"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.

The True Doctrine of Womanhood

God knows males and females are innately equal. “The women’s issue” is not an issue because God and his anointed servants do not see and respect this obvious equality between men and women. Instead, the problem arises from a godless society lacking an eternal perspective, failing miserably to comprehend eternal truths.

Some who have adopted the world’s view contend equality for women means God’s sons and daughters must share the same roles and duties in order to be perfectly equal. The most obvious example we see today is men and women marching shoulder to shoulder into war. In a society where heterosexual marriage is no longer considered by many to be a desirable state, where children are often viewed as an economic burden because the family farm gave way to jobs in the big city, and where lifestyle options abound outside the home and hearth of yesteryear, it is little wonder such philosophies have gained popularity among us today.

However, while the restoration of eternal truth clearly confirms males and females have the same worth, it also reveals the innate power of the sexes lies in the wonderfully different characteristics the male and female join together. Each unique half complements the whole, and only in this God-given dichotomy properly joined together can mankind continue its progression. Man and woman are not only two equal parts of one whole, they are uniquely and necessarily different parts of one grand whole. We do not want them to be the same, we do not need them to be the same.



To the contrary, in marriage they must be different. One must be male and one must be female. They cannot both be males or females. Changing the laws and taking public opinion polls, attempting to be "politically correct" will never change the true doctrine associated with women.

The male part is necessary to manufacture the seed. If there is no seed there is no life. This morning when I wished Patsy a Happy Mothers Day, her response was, "I couldn't have done it without you." And she is right. The dirty little secret among every man since Adam is that we get great pleasure in our role as men in creating children. Women, and here's the true doctrine, do all the heavy lifting. That said, there is no life without both a male and a female contribution.

The power of the seeds is the fountain of life. However, the seed must be processed or it quickly dies. The male does not have the capacity to process the seed he manufactures. He is incomplete. By himself he is not whole. He must be connected, sealed together in partnership with his other half who has the unique capacity to manufacture an egg and then process the growth of the embryo to maturity.

By himself the male cannot process the seed to produce a living soul. No matter how many male parts we might add to the whole, the whole would forever remain incomplete and impotent to bring to pass the godly work of creating life. There is no place in eternal life, God’s life, for a single male or a single female who insists upon his or her right to act alone. 

The male needs, absolutely requires, a partnership with someone different than him -- one who has unique capacity he does not have. He needs the other half, a female half, with her singular attributes. He will never be whole without her. She will never be whole without him.

Some among us who are challenged with homosexual tendencies may not fully understand the eternal implications of this fundamental precept. The Church has one singular mission -- to be an instrument in bringing to pass God’s stated work and glory, the immortality and eternal life of men and women. The Church is to assist men and women in reaching their full potential to become as God is. Because of the revealed truth inherent in the Restoration doctrines, "God" has been revealed as an exalted couple possessing the power of procreation and the mission of the Church is to help God’s children become the same. The Church has no other legitimate mission even when it appears to be completely out of step with the exigencies of modern society’s agenda.

Homosexuality is simply not an option in the attainment of parenthood. It divides and subtracts from the achievement of the full divine potential of God’s sons and daughters. While adoptive homosexual parents may be caring and nurturing parents and are increasingly recognized as a legal definition of “family,” there is no power of the seeds in the homosexual relationship. It is a lethal perversion, a fatal distortion of those tender feelings and intimate acts calculated to bond the male and female parts together heterosexually in producing eternal lives.

To expect the Church to embrace, condone or even tolerate homosexuality amounts to requiring the Church to desert its divinely mandated mission and to deny the realities of revealed eternal truth. The Church cannot do so and remain the instrument of God it was prepared to be in administering the priesthood keys that unlock the gates of eternal lives.

Parley P. Pratt

Parley P. Pratt said:

All persons who attain to the resurrection, and to salvation, without these eternal ordinances, or sealing covenants, will remain in a single state, in their saved condition, without the joys of eternal union with the other sex, and consequently without a crown, without a kingdom, without the power to increase.

Hence, they are angels, and are not gods; and are ministering spirits, or servants, in the employ and under the direction of The Royal Family of heaven -- the princes, kings and priests of eternity. (Key To The Science of Theology, 9th ed. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1965], 169-70).

In the war of words and false doctrine that engulfs us every day over homosexuality, arguments abound whether homosexual tendencies are genetic, environmental or learned behavior. While it spices debate, the answer eternally is not really relevant. Homosexual partnerships are sexually impotent. The homosexual state is as incapable in the performance of the exalted work of God as the single state. Only an eternal heterosexual union with its two different parts has omnipotent potential.

There should be no debate in the Church about the need to value and cherish our homosexually challenged brothers and sisters as individual children of God, and to advance their happiness and well-being to the highest degree possible. But none of that changes the eternal implications of their fiercely held sexual preference. They are free to choose, free to act. Choosing an alternative lifestyle here and now is always an option under the principle of moral agency. But we must not fail to help them clearly see the eternally limiting ramifications of their short-sighted choice.

As recently as last month in General Conference, President Boyd K. Packer reminded us: "Tolerance is a virtue, but like all virtues, when exaggerated, it transforms itself into a vice. We need to be careful of the “tolerance trap” so that we are not swallowed up in it. The permissiveness afforded by the weakening of the laws of the land to tolerate legalized acts of immorality does not reduce the serious spiritual consequence that is the result of the violation of God’s law of chastity."

Recognizing the two parts must be different, males and females must cherish our different natures to perform our unique tasks for the benefit and blessing of the whole. While the powers resident in the different natures and capacities of the sexes are not the same, neither are they superior or inferior to each other. They are equally necessary and valuable.

Some fail to understand the term different does not imply the meaning unequal. Different does not mean unequal. Different capacities are not unequal capacities. Different roles and duties are not necessarily unequal roles and duties. Different missions and responsibilities are not necessarily unequal missions and responsibilities. Some do not comprehend this important principle with regard to the sexes.

Total and absolute equality can and does exist within the dichotomy of the marriage covenant.