"All Men Are Created Equal" But How?

We belong to a marvelous Church in which we all get invitations from time to time to teach, lead, participate and grow and learn.  We are all amateurs, but we do receive incredible instruction on how to do things better.

David M. McConkie

Here's a sampling of the instruction teachers in the Church have received, as recently as last General Conference from David M. McConkie, 1st Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency. He titled his remarks "Teaching with the Power and Authority of God". Seriously, if we aren't teaching this way, why bother?

"First, it means that you are on the Lord’s errand. You are His agent, and you are authorized and commissioned to represent Him and to act on His behalf. As His agent, you are entitled to His help. You must ask yourself, 'What would the Savior say if He were teaching my class today, and how would He say it?' You must then do likewise.

"This responsibility may cause some to feel inadequate or even somewhat fearful. The pathway is not difficult. The Lord has provided the way for every worthy Latter-day Saint to teach in the Savior’s way.

"Second, you are called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. You must not teach your own ideas or philosophy, even mingled with scriptures. The gospel is 'the power of God unto salvation,'  (Romans 1:16) and it is only through the gospel that we are saved.

"Third, you are commanded to teach the principles of the gospel as they are found in the standard works of the Church, to teach the words of modern-day apostles and prophets, and to teach that which is taught you by the Holy Ghost." (emphasis mine).

I wonder if we haven't all participated in lessons in the Church almost near-adoration is expressed for the great strides Satan is making in the last days to undermine the gospel. Little or no inspiration from the God of Heaven is to be found whenever we congratulate Satan on his success among us. Oh, and by the way, does ANYONE know what will happen thirty years from now? Can we say for a fact that if the trends continue, we will be completely apostate and Satan will have won? When we are so determined to bear testimony about the works of Satan, and when we ignore the word of God, how can we expect to be edified together in a meeting like that? (See D&C 84:110).

This world is filled with sophistry, even in our chapels of worship, and continually we are reminded of the false doctrines abounding in society. It's as though we would give credence to those who would assert atheism equates to belief in God. Let's give everyone equal time, even if they stand in opposition to the revealed word of God. Being the true Christians we are, so the reasoning goes, we must grant equal time for the devil's advocates. Call me whatever you like, but I reject that idea.

I reflected during Sunday School hour about how contorted this idea of "equality" has become since the founding of America. When the founders wrote in our core document, the Declaration of Independence, and they said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . ,” what did they have in mind? It would be fool-hearty indeed to suggest they meant all men are equal in all things, and yet that seems to be the direction our rudderless godless society has drifted in recent years.

Today's sophists would have us believe that even in matters of marriage there must be equality - that a marriage between members of the same sex must be defined in the law as being equal to a marriage between members of the opposite sex. There is a true doctrine associated with equality between the sexes, and you'll find it here.

Do you suppose the Founders meant all men and women should be born into the same social stratus? Do you think they meant all men and women should have equal sized estates and financial acuity? Such interpretations fly in the face of even the most casual observations of the human condition. Even the founders, drawing upon their own life experiences, would have never made a declaration so simplistic and absurd on its face. It's illogical. Each of the Founders came from diverse backgrounds, opportunities for education and vastly differing degrees of success in the accumulation of varying degrees of wealth, position and influence.

If you accept that everyone should be equal in all things including marriage, would you also assert the Founders meant all men and women were equally talented in all things? Would all people have equal musical talents, writing abilities, intellectual gifts, all dispensed with equality for all? Would there be a state religion where all men and women had the identical belief about the doctrine of Christ? Why not? If we make them equal in marriage status, why wouldn't we make them equal in EVERYTHING else? Isn't that what God would do? Wouldn't that be fair and equal? And then the final step, the coup d'etat, putting the final nail in the coffin of moral agency and representative republic - let's make the state the God of equality and justice for all. All that final step requires is a benevolent dictator, and voila - a new King is crowned.

Would any of the Founders have asserted the civil government should be delegated the duty to make certain all this was accomplished with the even-handed judgment of a King Solomon? Not on your life! Your own human experience, whatever it is, would deny these assertions on their face. They are idiotic ideas, aren't they? And yet we continue to give audience to all these false doctrines in the dedicated houses of worship where we meet each week. It is astounding to me!

Franklin, Adams, Jefferson drafting the
Declaration of Independence

My reading of what happened in the Continental Congress when all these inspired men from all the Colonies got together and agreed to sign the Declaration of Independence, is very different than what I am hearing all around me today. I would assert as forcefully as I know how that the Founders meaning in that statement suggests all men were created as equally accountable to God under God's Law. Easy to say, but how would you buttress that assertion? Here's another author who understands the principles involved.

Why would I suggest they were writing of equal accountability under God's Law? The simple answer is that words have meaning and the plainer the words, the easier it is to understand what words are meant to convey. Remember, we have not only the words of the Declaration of Independence, but many of the Founders continued to write and leave behind a rich legacy of their meaning and their interpretation of those words for us. Thomas Jefferson wrote these lines, sometimes forgotten in our emotional and misguided debates today from the first paragraph, which states:

Thomas Jefferson

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” (emphasis is mine).

In this opening paragraph, the Founders were setting before their readers a fundamental and universal truth that God's law would be their standard. Emphatically, they asserted citizens, but also all civil servants tasked with the work of the government, were accountable to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." They apparently did not believe in separation of God and state. All we do, they asserted, was to be done in our interactions with one another under the all-seeing eye of God to whom we are all ultimately accountable.

Then later in the main body of the Declaration's text, they enumerated the egregious wrongs King George had inflicted upon them in violation of what? The Law of God. The colonists through their elected representatives made a compelling argument these violations by King George could no longer imbue him with their allegiance nor loyalty to his civil rule over them. King George, they remonstrated, had stepped out of his role as being subject to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and therefore they were justified in severing alliances with England and going their own way. It was a fundamental religious argument at the root of the Declaration of Independence.

Simply put, King George had moved so far away from all that was just and holy in God's Law, the colonists could not at once be under God's authority, accountable to Him and also to King George. The two were too far apart. Let's not forget how radical such an idea was in the hundreds of years before that time in England, when it was asserted the King was the Law of God on earth. England held inviolate the doctrine of "Rex Lex" - “the King is Law.” So misguided were they in those days they had come to construe passages like Romans 13 to assert that whatever the King did was what God had inspired him to do. Did you catch a comment Barack Obama made a couple of weeks ago, when he asserted those who supported the Democratic Party were "doing the work of God"? Barack "Rex Lex" Obama.

Samuel Rutherford

It would take centuries, but ultimately over the course of the 1600s, men like Samuel Rutherford began thinking in a correct way. Rutherford suggested a new interpretation he called "Lex Rex" - “the Law is King.” He put forth the idea there was only one God of Heaven to which men were accountable, and no King on earth could assert that claim to the throne. The fathers of the Reformation noticed from their studies of the Bible that all men are equally sinful before a righteous God and all men, even Kings, are equally accountable to the absolute Law of God. Along came King Charles I, who began imprisoning people without cause and tried dissolving Parliament. By then the people were wisened and took action. He was beheaded. Leaders would come along, Oliver Cromwell being one of many, who would explain King Charles I had violated the Law of God and exceeded his jurisdiction.

These are not just stodgy old stories without meaning and without application in our day. Indeed, they are as fresh as today's headlines. Our Founders were bold enough remind the world that God governs in the affairs of men. That fact alone helped them find the courage to defy the King who was a law breaker. God's Law. They were full of such faith and “firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” that they were not afraid to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

Joseph Smith

Rather than giving equal time to stupidity, especially in our houses of worship where we come for inspiration and edification on the Sabbath Day, let us herewith resolve to honor the legacy of our Founders and the Prophet of the Restoration. Let us promote and defend the truth that all men and women are equally accountable before God and His Word. Section 78 of the Doctrine and Covenants lays out the Lord's plan for making all men equal in earthly things through voluntary contributions, and that is something very different than government confiscating personal property through taxes then allocating in their all-wise interpretation of "equality".

Under God's Law, every man and woman is accountable to God’s Word “without respect of persons.” (Romans 2:11). That means there are no exceptions, no special dispensations for sinners, since we are all equally sinful under the same terms of salvation and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Redeemer through His perfection and grace. (Moroni 10:32-33).

That's what it means to be equal in all things in God's eyes, not to have civil servants who become dictators and dispense equality as they happen to interpret its meaning for us.

Not All Presidents are Created Equally

Back in the day when I was a little boy in school, we celebrated two birthdays of former US Presidents in February. On the 12th, everyone knew it was Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and the 22nd was George Washington's. For some reason this morning I was thinking about my 4th grade Social Studies class with Mrs. Baker. Her lessons about these two great men might be my earliest recollections of them and what they believed.

My teacher shared my enthusiasm for them. I remember her walls in the classroom were adorned with their portraits, and I mean all year long not just in February.

Last November, we were in Washington D.C. and visited the sites where Washington and Lincoln are enshrined. I have wondered again this morning what they would be thinking if they were alive in America today. There is a conversation going around America these days about "inequality". It is being framed by the current POTUS, a man defined only by his ideology founded in his need to make government the dispensing machine for righting all the societal wrongs and assuring economic "equality" for all Americans. As the first black POTUS, we all hoped for so much better than he has delivered. The hard fact is it is he alone who is defining all the terms. It is he alone who is dictating how laws will be applied and how they will be interpreted. It is he alone who seems willing and more than able to do whatever he wants in the execution of the duties of the government and all its branches, not merely confining himself to the duties of the executive branch.

The bastion of his false beliefs is stamped all over the Obamacare legislation known as the Affordable Care Act. The underlying premise is that it is a right for all Americans to have affordable health care coverage. He seems to be the only person who thinks his definition of "affordable" is accurate. The wrecking ball has swung wildly in all directions. So far there seems to be no distinction about whether or not one is an American citizen to qualify, only that you live here. I remember when George W. Bush was mocked as "King George" and was accused of operating an imperial presidency. Boy, those were the good old days in comparison, weren't they?

The redistribution of private wealth and capital, even private ownership of property, is being promoted as never before by this government. Our current POTUS would assert his definitions of "fairness" must mandate that all Americans be treated equally. If you fall below certain income levels, the government will be there to provide not only a social safety net, but will make the attempt to give you more than you might receive if you were gainfully employed. The net result of this attempt has been more inequality and more unfairness than ever before. Pitting the economic classes and the ethnic races against each other has been given new stature under this POTUS. We have a record number of Americans who are on food stamps. It has become a widely recognized entitlement program if your income drops below a certain annual level. The minimum wage has been given a boost and mandated at a higher rate for all government contracts, supposedly to "level the playing field". Access to health care through Obamacare and Medicare and Medicaid for all Americans equally has become a political mantra that will likely never be reversed. Instead, it will have to collapse under the weight of its towering false assumptions.

All these efforts hearken back to the "war on poverty" waged back in the sixties by the Johnson administration. Like the "war on drugs" and the previous attempts to level the economic conditions of Americans, Obamacare will fail to deliver its promised results because socialism as defined and administered by government is so badly flawed in all its attempts to equalize the worker with the owner.

Equality between the sexes is another area where public policy has run amok. There are those hailing the recent court rulings that essentially have left us with a "genderless" definition of marriage. I read yesterday of a college in America that gives people 56 different options for the "gender" question on admission forms. Really? 56? Hard to believe, but that's the silliness of men's wisdom on display for all to see. Back in 1996, in Power and Covenants: Men, Women and Priesthood, we attempted to thwart the onrushing wave of false doctrine on that issue, many would say to no avail. But we tried. Inequality in this life is a reality. Equality is a myth of man's making. How does one attempt to equate the LGBT agenda with marriage between a man and a woman? Only through suborned courts and judges. Only in the feeble attempts of men's reasoning.

In days gone by, and even today in some cases, Americans who are the risk takers have always been rewarded with success when they invest capital for the benefit of those whom they employ. I never worked for an impoverished employer. They have all been successful because their business risks were rewarded with success to the degree they had enough capital to employ others. The employees have it within their power to create the capital for their owners - work always precedes the acquisition of the capital. In countless countries around the world when the working class was dissatisfied with their condition they rose up in rebellion. It happened in Russia, it happened in France, and it happened in America. If they are dissatisfied with their daily wage, workers the world over are free to access the markets with their skills and talents and see if they can earn a better return for their labors.

History tells us Washington and Lincoln believed in these principles. For that reason they were singled out for recognition in our national celebration of their birthdays. I'm still of the mindset to single these two out above all the other generic Presidents. In a previous post entitled "A Calf's Tail" I highlighted many of their notable quotations along with several other occupants of the White House. Today, I add a few more gems to the collection.

President George Washington

Said Washington, warning about government's power:

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

With regard to the need to preserve and sustain the right to bear arms, Washington counselled:

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."

Washington believed morality in the public square could not be imposed by government. It was solely dependent upon religion:

"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

President Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln comes along over a hundred years later and offers this counsel to help us judge political sophistry unerringly:

"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."

No one believed more firmly than Lincoln that the American people were capable of making correct choices. The backbone that holds the skeleton of the Constitution together is the collective wisdom and judgment of the people:

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

So powerful were these ideas in Lincoln's mind that he dared to state unequivocally:

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."

On this Presidents Day 2014, let us keep sacred and long remember the wisdom of these two great Presidents. It should be obvious their meaning of equality had little to do with the way the terms are being defined in America today.

And, sadly, it should be obvious we are not seeing men of their stature approaching "equality" with them either.