marvelous things any person can have, for that influence teaches us how to begin to think and feel as the Savior does, and brings us instruction from the Savior. You remember that John the Baptist baptized with water. But he knew that the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost that the Savior would bring was so much greater that he felt he was not worthy to untie the Savior’s shoes. It is the transforming power of the Holy Ghost that helps us to change so that we can be worthy and honorable bearers of the holy priesthood.
Son. How does the Aaronic Priesthood fit into this?
Father. Just as John came baptizing with water to prepare disciples whom the Savior could then baptize with the Holy Ghost, so the Aaronic Priesthood is given as a preparation for receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood. You learned as a deacon to pass the sacrament and to collect fast offering. As a teacher you began home teaching. As a priest you have been privileged to consecrate the emblems of the sacrament and to begin missionary work and perform baptism. All this time you have worked with the bishop in projects around the chapel, on the welfare farm, and in helping people in the ward. Now which of the fellows your age are being given the Melchizedek Priesthood?
Son. Right now it’s the ones who have done a good job as priests.
Father. Sure. If a young man has learned to be diligent, faithful, and obedient in temporal matters, that is a marvelous preparation to become a minister in spiritual matters. When he goes on his mission at age nineteen he is already a veteran in the service of our Savior. The attitudes and habits that a faithful priest has are his foundation for all of the callings of the higher priesthood. If he has learned to work under the authority of the priesthood in the Church and to live by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, then he is ready to do the work of love. Make no mistake, Paul: whether you serve as a missionary, as a worker in the Church organization, or as a husband and father, your real success in these priesthood callings will be measured by the depth and purity of your selfless love and concern for others.
Son. Are you saying that it’s difficult to show your love for others if you have never learned to be orderly and efficient in temporal things?
Father. I am indeed. A missionary who is lazy or unkempt or disobedient has a hard time convincing people that the restored gospel is something special. An elders quorum president who never keeps track of anything has a difficult time motivating anyone to excel. A husband who won’t work hard to provide for his family or who thinks first of his own pleasure is surely not going to lead his family to the Savior.
Son. I can see how all these things as functions of the Aaronic Priesthood are good. But there’s got to be more to it than that.
Father. And there is. We have been talking only about the foundation of pure love. We must add to that foundation great knowledge, skill, wisdom, and the ability to understand people and their needs. These things are all gifts of the Spirit. Those who repent of their sins and who then hunger and thirst to bless others are filled with the Holy Ghost. Then those gifts begin to flow to them.
Let’s look at a precious scripture, Paul. Could you turn to Doctrine and Covenants 121? The part from verse 34 to the end is so important that I think every bearer of the priesthood would do well to commit it to memory, word perfect, and repeat it to himself often.
Notice verses 34 and 40. We are told that many are called but few are chosen — and why? Verse 35 tells us we must not be turned aside by desires for things of the world or the honors of men. Our objective in the priesthood should be to serve and to bless.
Verse 36 shows us that we cannot use the priesthood except by the powers of heaven; specifically I understand that to mean that we must have the Holy Spirit with us to exercise the priesthood. It says further that we can’t have the powers and gifts of the Spirit unless we are living righteously.
Verse 37 tells us that if we let the things of the world turn us aside, the Holy Spirit will withdraw from us, and when it is gone, our power in the priesthood is gone. We must be honest, true, chaste, benevolent — all the good things — to use the priesthood power properly and righteously.
Verse 38 recounts how people who won’t repent are disappointed in their priesthood opportunities. Then they turn and fight the priesthood.
Verse 39 witnesses that most people who receive the priesthood try to use it by force and domination instead of out of purity and love.
Now I hope you see that verse 40 answers the question you had about brethren of the priesthood who don’t seem to manifest much love. They have been given the opportunity to repent and do the works of love, but most people who are ordained to the priesthood — as it says here, “called” — do not rise to the occasion. Thus, few are chosen; few will have that priesthood eternally.
You see, we don’t accept the gospel and come into the Savior’s church because we are perfect, but rather that we may become perfect. We don’t receive the priesthood because we are like the Savior, but so that through doing his work, we may grow to be as he is. In his great love he labors with us, helping us grow step by step, calling by calling in the kingdom. I’m sure he sorrows when those who bear his priesthood turn away and value the things of the world more than eternal life.
Now do you see why I said that there is a difference between beginnings and endings? All of us are unworthy in the beginning, but some grow to be worthy of it in the end.
Son. Dad, I want to serve the Savior and to bless others. What can I do to be sure that I won’t turn away?
Father. The best that I know, Paul, is to plead with the Lord every day for help, then to hold fast to the iron rod. (See 1 Ne. 15:23-25.) I suppose the biggest temptation we have is just to let go of the rod, to take a vacation from righteousness. I think it helps to focus on the positive side. If we keep in mind what we can do and should do, that makes Satan’s temptations less alluring. Notice Doctrine and Covenants 121, verses 41 and 42. We are to use our priesthood “by persuasions, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, by love unfeigned; by kindness and pure knowledge.” If we looked at ourselves in the mirror every morning and let those words pass through our minds, perhaps we would become like Nephi of old and tremble at the very thought of sinning.
Son. Isn’t it discouraging, thinking how good we have to be?
Father. It could be. And I get discouraged sometimes. But I am spurred on by things I can hope for. Hand me that Inspired Version of the Bible, Paul. Notice here in Genesis 14 what it says about Melchizedek and the priesthood. If we are willing to press on, we are promised that when we are faithful and it is right to do so, we will be able to divide seas, to break mountains, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God. I long to be able to heal the sick, to bless those who mourn, to lead Mother and all of you children to the Savior. I long to live in a Zion where the Savior will rule personally and all will know him. But I know that these good things can be only as we learn to exercise the holy priesthood in the full power of righteousness. Then we can fulfill the promises of the Lord in that beautiful passage in Mosiah 8: “Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.” (Verse 18.)
Son. I hope we can do it, Dad.
Father. We can if we stick together and reinforce each other, Paul. The greatest thing in my life has been the unfolding of the understanding I have of the goodness of the Savior to us. Most of that has come since I received the priesthood and began to serve in the Church. I’m so thankful for the special people who have stood at the crossroads of my life and taught me of the love of the Savior.
Son. Who were they?
Father. There were several, but let me mention three in particular.
One was my deacons quorum adviser. He taught us deacons much about the gospel. I can still see him sitting on the little chairs of the Junior Sunday School room, with tears streaming down his face as he told us about the atonement and how the Savior loved the Father and us enough to be perfect.
Another was the stake high councilor who worked with me when I was a struggling student and elders quorum president. He taught me to love the words of the prophets and to know how to live by the Spirit. He was also the stake patriarch. He gave me a blessing that has strengthened and guided me ever since.
The third person has had the most profound effect of all That person is your mother, Paul. When we were married in the temple we were babes in the woods. We often laugh now at how naive and innocent of understanding we were. But we began to grow together. We read the scriptures together. We worked in the Church together. We suffered and we scrimped and saved together. Sometimes we were hard on each other because we were afraid. But one of the great blessings of my life has been your mother’s love for me, Paul. That has given me courage and strength and has taught me what love is truly all about.
The people who have helped me have shown me that we need each other. My guess is that we can become like the Savior only by working together so that we grow together in his likeness.
Son. I hope I can work with people who love the Lord.
Father. The most precious opportunity you will have to do that will be in your marriage, Paul. All of the functions and purposes of marriage and family are connected inseparably with the operations and authority of the holy priesthood. If you do what you know you should, you and your wife will build an eternal priesthood kingdom in which to bless your own posterity forever.
I hope you will seek out one of our Father’s daughters who is strong in the faith and is willing to grow in spirituality. Your temple marriage will give you a priesthood opportunity as big and as wide as eternity. If you and your wife can learn to love each other and your children purely and selflessly in the gospel bonds, you will come to know that joy for which man was created.
Son. Dad, I’m grateful for this understanding.
Father. If you can stand one more idea, Paul, please consider this: The people who you will be called to serve on your mission or in the Church already exist. Your wife is somewhere, known or unknown to you now. The children you will have already exist, somewhere. I think the important things are to love and bless all of these people now. Don’t wait until you are called or married. If you can love them now, you will keep yourself clean and you will be striving to grow in love for the Savior, in spirituality, and in righteousness. Then when your callings come, you will be ready to bless, to love with a pure love. Would you turn to the fifteenth chapter of John and read verses 5 through 12?
Son.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”
[photos] Photography by Eldon Linschoten
Chauncey C. Riddle, professor of philosophy and dean of the Graduate School at Brigham Young University, serves as a Sunday School teacher in the Orem 16th Ward, Orem Utah Sharon Stake.
Five sobering examples from the scriptures show what could block our prayers. For Saul, the obstacle was disobedience.
Chauncey C. Riddle, “Obstacles to Prayer,” Ensign, Jan 1976, 27
First and last, true religion is a personal relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. Prayer is the key to establishing that relationship. As one prays obediently, he learns to know and to treasure the things of the Spirit. The fruit of that relationship is righteousness, doing good for one’s fellowmen as the Holy Spirit guides one. The basic sequence of events in the conversion of an ordinary man into a righteous man is: (1) He hears the gospel and is touched by the Holy Spirit. (2) The Holy Spirit teaches him how to pray. (3) As he prays the Holy Spirit guides him in purifying his life through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and the laying on of hands for the receiving of the right to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. (4) Now being in the narrow way, he prays even more effectively under the influence of the Holy Spirit and endures to the end of becoming like the Savior: full of righteousness.
In the sequence listed above it is not just prayer that counts; it is effective prayer. Prayer is effective when one receives the guidance and gifts of the Spirit of the Lord. Some persons know how to pray but cannot; others know not how. The net effect is that they all are blocked from spiritual growth. But it is something about themselves that blocks that growth. The glad tidings of the gospel are the information we need to know to change ourselves to be able to pray effectively.
Though this world wallows in the misery of spiritual death, no individual needs to remain like the world. Because the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored, accompanied by divine priesthood authority and the true church of Jesus Christ, the way is open to every person to learn effective prayer and thus to come unto the Master and to do his works. The gospel is a formula for success. No person who accepts and lives it will fail to overcome the world and its misery.
In the scriptures we find record of persons who were not, at least for a time, successful. They were not, at those times, living the gospel and thus were cut off from the manifestations of the Spirit. Through repentance, each could have offered effective prayer and would then have received the help he needed. These examples are given to us in the scriptures that we may profit from their experience with obstacles to effective prayer. Hopefully we will not need to repeat those experiences. Let us examine the stories of King Saul, Laman and Lemuel, King Noah, Peter, and Saul of Tarsus.
1. Disobedience. In a time of great distress and trial for the house of Israel, the Lord chose Saul of the tribe of Benjamin to be their king. Anointed under the hand of Samuel, the prophet, Saul also received instruction from the Lord through Samuel. In his obedience he had great success. But then he grew great in his own sight and felt he no longer needed to obey.
During this time, the Lord instructed Saul to go to Amalek and utterly destroy it because of their persistent wickedness, slaying “man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (Please read 1 Sam. 15:1–5.) Saul’s obedience was only partial, was self-serving: he spared Agag, king of the Amalekites, and the best of the Amalekite sheep and oxen. When Samuel discovered this, Saul rationalized that the livestock were to be used for sacrifice for the Lord.
“And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. …
“And as Samuel turned about to go away, [Saul] laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.
“And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.” (1 Sam. 15:22–23, 27–28.)
The story of King Saul stands as a solemn warning to all of us. If the time ever comes that we think we can better serve God by following our own wisdom than we can by following the direction of the Lord through his Holy Spirit and through his holy prophets, we have apostatized. If we thus reject the Lord, we have broken the slender thread of communication. Our prayers cannot then be effective.
We might speculate as to what caused King Saul to disobey. Was it pride? Was it fear of the people? Was it carelessness or thoughtlessness? Whatever the cause the result was the same: Saul no longer feared God. The purpose of prayer is to gain the knowledge and strength to do the will of God. Disobedience makes of prayer a mockery in us, even as it did for Saul.
2. Hardness of heart. Laman and Lemuel were born to the same goodly parents that blessed Nephi with great knowledge of spiritual things. But whereas Nephi received those teachings in humility and faith, Laman and Lemuel rejected the words of their father as the imaginations of an unrealistic man. In his obedience, Nephi went on to receive great revelations and knowledge of his own. But in their hardness of heart, Laman and Lemuel were barely affected even by the visitation of an angel.
Again we are caused to wonder why these older brothers were so obstinate, spiritually speaking. Were they incapable of exercising faith? Or were they able only to respect things that were natural? Regardless of the cause of their problems, the moral for us is clear: If we are to be men and women of God we must prize and cultivate the tender feelings of our hearts. The first intimations of revelation from the Holy Spirit are feelings in our heart—feelings of good and bad, feelings of sympathy for suffering, feelings of longing for spiritual insight. To ignore or to quash these feelings is hardheartedness. Those who demand that everything be decided in terms of physical things are thus hardhearted. They cannot learn to pray and to be guided by the Holy Spirit because they reject it when it tries to get through to them.
Had Laman and Lemuel realized that it was not Lehi and Nephi that they were rejecting, but rather, that they were denying their own hearts, perhaps they could have repented. Perhaps they could then have experimented with those feelings to see if the gospel promises are true. They could have examined the scriptures, being led by their own hearts to understanding. But they did not. They rejected themselves as being intelligent enough to grasp spiritual things by denying their hearts the opportunity to feel.
He who learns to pray truly and effectively is never a person who is hardhearted. In all humility he turns inward, cultivates those feelings of his heart, that still, small voice. In these things, unseen to anyone but himself, he comes to true prayer, to spirituality, to pure love, to eternal life.
3. Selfishness. King Noah was the son of a good father who taught him correctly. But Noah sought only to enjoy the material things of life at the expense of others. Unlike his righteous father, King Noah did not labor to support himself, but taxed his people of one-fifth of their possessions to build many elegant buildings for himself and to support his many wives and concubines. Through his personal indulgence and selfish example, King Noah weakened his people both spiritually and temporally. This proved to be their downfall, even though they were warned of the consequences of their actions by the prophet Abinadi. (Please read Mosiah 12.)
Another name for selfishness is carnal security. People who overvalue the things of the physical order have to have more and more goods and pleasures to stay satisfied. This kind of appetite cannot be satisfied except through oppression: getting someone else to do the work to provide material abundance. It is a curious paradox that people who live for material pleasures generally detest work and try to find a slave to do it for them, whereas people who treasure the things of the spirit learn to love work and they work hard to produce material blessings for others.
The point of all this is that selfishness and glorying in carnal security cut one off from the Holy Spirit so that he cannot pray effectively. True prayer leads to righteousness; but righteousness is achieved only in sacrifice. The last thing the selfish person wants is sacrifice, so he naturally does not pray very successfully.
4. Weakness. The story of Peter, the great chief of the Master’s apostles, is instructive in that Peter’s wavering shows us an important pitfall to avoid. On the night of his betrayal, the Savior warned Peter of this weakness when he said Peter would thrice deny his knowledge of the Savior before sunrise. True to the prophecy, Peter did deny his relationship with Jesus, but immediately repented of his actions when he realized what he had done. (See Luke 22:31–34, 54–62.)
Before we condemn Peter for denying that he knew the Savior, let us remember two things: he did not yet have the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit, and when he did receive that great gift, he was never after in that predicament. But he did waver before he received that gift. He did not yet fully realize that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord, and that therefore there is nothing to fear. He did not yet fully understand the love his Lord and Savior had for him. Later he, as Paul, fully understood:
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:38–39.)
Many of us, weak in the spirit, do waver. Weakness stifles the impulse to pray; worse, it works against our obedience when we have prayed. To serve the Lord well one must have confidence and daring. But the true confidence is born of the companionship of the Comforter. True daring is trust in the Lord, knowing that there is a narrow path to success through any difficulty if only we can love and serve him with all our hearts, mights, minds, and strength.
5. False traditions. Saul of Tarsus was zealous in his religion. But his religion, once of God, had been adulterated by the false traditions of men. Those false traditions kept him from listening to his own conscience until the Lord chastized him. (See Acts 9:3–6.)
The traditions of the Pharisees had led Saul far astray. False ideas from any apparent source, are the work of the father of lies, who would captivate us all in error and darkness. But into this dark world there comes a ray of glorious light, the Holy Spirit bearing witness of Jesus Christ and the Father and leading all who accept them into all truth. The traditions of men of the world are always fraught with debilitating error. But there is one truth that righteous men always pass on to others who will listen: men should put their trust in God, not in the arm of flesh. The traditions of men have one possible righteous purpose: to point each soul to a personal relationship with God. That personal relationship is achieved in true prayer.
The happy part of these five stories of failure from the scriptures is that two of them were preludes to success. Peter and Saul were not hardened and destroyed by their disastrous experiences. They were humble enough to learn the lessons involved, to turn to the Lord, to become mighty in his work. King Saul, Laman and Lemuel, and King Noah had that same opportunity at one time. If they had been genuinely sorry, they could have gone before the Lord in repentance and in mighty prayer to seek a newness of life in him.
You and I, perhaps also having had disastrous experiences, have the same choice. We can humble ourselves and learn to be like the Lord by yielding to the enticings of his Holy Spirit. Or we can continue in the ways of King Saul, Laman and Lemuel, or King Noah. The size of our kingdom matters not. The least of us can be disobedient like Saul, hardhearted like Laman and Lemuel, selfish like Noah, or we can repent and become mighty instruments for good as did Peter and Paul.
If we repent, it will be through mighty prayer. That grand opportunity is no less effective today than it was for Father Adam, for Noah, for John the Beloved, for Joseph Smith. If we would have our prayers be as effective as those of President Spencer W. Kimball, we must learn to pray as he and all the holy prophets do.
We have not been sent into the world to fail. We have been sent to fulfill the prophecies and to lay hold of every good thing, through faith and mighty prayer, for “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16.)
[illustrations] Illustrated by Michael Clane Graves
Dr. Chauncey C. Riddle is a professor of philosophy and dean of the graduate school at Brigham Young University. He teaches Sunday School in the Orem 16th Ward, Orem Utah Sharon Stake.
Persecution—the word probably makes you think of Rome and Liberty Jail, but what does it mean in the 20th century?
Dear Michael,
Thanks for your letter; it was good to hear that things are going well with you. You said you wonder about persecution. May I give you my thinking on that topic? First, some background.
I believe that the first and foremost thing for us to remember is that our beloved Master is in charge. In him we live and move and have our being. He has placed controls on the course of the heavens, the forces and events of nature, the course of nations, and the life of every human being. He grants each of us on this earth enough agency to show our true nature, but never enough to destroy his own purposes. Because men have agency, there is evil. But that evil always has bounds. Two passages from Paul delight my soul as they drive this point home:
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”
“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:28, 38–39.)
The acknowledgement that the Savior’s work is only to bless and that his hand is in all things is the foundation of faith. When this eternal perspective is surely planted in our souls by the ministrations of the Holy Spirit, we can have that hope, born of faith, which “maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works.” (Ether 12:4.) We all need that security. Persecution brings insecurity to those who are weak and ungrounded. But the faithful can look on persecution with equanimity, knowing that their security is spiritual. No persecution can rob them of anything essential.
That, of course, raises the question as to what is essential. I count as essential the opportunity to be obedient to my Savior, to have the covenants and the priesthood, to have my dear wife and our wonderful children in eternity. I count as nonessential my job, my reputation, my home, my farm, my friends, my health, my life. Now don’t mistake me. I enjoy and desire all of those things. But if I ever had to choose between my enjoyment of them in this world and partaking of the Savior’s love through the Spirit, I would not hesitate. The Lord has so blessed me and answered my prayers that I trust his promise of the blessings of the next world as being far greater than any temporary enjoyment of this world.
I can hear you say, “Brave words. What about deeds?” I know that it is what one does under stress that really counts. But I also know I can’t guarantee anything about the future. As I look at some of my friends who seem to have thrown in the towel and to have given themselves over to Satan, I can only say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” My hope is in that grace. God being willing, I will meet the tests. All I am sure of is that at this moment I have a burning desire to do all that the Savior would have me do. I hunger to bring souls unto him, that they may share my joy in the sweetness of the companionship of his Spirit and in the opportunity to bless others.
But on to persecution!
The word persecute itself means “to pursue.” Thus persecution is pursuit to do harm. Its opposite is to bless, to help. Its contrary is to live and let live. Though this subject does not readily yield itself to neat subdivision, some broad types are obvious. We could mention physical, social, and intellectual persecution.
Last Sunday I saw again the film And Should We Die. That brought vividly to mind the importance of being spiritually ready for physical persecution. Raphael Monroy and his companion Vicente Morales were ready to meet death for their testimony, senseless and fortuitous though the circumstances might have been. President Bentley was able to lead the people of the colony in their narrow escape through fasting and prayer. But while we all hope to escape, we know not all will. Raphael and Vicente had to join the Prophet Joseph, his brother Hyrum, Parley P. Pratt, the Savior, John the Baptist, Abinadi, Abel, and countless others in the death of deliberate persecution. In view of the burning and bombing and the hateful murders of our own time, it may be that some of us or some of the rising generation must face death for our Master. Whether we, as individuals, will face it or not is not the point. I think the point is, we must be ready.
Now if each of us had several days to decide whether or not to die for the Savior, most of us would do well. But is not the real test what we would do under immediate attack? I remember the words of Joseph F. Smith at a campfire in California when challenged by horsemen intent on killing Mormons. I hope I can always reply in his spirit when he was asked if he were a Mormon: “Yes, siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through.” (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, Deseret Book Co., 1939 ed., p. 518.) Many of us might not mind dying gloriously, with much fanfare and publicity. But die for chastity when accosted on a freeway? Die for honesty in a prison camp? Die for belief in God at the hands of a mob? If our testimony means enough to us that we prepare each morning either to live for the Savior or to die for him that day, we will always be prepared.
But perhaps we will not be murdered; just robbed, looted, burned, driven. Kirtland, Independence, Far West, Nauvoo should always be in our minds. Those persecutions are our heritage; we must again be ready should they need to become our legacy. The Lectures on Faith make it clear where we must stand: “An actual knowledge to any person, that the course of life which he pursues is according to the will of God, is essentially necessary to enable him to have that confidence in God without which no person can obtain eternal life. It was this that enabled the ancient saints to endure all their afflictions and persecutions, and to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing (not believing merely) that they had a more enduring substance.
“Having the assurance that they were pursuing a course which was agreeable to the will of God, they were enabled to take, not only the spoiling of their goods, and the wasting of their substance, joyfully, but also to suffer death in its most horrid forms; knowing (not merely believing) that when this earthly house of their tabernacle was dissolved, they had a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (Lectures on Faith, p. 57.)
Only that faith nurtured in the privacy of peace will weather turmoil of trial.
When I think of social persecution, two classic examples come to mind. One is the story of a Welsh family, beautifully told in the article entitled “Persecution, 1924” in the January 1975 Ensign. That remarkable father led his family ten miles to church over mountain and dale, through rain and mud when necessary. And when confrontation was the right thing to do, he had the courage to do it. Persecution for his family was the hammer and anvil by which they all acquired that temper which makes saints out of faint hearts and well-wishers.
The other example is connected with the controversy over the laws of the Utah Territory and federal law in the last century. I honor the memory of George Reynolds, who, loyal both to his people and to his government, stood trial and suffered imprisonment so that the laws could be clarified. This man, secretary to four First Presidencies, General Authority, legislator, businessman, and editor, willingly absorbed the attack of the enemies of the Church so that others might not need to suffer in that way. Then to cap it off, he used his time in prison to produce our concordance to the Book of Mormon. Perhaps you know the brief account of his life and sufferings found in the preface to that work. (A Complete Concordance to the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City, 1900, pp. 3–4.)
Recent commendation of the Church and some of its members is a pleasant change for our peculiar people. The changed climate has helped us to bear testimony, to gain the ear of some who otherwise would not have heard. But while we rejoice in that change we must remember that it is not universal. Throughout the world there is yet ostracism, discrimination, defamation, and harassment. What a challenge both to be humble under praise and steady under persecution, not really knowing which will come next! Our path is to be constant, in season and out of season, bearing our witness as the Spirit directs, come what may. When I think of the “come what may,” I am comforted by the saying of Elder Boyd K. Packer: “The truth doesn’t make enemies; it uncovers them.” We are sent to perform a task that includes the uncovering of enemies along with the joy of finding the lost sheep of our Master. If we fear his enemies, we are not likely to find his sheep.
Bad as physical and social persecution can be, I think that intellectual persecution is the most devastating. The former are by nature opposition from outside, and as such they may actually serve to strengthen the Church. But the intellectual attack also works within the Church. It divides and dilutes us when it comes from members. Let me give you two examples of ideas for which we are persecuted at various times and places.
The first is personal revelation. To me, one of the great glories of the Restoration is the promise “that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world.” (D&C 1:20.) Personal revelation makes every man a prophet, every woman a prophetess, to know the voice of the Lord and to bear witness of him, not needing to depend upon the arm of flesh. Oh, how personal revelation pulls down intellectual tyranny, priestcraft, and private interpretation of scripture! How it assuages the confused mind, the aching heart, the yearning soul! How it builds faith in our Lord, hope for eternity! How it clothes all with a mantle of charity, the pure love of Christ!
Forgive me; I know I don’t need to sing the praises of personal communication with the Savior to you. But I can’t help being excited when I ponder all the blessings that come to mankind by it. Perhaps its strength is the very reason why it becomes a focus for persecution.
I once heard a professor boast that he had broken more priests, rabbis, and Bible readers than anyone else in the business. With that boast he warned any who wished to continue to believe in revelation to depart. I stayed. Then he lowered the boom and went through all the reasons why belief in revelation was irrational. He showed how the people who claimed revelation were inconsistent, both within their own individual writings and among themselves. He pointed out the great abuses that religion had wrought in the world, from inquisitions to caste systems to human sacrifice. He mocked the Bible, pointing out what he took to be obvious internal contradictions. Then he went on to show how everything good in human progress had consisted in rejection of religious belief in favor of scientific, empirical evidence.
Well, frankly I was devastated by that onslaught. There I was, a graduate student, well schooled in Latter-day Saint theology, happily Mormon all my life, a defender of the faith and successful sufferer under physical and social persecution—but devastated. He had made me realize that I did not have a personal testimony of revelation. All I had was an intellectual awareness of what others said about our religion. That realization shook me, for I realized fully that I might have been wrong.
During the next few weeks I went through an experience for which I can think of only one word as a representation: hell. I was assailed by doubt, by fear, by loneliness; I began to wonder if I were sane. Through this time I kept two promises I had made: I continued to go to Church, and I continued to read ten pages in the scriptures each night; but those things became an agony to me. And I prayed. Oh, how I prayed to know for myself if there were such a thing as personal revelation.
Then—thanks to our good Master—it came. I began to feel something special in my breast. I began to recognize certain ideas that appeared in my mind as being different from my own thoughts. These new ideas told me how to interpret passages of scripture, how to understand things formerly incomprehensible to me, even to know the future. But I could tell the difference. Here was the iron rod. I had hold of it. The restored gospel was true!
Since then I have had stumblings. I have been burned, and through those negative experiences I have learned two things: first, without Him I am nothing, and second, I must be ever so careful not to be confused as to who it is that is speaking. Now a full quarter-century has passed. That slender thread of personal revelation has brought me to everything I now hold dear. It has brought a flood of knowledge and understanding—and a glimpse of how far yet to go. I now know that there is power in the priesthood and that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the leader of this Church. Now as I see it touching the lives of others, my heart overflows with gratitude to the Lord for this pearl of great price that each of us can have. My greatest sorrow, except for my own sins, is that some whom I know cannot seem to get it. But I have hope for them. Looking back I know that I must have had much personal revelation before that trial. The problem was that I had not become acute in recognizing it.
So personal revelation becomes a great watershed, in the Church and out. Those who have it are drawn into a unity of faith. Many of those who don’t have it think those who do are deluded or demented. I suspect some fear that it might really exist—so they persecute those who teach and proclaim its reality. They don’t want it for fear they might have to give up some sin. And they don’t want anyone else to have it, for that too convicts them of sin.
So we are persecuted for personal revelation in a world that prides itself on “hard” evidence, on objectivity, on the strength of consensus. As a philosopher of knowledge, I can only shake my head. For now I know and can prove that there is no such thing as evidence apart from a matrix of presuppositions, that objectivity is at best consensus, and that consensus is often but a public relations job. Every scientific system begins with unproved postulates. Every person founds his life on articles of faith. But what a blessing to be able to ground faith on a rock—on personal daily revelation from our Savior.
I promise to be more brief on the next idea. We are also persecuted for our belief in uniqueness, for the idea that there is but one true church, one true priesthood, one narrow path to salvation, one chosen people, one fountain for all righteousness. Many people of my acquaintance are willing to see good in the Church, especially as a social system. But to claim that no one except Mormons can become celestial raises hackles. It does not fit with this permissive, egalitarian, ecumenical age. It is taken to be a sign of snobbery, of racism, of hypocrisy, of almost anything bad. One of the reasons my soul so hungers and yearns to see the full establishment of Zion is that we won’t have to say anything about uniqueness then. We will just be content to be unique. How unique it would be if we could get at least half of the Church to be of one heart and one mind, to dwell in righteousness and have no poor among us. I think that we would then see the fulfillment of that promise and challenge: “That the kingdoms of this world may be constrained to acknowledge that the kingdom of Zion is in very deed the kingdom of our God and his Christ.” (D&C 105:32.)
Meanwhile, we are subject to persecution for our claim to be the true church and are dismissed with others who make the same claim. Is it possible that we deserve persecution on this point? If we claim to be the one and can’t show we are significantly better, perhaps we have earned trouble. Oh for Zion!
Two more observations on persecution.
The first concerns the story of Stephen in Acts 6 and 7. I reread it recently and was forcefully impressed with an idea. Stephen has always come across to me as a good and gentle man, well suited to minister to widows’ needs, “full of the Holy Ghost,” a powerful servant of Christ. But it has always struck me that he spoke to the Sanhedrin rather forthrightly, surely provocatively. His speech would hardly win any Dale Carnegie awards. I have wondered: Did he have a martyr complex? Was he deliberately trying to die?
My feeling now is that he enjoyed life as much as you or I and was doubtless very happy because of the good he was able to do for others. But he had a mission to perform. For some reason the Sanhedrin needed another witness of the great tragedy in which they were principals. The promised Messiah had come and had fulfilled all things while they, who desired to be his servants but would not recognize him, carefully engineered his death. Tragic flaw, damning fate, indeed. His own rejected him as would have done no other nation or people. Could Stephen have supposed that he could convert them when the Savior himself had failed?
But Stephen was true to his mission. He bore testimony of Christ and of their sin. The flood of hate and anger that carried him outside the walls to die, stone by stone, was the necessary consequence of his commission. He sealed his testimony (and probably their reward) with blood. The moral I draw from this story is that we should not be needlessly offensive in this world; we should never seek to be persecuted; we should seek to fill our personal missions, wending our way among the hate and persecutions that will come, but never trying to offend. But should our commission call us to an unsavory task, where we cannot help but offend, then we should bear the task off manfully, yet with great humility, with a firm grasp on the iron rod. I honor Stephen for his great example.
My second thought relates to Saul and Paul, also of Acts. Saul persecuted the Saints with great zeal and ability. Then the Lord’s mercy allowed him to repent to become Paul, and he was persecuted by the Jews and others even as he had persecuted. I think all of us should see ourselves in this story. We should ask ourselves: “Am I yet Saul, or am I now Paul?Am I still persecuting the saints and the Savior, or have I repented of my sins to serve and suffer for the Lord? Do I persecute others in my zeal to do God a favor (as if he needed my hate or scorn to further his cause), or do I humbly and patiently submit to all things that my God seeth fit to inflict upon me, even as a child doth submit to his father?”
My final point concerns again our personal relationship with the Savior. He who knows all things and has created all things has also taken upon himself the suffering required to atone for all sins. When we try to imagine all of the pain resulting from our own sins, our imagination staggers. When we try to imagine the suffering caused by the sins of every human being who has ever lived or will live on earth, it transcends our capacity for comprehension. Yet that is what the Savior took upon himself when he drank of the bitter cup to satisfy the demands of the Father’s justice. In his infinite love and concern for us, he bore the burden of our own sins for us, that we need not suffer and atone personally for our sins. The qualification is, of course, that we repent and become sinless as he is. As long as we go on sinning, there is no way we can be forgiven.
You and I, because we know the gospel is true and because we want to stop sinning, have covenanted with our Savior to obey him in all things. Our obedience brings us to righteousness: we are able to bless others. But suppose that knowing what we do, we choose not to obey his commandments. That would be deliberate sin. We who know better, who know how to do better and be better, would be hurting those around us deliberately, because we would be choosing not to do better. Knowing how to bless our loved ones, we would be persecuting them should we sin. Worse yet, because we have been forgiven of our past sins through the blood of Christ, we would also be persecuting him. Matthew 25 haunts my understanding: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matt. 25:40.)
Now I admit that this is an unusual approach to the idea of persecution. Usually we think about others persecuting us. We need to think especially about the possibility of our own persecution of others, for it is the latter, not the former, that truly destroys us. This approach makes our choice simple: to sin or not to sin, which is to persecute or not to persecute. To choose not to persecute is to choose to repent, to live the gospel, to love others with that same pure love with which our Savior loves us. It is to choose to be willing to be persecuted, but to suffer death before we would persecute. Our Master has shown the way by his complete obedience to his Father and in giving up his own life. How grateful am I to know that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!
Michael, you have been kind to wade through all of this. I inflict this on you only in the hope that our souls will so hunger after Him whom we love that we will make every sacrifice necessary to become as he is. That is the greatest thing we can do about persecution. Remember the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith:
“Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation; for, from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It was through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life; and it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth’s sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will not seek his face in vain. Under these circumstances, then, he can obtain the faith necessary for him to lay hold on eternal life.” (Lectures on Faith, p. 58.)
[photo] BYU Motion Picture Department
Dr. Chauncey C. Riddle is a professor of philosophy and dean of the graduate school at Brigham Young University. He teaches Sunday School in the Orem 16th Ward, Orem Utah Sharon Stake.
Commencement address given to the graduates of Brigham Young University, 15 August 1975. Chauncey C. Riddle is Assistant Academic Vice-President — Graduate Studies and Curriculum, at Brigham Young University.
Chauncey C. Riddle
BYU for Zion – Quoted from BYU Studies-Summer 1976-
President Tanner, brothers and sisters, friends of Brigham Young University: I wish first to extend special congratulations to all who graduate this day. I hope that you are educated in addition to being graduated. By educated I mean having the ability to think clearly, to make proper discriminations and judgments, to understand what you believe and remember. Education begins with memorization; but if that is also the end, true education has not been attained.
The story is told of the great physicist Michael Pupin that he once was engaged in lecturing about the country. His chauffeur would drive him to a location and listen to the lecture. At the last stand, he said to Pupin, “Dr. Pupin, I have heard your lecture at least fifteen times, and I believe I could give it myself. No one here is likely to know you personally, so why don’t you be the chauffeur and I’ll give the lecture?”
Being a bit of an adventurer himself, Pupin went along with the idea. The chauffeur turned out to be a good showman. He delivered the lecture word perfect, and with a flair. At the conclusion he said, “We have just enough time left for one question. Is there one?”
After a moment, a man arose and asked a rather pointed question about the lecture. The pretender was a showman yet. He thanked the questioner, then said, “The question is sufficiently elementary that I will call upon my chauffeur to answer it for you.” I guess the moral of the story is that if you are not educated, be sure you have a chauffeur who is.
Something very special about you who are graduating today is that you are centennial graduates, products of the one-hundredth year of this institution. The Centennial celebration is a great time to look back, to gain appreciation of the sacrifice, sweat, and tears which have enabled BYU to come to its hundredth year. It is also a time to look forward. With good reason, we can expect that the second century will be greater than the first.
The reason for the difference is the progress of the Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands is rolling forth to fill the whole earth. What a thrill it is to see the Church moving in majesty and power, yet with grace, as it fulfills the prophecies! The Church is preparing the world for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior.
As I understand the scriptures, two great works crown that preparation. The first is missionary work. The gospel must go forth to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people with joyful greeting to invite every soul to the supper of the Lamb. I hope that each of us is supporting President Kimball in our prayers, asking that the doors of the nations will be opened and that we shall be ready when they do open. I hope that each of us is doing all he can to field the hundred thousand missionaries. Then we can lift our sights to the one hundred forty and four thousand high priests who will sweep the earth with righteousness, as with a flood.
Glorious and great as the missionary work is, there is another preparation for the Savior which is equally necessary. It is the establishment of Zion again on the earth, on this continent. How fortunate you and I are to be living in the days of its establishment! Many righteous men, prophets of old, longed to see Zion. Though they personally were worthy of being part of Zion, their contemporaries would not be persuaded to it. Our friend, the prophet Isaiah, saw it clearly in vision and rejoiced:
1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, [and] sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.
9 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
For Zion is a people who are pure in heart. They have not only entered in at the strait gate but have pursued the narrow way to its end. Through their faith in Christ, they overcome all things, beginning with each individual self. The Lord crowns their faithful obedience to him by purifying them. They then have one heart and one mind. They dwell in righteousness, and there is no poor among them. Because they have made his path strait, the Lord himself comes to dwell with them.
“Blessed are all the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (3 Nephi 12:8)
Zion is the pavilion of the Lord. It is his dwelling place. But he cannot come to it in the days of wrath and disobedience, except to burn. In his mercy he waits until the stakes are strong and the pavilion is fully erected and ready, worthy of its king. The great opportunity you and I have is to support the authorities of the Church, to carry out the programs, to magnify our callings so that the work of the holy priesthood will be complete. Then the earth will not be utterly wasted at his coming.
As I hope you can see, I rejoice with Isaiah and with you at the prospect of Zion’s again being established upon the earth. But that is background. My message today is really about Brigham Young University. The question I ponder is, What kind of an institution must BYU be to be fully acceptable to the Lord as part of Zion? Now I do not suppose that Zion needs BYU; it could be established without this institution. But BYU is part of the Church Education System. If it does not grow and increase in glory as the Church will, that would be a calamity. But a great and glorious BYU could well be a great contributor to the beauty of Zion.
What would this university need to be, to be part of Zion? I do not pretend to see the whole picture, but I believe I see some of it. May I share with you six factors which I personally believe should help qualify this university to be part of Zion. Each of them is noteworthy in at least two respects. Each factor is a reflection of what I understand every individual must do personally to qualify to be part of Zion, and each would make this institution quite unlike the model universities which the would esteems. I present these six points not that you should believe me, but that you might compare them with your own image of the BYU of the future.
NUMBER ONE: DEPENDENCE UPON THE SAVIOR
I understand the law of the celestial kingdom to be faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Truly this is a counsel of perfection. We are commanded to become perfect, even as Christ is. He is perfectly obedient to his Father, and through his grace we may become perfectly obedient to him, if we so desire. I understand that the real importance of the fact that we have free agency is that we are free to become like our Lord and Master, with the full weight of his omnipotence and omniscience as the guarantee of that freedom. If we choose to be fully obedient to him, he will make it possible.
Faith in Christ is to hear the word of Christ, to believe, and to obey that word. Nephi of old counseled his people who had accepted the gospel as follows:
17 Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
18 And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.
19 And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.
Moroni tells us in similar language how home teaching was done in those ancient days:
3 And none were received unto baptism save they took upon them the name of Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end.
4 And after they had been received unto baptism, and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the church of Christ; and their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God, to keep them in the right way, to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who was the author and the finisher of their faith.
In our own time the Savior has said it thusly:
43 And I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life.
44 For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God.
45 For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
46 And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit.
47 And every one that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father.
As applied to Zion in the latter days, the Savior makes the same point in the following words:
14 That through my providence, notwithstanding the tribulation which shall descend upon you, that the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world;
Faith in Christ enables us to become independent of the world because we labor solely under him and depend upon his merits.
As applied to BYU, this dependence would mean that the word of the Lord would be the most treasured possession we would have. Faith would find guidelines, and errors would be detected by revelations. The words of the living prophets would be esteemed above the words of any other living men.
NUMBER TWO: MORALITY, THE KEY TO KNOWLEDGE
Morality is another term for faithfulness. To be moral in the restored gospel is to obey the Savior in all things. Why obey him in all things? Because he is a God of righteousness. He does not command whim, but only that which is righteous according to a standard that is above him. I understand that righteousness is to bless others. Only in Christ do men know how to bless others sufficiently to meet the needs of mankind, for the Savior is the sole fountain of righteousness. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are his sheep. They hearken to his voice and come unto him that he might fill them with the Holy Ghost.
Those who obey his commandments are thus moral. Being moral, they can then be trusted with great knowledge, for they will not abuse it. They will use it only to further the cause of righteousness in the earth. The Savior makes this promise:
5 For thus saith the Lord–I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end.
6 Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory.
7 And to them will I reveal all mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom from days of old, and for ages to come will I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom.
8 Yea, even the wonders of eternity shall they know, and things to come will I show them, even the things of many generations.
9 And their wisdom shall be great, and their understanding reach to heaven; and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught.
10 For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will–yea, even those things which eye has not see, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man. (D&C 76:5-10)
Does this mean that faculty and students at BYU will cease to read books and journals? Will all scientific investigation cease? Will all creation become a waiting for God to reveal? Not at all. All efforts to learn will increase, but they will then all be fruitful. For reading shall be done with discernment, and the reading of error will often be an occasion for a revelation of truth. Experiments will be conceived in revelation to capture insights of truth which will flash in to well-disciplined, cultivated, and informed minds. Artistic creation will spring forth from the bosom that hungers to edify and will find physical embodiment through persons skillful in all useful endeavors. The glory of man will not then be the pretense to create or discover. The glory will be given to the Father of lights as men humbly seek to embody his will in material things of this earth, even as it is done in heaven. Morality will be the key to knowledge, to creation, to every success.
The world would say that this process should be reversed. It is said by them that it is knowledge which leads to morality. There is a strong and irrational tradition in the world that the learned man is more likely to be moral than the unlearned. It is true that we must first know the will of the Lord before we can be faithful to him. But the world says that worldly knowledge is that which creates faith. I call holding that idea irrational because it does not stand up when put to the test of experience. The Savior has shown how he feels about the idea by choosing fishermen and farm boys to be his prophets. Not that the learning of the world is bad of itself. It is just that as it is usually acquired, it tends to block faith in Christ, which is morality. Jacob carefully noted that in that familiar passage which rankles those who would like to make worldly knowledge the basis for being a good person. he says:
42 And whoso knocketh, to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches–yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them.
43 But the things of the wise and the prudent shall be hid from them forever–yea, that happiness which is prepared for the saints. (2 Nephi 9:42-43)
I surmise that when all who are part of BYU become strong in obeying as well as in receiving the word of Christ, knowledge of all things in heaven and earth will flow unto them freely. Then indeed BYU will be the most proficient educational institution on the earth.
May I comment on what many persons see as an annoying provinciality of BYU: the dress and grooming standard. I see that standard as an invitation on the part of the living prophets to the children of light to please the Savior, that he might shower light and truth upon their heads. But if we do not search out the source–if we “hem and haw” over skirt and hair lengths–how can we be taught and trusted with the riches of eternity? Those who have the wit to make compliance with the standards-of-grooming part of faith in Christ, and who add to that small beginning of morality honesty, diligence, chastity, responsibility,–they are they who reap wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures.
NUMBER THREE: CONCERN FOR THE POOR
The crown of morality is charity, the pure love of Christ. Those who love Christ reflect his love to others who are less fortunate than they. Whereas people of the world concern themselves with those who have more wealth, talent, prestige, or athletic ability, true servants of Christ care about those who have less. When the covenant servants of the Lord do not care for the poor, the Lord punishes and chastises them as when he allowed the members of the Church to be driven out of Jackson County, Missouri, in 1833. One of the glories of Zion is that therein love has triumphed over natural differences. All who are Zion become equal in earthly things and then become one in the Savior because of their love for him.
We are told in the Doctrine of Covenants:
14 I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.
15 And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.
16 But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.
17 For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to agents unto themselves.
18 Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment. (D&C 104:14-18)
Hell is one of the names which can appropriately be applied to this natural world. It is a kingdom ruled over and tormented by Satan, where lies, immorality, and unfaithfulness abound. But this world can be improved upon if we will employ the Lord’s way. If we love, if we obey the Lord, and if we share, we need not lift our eyes in hell, either now or after death; a celestial kingdom can be established right in the midst of hell, a kingdom called Zion.
How will BYU care for the poor? Its primary mission is not to the physically or the spiritually or the emotionally poor. Its direct mission is to those who are poor in knowledge and ability. To make them rich answers the ends of its creation. To be clear about how this might be done, let us analyze the nature of a true helping relationship, which charity, or caring, must be.
Real help must have its source in superiority. This is not necessarily total superiority, but the one who helps must have more knowledge, more skill, more power, or more resource–more of something than the one helped. For the lesser to help the greater is not help but servitude. Then, the person who has the superiority must place himself in a position of inferiority; he must become the servant of the one being helped. This means that neither the agency nor the integrity of the person being helped is breached. With the graciousness of true nobility, the helper extends succor which is freely and gratefully received. Help given against the will of the receiver is not real help; it is domination. The test of true help is this; does it leave the person helped better able to meet his problems, other things being equal?
For BYU to help those who are poor in knowledge and ability, the faculty here must have a towering superiority in those things, which it can and will have through dependence upon the Savior and hardworking, diligent obedience to him. Then those who teach must become the servants of those whom they would instruct. They must not teach by domination, but rather in the pattern set by the Savior for righteous dominion:
41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. (D&C 121:41-42)
Not all the prerogatives of priesthood authority are appropriate to teaching, but the ones here mentioned certainly are.
Will a teacher who seeks to be a servant of both Christ and his students disdain to prepare? Will he be unconcerned about the personal problems of his students which keep them from learning? Will he cover up when an error or a lacuna in his material is pointed out? Will he grade on the curve as if his students were so many random manikins? Will he resist instruction from his superiors as to how he might better serve? No, he will rejoice in the opportunity he has to make his friends, his students, rich like unto himself in knowledge and ability.
What of students in this system? Will they not feel the gift of love and light and seek to absorb all the knowledge and attain all the ability they can? Will they not seek learning outside class requirements as well as in? Will they not share with fellow students, helping those who are poorer than themselves in ability to learn in order that their classmates might take full advantage of the instruction given? Yes, they will do all these good things and more, for they, too, love the Master.
NUMBER FOUR: EMPHASIS ON DOING
One of the lamentable debilities the world has suffered from for millennia is the supposition that knowing is more important than doing, understanding than performance. Knowing is taken to be an end in itself.
This mistake is reflected theologically in the notion of the world that the end of all is to behold the face of God, the “beatific vision.” I understand that the reason for that goal, grand as it is, is for a further end. To be the kind of person who could have that blessing, then to have it would make a man a great blessing to his fellow beings. This is to say that such a one would then turn to the poor to lift them up, be they poor in any of the ways one can be poor. This difference between knowing is also reflected in the change, which I understand was requested by President Kimball, in the song I Am a Child of God, Instead of singing, “Teach me all that I must know,” we sing, “Teach me all that I must do to live with him some day.” For surely it is not knowing what to do, but doing what we know we should do which enables us to be saved.
Part of the problem is that the tendency of a natural man in this world is to shun work. Much of history has been a game to see who could enslave whom. More people have lived as slaves in this world than have lived free, and there are more slaves today than there ever have been before. In such a setting, occupations that do not dirty the hands or cause the brow to sweat have been sought and esteemed. The Chaldeans, astrologers, and soothsayers have always been court attendants, next to the king or the president himself. In religion, orthodoxy has often been deemed more important than repentance. In a world where true knowledge and true wisdom are usually in short supply, those professing knowledge and wisdom are accorded the high honors.
But, thanks be to God, knowledge and wisdom are not in short supply in the kingdom of Christ: there is no such problem. Often the problem is that some of us know more than we wish to know. But that brings us to our problem, which is to be doers of the word. The Savior furnishes his kingdom with prophets, seers, revelators, scriptures, presidents, home teachers, fathers, mothers–and enables all of us to be accompanied by the Holy Ghost. Faith does not exist in the mere hearing of the word; it lives only in the doing. The Savior reminds us of this as follows:
5 But behold, verily I say unto you that there are many who have been ordained among you, whom I have called but few of them are chosen.
6 They who are not chosen have sinned a very grievous sin, in that they are walking in darkness at noonday. (D&C 95:5-6)
How would BYU differ from the world if it emphasized doing rather than knowing? Could not writing and speaking be more emphasized relative to reading? Internships an laboratory work would be more important than classroom lecture. Grading would be based more on performance than on memory. The whole of the educational practice would veer towards the application of knowledge. Graduation would be based on skill rather than on grade-point and seat-time. One of the reasons we enjoy sports so much is that we can tell who the doers are. What would it do to the university if at least once a week every professor had to compare his students with those of other universities? Men who decry competition do so out of fear; they know that they cannot compete in the real world. Only when tenured in an ivory tower before helpless students dare they puff up like men. But an emphasis on doing tends to change all that. And the doers turn out to be the real knowers.
What will people at BYU be doing? They will be reaching out to solve the problems of the world’s intellectual poverty. Our educational transmission systems are woefully inadequate; they must be rather completely redesigned. Our teaching of scientific research puts on blinders as well as helping. Our society downgrades technical skill, for which folly we are paying dearly. Millions over the earth who now have little hope for education could receive basic instruction at low cost. Spiritually guided pure research could provide the basis for elimination our energy crisis. The list extends to every intellectual and educational problem in the world. It is like genealogy. There is no danger of any one person’s doing all the work.
NUMBER FIVE: CAREFUL DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING INTELLIGENT AND BEING INTELLECTUAL
As we do the works of righteousness, the Lord can bless us more abundantly. He can shower upon our heads that intelligence which will enable us to become a great blessing to our fellow beings. But we must not be confused as to what this intelligence is, and we must distinguish is from its companion– intellectuality.
Intelligence is light and truth. Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. A study of human ability to know shows us that human beings as natural men–that is to say without divine revelation — are somewhat equipped to know physical things around them as they are; they are poorly equipped to know many things around them, such as other people; and they are very poorly equipped to know things distant. They are scarcely able to grasp the truth of things as they were. And they can only make guesses as to the truth of things to come. Small wonder that truth is a stranger in a world of fallen men whose god is the father of lies.
Light, the other part of intelligence, is wisdom. It is guidance, direction. It is knowing what to do to solve our problems. The natural man is at least as poorly equipped to be wise as he is to know the truth. In fact it is so bad that no human being or collection of human beings, acting on their own as natural men, can be sure that anything they propose to do is the best thing to do. And this applies to any discriminative standard of “best.” All human wisdom is thus a guess. No wonder the Savior inveighs against priestcraft. He just does not like one man’s guessing what is good for another, then taking praise and gain for it.
But the Savior does not leave it there. He gives us an alternative. He himself is the Spirit of truth. He himself is the Light of the world. His mission is to bring light and truth to mankind. To everyone he gives a little. But only those who receive the light and do what is right receive more light. To him who is faithful, the Lord can and does give light and truth, increasing him line upon line, precept upon precept, until that person either has all he wants or has received all the Lord has. Those persons who love the works of righteousness and who have found the Savior are magnified through and in light and truth until they become like the Savior himself. They are then indeed intelligent beings. To be intelligent is to receive and understand the things of God.
To be intellectual, on the other hand, is to receive and to understand the things of man. An intellectual is a person who had mastered a goodly portion of the language and learning of men. Every intellectual person has great command of and can use precisely at least one language. This linguistic skill makes it possible for him to think more clearly and more powerfully than those less learned. Language is a tool, and the intellectual person must also know some subject matter well, to have applied the tool of language with considerable force and precision in some area of learning. Learning can take many forms, but the usual minimum mastery of a subject is to know what the principal accepted ideas in the field are, what the principal problems, of the field are, and who the principal contributors to the field are. An additional echelon of eminence is attained if one himself is a contributor to the solution of problems in the field. To signify knowledgeability in a field is what is intended by the bestowal of the bachelor’s and master’s degrees. To signify a contribution to the solution of problems in the field is what is intended in the granting of a doctoral degree. Unfortunately, time and practice have blurred these distinctions and sometimes degraded them, but they originally were intended as meaningful ways of identifying a genuine intellectual.
I do not suppose that these two categories–the intelligent person and the intellectual person–can be fully mutually exclusive. I suppose that to understand the things of God one must have some language skill, be a good thinker, and acquire great understanding. I suppose that there is no person of great intellect whose mind is not quickened to some degree by the divine light and truth that emanate from the Savior. I judge that the learning of the world has a good deal of truth in it, and that when the Lord reveals a subject to the mind of a man, that revelation might include some truths already known to intellectual people. One problem lies in the fact that the learning of men, besides having a good deal of truth, is also shot through with error. Another problem lies in the fact that the tools of intellect are very clumsy in separating truth from error in the minds of intellectuals. Witness how difficult a time even simple truths like the heliocentricity of the solar system have had in gaining widespread acceptance.
A prime example of a person of great intellect but little intelligence was Saul of Tarsus. A man well schooled in the learning of the Jews, a Pharisee of the strictest sect, Saul was nevertheless a zealous destroyer of the work of the Savior, the more devastating because of his intellectual prowess. What little intelligence that had come to him Saul had vigorously resisted, as the Lord reminded him in saying, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9:5). But Saul was finally willing to receive intelligence. He submitted himself to Ananias, who was the Savior’s appointed keeper in Damascus. He received the ordinances of salvation and accepted the light and truth that had burst upon him. As a new person, Paul diligently sought the Lord that he might remedy the gap in his education. Being called to the ministry, he bore a witness ground in both intelligence and intellect that made him a powerful servant of the Lord, and apostle whose testimony and teaching have blessed every generation of the world since his calling.
A contrary example, one of a man of great intelligence but little intellectual attainment is the case of the boy prophet Joseph Smith, Junior. Blessed by the Savior to receive more light and truth than any of his contemporary human beings, he became a giant in intelligence, so far surpassing even those who accepted the restored gospel that he could not share much of what he knew. Because of his faithfulness, revelation continued to pour out upon him throughout the short span of his life. But lo, what did this man of superlative intelligence do? He, too, felt a gap in his education. With great diligence and persistence the prophet of the Most High sought to become an intellectual. He studied languages, law, and apparently every subject to which he could find access. And was he a greater and better prophet for his intellectual attainments? No more correct, no more moral, but surely more effective in communicating the God-given intelligence which crowned his soul. And communication is a large part of what being a prophet is all about.
Now I would guess that you can think of examples of people who tend to be intellectual without intelligence or intelligent without intellect. I dare say you will be able to think of more who are in the former category. One of the casualties of every dispensation is the person who tries to let intellect do for intelligence. Such learned ones suppose they can judge both the truth and the morality of the word of the Lord and of his prophets. Jacob, the brother of Nephi, concisely expressed their plight:
When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not to the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. (2 Nephi 9:29)
Though there be many, in and out of the Church, who are intellectual with little intelligence, you probably will have difficulty thinking of many who are intelligent but with little intellect. This is so because a man on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests to quicken him with intelligence must be faithful to the light he receives, or it will withdraw from him. One of the things pertinent to the faithfulness of every servant of God is that he must learn to do well in the temporal matters in his stewardship. He must learn to understand, to control, to succeed. The Lord may instruct him in these things spiritually, or, if he has not sufficient faith, the Lord may send him to the world to learn to do well. The Lord says:
And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith. (D&C 88:118)
In a BYU for Zion, people will gain knowledge and skill both by study and by faith and will not confuse the two.
NUMBER SIX: NO PRIESTCRAFT
At a BYU for Zion, instruction would be difference from that of other universities in that it will have been cleansed of the lies, the false notions of the world which are riveted upon the hearts of the children by their fathers, these being the chains of hell. It will also be different in that it will be strictly informational: it will limit itself to truth. It will not pretend to be a source of light, which is to say wisdom, to the world.
Now I am sure you are aware that being a source of supposed wisdom is what universities are traditionally all about. Aristotle’s prescription for the ideal society was for men to find the path of wisdom, which leads to happiness, by reason. Persons not educated enough to reason were to go to a wise man, a philosopher, to have him reason out the path of wisdom for them. Universities were established originally as theological training schools, to teach the philosophies of men, appropriately mingled with scripture, so that society would amply furnished with wise men who could lead the people correctly. The “general education” which each university graduate receives is the residue of the wisdom training of the medieval priest. Though you are graduating in the robes of the medieval priest and are receiving similar recognition, hopefully you and I will avoid pretending that we are now, because of our degrees, adequate sources of wisdom to anybody. The scriptural term for lack of such avoidance is priestcraft.
To engage in priestcraft is to make a business out of being a wise man. It is to take reward for giving advice to others. Nephi says it this way:
29 He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion. (2 Nephi 26:29)
Indeed, one of the special reasons the Lord gave for restoring the gospel was to do away with priestcrafts. He says in the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants:
17 Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments;
18 And also gave commandments to others, that they should proclaim these things unto the world; and all this that it might be fulfilled, which was written by the prophets–
19 The weak things of the world shall come forth and bread down the mighty and strong ones, that man would not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh–
20 But that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world;
21 That faith also might increase in the earth. (D&C 1:17-21)
Let us be plain: The Lord Jesus Christ is the true Light of this world. No man knows enough to tell any other man what to do, how to be wise, except he receives that light from Christ. The Savior reveals light and truth only through the channels of his true priesthood, and to individuals. For any man to preside as a source of light, that man must hold priesthood authority. To have a testimony of the Church is to recognize the true authority of Christ in this Church. But there are also signs that follow. True servants of Christ giving true light have these marks: They do not attempt to force their light upon anyone, and they do not take pay for administering it.
Money always clouds the helping relationship. We are free to go to the Lord to receive wisdom, and he gives liberally and upbraids not. Freely we receive, and freely we should give. Is it not monstrous that a man should receive something freely from God, then turn and sell it to his fellowman? And is it not even more monstrous to substitute the wisdom of men for the wisdom of God and then to sell that paltry substitute?
BYU cannot save the world and will admit it. That will indeed make it different. BYU will be a haven of truth, a citadel of virtue, but it will eschew priestcraft. Its professors will give information and will teach technique but will not usurp the prerogative of the true priesthood to give personal advice.
In conclusion, let me extend two caveats. First, I am not supposing in my description of a BYU for Zion that BYU is presently doing none of these things. I deem that it is firmly on the path to such greatness at present. My purpose has been to celebrate what I take to be the goal of this institution. Second, perhaps what I have said may seem idealistic, even unrealistic. May I point out that part of the present reality of anything is what it can become. Not to see the potential in something is to miss the import of its reality as surely as does idle daydreaming. With man, many things I have said about BYU are not possible. But in Christ all good things are possible. Thank you.
Thanks for your letter; it was good to hear that things are going well with you. You said you wonder about persecution. May I give you my thinking on that topic? First, some background.
I believe that the first and foremost thing for us to remember is that our beloved Master is in charge. In him we live and move and have our being. But he also controls the course of the heavens, the forces and events of nature, the course of nations, and the life of every human being. He grants each of us on this earth enough agency to show our true nature, but never enough to destroy his own purposes. Because men have agency, there is evil. But that evil always has bounds. Two passages from Paul delight my soul as they drive this point home: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. …” (Romans 8:28). “For I am persecuted that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39).
The acknowledgment that the Savior’s work is only to bless and that his hand is in all things is the foundation of faith in Christ. When this eternal perspective is surely planted in our souls by the ministrations of the Holy Spirit, we can have that hope, born of faith, which “maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which maketh them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works. …” (Ether 12:4). We all need that security. Persecution brings insecurity to those who are weak and ungrounded. But the faithful can look on persecution with equanimity, knowing that their security is spiritual. No persecution can rob them of anything essential.
That, of course, raises the question as to what is essential. I count as essential the opportunity to be obedient to my Savior, to have the covenants and the priesthood, to have my dear wife and our wonderful children in eternity. I count as non-essential my job, my reputation, my home, my farm, my health, my life. Now don’t mistake me. I enjoy and desire all of those things. But if I ever had to choose between my enjoyment of them in this world and partaking of the Savior’s love through the Spirit, I would not hesitate. The Lord has so blessed me and answered my prayers that I trust his promise of the blessings of the next world as being far greater than any temporary enjoyment of this world.
I can hear you say, “Brave words. What about deeds?” I know that it is what one does under stress that really counts. But I also know I can’t guarantee anything about the future. As I look at my friends who have thrown in the towel and have given over to Satan, I can only say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” My hope is in that grace, God being willing, I will meet the tests. All I am sure of is that this moment I have a burning desire to do all that the Savior would have me do. I hunger to bring souls unto him, that they may share my joy in the sweetness of the companionship of his Spirit and in the opportunity to bless others.
But on to persecution!
The word “persecution” itself means to pursue. Thus persecution is pursuit to do harm. Its opposite I to bless, to help. Its contrary is to live and let live. Though this subject does not readily yield itself to neat subdivision, some broad types are obvious. We could mention physical, social and intellectual persecution.
Last Sunday I saw again the film, “And Should We Die.” That brought vividly to mind the importance of being spiritually ready for physical persecution. Raphael Para and his companion were ready to meet death for their testimony, senseless and fortuitous though the circumstances might have been. President Bentley was able to lead the people of the colonies in their narrow escape through fasting and prayer. But, while we all hope to escape, we know not all will. Raphael and his companion had to join the Prophet Joseph, his brother Hyrum, Parley P. Pratt, the Savior, John the Baptist, Abinadi, Abel, and countless others in the death of deliberate persecution. Looking at the burning and bombing and the hate murders of our own time, it seems likely that some of us and perhaps many of the rising generation must face death for our Master. Whether we, as individuals, will face it or not is not the point. I think the point is, we must be ready to do so.
Now if each of us had several days to decide whether or not to die for the Savior, most of us would do well. But is not the real test what we would do under immediate attack? I remember the words of Joseph F. Smith at the campfire in California when challenged by horsemen intent on killing Mormons. I hope I can always reply in his spirit: “Yes sir, I am a Mormon, true blue, through and through.” Many of us might not mind dying gloriously, with much fanfare and publicity. But to die for chastity when accosted on a freeway? To die for honesty in a prison camp? To die for belief in God at the hands of a mob? If our testimony means enough to us that we prepare each morning either to live for the Savior or to die for him that day, we will always be prepared.
But perhaps we will not be murdered; just robbed, looted, burned, driven. Kirtland, Independence, Far West, Nauvoo, should always be in our minds. Those persecutions are our heritage. We must again be ready should they need to become our legacy. The Lectures on Faith make it clear where we must stand: “An actual knowledge to any person, that the course of life which he pursues is according to the will of God, is essentially necessary to enable him to have that confidence in God without which no person can obtain eternal life. It was this that enabled the ancient saints to endure all their afflictions and persecutions, and to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing (not believing merely), that they had a more enduring substance. Having the assurance that they were pursuing a course which was agreeable to the will of God, they were enabled to take, not only the spoiling of their goods, and the wasting of their substance, joyfully, but also to suffer death in its most horrid forms; knowing (not merely believing) that when this earthy house of their tabernacle was dissolved, they had a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (Lecture Sixth, 2–3). Only that faith nurtured in the privacy of peace will weather the turmoil of trial.
When I think of social persecution, two classic examples come to mind. One is the story of the Welch family, beautifully told in the article entitled “Persecution: 1924” in the Ensign of January 1975. That remarkable father led his family ten miles to church over mountain and dale, through rain and mud when that was necessary. And when confrontation was the right thing to do, he had the courage to do it.
Persecution for his family was the hammer and anvil by which they all acquired the temper which makes saints out of faint hearts and well-wishers.
The other example is connected with the controversy over the laws of the Utah Territory and federal law two centuries ago. I honor the memory of George Reynolds, who, loyal to both his people and to his government, stood trial and suffered imprisonment so that the laws could be clarified. This man, secretary to four First Presidencies, General Authority, legislator, businessman, and editor, willingly absorbed the attack of the enemies of the Church so that others might not need to suffer in that way, To cap it off, he used his time in prison to produce our concordance to the Book of Mormon. Perhaps you know the brief account of his life and sufferings found in the foreword of that work.
Recent commendation of the Church and some of its members is a pleasant change for our peculiar people. The changed climate has helped us to bear testimony, to gain the ear of some who otherwise would not have heard. While we rejoice in that change, we must remember that it is not universal. Throughout the world there is as yet ostracism, discrimination, defamation and harassment. What a challenge both to be humble under praise and steady under persecution, not really knowing which will come next! Our path is to be constant, in season and out of season, bearing our witness as the Holy Spirit directs, come what may. When I think of the “come what may,” I am comforted by the saying of Elder Boyd K. Packer: “The truth doesn’t make enemies. It uncovers them.” We are sent to perform a task which includes the uncovering of the enemies along with the joy of finding the lost sheep of our Master. If we fear His enemies, we are not likely to find His sheep.
Bad as physical and social persecution can be, I think that intellectual persecution is the most devastating. The former are by nature opposition from outside, and as such they serve actually to strengthen the Church. But the intellectual attack also works within the Church. It divides and dilutes us when it comes from members. Let me give you two examples of ideas for which we are persecuted at various times and places.
The first example is personal revelation. To me, personal revelation is one of the great glories of the Restoration, especially in the promise that “every man might speak in the name of God, the Lord, even the Savior of the world.” (D&C 1:20) Personal revelation makes ever man and woman a prophet or prophetess, to know the voice of the Lord and to bear witness of him, not needing to depend upon the arm of flesh. Oh how personal revelation pulls down intellectual tyranny, priestcraft, and private interpretation of scripture! How it assuages the confused mind, the aching heart, the yearning soul! How it clothes with a mantle of charity, the pure love of Christ!
Forgive me. I know I do not need to sing the praises of personal communication with the Savior to you. But I can’t help being excited when I ponder all the blessings which come to mankind by it. Perhaps its strength is the very reason why it becomes a focus for persecution.
I once heard a professor of mine boast that he had broken more priests, rabbis and Bible readers than anyone else in the business. With that boast he warned any who wished to continue to believe in revelation to depart. I stayed. Then he lowered the boom and went through all of the reasons why belief in revelation was irrational. He showed how the people who claimed revelation were inconsistent, both within their own individual writings and among themselves. He pointed out the great abuses that religion had wrought in the world, from inquisitions to caste systems, to human sacrifice. He mocked the Bible, pointing out what he took to be obvious internal contradictions. Then he went on to show how everything good in human progress had consisted in rejection of religious beliefs in favor of scientific, empirical evidence.
Well. I was devastated by that onslaught. There I was, a graduate student, well-schooled in LDS theology, happily a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all of my life, a defender of the faith and successful sufferer of physical and social persecution –but devastated. He had made me realize that I did not have a personal testimony of revelation. All I had was an intellectual awareness of what others said about our religion. That realization shook me, for I fully realized that I might be wrong.
During the next few weeks, I went through an experience for which I can think of only one word which fully represents it: hell. I was assailed by doubt, by fear, by loneliness. I began to wonder if I were sane. Through this time I kept two promises I had made to myself: I would continue to attend church and continue to read ten pages of scripture each night. But those two things also became an agony to me. And I prayed. Oh how I prayed to know for myself if there were such a thing as personal revelation.
Then—thanks be to our good Master—it came. I began to feel something special in my breast. I began to recognize certain ideas that appeared in my mind as being different from my own thoughts. These new ideas told me how to interpret passages of scripture, how to understand things formerly incomprehensible to me, even to know the future. But I could tell the difference. Here was the iron rod. I had hold of it. The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ really was and is true!
Since then I have had stumblings. I have been burned, and through these negative experiences I have learned two things: without Him I am nothing, and I must be ever careful not to be confused as to who it is that is speaking to me.
Now a full quarter-century has passed. That slender thread of personal revelation has brought me to everything I now hold dear. It has brought me a flood of knowledge and understanding—and a glimpse of how far I have yet to go. I now know that there is power in the priesthood of this Church, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the head of this Church. Now as I see the Church touching the lives of others, my heart overflows with gratitude to the Lord for this pearl of great price which each of us can have. My greatest sorrow, except for my own sins, is that some persons who I know cannot seem to get a testimony. But I have hope for them. Looking back I know that I must have had personal revelation before that trial. The problem was that I had not become acute at recognizing it.
So personal revelation becomes a great watershed, in the Church and out. Those who have it are drawn into a unity of faith in Christ. Many of those who don’t have it think those who have it are deluded or demented. I suspect that some fear that it might really exist—so they persecute those who teach and proclaim its reality. They don’t want it for fear they might have to give up some sin. And they don’t want anyone else to have it because that too convicts them of sin.
So we are persecuted for personal revelation in a world that prides itself on “hard” evidence, and on the strength of consensus. As a philosopher of human knowledge, I can only shake my head. For I know and can prove that there is no such thing as evidence apart from a matrix of presuppositions, that objectivity is at best a consensus, and that consensus is often but a public relations job. Every scientific system begins with un\proved postulates. Every person founds his life on articles of faith. But what a blessing to be able to ground our faith upon a rock—on personal revelation from our Savior.
I promise to be more brief on the next idea. We are also persecuted for our belief in uniqueness, for the idea that there is but one true church, one true priesthood, one narrow path to salvation, one chosen people, one fountain for all righteousness. Many people of my acquaintance are willing to see good in the Church, especially as a social system. But for us to claim that no one but members of our Church can become celestial raises hackles. That does not fit the permissive, egalitarian, ecumenical age we live in. It is taken as a sign of snobbery, of racism, of hypocrisy, of almost anything bad. One of the reasons my soul so hungers and yearns to see the establishment of Zion is so that we won’t have to say anything about uniqueness then. We will just be content to be unique. How unique would it be to get a least half the Church members to be of one heart and one mind, to dwell in righteousness, and have no poor person among them. I think that we would then see the fulfillment of that promise and challenge: “That the kingdoms of this world may be constrained to acknowledge that the kingdom of God is in very deed the kingdom of God and of his Christ.” (D&C 105:32)
Meanwhile, we are subject to persecution for our claim to be the true Church, and are dismissed with others who make the same claim. Is it possible that we deserve persecution on this point? If we claim to be the one true church and are not significantly better, perhaps we have earned trouble. Oh for Zion!
Three more observations on persecution and I will stop these ramblings lest I wear you out. (My egotism presumes you are yet with me.)
The first concerns the story of Stephen in Acts 6 and 7. I reread it recently and was forcefully impressed with an idea. Stephen has always come across to me as a good man, well-suited to minister to widow’s need, “full of the Holy Ghost,” a powerful servant of Christ. But it has always struck me that he spoke to the Sanhedrin rather forthrightly, surely provocatively. His speech would hardly win any Dale Carnegie awards. I have wondered: Did he have a martyr complex? Was he trying to die?
My feeling now is that he enjoyed life as much as you or I, and was doubtless very happy because of the good he was able to do for others. But he had a mission to perform. For some reason the Sanhedrin needed another witness of the great tragedy in which they were principals. The promised Messiah had come and had fulfilled all things while some of those who desired to be His servants carefully engineered His death. This was a tragic flaw, a damming fate, indeed. His own people largely rejected Him as would no other nation or people –or planet. Could Stephen have supposed that he could convert them when the Savior himself had failed to do so?
But Stephen was true to his mission. He bore testimony of Christ and of their sin. The flood of anger and hate that carried him outside of the walls to die, stone by stone, was the necessary consequence of his commission. He sealed his testimony (and probably their reward) with his blood. The moral I draw from this story is that we should not be needlessly offensive in this world. We should never seek to be persecuted. But we should seek to fulfill our personal missions, wending our way among the hate and persecutions that will come, but never trying to offend. But should our commission call us to an unsavory task where we cannot help but offend, then we should bear the task off manfully, with great humility, and with a firm grasp on the iron rod. I honor Stephen in his great example.
My second thought relates to Saul, afterwards known as Paul, also of Acts. Saul persecuted the Saints with great zeal and ability. Then the Lord’s mercy allowed him to repent and to become Paul. Then he was persecuted by the Jews and others, even as he had persecuted. I think all of us should see ourselves in this story. We should ask ourselves: “Am I yet Saul or am I now Paul? Am I still persecuting the Saints and the Savior or have I repented of my sins to serve and suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ? Do I persecute others in my zeal to do God a favor (as if He needed my hate or scorn to further His cause), or do I humbly and patiently “submit to all things that my God seeth fit to inflict upon me, even as a child doth submit to his father.”
One final point: As we look at the “big picture” of things, I see persecution taking a special significance. All of us who have become accountable have sinned. Having sinned we justly merit retribution from the world. We cannot claim that being persecuted is wholly unwarranted. But there is One whose life and perfection has swallowed up our debt for sin. In His atonement, our Savior paid the debt of justice for every human sin that had been or would be committed. Having paid that debt, all sin focuses on him. When any of us sin we are persecuting Christ, for we are adding to his burden of suffering for sin.
The work of our Savior is to bless everyone and everything. We who are not omniscient know not how to bless perfectly, as He does. But as we act on our Savior’s instructions, He guides us through his priesthood and the Holy Spirit in the blessing of others. Our wiling obedience to Him constitutes faith in Jesus Christ. But when we do not bless, we hurt, either by commission or omission. Thus all sinning is really persecution. It is persecution both of the person or persons we do not bless, and it is persecution of the great and good God of this earth, Jesus Christ. It helps me to have perspective to see that murder, adultery, lying, hypocrisy, anger, hate, stealing, etc., are all persecution of Christ. I sorrow for all who are hurt by sin. But I all grieve for our Master, who, I believe, feels every sin more keenly than any of us do when we are sinned against. Every war, every riot, every pillage, all raping, all priestcraft, all sinning, are personal attacks on the Savior. I imagine His grief when we set guilty murderers free, despising the lives of those whom they have murdered, then legally condemning to death millions of innocent unborn (and some born) babies.
Knowing all this doesn’t make me perfect. I wish it did. But it does make me ache to stop sinning. If I could only stop, every last whit, then I would no longer be persecuting my loved ones and my Savior. The real point is that I am a persecutor. Any persecution inflicted upon me does not begin to compare in importance with fact that I, until I fully repent, am pursuing others to do them harm. I know that it is possible to stop sinning, but only through the laws and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Lavina, you have been kind to wade through all of this, I inflict this on you only in the hope that our souls will so hunger after Him who we love that we will make every sacrifice necessary to become as He is. That is the greatest thing we can do about persecution. “Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation; for, from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It was through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life; and it is through this medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth’s sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do His will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will seek His face in vain. Under these circumstances, then, he can obtain the faith necessary for him to lay hold on eternal life.” (Lectures on Faith, Lecture Sixth: 7)
Praying is more than “saying prayers.” True prayer is an experience that takes place under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
One fundamental distinction between the saint and what the scriptures call the “natural man” is in their use of prayer. The natural man may say prayers, but it is not a spiritual experience for him. He is only reacting to his physical environment as he has been instructed or as he finds prudent. Praying, as distinct from merely saying prayers, has a spiritual dimension. The transformation from a natural man to a saint is marked by the ability to recognize and to respond to spiritual environment.
The person who is learning to be a saint must learn about the nature of God and man and the world, about the gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ. He must learn to control himself in faith, repentance, fasting, and mighty prayer, and in using the Holy Spirit as his guide. Finally, he must successfully use the understanding he has to bring to pass much righteousness. He then has something of infinite worth: the ability to do good in this world. As an intelligent man could not expect to step into a modern jet aircraft and fly it successfully without much learning and training, so such a man would not think that he could pray successfully without even greater preparation for that more difficult task.
What is the Purpose of Prayer?
We live in a universe of order. Law governs and controls all things, both physical, and spiritual. This is another way of saying that there is a regularity of causes and effects apparent everywhere. One application of this principle is that all things act (effects) in relation to their environment (causes). Some things are acted upon; they simply react in a regular way to what is happening in the environment. Water solidifies when the surroundings are cold, boils away when they are hot, and flows freely when the surroundings are at a medium temperature.
Some people suppose that man is like water, only responding to his natural environment. They observe that men buy what is advertised, shun that which is disgraced, cleave unto that which is pleasurable. These people predict successfully what most men will do by assessing their physical environment. They can do this because the natural man is not free. He is acted upon like water. Since most men are natural, the accuracy of such predictions runs high.
But, thanks to God, no natural man need remain natural. Though he must respond to his environment under the law of cause and effect, all men who have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ preached with the power of the Holy Ghost have a choice of environments. Having heard, they then can choose between reacting to their physical environment, as does the natural man, or they can react to the spiritual environment of which the gospel makes them aware. As long as the Holy Spirit labors with them, they can choose to respond to either one. This is the agency, the freedom of man: to choose to be natural, governed by the physical environment and their own flesh, or to be spiritual, governed by their own spirit as it yields to the Holy Spirit.
“Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
“And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;
“And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.” (2 Nephi 2:27-29.)
Prayer is turning to the spiritual. It is seeking the will and the power of God through the Holy Spirit in order to yield to the spiritual order of reality. It is the key to the companionship of the Holy Spirit. Having that companionship, one need not lapse into the control of the lusts of the flesh and the pressures of the world. It is choosing to be part of the pressures of the world. It is choosing to be part of the realm where God reigns, where his will is done. It is a rejection of the opinions and wisdom of men who know not God. It is the beginning of salvation. Oh how great the goodness of our God, who prepares a way for us to escape from the deadly and desultory causes of the natural, fallen world!
Prayer is communion with the Almighty. He who finds himself aghast at the evil order of this world will likely seek something better. As he prays he discovers that the power of God reaches down into this fallen realm with a sweet, peaceful, assuring, and comforting influence that gives witness of truth, hope for a better world, and power to withstand evil. Without the opportunity to pray and to receive those precious gifts from the Holy Spirit, man would not be free. He would indeed be the trapped, damned animal he is thought to be by those who do not know God.
“And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.
“But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.” (2 Nephi 32:8-9.)
How to Pray
When a person “says prayers” he is doing something stimulated by his physical environment. He is repeating words and phrases appropriate to some time or circumstance such as mealtime or the beginning of a meeting. Saying prayers is not a bad thing to do. But it is insufficient.
True prayer begins with a yearning in the soul of man, a reaching out for spiritual contact with God. True prayer grows in strength and efficacy as the Holy Spirit enlivens and guides the yearning soul. The ultimate of true prayer comes as a man is able to submit himself completely to the Lord God whom he has come to love; then what he prays for and how he prays are given to him by the Holy Spirit. This prayer is the obedient response of a little child who, with wonder, awe, and gratitude, worships the true and living God. Of himself, the child of God doesn’t know what to ask for. But through spiritual insight he sees the hand of his Father in all things. His bosom swells with gratitude as he glimpses the wondrous work of holiness. As he is given, he asks for those things which are good in the sight of his God and gives praise and thanks in the same manner. The theme of all is the phrase used by the Savior:
“Thy will, not mine, be done.”
“And if ye are purified and cleansed from all sin, ye shall ask whatsoever you will in the name of Jesus and it shall be done.
“But know this, it shall be given you what you shall ask; and as ye are appointed to the head, the spirits shall be subject unto you.” (D&C 50:29,30.)
It may seem strange that in certain prayers one might simply repeat what he is given to say by the Holy Spirit unless one realizes that true prayer is worship. Its essence is a feeling of the heart. The measure of a prayer is the intensity and the depth of that feeling. Does one hunger to do good in this world? Does that feeling wholly fill his soul? Is he oblivious to everything else but the fact that he is in the presence of his beloved Master? Does he cry out from anguish at the realization of his own nothingness contrasts with the goodness of God? Does he receive the Holy Spirit as a consuming fire to burn out the dross within, almost unto the consuming of his flesh? If these things take place, the child of God is achieving and experiencing what the scriptures call “mighty prayer.” While it is true that this may not happen every day or even often, what poverty of soul entraps one who has never felt the fire of mighty prayer! Having achieved full worship even once would color and heighten every prayer thereafter, for the remainder on one’s life.
To pray, then, one must understand the nature and attributes of God. He must receive of the Holy Spirit and worship in spirit and truth. The more he can deliver himself, body and spirit, to what the Spirit shows him is good, the more humble is his prayer. The more he can focus all that he is and has, the more mighty that worship.
Small wonder that prayer at its greatest is private and individual, an thing done with the door shut. How strange to think of being seen by men at the same time as being honored by God. No wonder the life of a faithful saint is a constant communion with the Master, no matter what else is happening.
“Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart.
“And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens. (Enos 3-4.)
Meditation
The helpmate of mighty prayer is meditation. In meditating, one tries to minimize his involvements with the physical world for a time in order to concentrate on something inner, on ideas and feelings. As a person prays sincerely with the Holy Spirit as his guide, that Spirit will bring to him many thoughts and feelings. This is part of the process of revelation. To take full advantage of this revelation, one would do well to mull over the matter under consideration, piecing together what one already knows with the new insights received.
It is one thing to have a revelation. It is quite another to understand and obey. Understanding comes in the process of careful, prayerful reflections of meditation upon what one has received. To pray is often like asking for food and then being blessed with a sumptuous meal. What would you think of a person who, when thus honored, merely took a sniff, then put the meal on a shelf and left it? Though greatly blessed, he would not be nourished.
So it may be with those who pray and do not meditate. They may have much but may be little edified.
Meditation cannot be taught, because it is something personal and private; it is the venturing of the soul into the unknown. But it can be learned by anyone who has the courage to think for himself. A likely initiation to meditation is to ponder the scriptures, the words of the living and the dead prophets of God. Banish all commentaries for a moment: forget hearsay teaching. What does the Lord actually say? What does the Spirit whisper as to how this passage or that doctrine should be understood? Where two scriptures appear at first reading to be contrary, what is the real intent of each?
That soul who has bravely ventured into the sea of scriptural interpretation, who humbly seeks the guidance of the Holy Spirit and rejects the opinions of men, soon makes a marvelous discovery. In the midst of the tumult of human interpretation there is a rock! He cannot see it, for it is spiritual, but he can plant his feet firmly upon it. Then the winds and waves of opinion can beat upon him from any direction. He is no longer tossed to and fro by every wind and wave, but rests firmly on that rock, and on his own two feet. He now has a foundation for salvation. He has found the rock of revelation from the Savior.
In mulling and pondering the scriptures, our venturer has found the Holy Spirit to be an able and willing guide as well as a comfort and a bulwark. Flashes of insight come. Now he sees how God is both just and merciful. He rejoices to learn how God can govern and control all things yet man can be free. He is overcome as he glimpses what the Savior has done for him. Now, having his own light from eternity, he is a new person, a little child born again in the image of the Master.
Having learned to think, to meditate upon the scriptures, the venturer is now prepared to meditate upon the spiritual gifts that come in connection with his own prayers. Now mighty prayer is so rich an experience that he can hardly contain it. Ideas, hopes, and feelings tumble into his mind, then are carefully fit together under spiritual guidance, into the fabric of his new life. They become part of his robe of righteousness as he prepares to meet the Bridegroom.
He who learns to meditate on the things of the Holy Spirit need never suffer the rebuke that came to Oliver Cowdery:
“Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.
“But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.
“But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.
“Now, if you have known this you could have translated; nevertheless, it is not expedient that you should translate now.
“Behold, it was expedient when you commenced; but you feared, and the time is past, and it is not expedient now.” (D&C 9:7-11.)
Consultation
As a spiritual experience and an access to spiritual life, prayer is like anything of great power is: when misapplied the harm possible is equal to or greater than the good that can be gained from it when correctly applied. The possibility exists in prayer that Satan, who also is a spiritual being and who also delights to give people “revelation,” may attempt to pawn off his own influence as a substitute for the ministrations of the Holy Spirit. The past is full of examples of these devious actions of the adversary beginning with Adam and Eve and extending down to his latest attempts on our own spiritual lives.
When people pray, and especially when they try to make prayer a spiritual experience, Satan stands ready to counterfeit. Some telltale evidences of his influence are feelings that we should give in to the desired of our flesh, that we should do something contrary to the teachings of the scriptures, that we should do things that will bring us the honors of men or the rewards of this world. But the real test is not that simple, for there are occasions when the Lord would have us do something different from what others have been commanded to do, or he may lead us to have the honors of men and rewards of this world. We must be sure that it is the Lord that whispers to us.
One learns to discern the voice of the Spirit through experience. In following spiritual guidance, one can learn surly to tell the difference between the enticings of the Holy Spirit and the temptations of the adversary. To be sure in discerning that difference is perhaps the most essential feature of the transformation of the natural man into the saint. Only then can one show in his life that full and heart-felt faith which is the only means of pleasing God.
It is the heritage of every child in the stakes of Zion to learn from his father and mother how to recognize and live by the still, small voice of the Spirit, thus to know how to worship in mighty prayer. As the children of Zion come to know the voice of the Lord, then can they unite in those mighty prayers that are part of bearing off the Kingdom in triumph.
“And at that day, when I shall come in my glory, shall the parable be fulfilled which I spake concerning the ten virgins.
“For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived–verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day.
“And the earth shall be given unto them for an inheritance; and they shall multiply and wax strong, and their children shall grow up without sin unto salvation. (D&C 45:56-58.)
The Fruit
Another great form of worship of God is the consequence of true prayer. True and mighty prayer ought to lead above all to the doing of righteous deeds. As we pray and partake of the power and true order of heaven, we then should seek to translate the spiritual gifts we have received into the physical actions of our lives. Righteousness is blessing others. Our Master, Jesus Christ, is the fountain of all righteousness. As we humbly pray in his name we are filled with wisdom, with his compassion, with his concern for the poor and the needy with his concern for those who sit in darkness. Being filled with his love, we then go and do those things which we have been shown. In so doing, his pure love becomes our pure love for others.
“Therefore may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name, that he would have mercy upon you;
“Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save.
“Yea, humble yourselves, and continue in prayer unto him.
“Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks.
“Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.
“Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies.
“Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness.
“Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.
“Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase.
“But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.
“Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.
“And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need–I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.” (Alma 34:17-28.)
Dr. Chauncey C. Riddle, professor of philosophy and dean of the Graduate School at Brigham Young University, serves as Sunday School teacher in Orem 16th Ward, Orem Utah Sharon Stake.
Each of us files a daily report as to how we feel about the Church in our actions. Silently we acclaim or protest through our support or non-support of what we see and hear. This is an unsolicited verbal report filed for any and all who might be interested. As you might guess, what is said below is the perspective of a single individual. You are also a single individual. May we compare notes?
The first thing I must do to give you my reactions is to separate some things out. The most important of these are the Savior, the Gospel, the Church, and the people of the Church.
I think of the Savior as my friend and companion. That sounds presumptuous, but I am willing to say it because I think of myself as His friend and servant. And I say it because I know the sweet peace of His spirit.
Feeling His spirit is the sweetest, most desirable experience in my life. Sometimes it gives me an overwhelming spiritual shock, as when I read Micah 6:8, or D&C 121:45–46, or Matthew 25:40. That shock shakes the very core of my being; I cannot deny what is said, for I know it is true. I know, because of such experiences that the Lord loves righteousness, and, therefore, He loves me. I know also that I love righteousness, and, therefore, I love Him. That’s why I think of Him as my friend. We both desire the same goals, and delight in the same things, especially to do justly, and to have mercy.
But, to be frank, the Lord scares me at the same time I feel His friendship. He is perfect in righteousness, and I am far from it. Though I think less of myself for it, I do yet yield to the flesh, filling its desires when I should not. Or sometimes anger or pride well up within me to defy the humility of the Holy Spirit. I know well what Nephi was talking about when he lamented because of his flesh in 2 Nephi 4. But Nephi is small comfort on that point. I see clearly that I will go on being scared until I have fully repented. I think that is what it means to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.
Sometimes I wonder about the whole business. The thought comes to me: You are just telestial material; no matter how hard you try you can never be like the Savior. But as I cry out in desperation to the Lord through hot tears, the sweet peace of the Spirit reaches to me like a cool breath to a fevered brow. It says: God is just, so do not worry about where you will be in eternity. There is much to be done now, for the sheep are scattered. Let the love of the lost sheep cause you to hunger to see them blessed. That hunger will enable you to overcome the flesh through the Savior; then you can do great good in this world.
So I have this testimony of the Lord. He speaks to me often through His spirit. He shows me the vision of righteousness and of Zion. He tells me how to read the scriptures. He has given me every good idea I have used in my professional and family life for many years. He reproves me when I am wayward, showing me the better way. When I am ill, His spirit heals me when I have learned my lesson, and He always teaches me some precious lesson that way. Do you see why I call Him my friend and companion? I have no mortal friend who compares with Him, save my wife. For Him I would gladly die, anytime, anywhere, even though I have never seen Him. But I also feel that I will die if I can never be faithful enough to see Him.
I love the Gospel because it teaches me of the Savior. I understand it to be those simple but marvelous ideas expressed in a few verses within 3 Nephi 27. It seems to be a formula for receiving the companionship of the Lord through His Holy Spirit. I know the Gospel is true because I have applied the formula and know that it works.
It took me a long time to learn the Gospel. The greatest obstacle was unlearning much of what I had been taught as a youngster in the Church. Until I seriously sought to dig out for myself the true meaning and application of faith and repentance, they were baffling because the cliches I heard didn’t fit the scriptures. With the help of some very spiritual people of the Church and the help of the Holy Spirit itself I have learned what I think are the essentials of the Gospel. My hesitation stems from the fact that every now and then I get a new and clearer glimpse of the first principles that makes me wonder if I ever really understood them before.
The scriptures seem to be the intellectual battleground where one struggles with ideas to get a clear and true idea of the Gospel formula. When we know the formula, our minds and bodies become the battleground for self control so that we might gain the companionship of the Holy Spirit. When one has the Holy Spirit, the world seems to be the battleground where one struggles to do good in the midst of great evil. As one succeeds in doing some good, the mysteries of heaven begin to unfold, a glimpse of celestial order and celestial kingdoms. If one is wise enough not to talk of them, knowledge of the mysteries becomes a great anchor to the soul. But there is no anchor to compare with the more sure word.
The Church, to me, is the priesthood organization extending from the Savior through the president of the Church down to each member. I like to think of the priesthood as a harness; it gives us a specific place to work, a specific relationship to other workers, a real opportunity to move along the work of God, which is the work of righteousness and salvation. If I can learn to fill my role, to do my priesthood assignments well, the Church can move forward. If we all pull together as the Savior directs, we together can do good things for this suffering world which could not be done by us alone or in any other way. It is both a great thrill and an awesome responsibility to be in the harness.
There have been times when I have aspired to high office in the Church. I dreamed once of becoming a general authority. I can see the adversary laughing gleefully when he has gotten me to think of desiring high office. The Lord in His kindness has let me have enough office to discover two most precious things. He has taught me first that there is no greater priesthood calling than father and mother; nothing is more challenging or more worthwhile than the firm establishment of a celestial family. Secondly, He has shown me that office in the Church is something I cannot refuse, but I must see Church office as an added burden which may destroy my primary family responsibility. If I am doing well in my family, I will have power to do well in my Church calling, and the better I then do in my Church calling, the more help I will have with my family. But if I am not doing well in my family, I will have little to offer to the Church; as I fail in my Church assignment, I destroy the possibility of ever having an eternal family. There is no way out but up. My love of the Lord must become so consuming that it will burn the dross out of me. Then I can be the father and the high priest that I want to be. Then I am fully on the Savior’s team and can do great eternal good. But oh the deceitfulness of the temptation to desire that which we do not have!
When I think of the priesthood order of the Church, I think particularly of the General Authorities, my Stake President, and my Bishop. I love to attend conference or any meeting where I am instructed and encouraged by those over me in authority. When any one of my file leaders speak, my soul resonates to the message, and their voice seems like the voice of my Father. Sometimes I am out of tune with them; I still get the message that they are right, but I am jarred by it. When I am most in tune, I can often anticipate what they will say and do. Needless to say, when I am in tune, sustaining them is a joy, for it is the Savior that I and they are unitedly sustaining.
The Brethren scare me, too, as does the Savior. I feel uncomfortable around them because I know that what they say is right and I am not yet doing all I could do. When, oh when, I keep wondering, will I ever get on the ball so that my confidence will wax strong in the presence of the Lord? Even though they burn me and scare me, I am proud of the Brethren and so grateful to have them to help me find the way of the Savior. I know many of them personally and can testify that they are great and godly men.
Sometimes I hear people criticize the Brethren. I hurt inside for the criticizer, for I know that he does not enjoy that great and uplifting gift of spiritual unity with them. The Holy Spirit has taught me to listen first to them, out of all the voices in this world, on any and every subject, at any time and place. When I talk with them, I perceive they are highly intelligent men. They have seen more of the world and know more of what is critical and urgent than any other group I have ever read or listened to. I marvel at the power and precision of the programs they bring out; the programs are not always final, but they are marvelously suited to the needs of the Church.
I see the Correlation work of the Church as the great struggle to convert all members of the Church to become servants of Jesus Christ. Church membership makes us nominal servants; the work of the program of correlation will bring our heart, might, mind and strength under that head, culminating in the establishment of the full patriarchal order. But the patriarchal order is simply the rule of Jesus Christ through His priesthood, the kind of rule that can be established only when people are fully faithful.
Home teaching (now Ministering) is the key to all Church work, as I see it. If it succeeds, the patriarchal order will be established; if it fails, I presume the Lord will simply wait for a new generation of children or converts who will be faithful. I have never glimpsed a greater organized power to raise souls to perfection than the Home Teaching Program (now the Ministering Program).
The genealogy program is another facet of the patriarchal system. I understand our greatest responsibility to be to seek after our kindred dead. Living or dead, we cannot serve Christ fully without honoring all our righteous fathers and blessing our children.
The missionary program is exciting to behold. As the great net sweeps the seas the harvest of souls almost breaks it. What a hope to know that there are kindred spirits in every nation, tongue and people! And what a joy to find them and to bring them unto Christ.
The welfare program is sort of the “proof of the pudding.” If the other programs “take” on us, then we feel a fierce urgency to do something for the poor. And that something will be to consecrate all we have to the Lord and His work, that His children might not lack blessing. The size of our souls is measured by the size of our ability to help others spiritually and temporally. For the whole Gospel, spiritually and temporally, in time and in eternity, for the saviors and those who save, is one great welfare program.
How does it look from the bottom? It looks great. The ship is sound and is on course. There are no better shipmates to be found anywhere. The officers know where they are going and are steering a correct course. I know that because my private receiver lets me listen in on their instructions. They are following the Master indeed.
Are there no troubles, no breaches, no lapses, you say? Indeed, there are problems. False doctrine is taught by some of us. Some of us in authority have little love. Some of us just relax in the harness and let the leaders pull us along. But the problems are the problems of the people of the Church, not problems of the Church, or the Gospel, or the Lord.
For this is my testimony, too: “Stick to the old ship.”
The traditional training for the ministry in Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism has been basically sophic. It has been a rational approach which emphasizes scholarship as the basic approach. Scholarship is taken as the key because it is to the basic written sources that each of these religions goes for its direction and justification.
It is interesting to note, however, that the basic written sources of those religions are not sophic in origin but are mantic. They are the eye-witness accounts of persons who knew God as a person. The sophic or scholarly approach is the basis of those religions only because the mantic element is gone: revelation has admittedly ceased. But revelation is yet venerated in the scholarly investigation of its written remnants.
Training for the ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is basically mantic and only secondarily sophic. First and foremost the Elder must recognize and live by his own personal revelation from God. By this means he is able to identify those who are truly given presiding authority by God, to make correct interpretations of doctrine, and to order properly the affairs of the Kingdom which are placed in his charge. Only secondarily does he need and use the sophic approach, but he definitely and necessarily needs it. But his interpretations of the written records are always guided by revelation even when maximally enriched by the fruits of sophic scholarship.
Thus the training of an LDS Elder is of necessity mostly a field training. It involves substantial schooling after the manner of other religions, but depends principally upon the ability of the Elder to discern and live by the personal revelations he receives in the daily course of working within the Church in his assigned stewardship and in his contacts with the world.
If we are serious about following Jesus, we must question all that we previously have been and accepted.
The New Testament account of our Savior’s mortal ministry is a rich treasury of knowledge concerning what one must do to be saved. One insight we may gain concerns what one must do to he a disciple of the Master.
The word disciple comes from the Latin “discipulus,” a learner. A disciple of Christ is one who is learning to be like Christ–learning to think, to feel, and to act as he does. To be a true disciple, to fulfill that learning task, is the most demanding regimen known to man. No other discipline compares with it in either requirements or rewards. It involves the total transformation of a person from the state of the natural man to that of the saint, one who loves the Lord and serves with all of his heart, might, mind, and strength.
As part of his instruction to his disciples in judea, the Savior took pains to explain his own ministry, a ministry that was the pattern for all of them and for us. One thing that the Father required of our Savior was the suffering and sacrifice of the Atonement. Matthew records:
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” (Matt. 16:21.)
Peter, not understanding that only in these difficult things could Jesus fulfill the will of the Father and make universal salvation possible, remonstrated:
“Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be [done] unto thee.” (Matt. 16:22.)
The Savior then administered a severe rebuke to Peter:
“But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Matt. 16:23.)
In calling Peter “Satan.” the Savior suggests the plight of all men. Until we savor (understand) the things of God, we are found to be behind the adversary’s programs! But when we learn the glorious truths of the gospel we can get behind Jesus Christ and his work and abandon Satan.
Within that historical setting is one of the great revelatory insights into the ways of godliness given by the Master. Perceiving Peter’s ignorance and that of the others present, he proceeded to instruct them in the essence of discipleship:
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.
“And now for a man to take up his cross, is to deny himself all ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and keep my commandments.
“Break not any commandments for to save your lives; for whosoever will save his life in this world, shall lose it in the world to come.
“And whosoever will lose his life in this world, for my sake, shall find it in the world to come.
“Therefore, forsake the world, and save your souls….. (Matt. 16:25-29, Inspired Version.)”
If we take up our own cross we truly become disciples. From the above we learn that discipleship begins with self-denial. Our lives are much like forested land that must be cultivated. Before the word of the Lord can bear fruit in our lives, we must first clear the ground of all that grows wild or naturally. What grows naturally in our lives are the things of the world. As any person comes to spiritual self-consciousness, he will realize that his mind, his desires, his habits, his manners, and his politics have all been shaped by the people in his physical environment. What he hitherto thought to be himself he now sees as the encrustations of the world upon his true self, the newly awakened spirit within. His true self delights in being touched by the Holy Spirit with the witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ and of the urgency of faith and repentance. He finds that to believe in Christ is one thing, but to deliver one’s soul unto Christ as a faithful, obedient servant is quite another thing. That delivery must begin by becoming as a little child.
To be born again as a little child is to question all that we have formerly been and accepted, and to see the world with different eyes, heart, and mind. As a little child, we walk through the forest with one hand in that of the Holy Spirit and the other in that of the living prophets of God.
Our mentors, the prophets and the Holy Spirit, literally turn the old world some of us have known topsy-turvy. In that process we are thrilled to see things freshly, as they really are.
With their help the scriptures become pure, the word of God; the interpolations, the omissions, and interpretations of men no longer cause us to stumble. We learn the joy of seeing the complete harmony between the teachings of the ancient prophets found in canonized scriptures, the teachings of living prophets found in canonized scriptures, the sweet whisperings of the Holy Spirit. To that harmony the promises of God and the necessities of true faith come alive to us, and with hope and faith we begin to become spiritually alive.
With the help of our new friends, the prophets and the Holy Spirit, we can see in our culture that which is truly virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praise-worthy. These things we treasure and delight in. We are also now able to see what is petty, selfish, and evil in our culture. Carefully we dissociate ourselves from those things, grateful to see plainly that those things we once enjoyed were actually part of our misery.
Our new friends help us to review what we have learned about the ideas of men. We gladly respond when we see now that some men have taught truth, sometimes against great odds; but we now perceive the absurdity of some of the world’s most cherished theories. As we see anew, the chains of darkness and the lies of Satan become plain to us, and we slip off those chains, thrilled with the freedom and mobility we now have.
A new perspective, that of eternity, is taught to us by our mentor friends. We now glimpse why it is that family relationships are paramount, why no other success can compensate for failure in our homes. We see why force and compulsion can never be the means of establishing a great and good society. We see that doing good for others is the important thing in life, not just seeking knowledge. We see that the point of repentance is learning to live righteously, so that we can be trusted with the powers of gods. We no longer worry about just being forgiven; we strive to overcome the world.
Perhaps the greatest thing we learn from living prophets and from the Holy Spirit is the importance of doing the best we know at all times. They show us that what we will really be sorry for later is not having done what we plainly know we should have done.
With thankful heart the disciple of Christ thus learns the ways and ideas of the world, to be taught anew in all things by God. But even in this his preparation is not complete: he must next cleanse himself of worldly lust. To eliminate the influence of the world is a difficult thing. But to gain mastery over his own desires is another, even more difficult task. It is like hauling off all the rocks and thoroughly tilling the soil once the forest of his mind has been cleared of false ideas.
What are the rocks of lust in our lives? One is the desire to eat too much, to eat the wrong things, and to eat when we should not. Another is the inability to get to bed on time, to get up on time, or to be where we are supposed to be on time. Rocks of lust are the habits of being absorbed in television or reading when we should be working with our family or doing our home teaching. They are hunger for a new car when the old one would serve as well or better; the desire to have it known to everyone when we have done some good deed; the need to retaliate when someone has hurt us. They are anger, selfishness, loud laughter, and self-indulgence. They are the powers of Satan exercised on us through our own flesh. We can be rid of these things only by yielding to the enticings of the Holy Spirit.
Then our spirit conquers our own flesh and the flesh becomes a servant instead of the master of our lives.
Having cleared our forest of worldliness and having tilled the soil of our souls to a state of ready obedience to the Lord, we are then able to receive the word of God as the pure seed; we are ready to keep the Lord’s commandments.
The first commandment is to love the Lord:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength (Mark 12:30.)”
In nothing can one show forth love for God more surely than in making and keeping the baptismal covenant. Therein we promise that we will take Jesus Christ’s name upon us (to stand as a witness of him at all times and in all places), that we will always remember him (never forgetting that we are to rely solely upon his merits), and that we will keep the commandments he has given us: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”(John 14:15.)
It is thus that the crowning act of repentance is to make the covenant of baptism. As Christ laid down his life for us, so we voluntarily put to death our old worldly, lustful self and bury It in the waters of baptism. As the Savior rose from the dead, so we rise up out of the water as little children of our new Father and Savior, to a beginning of eternal life. Without this death, burial, and newness, we cannot fully show that we love him.
In baptism we gain the privilege of the gift of the Holy Ghost. Only as we live under the influence of that gift can any mortal person love the Lord with all his heart, might, mind, and strength. Only as we continue under the influence of that gift can one keep every commandment.
Above all the other commandments we might receive as we strive to keep the first and great commandment is the second, the admonition to love one another. The world, not understanding the things of God fancies that the second commandment can be kept when one has not honored the first commandment. But those who understand remember the Savior saying:
“A new commandment l give unto you, That ye love one another; as l have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:34-35.)
To love as Christ loves is to have charity, the pure love of Christ. Pure love is a gift of the Holy Spirit reserved for those who love the Lord enough to covenant with him in baptism and wlj.i receive his spirit to be with them:
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6.)
The way of Christ is the way of love. It is to visit the widows and the fatherless in their afflictions; it is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit those in prison, to liberate the captive. But it is to do all this in the Lord’s way, not walking in the ways of the world or following the vain imaginations of our heart as to what is good for others. Pure love is of the Father. Saith our Master:
“I can of mine own self do nothing . . . because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30.) “l am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and l in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5.)
Are we the disciples of Jesus Christ? Are we learning of his ways, of his discipline? Arc we doing as he commanded? Do we know we have to overcome the world? No man is saved in ignorance of that knowledge. To gauge our progress we might ask ourselves three questions:
“Have I denied myself all ungodliness?”
“Have l denied myself every worldly lust?”
“Do I keep every commandment the Savior gives me?”
The future of a person who can give an honest affirmative answer to each of these questions is not in doubt. The rest of us should remember that the Lord is mighty to save. Though we cannot overcome the world on our own merits, his are quite sufficient. If we are learning, then we are disciples. May we learn well and be disciples indeed.
Then, instead of the natural forest of worldliness that smothers out all else in our lives, we shall have created a Garden of Eden. As the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory, even so must each individual disciple renew his own personal life in the glory of our God.
[illustrations] Discipleship begins by becoming as a little child and being born again.
[illustration] Becoming a disciple, we perceive the absurdity of some of the world’s most cherished theories. The chains of darkness, the lies of Satan, become pain to us. We slip off those chains, thrilled with the freedom and mobility we now have.
[photo] Becoming a disciple, we yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, haul away all the rocks of lust, break habits of being absorbed in television or reading when we should be working with our family or doing our home teaching.
[photo] Becoming a disciple, we learn a new perspective of eternity, we glimpse why it is that family relationships are paramount, why no other success can compensate for failure in our homes, why force and compulsion can never establish a great society.
Dr. Chauncey Riddle is a professor of philosophy and dean of the Graduate School at Brigham Young University. He teaches Sunday School in Orem 16th Ward, Orem Utah Sharon West Stake.
Much publicity has been given recently to an alleged “glut” in graduate education. Let us examine this situation for a moment by asking and answering some important questions.
Question: Why is graduate education valued so highly in our culture?
Answer: In part the answer is tradition. The ideal man in western civilization has been “a gentleman and a scholar.” To be a scholar enables one to be a “knower.” Knowledge is liberating and exhilarating. Many also seek to engage in intellectual pursuits because they give a person a station in life above the menial. Many persons in our culture think that it is degrading to earn a livelihood in a way that dirties one’s hands.
Another reason why graduate education is highly valued is that ofttimes it enables a person to achieve a technical competence that is needed by society. Engineers and scientists particularly, including both physical and social engineers and scientists, have been much sought after in recent times. Accountants and information specialists are in demand.
In sum: Graduate education has great social and often great vocational value.
Question: Why has there been such a marked increase in persons receiving higher degrees?
Answer: The reason for the increase is again twofold. Because of the great cultural value placed on graduate degrees, great masses of people see them as their personal key to joining the elite of our society. Every underprivileged (that is to say non-elite) parent would like to see his children join the higher ranks, to become elite. So in this age of social egalitarianism, education has come to be seen as an inherent political “right” by which minorities and repressed persons are to be given their fair share of the civilization’s glory. It is dimly recognized that if everyone had a Ph.D. then the Ph.D. would be of no value to anyone. But since relatively few persons do, there is still great advantage in being called “Doctor” even though the value is diminishing.
The second main reason for the increase in persons with higher degrees is money. The Federal Government, being persuaded of a national emergency, has poured billions of dollars into degree production.
In sum: The increase in graduate degrees is due to social and political pressures.
Question: Is there a real glut?
Answer: There is an oversupply in some fields. Fields that are directly oriented to vocational needs of society other than teaching are faring much better.
Question: Will the oversupply continue?
Answer: The desire for upward social movement with its attendant political pressure will assure continuing oversupply, supposing economic stability. Private universities have cut back but state institutions continue to increase in all fields. Only the lack of funds prevents increasing oversupply.
Question: What are the results of oversupply?
Answer: An oversupply creates a buyers’ market, which means that quality of product becomes very important. Business and industry will tend to profit from some oversupply in that they can pick and choose more. But the oversupply is least in the areas needed by business and industry.
Under the free market, universities would also profit from the oversupply, for it is in the fields that lead to university teaching that we have the greatest oversupply. But we do not have a free market. The system of tenure assures that year of being hired, not competence, is the criterion for continuing university employment. Able graduates in the humanities and social sciences may have to be jobless or under-hired and to be content with their increased social status.
Question: What is the best strategy for a person to pursue in a buyers’ market?
Answer: Be good. To be good in your field means mostly to be well-disciplined and hard-working. It is your continuing production, not your past laurels which count.
Question: Can a “good” person really break into the tight market?
Answer: The oversupply is strictly in “ordinary” graduates. Extraordinary people are always in demand.
Every day I see inquiries from search committees, ads in papers, requests from friends for extraordinary people.
Question: What are the characteristics of this extraordinary type of person?
Answer: The answer is three-fold:
It is to be good in your field, as mentioned before. Have you published? Have you done an outstanding piece of research? Do you know the frontiers of your field? Do you have a “magnificent obsession” that makes you work on even if you are not being paid for it?
Are you a good person? Are you steady, resilient, resourceful? Do you have your passions and appetites in control? Is your family life happy and stable? Are you cheerful, gracious, grateful?
Are you a good leader? Do you have a keen sense of right and wrong, and do you openly stand for what is right? Do you have vision, so that you are able to plan wisely and fulfill those plans? Are you able to enlist the support of others through persuasion and information? Do you help everyone on your team to achieve every satisfaction you achieve?
For all of our social and material glory, our great need today is for intelligent, righteous leadership. How sad to see men and women poorly trained, or self-indulgers, or unable to muster backbone, or blind to possibilities, or unable to change, or unwilling to follow, or unable to share; cynics, backbiters, given to lucre, faint of heart.
Question: Doesn’t all this begin to smack of religion?
Answer: Indeed it does. Religion is the ordering of life. No man can every rise above the personal religion he espouses. (A person’s personal religion and his church may be two different things.) Every personal and social problem can be shown to be a problem of religion. Poverty, ignorance, war, are all functions of religion as are plenty, intelligence, and peace. The real solution to the world’s problems is in religion. If men could and would repent, that is to say, to exchange their false beliefs for true ones and their evil desires and poor habits for good desires and good habits, then we could solve every problem, including all of yours and mine.
But how can the world repent? Most people don’t even believe that what we call repentance is possible. The only hope the world has is to see true repentance. Then they will know it is possible. This is where you come in.
You who graduate from Brigham Young University know of the true and restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you live that Gospel, you will come to exemplify every good thing I have mentioned today. Brigham Young University certifies to the world today that you have basic competence in your chosen field. But it is up to you to be and to demonstrate to the world that you are also a good person and a good leader.
The world has mistakenly thought that academic training was sufficient to provide the leadership the world needs. Operating on that principle has caused us to go round and round, from war to war, from tax to tax, from program to program with little real change in our human situation. What the world needs is not just you, but a repentant you made over in the image of our Lord and master, Jesus Christ.
In the midst of all else that transpires today, I hope you will remember that today is the occasion set aside annually to commemorate that greatest of all events of history, the atonement of our Savior. In that sacrifice on the cross, our Master fulfilled His perfect example to us. There is nothing fine which we could ever hope to attain wherein He has not set the example of perfection in that already. We say we believe in seeking after those things that are virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. Of all things or persons, Jesus Christ is the most virtuous, lovely, of good report and praiseworthy. We can do no better than to become exactly as He is.
We send you forth today as graduates, to do good among men. Our Savior sends us all forth as His children, to be the salt of the earth, to bring full and true salvation within the grasp of every nation, kindred, tongue and people. It is our hope that you go forth to serve, not to be served; to love purely, to sacrifice, to establish Zion. May you be giants of strength among fearful companions. May you be islands of righteousness in a sea of instability. May you desire and lay hold of every good thing. May we all honor our Master as He has honored us. This is my hope and prayer for you and for all of us.
