![\"Constantinian](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/09\/435px-Constantine_burning_Arian_books.jpg\")
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An interesting article:<\/p>\n
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\u201cMormons want to save the planet \u2014 it\u2019s part of their theology \u2014 but many shy away from being called environmentalists\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I agree that there is scriptural warrant \u2014 there has been from the very beginning, from right there in the story of Adam and Eve \u2014 for Latter-day Saints to be concerned stewards of nature and our planet. \u00a0And it\u2019s very likely that we haven\u2019t given that subject enough thought. \u00a0Perhaps especially of late. \u00a0A major reason for that neglect is that environmentalism has come to be associated with left-leaning politics and with the expansion of government power. \u00a0Is there an effective way to be an \u201cenvironmentalist\u201d without being a statist? \u00a0This seems to me an important and rather urgent question.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I found this a worthwhile piece:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow do Mormons know what they know?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been criticized as a moral coward and a craven corporate bootlicker for failing, thus far, to speak out on the allegations of sexual abuse recently leveled against a past president of the Missionary Training Center in Provo.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve had several reasons for remaining quiet on the issue. \u00a0Notable among them is the fact that I have no special information or insight regarding the matter \u2014 I had never even heard<\/em> of the man until his name showed up in the papers \u2014 and, hence, nothing especially important to say<\/em> about it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know whether he\u2019s guilty or not. \u00a0Candidly, I was inclined, at first, to tentatively credit the charges. \u00a0The accused seemed, albeit quite vaguely, to concede having done or thought inappropriately. \u00a0But then this came along, leaving me a bit more unsure:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAmid quiet life in Chandler, explosive sexual-assault allegations hit Mormon leader\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It seems to me that I have no special standing and no particular calling to declare a public verdict.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But I can\u2019t approve (though I\u2019m not surprised by) attempts to use the case as a weapon against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>. \u00a0I\u2019ve never doubted that wickedness and hypocrisy exist in the Church, that unworthy people sometimes enter our temples and represent us as missionaries and even hold leadership positions. \u00a0This is unsurprising.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Where it threatens others, such evil should be identified and excised. \u00a0Gross immorality in the Church merits Church discipline. \u00a0Crimes merit criminal punishment. \u00a0And, if problems in reporting or in dealing with such offenses become apparent, they should be fixed. \u00a0But the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn should never be forgotten:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. . . .<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Moreover, as I\u2019ve thought about the case, I\u2019ve failed to see how, even if the accused is guilty, this would prove that Joseph Smith had no gold plates, or that there were no Nephites, or that there is no God. \u00a0And those are the questions that interest me most intensely. \u00a0If there is a God who inspired the Nephites to keep a record on golden plates that was eventually translated as the Book of Mormon, the rest \u2014 all the good and, yes, all the evil \u2014 is footnotes. \u00a0Sometimes painful<\/em> footnotes, to be sure. \u00a0(Please let nobody interpret me as having minimized the suffering of abused children or victimized women, let alone that perpetrated by the Mountain Meadows Massacre or the \u00a0Nazi Holocaust or the Gulag or the Ukrainian terror-famine or the Cambodian killing fields.) \u00a0But, in the end, the most fundamentally important truth for me is partially but well captured in a statement from the Prophet Joseph Smith: \u00a0\u201cAll your losses will be made up to you in the\u00a0resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it.\u201d \u00a0If the Prophet\u2019s declaration is correct, it puts everything else into a very different perspective.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On a somewhat related matter,<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMormon leaders unveil new rules allowing another adult in room for interviews\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You might think that, since I\u2019m a life-long and very serious political conservative \u2014 e.g., I supported Barry Goldwater for president as a pre-teen, whereas my parents voted for Lyndon Johnson; my subscription to National Review<\/em>, which began when I was thirteen,\u00a0continued through my mission and continues to this day; I helped to host William F. Buckley Jr. when he spoke at BYU while I was an undergraduate; I volunteered in the gubernatorial and presidential campaigns for Ronald Reagan; I\u2019ve spoken several times at the annual libertarian Freedom Fest<\/a>\u00a0in Las Vegas, and will do so again this year \u2014 I would be at home on a Facebook site called LDS Conservatives.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You would evidently be wrong.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A friend has called my attention to the reaction, on that site, to my article on Islam in the current Ensign<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Thus far, I\u2019ve merely skimmed some of the comments, but I\u2019m being mocked there as pretending to an expertise on Islam that I don\u2019t actually possess and have been described as, among other things, a \u201cfool\u201d and a \u201ctool of Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some are evidently puzzled at the insidious method by which I managed to smuggle such pro-Islamic propaganda into the pages of the magazine \u2014 and particularly, at my fiendish timing, in the issue appearing at Easter. \u00a0One fellow says that, within an hour of receiving his copy, he announced to his bishop that he would forthwith be \u201cstructuring his tithing\u201d \u2014 how one does this, I have no idea \u2014 so that BYU receives absolutely no support from him in the future. \u00a0Another person even boasts of having, along with her husband, ripped out and burned my article so that it would not sully the purity of the remainder of the Ensign<\/em>\u2018s pages.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s one fact worth noting: \u00a0I didn\u2019t propose the article, nor did I volunteer to write it. \u00a0It was requested. \u00a0By whom? \u00a0By the same priesthood quorum that will preside at and conduct the meetings of General Conference this weekend.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You may have missed this delightful article, of which Matthew Wheeler kindly reminded me:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n