"Alive in Christ"

I am prompted this morning to say a few words about loving one another more fully. I posted online yesterday after a visit to the Mount Timpanogus Temple with Jeff for an endowment session, and I included our picture together.

Mount Timpanogus Temple

Back came this response from an anonymous source: “I genuinely miss when we drove Mormon scum out of the states.” I am not just imagining the recent escalation of anti-Mormon hatred online over this perpetual debate about whether Mormons are Christians. When I see it in my relatively obscure timeline on “X”, then it becomes real and intensely personal.

However, when I see these attacks in my timeline I am reminded that anonymous sources are simply sniping from behind whatever electronic cover is convenient. And then I even go so far as to wonder if some of these responses are nothing more than automatically generated from some AI source beyond my capacity to comprehend. Hence, I ignore them rather than attempt further engagement.

President Dallin H. Oaks in his most recent General Conference address at the conclusion of the two days, including the Solemn Assembly, observed:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44).

What a revolutionary teaching for personal relationships! Love even your enemies! But who are our enemies? The full meaning of enemies in the sources from which King James’s translators chose the word enemies includes military foes but even extends to any who actively oppose one another. Today we might say that we are commanded to love our adversaries. All mortals are beloved children of God. As President David O. McKay taught, “There is no better way to manifest love for God than to show an unselfish love for one’s fellowmen.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2026/04/49oaks?lang=eng).

Such vitriol coming from someone (or something) anonymous is one thing, but when it comes from one with whom we might be living under the same roof it is nearly unbearable. But for the saving grace offered by our Savior and Redeemer, we would be consumed and sorely tempted to fight back with all we have in retaliation. However, that is not the way of peacemakers, as suggested in President Oaks’ comments. His talk was entitled “Alive in Christ.”

… President Howard W. Hunter described this same love of God toward His children: “The world in which we live would benefit greatly if men and women everywhere would exercise the pure love of Christ, which is kind, meek, and lowly. … It has no place for bigotry, hatred, or violence. … It encourages diverse people to live together in Christian love regardless of religious belief, race, nationality, financial standing, education, or culture.” (ibid.)

It is so much easier to accept and try to live these principles on the wide stage of life in this electronic age that encompasses the broad expanse of the world at large. It’s easy for me to ignore the personal attacks like the one I cited above, but it is something quite different when we are faced with such hostility in our own homes and families.

I stood in fast and testimony meeting earlier this week to bear my witness of the divinity of my personal Savior Jesus Christ. I pointed out the simple symbols of the sacrament - the bread and the water - His flesh that was broken and tortured, producing a flow of blood from every pore in His body. His agony for the sins of those who had lived not only on this earth, but “on worlds without number” is truly mind-boggling to me. He voluntarily came to earth and surrendered, even as the Father withdrew at the height of His Son’s suffering. It was part of the Father’s plan for exaltation, including the sacrifice and the provision for a Savior in the premortal realms of the spirit world. We are instructed about those details with each endowment session we attend, as Jeff and I did yesterday.

Each of us can strive to follow our Savior in His teachings about how to relate to one another. This does not mean surrendering our values. The covenants we have made inevitably position us as devoted participants in the eternal contest between truth and error. We balance our various responsibilities.

This balancing is not easy. When we seek to keep all the commandments in our personal lives, we are sometimes accused of having no love for those who don’t. When we show personal love and support loving causes, we are sometimes misunderstood as implying support for results that contradict our other religious duties. But as followers of Christ, we should seek to live peaceably and lovingly with other children of God who do not share our values and do not have the covenant obligations we have assumed. In a democratic government we should seek fairness for all. In countless circumstances, strangers’ suspicions or even hostility gradually gives way to friendship when personal contacts produce mutual respect.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that we should “pour forth love” to all people. Speaking of our Savior, the Apostle John wrote, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We can follow the example of Jesus Christ, who is our role model, by choosing to love others — even if they show little or no love toward us. He declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9; see also 3 Nephi 12:9). (ibid., emphasis mine).

“Peacemakers” is (or should be) endemic in our discipleship, if we are truly followers of Jesus Christ who can be accurately characterized as Christians. Our critics outside the Church seem to be unrelenting. I suspect they will persist in their attacks until the Savior comes again to put an end to it all.

I read again about the Israelite child king Josiah yesterday after the temple session when I returned home. He was ordained at the age of eight, a descendant of King David. King Josiah reigned as the 16th king of Judah from approximately 640 to 609 BCE, ascending the throne at the age of eight after the assassination of his father, King Amon (2 Kings 22:1; 2 Chronicles 34:1). Despite his youth, he became one of Judah’s most righteous kings, contrasting sharply with his predecessors, including his grandfather Manasseh and father Amon, who had promoted idolatry. He tore down the “groves” where idolatry was prevalent among the Israelites, and restored the sanctity of temple worship. He opposed wickedness, and established peace in the people who were constantly swinging back and forth in their discipleship from the time they had been delivered from Egypt.

Putting this all in context, let me simply say that we are living in the end of times, truly, when our faith in Jesus Christ as our Deliverer is being tested to the uttermost degree imaginable. Be comforted, therefore, that what we are experiencing right now is not without precedent from Old Testament times until now. Remaining steadfast in our discipleship is not only desirable, it is also possible.

We have not been abandoned simply because moral agency is playing out right before our eyes. Some will choose poorly, determined to “win” in this world at the expense of others, simply because their definition of “winning” is tainted and corrupted.

Winning was defined instead as submitting in exchange for the fulfillment of a higher purpose - exaltation in the eternal realms up ahead.

We will attain those higher goals one day, as improbable as it may seem today. Of that reality I am growing daily in confidence.

USS New York

USS New York

Motto:  "Never Forget"

This was forwarded to me earlier today. . .

USS New York. . . it was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.  Note the "twin towers" in the design of the ship.

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite (ay-MEET), Louisiana, to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on September 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Captain Kevin Wensing, who was there.  "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up."

"It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said. "They knocked us down.  They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."

The ship's motto?  "Never Forget"

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What I will never forget is a First Presidency Message written for the Ensign by President Spencer W. Kimball, "The False Gods We Worship." 

The occasion was the upcoming 1976 bi-centennial celebration of the United States of America's signing of the Declaration of Independence.  It was published in the June 1976 edition of the Ensign, when everyone else was focused on the greatness of America's 200-year old on-going "experiment" with freedom.  The widespread reaction to the article was indifference, if not total denial.

(For an in-depth treatise on the topic, see Hugh Nibley in The Prophetic Book of Mormon.) 

The living prophet at the time, however, struck a completely discordant view, when he said in part:

And so it often seems to be with people, having such a firm grasp on things of the world — that which is telestial — that no amount of urging and no degree of emergency can persuade them to let go in favor of that which is celestial. Satan gets them in his grip easily. If we insist on spending all our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is exactly what we will inherit.

In spite of our delight in defining ourselves as modern, and our tendency to think we possess a sophistication that no people in the past ever had — in spite of these things, we are, on the whole, an idolatrous people — a condition most repugnant to the Lord.

We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel — ships, planes, missiles, fortifications — and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44–45).

We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us — and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Nephi 1:7) — or he will fight our battles for us (Exodus 14:14; D&C 98:37, to name only two references of many). This he is able to do, for as he said at the time of his betrayal, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53). We can imagine what fearsome soldiers they would be. King Jehoshaphat and his people were delivered by such a troop (see 2 Chronicles 20), and when Elisha’s life was threatened, he comforted his servant by saying, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them” (2 Kings 6:16). The Lord then opened the eyes of the servant, “And he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:17).

Enoch, too, was a man of great faith who would not be distracted from his duties by the enemy: “And so great was the faith of Enoch, that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch.” (Moses 7:13).

What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies.

We must leave off the worship of modern-day idols and a reliance on the “arm of flesh,” for the Lord has said to all the world in our day, “I will not spare any that remain in Babylon.” (D&C 64:24).

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Those pesky prophets -- they're just so contrarian!