Rather than the Ten Commandments, let’s erect monuments of the Sermon on the Mount, surely the pithiest expression of Christian ideals.

I hear some hemming and hawing.  Why?  Would it be inconvenient for America and Americans to publicly acknowledge the need to be meek and merciful, to rejoice in persecution, to eschew anger, to be well-disposed to adversaries, to avoid not only immoral acts but immoral thoughts, to turn the other cheek, to give more than what’s asked of us, to carry the equipment of a soldier of an occupying army twice as far as the law requires [or the modern situational equivalent of such an odious act], to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us?

I propose that the Christian members of this nation build monuments, not in parks or on buildings, but within ourselves of the Sermon on the Mount.  Christians should be, each of us ourselves, monuments to our faith.

But a plaque of the Ten Commandments is easy.  They are a very low hurdle that one can comply with and feel good about himself.  We can hang a plaque, have a ribbon cutting ceremony, pat ourselves on the back for another anchor to the Christian character of America, and go on living in exactly the same way we did before.

On the other hand inscribing the Sermon on the Mount in our granite hearts is SOOO hard.  There is no ribbon cutting ceremony, because the task is never done.  There are repeated failures and set-backs along the way.  But as we build these monuments, we cannot continue to live the same lives we have.  We must change for the better.  And it is my belief that these internal monuments will do more for reinforcement of the true Christian character (humble, merciful, meek, generous, and foregiving) of our society than a million plaques of the Ten Commandments in government buildings.

The other day I saw a news article that said that Glenn Beck, a nationally-syndicated political talk show host who also has a TV show, a man who has millions of listeners/viewers, told them that if their churches mentioned “social justice” or “economic justice” (what he called political “code words” for communism, etc.), his listeners should leave their churches.  This was shocking to me, first because Beck and I are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and I can’t reconcile what he said with the doctrine I know from our church.  Isn’t this a violations of the First of the Ten Commandments?  And secondly, because anyone who actually took his advice widened one of the biggest rips in the fabric of our society.

I’m talking about the fact that all of us are bound together in an eternal family.  In too much of the political discourse lately, there has been demonizing, name-calling, and dehumanizing.  To what end?  To get the trajectory of the country to move a fraction of a degree to the left or the right.  At what cost?  We are sacrificing our kinship with our fellow man to our political objectives.  

We are too willing to create a chasm between “us and them,” refusing to acknowledge that they are us and we are them.  We are encouraged, even commanded by partisan leaders and “men of words” to vilify and hate the others.  As Eric Hoffer observed, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”  Partisans are inculcating us with unreasonable fear and then wielding that fear to further their own goals at all costs, not through cooperation and understanding but through accusation and obfuscation, because, in the words of Hoffer, “[the fanatic] fears compromise” and “sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

The partisans prefer that we adopt the thoughts of the group because, as David Brooks wrote in a recent column, “People who are thinking in the group mode are loyal, disciplined and vicious against foes. People in the person-to-person mode are soft, unpredictable and hard to organize.”

Politically the group mode of thinking is valuable, but what is our raison d’être?  God didn’t create us to help our parties win elections or to move the country left or right; we’re here to obey Him.  And we cannot bifurcate our spiritual lives from our political lives.  If we cannot reconcile them, then at least one of them is false, and in trying to maintain them separate and separately, we can find no peace or balance.  Hoffer saw this as an intentional state of mind effected by the men of words: “By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”  Many of us seek peace and balance in spirituality; in fact for some it is the primary reason for religion.  Why would we surrender that balance to the ideologies of other people whom we don’t really know and whose motivations we can’t fathom?

We Americans have gotten into a habit of checking our spirituality at the door of political discussion (and expecting the same of other cultures).  We shouldn’t do this; we shouldn’t be ABLE to do this because our faith should be so much an integral part of our personal constitution.  It should be the backing of our tapestry, not an accent color on it.

But the “men of words,” who also usually claim to be God-fearing men, want us to follow a different doctrine.  They want us to embrace a political doctrine that is contrary to our spiritual doctrine.  And how can we argue with them when they’re so darn accurate?  George Orwell, in his great essay “Notes on Nationalism” said, “Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties” (he defined “nationalism” as “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit [read political party], placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests”).

Accuracy is not truth.  All half-truths are accurate; that’s the “truth” part.  But they’re not only untrue, but anti-true.  And this is one of the biggest tools the “men of words” use.  They use accurate half-truths to demonize “the others” and make them seem less than human so that we can justify hating them.  Hoffer further noted, “To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”  So if they can get us to do no more than use derogatory nick-names for down-the-political-spectrum people or parties, they have pushed us down the road of hatred to the point where, as Orwell put it, “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage . . . which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.”

We must change how we each participate in the political debate; not for the nation but for our own souls.  We must acknowledge the humanity of those we do not agree with.  We must take up John Adams’s “pacific and friendly disposition” in negotiation and debate.  But mostly we must remember that every person we’re told we should vilify and hate is a child of God and a heavenly sibling.  And knowing how He loves us, we can assume how He feels when we treat His children the way we sometimes do.  And if we just can’t do it, if we just can’t see the other’s perspective, understand her motives, then it’s time for mom’s advice to come into use.  “If you can’t say something nice (about God’s children), don’t say anything at all.”

Its comments pertain to the Tea Party movement, the Obama campaign, political shock-jocks (Sean O’Limbeck and Air AmOlbermann), party politics and legislative maneuvering, terrorism, nationalism, torture, religion, power, kindness, leadership, creativity, personal fulfillment, and a thousand other topics that occupy our 21^st Century minds, books and airwaves.

His commentary is bare and unapologetic.  He seems to have little patience for those weak-willed enough to be sucked in by a mass movement.  But he also acknowledges that some movements are good, while others are not.  He looks at only the characteristics and tactics, not the morality of the movement.  So he will use an example of the American Revolution alongside the Nazi movement to illustrate the same point.

Hoffer’s writing style is pithy and aphoristic.  Each word is precise; each paragraph is a meal to be digested.  There is no waste.  The author himself went blind at the age of seven but his sight returned at age 15.  “Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading” (the Wikipedia article on him is quite interesting).  He was a gold prospector, a homeless genius, a door-to-door orange salesman, a migrant worker, and finally a longshoreman until he retired at 65.

Below are some (a LOT) of quotes from the book.  The timelessness of the thought demonstrates the soundness of the mind that produced them.  (One small explanation: a “radical” is a left-wing fanatic, while a “reactionary” is a right-wing fanatic.)

The True Believer will change the way you think about almost everything.  And it’s not for the faint of heart, testimony, or personal conviction, because the book itself could become a holy cause to some.

Enjoy!

“[T]hough ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious.”

“Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo.”

“[A] mass movement, particularly in its active revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.”

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.  When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”

“[T]o the frustrated the present is irremediably spoiled.  Comforts and pleasures cannot make it whole.  No real content of comfort can ever arise in their minds but from hope.”

“There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members.”

“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”

“Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach.”

“We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”

“Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration.”

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.”

“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses.  Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.”

“The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one’s individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.”

“[Armies’] uniforms, flags, emblems, parades, music, and elaborate etiquette and ritual are designed to separate the soldier from his flesh-and-blood self and mask the overwhelming reality of life and death.”

“To lose one’s life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.”

“There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or ‘of those who are to be.’”

“[T]here is no more potent dwarfing of the present that by viewing it as a mere link between a glorious past and a glorious future.  Thus, though a mass movement at first turns its back on the past, it eventually develops a vivid awareness, often specious, of a distant glorious past.”

“The conservative doubts that the present can be bettered, and he tries to shape the future in the image of the present.  He goes to the past for reassurance about the present. . . .”

“The reactionary does not believe that man has unfathomed potentialities for good in him.  If a stable and healthy society is to be established, it must be patterned after the proven models of the past.  He sees the future as a glorious restoration rather than an unprecedented innovation.”

“[The reactionary’s] image of the past is based less on what it actually was than on what he wants the future to be.”

“If [the radical] has to employ violence in shaping the new, his view of man’s nature darkens and approaches closer to that of the reactionary.”

“What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as they decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come from the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more—and there is. By expatiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation.”

“Those who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible.  It is a device to camouflage their shortcomings.”

“Satan did not digress to tell all he knew when he said: ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life.’  All he hath—yes.  But he sooner dies than yield aught of that which he hath not yet.”

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”

“By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”

“The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Often, indeed, it is his need for passionate attachment which turns every cause he embraces into a holy cause.”

“[The fanatic] fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.”

“[The fanatics of various hues] hate each other with the hatred of brothers.  They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul.  And it is easier for a fanatic communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism, or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal.”

“[The fanatic] sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

“[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent.”

“To qualify as a devil, a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry.”

“[M]uch of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred.”

“There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.”

“To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”

“There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality.”

“[W]hen we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

“Propaganda by itself succeeds mainly with the frustrated. Their throbbing fears, hopes and passions crowd at the portals of their senses and get between them and the outside world. They cannot see but what they have already imagined, and it is the music of their own souls they hear in the impassioned words of the propagandist. Indeed, it is easier for the frustrated to detect their own imaginings and hear the echo of their own musings in impassioned double-talk and sonorous refrains than in precise words joined together with faultless logic.”

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership.  What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

“There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.”

“When the leader in a free society becomes contemptuous of the people, he sooner or later proceeds on the false and fatal theory that all men are fools, and eventually blunders into defeat.”

Quoting Hermann Rauschning: “Marching diverts men’s thoughts.  Marching kills thought.  Marching makes an end of individuality.”

“Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without.”

“It is [the chosen devil’s] voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges.”

Quoting Montaigne: “Our zeal works wonders when it seconds our propensity to hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion.”

“By elevating dogma above reason, the individual’s intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant.”

“Whenever we find a dispensation enduring beyond its span of competence, there is either an entire absence of an educated class or an intimate alliance between those in power and the men of words.”

“When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism.  We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point.”

“[The man of action (leader of a mass movement in its post-fanatical phase)] inclines, therefore, to rely mainly on drill and coercion.  He finds the assertion that all men are cowards less debatable than that all men are fools, and, in the words of Sir John Maynard, inclines to found the new order on the necks of the people rather than in their hearts.”

“[A]t the end of its vigorous span, the movement is an instrument of power for the successful and an opiate for the frustrated.”

“Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of a society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.”

Why does English have so many cognates with Romance languages if it’s supposed to be Germanic? One of my linguistics professors told our class that 80% of the words we use everyday are Germanic, but 75% of the words in the English dictionary are of French origin, adopted into the language during the centuries-long reign of the French in Britain after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. French became, well, the lingua franca, literally translated as “French language,” but meaning the language generally spoken or the universal language. English is the modern lingua franca, follow closely by Mandarin.

So are we more Germanic or more Romantic because of our language uses? Does language affect society? Yes, but not linguistically, instead semantically. And those who have begun to change American English are not conquerors in the traditional sense, but they are leaving their imprint on the language—and on society. There is a list of words I hate to hear, and I want to change their usage.

Productive - “A productive member of society.” Are we a bunch of bees or ants, killing ourselves for the queen, building a hive or colony for the sole purpose of propagating the species? No. Can someone be helpful to society without “producing” something for future consumption? Yes. Therefore, I propose ditching “productive” and using instead “contributive.” The contemporaries of Socrates, much less himself, would not have called him productive. And yet his contributions are going strong millennia later. Composers, artists, writers all contribute greatly to society, but capitalists would disagree, unless their works could be sold for profit. Think of the greatest thinkers of all time versus the greatest producers of all time. Which has contributed more to society, made us what we are, stood the test of time? Which will be remembered in future millennia?

Bipartisan – This is just the most common of many words that imply the inevitability and irrevocability of the two-party system in the U.S. The plurality of Americans are neither Republicans nor Democrats—they are registered independents. Guess who came up with the phrase “the big-three auto-makers”: Chrysler, of course, because it wanted to be lumped in with its MUCH bigger brothers, GM and Ford. Guess who propagates the implied inevitability of the two-party system through terms such as “bipartisan”: the two parties who don’t want any competition. If Libertarians could ever get a cogent message together or a charismatic leader, they could really upset the apple cart.

A corollary to this is the concept of the “aisle,” as in “both sides of the aisle,” or “the other side of the aisle.” It makes it seem like there is this huge void between right and left, where ne’er the twain shall meet. In fact, the majority of Americans sit in the aisle, between left and right. The aisle deserves to be listened to, not just walked on.

The national interest – Although this term seems innocuous enough—the nation is the whole of its people—it is abused to undermine the interests of the people. National interest usually means one of three things—economic interests, governmental interests, or military interests. This category will include unfair trade relations, pressure to establish military bases (you go, Kyrgyzstan!), torture, war in general, deficit spending, and many others. Citizens must constantly remind their representatives that we make up the nation; not the economy, nor the military, nor the government itself. Otherwise, politicians will continue to believe their own erroneous definitions.

Christian nation – In the movie Cry, the Beloved Country, based on Alan Patton’s book about racism, forgiveness and redemption, the white murder victim, a champion for the poor native South Africans, just before he is shot (ironically by an African youth), pens sardonically something like, “When we say we are Christians, we mean we are white.” We can substitute “American” for “White” and encapsulate the philosophy of too many of our countrymen. For them, the two words are interchangeable in their inherent righteousness. And yet, this “Christian nation” does too many unchristian things, with the knowledge and approval of the self-professed Christians living within it. We do not “turn the other cheek,” “sell that [we have] and give to the poor,” or even try to “[have] all things common.” We, as a nation, ignore the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments. Also from Cry, the Beloved Country (this time the book) comes the following quote: “The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.” If Christian conservatives understood and lived the laws of Christianity, we would indeed be able to shrink the size of government, a favorite rallying cry, because the hated entitlement programs would be moot, because “public assistance would simply be Christians “lift[ing] up the hands which hang down.” We would not fear the terrorists, illegal immigrants, or higher taxes. If Christian liberals lived the laws of Christianity, they would abandon their salvation-by-legislation philosophy and strengthen their stances against abortion and the disintegration of the family.

How many Christians in American do you know who would have a hard time saying, “I am a Christian before I am an American”? All Christians in America should be able to say this freely and with deep sincerity, but it sticks in the throat of too many who believe America to be the true source of salvation, focusing on the temporal—ignorant of the teachings of Christ.

Thinking Americans need to take back our language. We need to be the drivers of politics, government, society, and language. Words should not be misused by our representatives to confuse, control, and hypnotize us. Only when we can use a pen effectively can it be mightier than the sword.

The vessel for this criticism is a story about Nekhlyudov, a child of privilege who falls to the temptations of his society. He seduces a peasant girl on his aunts’ farm and never looks back. He recognizes her years later as he sits on a jury trying her for murder. He finds out that he had left the girl pregnant, and that she has eventually become a prostitute. This shakes him so deeply that he decides to reform and do what is right. He slips a few times, but does not fall, in his resolve to do right by the girl. He eventually follows her to Siberia, intending to live at least close to her throughout her sentence. I won’t give away any more of the plot than that.

There were many great quotes from the book. Believe it or not, I did exclude some of them from the list below:

On Prisons
“Terrible were the brutalized jailers, whose occupation is to torment their brothers, and who were certain that they were fulfilling an important and useful duty.”

“[The prisoners] were deprived of the chief motives that induce weak people to live good lives—regard for public opinion, a sense of shame, and the consciousness of human dignity.”

“The only explanation of what was being done was that it aimed at the prevention of crime, at inspiring awe, at correcting offenders, and at dealing out to them ‘lawful justice’ as the books said. But in reality, nothing in the least resembling these results came to pass. Instead of vice being put to a stop, it only spread farther; instead of being frightened, the criminals were encouraged (many a tramp returned to prison of his own free will); instead of correction, every kind of vice was systematically instilled; while the desire for vengeance, far from being weakened by the measures of the government, was instilled into the people, to whom it was not natural.”

“[T]he only certain means of salvation from the terrible evil from which men are suffering is that they should always acknowledge themselves to be guilty before God, and therefore unable to punish or reform others. . . .”

“Vicious men were trying to reform other vicious men, and thought they could do it by mechanical means.”

On High Society
“[S]he thought more of him that anybody else and therefore evidently understood him. This understanding of him, that is, the recognition of his superior worth, was a proof to Nekhlyudov of her good sense and correct judgment.”

“Nekhlyudov . . . felt with his whole being a loathing for the society in which he had lived till then: that society which so carefully hides the sufferings borne by millions to assure ease and pleasure to a small minority, that the people comprising it do not and cannot see these sufferings nor the cruelty and wickedness of their own lives.”

“’But they suffer. You are a Christian and believe in the Gospel teaching and yet you are so pitiless.’
’That has nothing to do with it. The Gospels are the Gospels, but what is disgusting remains disgusting.’”

“It was clear that everything considered important and good was insignificant and repulsive, and that all this glamour and luxury hid the old well-known crimes, which not only remained unpunished but were adorned with all the splendor men can devise.”

“The law . . . is only an instrument for upholding the existing order of things to the advantage of [the ruling] class.”

On Law
“[T]hese people acknowledge as law what is not law, and do not acknowledge as law at all, the eternal, immutable law written by God in the hearts of men.”

On the Carnal Man vs. the Spiritual Man
“[A]ll this terrible change had come about because he had ceased to believe himself and had taken to believing others. This he had done because it was too difficult to live believing one’s self: believing one’s self, one had to decide every question, not in favor of one’s animal I, which is always seeking for easy gratification, but in almost every case against it. Believing others, there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided already, and always in favor of the animal I and against the spiritual. Nor was this all. Believing in his own self, he was always exposing himself to the censure of those around him; believing others, he had their approval.”

“All men live and act partly according to their own, partly according to other people’s ideas. The extent to which they do the one or the other is one of the chief things that differentiate men.”

“The tempter that had been speaking to him in the night again raised his voice, trying to lead him out of the realm of his inner life into the realm of his outer life, away from the question of what he should do, to the question of what the consequences would be and what would be practical.”

“In Nekhlyudov, as in every man, there were two beings; one the spiritual, seeking only that kind of happiness for himself which tends towards the happiness of all; the other, the animal man, seeking only his own happiness, and ready to sacrifice to it the happiness of the rest of the world.”

On Man’s Stewardship for his Fellowman
“It was simple because he was thinking now, not of what would be the results for him, but only of what he ought to do. And, strange to say, what he ought to do for himself he could not decide, but what he ought to do for others he knew indubitably.”

“The earth cannot be anyone’s property; it cannot be bought or sold anymore than water, air, or sunshine. All have an equal right to the advantages it gives to men.”

“If once we admit—be it only for an hour or in some exceptional case—that anything can be more important that a feeling of love for our fellows, then there is no crime which we may not commit with easy minds, free from feelings of guilt.”

On the Military
“Military life in general depraves men. It places them in conditions of complete idleness, that is, absence of all rational and useful work; frees them from their common human duties, which it replaces by merely conventional duties to the honor of the regiment, the uniform, the flag; and while giving them on the one hand absolute power over other men, also puts them into conditions of servile obedience to those of higher ranks than themselves.”

“[The General] had received [the Order of the White Cross], which he greatly prized, while serving in the Caucasus, because a number of Russian peasants, with cropped hair, dressed in uniforms and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed at his command more than a thousand men who were defending their liberty, their homes, and their families.”

“These regulations had inevitably to be fulfilled, and hence it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of that fulfillment. The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of becoming weak in the execution of the obligations that seemed to him so very important.”

On Society Generally
“[T]he opinion of the [jury] foreman began to gain ground, chiefly because all the jurymen were getting tired, and preferred to take up the view that would bring them sooner to a decision and thus liberate them.”

“People whom fate and their sin-mistakes have placed in a certain position, however false that position may be, form a view of life in general which makes their position seem good and admissible. In order to keep up their view of life, these people instinctively keep to the circle of those who share their views of life and of their own place in it.”

“It was clear that she considered herself a heroine ready to lay down her life for the success of her cause; yet she could hardly have explained what that cause was, or in what its success consisted.”

“[A]ll sorts of violence, cruelty, and inhumanity, are not only tolerated but even sanctioned by Government when it suits its purpose.”

But recently, reading Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy, I saw the parable in a whole new light. Tolstoy says:

“The husbandmen imagined that the vineyard in which they were sent to work for their master was their own, and all that was in it was made for them, and that their business was to enjoy life in this vineyard—forgetting the master and killing all those who reminded them of his existence.

“Are we not doing the same . . . when we imagine ourselves to be masters of our lives and that life is given us for enjoyment? For evidently this is absurd. We were sent here by someone’s will and for some purpose, and we have concluded that we live only for our own enjoyment. And of course things go ill with us, as they do with laborers when they do not fulfill their master’s orders.”

Peculiar to America is the notion that God established this nation and its government, but, like the husbandmen in the parable, we, the stewards of the vineyard, have tried to expropriate for ourselves what is His. I was told the other day that if I chose to refuse to fight for my country on grounds of my Christian beliefs, it would be “immoral.” ‘Splain me that, Lucy. This land is whose land? God created America for His purposes, not vice versa.

We criticize the first-Christmas innkeeper for not making room, but at least he had the excuse that he didn’t know. We, the husbandmen, know when we are denying Him room and driving the Master’ Son from the vineyard.

One of the temptations Lucifer offered Christ was “all the kingdoms of the world,” ironic since Christ created the world and was bound to inherit it if he didn’t fall for the temptations. Are we any different from Satan if we think the world is ours to keep or give? The husbandmen told themselves when the son of the master approached, “This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14).

We don’t want to be reminded of our subordinate position or of our stewardship, or especially that all the vineyard has to offer is not ours. We Americans consume four times our share of the earth’s bounty—at least those of us who don’t go hungry. We think it is our right as a “heaven-rescued land,” but we ignore the second commandment, to love our neighbor.

And the question rises again: who is our neighbor? The Iranian, the North Korean, the Cuban, the Venezuelan, the Iraqi, the Syrian, the Congolese, the Sudanese. These are some of the counterparts for Americans to the Samaritans. Who else is my neighbor? The illegal immigrant, the prisoner, the “Welfare Queen,” the drop-out. But wait! They have betrayed the law of the vineyard, which is, “Work hard and you’ll earn enough to go on vacation every year and retire early.” They don’t deserve of the bounty of our American vineyard. They desecrate the credo “May God thy gold refine / ‘Til all success be nobleness / And every gain divine!”

I believe that God did set this nation aside. But why? So we could grow fat, dumb and selfish? So we could accumulate wealth? No, it was to bring about His own designs. What are they? What is the Master going to do with the fruits of this vineyard? We don’t know. But we can certainly keep in mind whose vineyard it is, listen to His messengers, and accept His Son into His vineyard with the respect and love due Him.

“‘All men and women are . . . literally the sons and daughters of Deity. . . . Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body.’ Every person who was ever born on earth was our spirit brother or sister in heaven. The first spirit born to our heavenly parents was Jesus Christ. Because we are the spiritual children of our heavenly parents, we have inherited the potential to develop their divine qualities. If we choose to do so, we can become perfect, just as they are.”

This paragraph illustrates three important ideas. First, we have “heavenly parents” of whom we were “begotten”—this means we have a Heavenly Mother along with a Heavenly Father, otherwise we could not have been “begotten.” Second, our gender as male or female was established when we were “spiritually born,” long before our mortal birth. Third, we have the ability to become like God.

“When we lived with our Heavenly Father, he explained a plan for our progression. We could become like him, an exalted being. . . . [After our mortal life, those who are worthy of ‘exaltation’ or ‘eternal life,’ meaning achieve the highest levels of salvation and heaven] will have their righteous family members with them and will be able to have spirit children also. These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father. They will be an eternal family.”

This paragraph illustrates the belief that our divine objective of life is to become like God, including continuing life through spiritual offspring. This will be as impossible between same-gender immortals as it is between same-gender mortals.

Anything that we do that makes us less like God is sin. Therefore, because part of becoming gods is, we’ll say “propagating the spiritual species,” homosexuality distances one from Godhood.

This does not mean that people with homosexual tendencies are hated by the church. We are all sinners, and it really doesn’t matter if homosexual tendencies are inborn or acquired any more than it matters whether tendencies toward anger, gambling, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, or any other god-distancing practice are inborn or acquired. None of these tendencies we have should be acted upon, no matter how strong or fundamental the urge. Part of the purpose of the Church is to get the children of God to leave off and avoid sinning, no matter what that sin is.

I think that those who try to convince the church to “come around,” including many of its own members, don’t understand the doctrines outlined above. This isn’t a principle that will change over time, because homosexuality is fundamentally contrary to the reason for our existence.

The word “rich” or “riches” appears many times in the New Testament. Most of the occurrences refer to spiritual riches and the riches of God or those given by God. But many of them refer to temporal wealth. Only two of these are not held as a criticism of the holder of riches, and it is interesting to note them. The first is Zacchaeus (Luke 19:2-9) who was wealthy but told the Lord, “half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.” This was obviously true because “Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house.” The second example was Joseph of Arimathaea who gave his own sepulcher for the burial of Christ’s body. These two show what wealth should be used for. The Book of Mormon prophet Jacob elaborated, “ye will seek [riches] for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted” (Jacob 2:19). Moses wrote, “And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them” (Moses 7:18). How did it happen that there were no poor?

Recently there has been a huge brouhaha about “redistributing” wealth, and how anti-American the concept is. Let’s look at it through a New Testament lens. Acts 2:44-45 says, “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” Acts 4:32 says, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.” Judging from these cites and the statements from Zacchaeus, Moses and Jacob above, redistributing wealth is exactly what we should be doing.

Now, before I get called a socialist and get hung in effigy, let me make clear that the government is not the proper tool for doing this (I hear a sigh of relief). However, how do we go about it? Many want to continue in our comfortable ways until compelled to act by commandment. But hasn’t the commandment already been given in so many different ways? “Feed my sheep,” “pure religion,” “Come follow me.” And should we not begin taking steps toward the kind of world we know Christ would like to return to? Or do we secretly hope to delay his coming until we have a nice nest egg saved up for retirement?

Most give to charity, but are we like the rich who cast into the treasury of our abundance, or does it pinch just a bit (Mark 12: 41-44)? If it doesn’t pinch, is it a sacrifice?

The Encyclopædia Britannica encapsulates what I think has become a widely held spiritual justification for greed: “German sociologist Max Weber, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–05), held that the Protestant ethic was an important factor in the economic success of Protestant groups in the early stages of European capitalism; because worldly success could be interpreted as a sign of eternal salvation, it was vigorously pursued.” Too many of us believe that if we are righteous, we’ll be not only temporally but financially rewarded. If the question is reversed and we ask, “Are movie stars and hedge-fund managers wealthy because of their righteousness?” it is laughable. And yet we hold to the hope that God wants to reward our righteousness with wealth.

Much has also been made lately of the end of America with ridiculous statements of anti-Christs and economic collapse. In the face of such thinking, we need to ask, “Who is our Savior?” Is it a politician? an economic trend? a share price? a judicial appointment? Leo Tolstoy wrote with an ironic pen in Resurrection that a liaison official between the Church (Russian Orthodox) and the government thought “It was his duty to maintain, and to defend by external measures not excluding violence, that Church which, by its own declaration, was established by God himself and could not be shaken by the gates of hell or any human effort. This divine and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human institution.”

Too many people have told me they believe President-Elect Obama will undermine the divinely-inspired Constitution. Don’t they think Divinity can protect His work? In God do We Trust? If God wants America to continue to receive blessings, we better be worthy of them. If he does not, no politician, political party, agenda, or stance will quell his wrath. But what will? I think abandoning our idolatry of the Almighty Dollar is a good first step. And if none of this convinces you to be less greedy, then give more to charities—it will reduce your taxes.

Adherents to mass movements are often seeking conversion as a way of hiding their multitude of sins. I think this is a major factor in the paralysis of American politics and patriotism. And I think it’s why civil, reason-based political discourse cannot be had in many places and with many people—because too many people, even those who claim religiosity, look to either the government or the nation as their Messiah. Messianism is defined in Wikipedia as “any field of philosophy which concerns itself with the interpretations of stories about a world hero or the establishment of a utopia.”

The Government

Liberalism (according to www.m-w.com: “a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties” although I would augment that definition for Americans as advocating “a wider social and economic role for the state” www.wikipedia.com) is the pursuit of a utopia through rules or legislation. The theory is that if the right combination of laws could be put in place, everyone would have the basics he needs, the opportunities he wants, and no unfair opposition to his achieving whatever he puts his mind to. This is where salvation lies for true liberal believers. They have the same plan that Satan had in the pre-mortal life: if you make it so people can’t sin, they won’t, and that way they’ll be perfect. The fallacies of this theory are, of course, that, despite its goal to provide a perfect opportunity for absolute personal freedom from impediments, 1) it’s impossible, and 2) it doesn’t really create freedom—it exterminates it.

This correlates to two trends in modern American religiosity. The first is that religions continue to try to make salvation easier and easier by changing the rules of the game. The second is the push toward humanism: “a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason”—self-realization is psychobabble for man creating his own salvation. In both cases the object is salvation through the right rules.

The Country

Conservatism’s salvation is obtained simply by believing. Do you accept America as your Savior? There are many who regard it as such, because America is greater than anything else we’ve ever seen—and somehow God has chosen me to be a part of it. It was sent by God to save mankind from monarchies, communism, and $2-a-day living. And, as a savior, it is infallible. This is why conservatives have such a hard time looking history straight in the eye and saying, “Wow! America has really abused and exploited some people. Oh, and look! We’re still doing it!” If they admit the fallibility of America, their hopes of salvation fade. Any intimation that America is supposed to mind its business in the world or that America could one day pass from power, especially as a result of its own mistakes, is heresy.

This philosophy is especially attractive among evangelicals and others who adhere to “salvation through faith.” This school of thought doesn’t blink in the eye of environmental ruin, “mutually-assured destruction,” or sectarian strife because that’s what the apocalypse is all about. America will come out on top as sure as Jesus will, because America and Jesus are good, and any opposition is evil. Only in such an environment could a “leader” say “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” And only those who truly believe will not be “left behind.”

Another concept in this vein attractive to conservatives is that of heredity—this is the problem many have with illegal immigration. I agree that America is a holy inheritance, but being born here or having access to it is a “talent” the master has bestowed. We are not to bury it nor spend it for our own purposes—we are to use it as the master has instructed and for his purposes only.

We received forewarning of this twisted philosophy of heredity in the Book of Mormon in Alma 31 as an apostate people recited a prayer containing the following: “We believe that thou hast separated us from our brethren; and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren, which was handed down to them by the childishness of their fathers; but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children . . . thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren, . . . which doth lead their hearts to wander far from thee, our God. And again we thank thee, O God, that we are a chosen and a holy people. Amen.” An example of this is the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood, ubiquitous around Independence Day. “I’m proud to be an American,” it states. Being “proud” of a blessing is rather blasphemous I think, and the song grates on my senses because of this.

I realize this is a broad generalization of the population, and that there are few true believers. But I think that many of us adhere to one or both of these philosophies to some extent. I know I have fallen for both of these alluring ideas at one time or another. The kicker is that it’s putting other gods before Him. Can nationalism or progressivism be a way in which we, in the name of patriotism or equality, violate the second of the Ten Commandments?

There are many other scriptural examples of untimely-claimed inheritances going badly: the prodigal son, the children of Israel as they prepared to enter their promised lands the first time after leaving Egypt, Esau, Cain, Saul, etc. There are many opposite examples, of inheritances that were given in the Lord’s time: Joseph, the son of Jacob, and his childhood visions; Abraham and his innumerable posterity; Jacob working fourteen years for Rachel; etc.

What things are we over-zealous to inherit? This begs the question: what is our inheritance? We are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17). And what does Christ inherit, that we can join in? “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand” (John 3:35). So, as joint-heirs with Christ, we may become “therefore perfect, even as [our] Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), and inherit all our Father has. Well, if we’ll inherit everything anyway, why can’t we just have it now? As shown above, inheritance is all about timing—and most of the things we are promised are conditional upon our showing good stewardship of the “talents” assigned to us.

In the parable of the talents, they were not given to the servants, but were assigned to the servants for the purposes of the master. And when he returned, he did not give the good servants any talents, but rather greater stewardship. Too many of us take the talents assigned to us and spend them, taking very little thought for the pruposes the master had for them. We will “inherit” very little in this world. This is not to say we cannot live full and happy lives in the bounteous terrestrial environment and love that God has provided us. But we will not “inherit” from the Father until the time is right.

Abraham, Moses, and Christ (among others) understood this as they each faced Satan and his promises of great wealth and power (the two objectives of capitalism). They understood that the world Satan offered was not his to give—he had only bought control of it through the selfishness of mankind. It’s a beautiful irony that Satan was offering Christ a world that Christ himself created, a world that Satan could never truly have because the only way to truly receive the earth is to inherit it, as the meek will do.

Moreover, Abraham, Moses, and Christ understood that the power Satan offered was not real power—the only real power is the priesthood. What Satan offered was the perception of power as demanded by the fear and greed of mankind. And this kind of false power can only exist where its subjects fear man more than God. In Sargent Nibley, PhD, it cites a scene witnessed by Gustave Gilbert of a Jewish family facing their death by gunfire at a mass grave. They were together, kissing and hugging each other, giving their last goodbyes; they followed the orders of the SS soldiers and were soon dispatched. But did the Nazis really have power over them? No. These people knew their God and they knew that they were beyond the superficial “power” of violence.

We can believe we have power over another, like I feel when I threaten my children with physical coercion or punishment, but it only works when they don’t understand their relationship to God and man. Therefore, anytime I force my children to do anything, I’m distorting their understanding of power and love. I can only get true power if I inherit it from God. And, ironically, he rarely coerces physically the way mortal parents often do.

But, some may contend, wasn’t man given “dominion” by God? As Dr. Nibley points out:

“Dominion, . . . deriv[ative] of domini-um, property, ownership, f[rom] dominus, lord,’ specifically ‘the lord of the household,’ in his capacity of generous host, ‘pater familias and owner of the house [domus].’ The title of dominus designated the Roman Emperor himself as the common benefactor of mankind inviting all the world to feast at his board. In short, lordship and dominium are the same thing, the responsibility of the master for the comfort and well-being of his dependents and guests; he is the generous host, the kind pater familias to whom all look for support.”

We cannot inherit the earth in its paradisiacal glory if we have abused it in life, any more than we have rights to live with a wife and children in the hereafter whom we have abused in mortality. What is abusing the earth? According to Brigham Young it is taking more than we need. That “need” can be defined along a very extensive spectrum, according to each person’s understanding. It’s definitely something to think about, though. Where do I cross the line between partaking of the God-given bounty of the earth and exploiting the earth? And what about all those good church-members who are very wealthy; are they claiming their inheritance before the proper time? I think that wealth can be a “talent” that the Lord gives us to have dominion over, in the role of “the common benefactor of mankind,” not as a means of control or power, and certainly not as an end in itself.

And what about my spiritual brothers and sisters? Can I expect to live and work with them in a heavenly community if I have taken advantage and exploited them here on earth, especially if my justification was to pursue the temptations of Satan, wealth and power?

So what does all this teach us about the American Dream? What was once the pursuit of freedom and later the pursuit of opportunity has become the pursuit of wealth and leisure. When there are only two things we can take with us to the next life—our righteousness and our learning—all of our daily pursuits seem trivial. Would we be disappointed if we, like the Levites of the Old Testament, were told we wouldn’t be given land like the rest of the tribes because “the priesthood of the LORD is [our] inheritance” (Josh. 18:7)? We have been commanded to take care of our temporal needs, but never to the exclusion of our spiritual needs. Our society is so wrapped up in the temporal, the fleeting, the trivial, the superficial. How much of what we ingest each day—celebrity worship, politics, current events, gossip, pointless entertainment—is simply “a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more: . . . a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing”?

I’m pretty disenchanted with politics right at the moment. I don’t see how anything that happens in Washington or even Utah’s capitol building can really change what needs to change. As Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

I’ve decided I’m going to stop worrying about the world and start worrying about changing myself, trying to live Christian principles, not only those hijacked by the movements of the day, but the ones that “[have] been found difficult and left untried.”

I don’t know how long this “resolution” will last. It will be hard for me to leave my seductive mistress, politics. If I don’t give up my political domain name, does it mean I’m not serious, like I’m keeping her number in my little black book?

I want to be able to allow Christianity to permeate all the facets of my life. In order to do this I need to learn a lot more about Christ and start following His teachings more closely. But I’m already having second thoughts and doubting myself.

Anywayz . . . .