What is Our Civic Duty?
I recently attended a lecture by Connor Boyack on “The Civic Duty of the Latter-day Saints”. Even though I’ve previously read most (maybe all) of the quotes presented, I love the way Connor brought them all together into what can be used as a great guide for Latter-day Saints regarding their civic duties…
Throughout the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, those who have been sustained as its leaders have repeatedly spoken out on political matters. This has occurred not so much because prophets feel it their duty to opine on controversial topics of temporal relevance, but because the spiritual and temporal elements of our lives are understood by the Latter-day Saints to be, at their core, one and the same.
We have therefore received instructions and commandments regarding our civic duty right alongside similar commandments regarding our spiritual duties as members of the Church. Home teaching, magnifying our callings, temple worship, and paying our tithes and offerings are on an equal platform, to some extent, with our activities to study, support, and defend the principles of liberty and our Republican government…
Read the full text of The Civic Duty of the Latter-day Saints…
Thanks for posting this.
In my efforts to promote the messages given in this article and others here to members of our ward and stake, I keep getting another message back from the stake leadership with whom I have tried to interest in these principles. That message is that we should focus our attention and efforts on the things the current church leadership is stressing: bringing people to Christ or back to Christ, as the case may be, temple readiness and attendance, home and visiting teaching, and genealogy work. This is frustrating to me because I see a real need to prepare a remnant that will, after the cleansing of America, be able to restore gospel and constitutional principles to government, eventually world wide. Yet I see no preparation for this, unless I am missing someting. I see commandments given in our Doctrine & Covenants and Book of Mormon being ignored. Like we are on holiday from our duty to honour freedom and constitutional principles, and to awake ourselves and others to our “awful situation”. I have no reason to fault the stake president because I believe the Lord could inspire him to devote a little time to these issues. But he has made it clear to me that “this is not the time” for that. “Prophetic Priorities” is the expression used to justify the current almost total focus on bringing people to Christ or back to Christ, temple readiness and attendance, home and visiting teaching, and genealogy work
We definitely need to make sure we are attending to all of our responsibilities. If Latter-day Saints don’t awaken to our awful situation and uphold their civic duty we will lose the freedom to uphold our religious duties and beliefs.
I actually have more of a desire and now put much more effort into bringing people to Christ than I did before I understood our civic responsibilities and recognized our awful situation.
I NOW totally agree with Brian. Once I woke up my initial reaction was to learn more, then educate others on our civic duty. The further down the rabbit hole you go, you realize how awful our situation really is and the need of a solution that is ONLY given to those who are worthy of it. I was reminded from a link on Brian’s site about “Preemptive War”, that Captain Moroni’s preparation, besides heaping dirt and timbers around the city, was preparing the peoples minds to qualify for God’s intervention (righteousness and coming to God). He knew they would never be saved in their wickedness. We all need to understand the principles of freedom so we can rebuild America after it goes down, but if we don’t repent, we won’t be around to help. America is nearing the bondage/destruction phase of the “Pride Cycle”, and unfortunately America may not wake up in time, nor change their ways without a lot of pain. Hopefully UNLIKE the Jaradites and Nephits we will humble ourselves and be forgiven back to the prosperity phase.