General Conference Odyssey

An “Anthem of Appreciation”

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This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

It’s been a long time since I’ve participated in the General Conference Odyssey, but I’ve decided to repent and attempt to get back in the habit. So what offerings do we have from April 1976 Saturday afternoon session? We have Boyd K. Packer’s famous “Spiritual Crocodiles” talk, which has likely been drilled into the head of every seminary student (or maybe just every seminary teacher’s kid) thanks to the CES video from the 1990s. We have the newly-called Elder Haight dismissing (unintentionally, I imagine) the missionary folklore that all modern apostles have seen Jesus: “I have not seen, but I know. I have always known, but now I have received a greater assurance and pray that I will always know that this is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it has been restored in our day, that God is a reality” (italics mine). Instead, he emphasizes personal revelation: “I pray the divine spark will develop into a firm knowledge and conviction in all of us, and that through personal revelation we will know that Jesus is the son of the living God, that President Kimball is the only man on earth who holds and exercises in righteousness the keys of the kingdom and is the mouthpiece of God on earth.”

This emphasis seems to be further solidified by the following talk by S. Dilworth Young on “the still small voice.” What I find interesting in most discussions of revelation that employ D&C 9:8-9 as a model is that “study it out in your mind” is either glossed over (as is the case with Young’s talk) or given bare minimum attention. I’m reminded of an MTA presentation by independent historian Don Bradley in which he states,

Perhaps our approaches to the spiritual and temporal should reciprocally inform each other. Maybe instead of just transferring the simplicity with which we often approach spiritual problems to deal with temporal problems, we should transfer some of the complexity and rigor we’ve developed in dealing with temporal problems to how we engage spiritual problems. In temporal problem-solving we take for granted that we might need to learn methods and practice, practice, practice in order to hone skills. Yet, in spiritual problem-solving we seem to expect that God will do all the work except for the nominal “studying out” the problem in our mind, after which God is obligated to give us the right answer…We expect that calculus will be hard, but that gaining revelation from God Almighty will be easy. One implication of the intimate relationship of temporal and spiritual is that lessons learned in our temporal lives may have relevance for how we pursue our spiritual lives.

As for John H. Vandenberg, he dropped a nice quotable slogan: “A true principle discovered, properly applied, brings a correct result.” This followed an interesting story that could’ve been a case study by experimental psychologists like Dan Ariely. Readers of Theodore Burton’s talk on the Word of Wisdom would be better off reading some of the scholarship and historical research on the subject.

Now on to the good stuff by Elder Maxwell.

Image result for elder maxwell

I love the way Elder Maxwell speaks. Even though the topic isn’t anything new, he packs it with so many choice words and qualifying phrases that convey a deeper understanding of both the gospel and the world at large. The implications behind his words are powerful, at least to me. Here are a few highlights from what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill chronological testimony of Jesus Christ:

  • Thus, foolishness, fear, and fashion have flattened the theology of many. For them, there is neither shelter nor landmark on the horizon: In 1972, the book Why Conservative Churches are Growing was published, arguing that theologically conservative churches were on the rise. Even recent research confirms this. Sociologist Rodney Stark blames the shift from mainline Protestant Mainline denominations to more conservative ones on “clergy disbelief in the essentials of Christianity, and their faith in radical politics.”
  • This testimony involves my reason and my experience—the two limited but helping witnesses! Happily, there has been given to me the third witness of the Spirit—the unimpeachable and convincing witness! My only regret is that what follows is apt to be the verbal equivalent of a child’s enthusiastic finger painting—because my tongue cannot tell all I know: I’m not sure I would separate the Spirit from personal experience considering that the witness of the Spirit is an experience, but the point still stands: reason and lived experience should be coupled with–and enhanced by–the promptings of the Spirit. Our intellect should be refined by the Spirit, while our reason and experience should open wider channels of revelation.
  • He helped to prepare this planet for us and led—not pushed—us from our premortal post: Loving relationships are freely chosen. This is likely why Maxwell later states that Christ “reflected both an astonishing selflessness and a breathtaking commitment to freedom as a condition of our genuine growth” in the premortal realms. Or “his discerning way of knowing us without controlling us[.]”
  • I thank him, further, for not deserting those of us who are slow or stragglers: The Lord doesn’t leave you behind when you drag your feet and when shouldn’t leave others behind either.
  • I testify that he assisted in the creation and management not only of this planet, but other worlds. His grasp is galactic, yet he noticed the widow casting in her mite: Jesus as manager. Makes my heart sing. Stanford’s Robert Sutton has noted, ““Big picture only” leaders often make decisions without considering the constraints that affect the cost and time required to implement them, and even when evidence begins mounting that it is impossible or unwise to implement their grand ideas, they often choose to push forward anyway…[T]he worst senior executives use the distinction between leadership and management as an excuse to avoid the details they really have to master to see the big picture and select the right strategies. Therefore…let me propose a corollary: To do the right thing, a leader needs to understand what it takes to do things right, and to make sure they actually get done.” This is why Christ was “the Perfect Example and Leader,” according to Maxwell, “not asking us to do what he has not done, not asking us to endure what he has not endured.” His led by “divinely demonstrating directions—not just pointing.”
  • He who did not need to die himself was willing to be bound by the chains of death so he could break them for all mankind: I think we sometimes forget the victory and liberation of Christ’s resurrection.
  • I thank him for likewise not interceding on our behalf, even when we pray in faith and reasonable righteousness, for that which would not be right for us: We’re getting into problem of evil territory, but I think there is definitely room for prayers going unanswered because the request isn’t in our best interest eternally speaking.
  • …that program of progress—repentance, which beckons us to betterness: Repentance is so often seen as self-flagellation. But to see it as incremental progress is life-altering. It is a recognition that some things which are “known” are “beyond the border of [our] behavior[.]” And yet, Christ helps us “to advance that border, bit by bit. His relentless redemptiveness exceeds [our] recurring wrongs.”
  • …rising above his beginnings without renouncing them: This cuts to the heart of the shame too often associated with poverty. There is sometimes an embarrassment of one’s origins. But Jesus shows that one does not have to be ashamed of her background, her home life. One can rise above her original circumstances, but still recognize them as part of her story and identity.
  • I thank him for such repeated reachings out to mankind, whether in phenomenal power or in quiet conversation at a wellside: The ways for God to communicate are vast and multifaceted. I have no doubt that he can customize it for each and everyone of us.

So ends his “anthem of appreciation” for the Savior.

And that’s why I love Elder Maxwell.

 

The Challenge Matches the Reward

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A Hopeless Dawn 1888 Frank Bramley 1857-1915 Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1888 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01627

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

President Spencer W. Kimball:

You will find so-called Mormonism to be a growing, vibrant, dynamic, and challenging church, indeed a way of life, touching upon every avenue of living, every facet of life.

What an interesting way to describe the church: “challenging.” Other words you could pick include: demanding, exacting, and strict. From the same talk:

Prophets say the same things because we face basically the same problems. Brothers and sisters, the solutions to these problems have not changed. It would be a poor lighthouse that gave off a different signal to guide every ship entering a harbor. It would be a poor mountain guide who, knowing the safe route up a mountainside, took his trusting charges up unpredictable and perilous paths from which no traveler returns.

There are a lot of people who wish that the Church would changes its message on fundamental matters of morality. It’s not going to happen. The challenge, the demand, the exacting expectations are here to stay. Discipleship is difficult by design.

President Monson described how, “for [those] who have loved and lost dear ones, each dawn is hopeless,” this being “the experience of those who regard the grave as the end and immortality as but a dream.”

Against this darkness, President Monson contrasts the reality of a literal resurrection:

This is the knowledge that sustains. This is the truth that comforts. This is the assurance that guides those bowed down with grief out of the shadows and into the light.

There are many who see Christianity—perhaps all religion—as a kind of cosmic bribe. If you are good, then you can have a reward. I understand the misperception, but it is misperception. The deliberate difficulty of the discipleship is not some arbitrary test for which divine blessings are meted out, like a trainer putting a dog through an obedience course.

But there is a symmetry. It is simply not the symmetry of a barter or exchange or tit-of-tat. It is the deeper symmetry or resonance. Discipleship is part of a shaping process that fundamental changes who we are, and prepares us to recognize, receive, and appreciate the blessings God has prepared for His children.

It is less, “If you are good, you can have something nice,” and more “If you strive to become good, you will—with God’s help—become good; and the truly good truly experience joy.”

The apparently transactional nature of the relationships is an illusion, but the symmetry is not. The challenge matches the reward. Much is asked; much is given.

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Our Hearts Are Filled With Songs Of Forever

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

So, you’ll have to forgive me, but I got out of synch with the General Conference this week (and last). Last week, I wrote about the Welfare session (instead of the Sunday afternoon session) and so this week I’m writing about the Sunday afternoon session) instead of the welfare session. My bads! We’ll all be on the same page again starting next Tuesday (May 2) when we cover the Saturday morning session of the April 1976 General Conference.

I really liked this passage from President Kimball’s concluding talk, Spoken From Their Hearts. After summarizing several of the talks from the October 1975 GC, he said:

I wish there were time to mention some of the other wonderful sermons, because it helps me to summarize these things and decide what I have heard, what I want to retain, what I want to do something about.

I like this passage because it is—in many ways—a kind of mission statement for the General Conference Odyssey. This whole shebang got started when I and a few others got to thinking: if the General Conferences are really the words of living prophets and apostles, then we should be familiar with them. Going back and reading through them is good, but it’s also the writing we do that helps us “decide what [we’ve] hear, what [we] want to retain, what [we] want to do something about.”

One of the talks that President Kimball called out in particular was Elder Featherstone’s But Watchman, What of the Night? The topic of that one was patriotism and—as Mormonism is a famously American religion—you might think that it was about American patriotism. But I went back and checked, and it isn’t. From that talk:

We need to feel the thrill and sensation and have the swellings within our bosom about this country. The priesthood of God should be an example of patriotism and loyalty to our country. As I talk about the United States of America, each one should consider his homeland, his flag, and his country. [emphasis added]

Mormons believe in being part of the community we find ourselves in, and in contributing to whatever society we’re a part of. American Mormons should be loyal American patriots, Mexican Mormons should be loyal Mexican patriots, and so on across the globe. Patriotism is in our blood and tradition, yes, but it’s also just a temporary condition. This Earth is not our real home. It’s like Dustin Kensrue sings in Thrice’s song “In Exile”:

I am a pilgrim – a voyager; I won’t rest until my lips touch the shore –
Of the land that I’ve been longing for as long as I’ve lived,
Where there’ll be no pain or tears anymore.

My heart is filled with songs of forever –
Of a city that endures, where all is made new.
I know I don’t belong here; I’ll never
Call this place my home, I’m just passing through.

That message doesn’t contradict Elder Featherstone’s call for patriotism. It might seem hard to reconcile the two, but this gets much easier when you throw Elder George P. Lee’s talk, My Heritage Is Choice, into the mix:

You might as well realize that we are all going to the same place. As an Indian I will not find an Indian reservation in paradise. As a Hopi, you will not find a Hopi reservation. As a Japanese you will not find Japan in paradise. As Chinese, you will not find China in paradise. Let’s live together as children of God. We are all brothers and sisters. We will all go to the same place if we are righteous, and if we endure to the end. There is no United States, there is no Navajo reservation, nor any way of life, except God’s, in paradise.

We’re patriots while we’re here, because building and maintaining communities is important. We take that role seriously, just as we take a lot of our Earthly tasks seriously. But the Earthly tasks—whether it’s being a good patriot or a good accountant—are never the final point. They’re just stepping stones to something higher. We all sing the respective national anthems of our home countries with genuine pride, but when we sing the heavenly anthems we feel something even deeper.

Our hearts are filled with songs of forever.

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A Pragmatic Zion

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Ephraim Moses Lilien, Zion, 1903. (Public Domain)

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

I forgot that—after the Sunday afternoon session—the October 1975 General Conference had one more session to go: the welfare session. And this, my friends, is the most quintessentially Mormon thing ever.

Back in the day, my father said in a PBS interview:

One of the hallmarks of Mormonism, and of Joseph Smith in particular, is the collapse of sacred distance. Joseph insistently refused to recognize the distinctness of those categories that were typical in traditional Christianity, the sense that there is an earthly and a heavenly, a bodily and a spiritual.

That stubborn refusal to see any distinction between spiritual and the physical, the practical and the ideal, the holy and the mundane, is one of the most distinctive attributes of Mormon faith, and also one of my favorite. We’re relentlessly effective at finding the sacred in basically everything. We’re as universalistic in our aspirations to find holiness everywhere as we are in our plans to save all mankind.

And so it is that we’ve got an entire session of General Conference dedicated to such mundane concerns as how to pick a career, the importance of budgeting, and the necessity of having enough food storage on hand. And yet at the same time, there’s the stubborn insistence that working out the nuts and bolts of practical self-sufficiency is a stepping stone towards reaching Zion.

I love it in part because it’s just deliciously paradoxical, and paradoxes are fun. But that’s at best an adolescent appreciation. There’s nothing deep or lasting in that regard.

What matters to me more is this: the only kind of Zion that could ever be realized—in practice—is one that is fundamentally pragmatic in conception. If anyone could ever build the kin of society we believe a Zion society to be—one with no distinction between rich and poor, and where the people are united in heart and mind—it would be practical people, willing to take every mundane step necessary in pursuit of their heavenly aspiration.

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Heaven is Other People

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Eve covers herself and lowers her head in shame in Rodin’s Eve after the Fall. (MicheleLovesArt – Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen CC BY-SA 2.0)

At Walker’s encouragement, I’ve been reading Brené Brown recently. Brown is a shame researcher, and she defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”

Not everything Brown says resonates with me. I don’t like the route she takes, but I do like the destination she’s aiming for. For example, above she says that shame involves “believe that we are flawed.” Well, we are flawed, so we have a pretty good reason for that belief! She also has an affirmation she repeats a lot: “I am enough.” I think that’s nonsense. She’s not enough, I’m not enough, no one is enough.

On the other hand, the rest of her quote is that, because we are flawed, we are “therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” And that, I agree, is a soul-destroying lie. Similarly, I don’t like the phrase “I am enough,” but I do like a very similar phrase that I think gets to Brown’s point: “I am a child of God.” Or, in the lyrics of my favorite band Thrice:

We’re more than carbon and chemicals
Free will is ours and we can’t let go
We can’t allow this, the quiet cull
So we sing out this, our canticle
We are the image of the invisible

We all were lost now we are found
No one can stop us or slow us down
We are all named and we are all known
We know that we’ll never walk alone

We’re more than static and dial tone
We’re emblematic of the unknown
Raise up the banner, bend back your bows
Remove the cancer, take back your souls
We are the image of the invisible

Though all the world may hate us, we are named
Though shadow overtake us, we are known

The theology is a little confused from a Mormon standpoint, but the sentiment is one we embrace. Because we are the offspring of God, we are worthy regardless of whether or not we’re flawed and regardless of whether or not we’re enough. That’s my only beef with Brown, really. I don’t like people trying to tell me that I’m good enough to love. What does “good enough” have to do with anything? I don’t have to earn the love of my Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. That’s sort of the whole point.

King Benjamin told his people that “Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth” and that—no matter how hard we try to obey God—we are “unprofitable servants.” On the other hand, the Lord said, “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.”

This isn’t really a contradiction, in my eyes, and anyone who has had children can see how. The rugrats are useless, slimy, stinky, sleep-depriving monster who will as soon vomit or defecate on you as smile at you. And we love and cherish them with all our hearts. Children, especially very young children, are supremely “unprofitable.” They are little black holes that suck away our time and energy and youth. And they fill our lives with meaning.

So, this has been a long, long digression. Sorry, folks! Should have saved it for the book review!

The reason for this digression is that, although he never uses the term, Elder Hales’ talk We Can’t Do It Alone is all about shame. Because here’s the thing, the part about Brown’s definition that is in some ways the most important is the very end: shame “makes us [fee] unworthy of connection.” That’s what it all comes down to. As humans, we have a deep need to belong. And what shame does is convince us to abandon the attempt and settle for being broken and alone.

But, as Elder Hales says, “we did not come to this life to live it alone.” On the contrary, “the true nature of the gospel plan is the interdependence we have upon one another.” And what stops us? Shame. Again, he doesn’t use the word, but the concept is clearly identical to Brown. For example:

When we are marred spiritually or physically, our first reaction is to withdraw into the dark shadows of depression, to blot out hope and joy—the light of life which comes from knowing we are living the commandments of our Father in heaven. This withdrawal will ultimately lead us to rebellion against those who would like to be our friends, those who can help us most, even our family. But worst of all, we finally reject ourselves.

The heart of the Gospel, as we understand it, is the atonement. It’s unity. Shame, which is not the same as guilt, is the wedge shaped to break that unity, the lure that holds us back from the atonement, and we need to be—as Brown puts it—“shame resilient” in order to prevent it from stopping us or turning us aside from our mission to improve ourselves individually and collectively during our mortal sojourn.

Oh, and now for the brave, here’s Thrice’s song that I quoted earlier. Be warned, the message is fantastic but the rock is hard.

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Threading Needles

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The Shepherd and his Flock, c. 1905 (Public Domain)

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Whenever General Conference rolls around, we suspend the ordinary General Conference Odyssey schedule to pay attention to the current conference, and that’s what we did this past weekend as well. There were a lot of great talks from this session, but I don’t really want to go into them in great detail until I can read the text.

Instead, I just want to make a general observation.

During talks by Elders Uchtdorf and Renlund, which touched on themes that tend to be near to the heart of left-leaning Mormons (e.g. love, tolerance, refugees), there was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. This turned to consternation when Elder Christofferson spoke, however, especially when he pulled from conservative thinkers David Brooks and Ross Douthat. I couldn’t resist joking about that on Facebook, because I knew perfectly well the effect it would have.

Really, though, my motivation wasn’t so much immature “neener neener” and more genuine excitement. The Douthat article in particular is one of the most important op-eds I’ve ever read, and it has had a really significant impact on my thinking. I was thrilled to hear the ideas from it over the pulpit in General Conference.

This can be dangerous, of course. One of my friends sardonically:

I go into every General Conference with faith that I’ll be provided the authoritative ammo from a commonly accepted authority so I can combat Mormons who disagree with me.

It’s really important to remember that the fundamental role of prophets is to warn. That means, pretty much by definition, that when we like to hear the least is what we need to hear the most.

I had one other thought that I wanted to share when it comes to the supposed Uchtdorf vs. Christofferson divide, and that is that our job as members is to listen to the General Authorities as a body. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have your favorites—the ones who seem to speak directly to you—but the possibility of fandom turning into factionalism is anathema to the unity of the Church.

Or, as I put it in that Facebook conversation:

Trying to convey complicated ideas to a large crowd is like herding sheep, in that you need at least two people coming from opposite sides to keep the sheep inline.

If you have some sheep veering off to the west (I’m trying to avoid left/right), then placing someone over to the west will fix that problem, but it might actually exacerbate the problem of sheep who were already headed off to far to the east. And vice-versa. So what you need is one guy on the west herding in and another guy on the east hearing in and–taken together–you can actually keep your flock together and where they’re supposed to be.

In particular, Christofferson’s talk exists so that people don’t get a little too carried away with their interpretation of Renlund’s, Holland’s, and Uchtdorf’s talk. And Renlund, Holland, and Uchtdorf’s talks exist so that people (like me) don’t get too comfortable with a talk like Christofferson’s.

We need them both.

All in all, I thought it was a great General Conference.

That being said, next week we’re going to be right back on our usual schedule with the October 1975 General Conference.

Thanks for embarking on this odyssey with us!

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With great responsibility comes great power

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

This week we’re covering the priesthood session of the October 1975 General conference. Next week, we’ll take a break from hour General Conference Odyssey to cover the entire April 2017 General Conference. The week after that we’ll return to the Odyssey with the Sunday morning session of the October 1975 General Conference.

As for this priesthood session, there was at least one very clear them: sacrifice more. In the first talk Elder Brown said “a law of life” was that “Only if you sacrifice for a cause will you love it,” and stated:

In the world, many organizations, churches, governments, even families have lost much of their vitality because they are afraid to ask people to sacrifice. It is imperative that we not make the same mistake in the Aaronic Priesthood. We must be fearless in expecting Aaronic Priesthood holders to do the work which the Lord has commanded.

In the second, Elder Bangerter said “the devil taught us” to ask the question “[have you] got your home teaching done?” He explained:

That is a very poor way to refer to the comprehensive mission embodied in home teaching. By getting us to ask “Did you get your home teaching done?” the devil destroys 90 percent of our effectiveness. All that question implies is a quick visit the last day of the month so that we can send in the report.

In other words: give more.

Experience since 1975 have born this wisdom out. The churches that have gone the farthest in lowering expectations for their adherents have seen those adherents walk away. Living according to the strict discipline of a traditional faith is hard, but—it turns out—living according to the lax guidelines of a modern faith is pointlessly easy.

With great power, the saying goes, comes great responsibility. One thing Mormons understand is that the converse is also true.

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What is a Prophet?

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Anna at the presentation of Jesus (right), from Giotto, Chapel of Scrovegni. (Public Domain)

Mormons use the word “prophet” in several different ways. Here are a few of them:

  1. “The Prophet” might refer specifically to Joseph Smith
  2. “The Prophet” might refer more generally to whoever is currently the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s President Monson today. It was President Hinckley before that. It will be President Nelson (most likely) next.
  3. We sustain all members of the Quorum of the Twelve along with the First Presidency (total of 15 men) as “prophets, seers, and revelators.”
  4. Using the word in its broadest—and perhaps most original sense—a prophet is anyone who prophecies.

Notably, this last definition is totally independent of all questions of priesthood authority or institutional hierarchy. This is why people who lived totally outside the leadership hierarchy, like Anna the Prophetess, can also be prophets.

I had all of these in mind as I was reading Elder LeGrand Richard’s talk, Prophets and Prophecy. Elder Richard’s mentions one of our favorite verses and teases out the implications this way:

The prophet Amos said, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7.) Now if we understand that, no one can look for a work here upon this earth that isn’t headed by a prophet. The Lord has never done a work that he has recognized without a prophet at its head. Thank God for our prophets, from the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith down to our present prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball.

Now—from context—it seems most likely that Elder Richards is using the word in its second definition. However, I think it’s just as appropriate to read it with the fourth definition in mind, although that changes the meaning from something like, “if you want to find any work of God, start by finding a formally called Prophet” to something like “if you find any work of God on earth, then the person leading it is a prophet.”

I like this second reading more, because it emphasis the universalism of goodness. This variety of universalism is not fluffy-headed, non-judgmentalism, everyone-gets-a-trophy nonsense. Or, if it is those things, it is those things with scriptural heft behind it:

But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.

UPDATED 22-March-2017: I said President Packer was next in line, but he died in 2015. Next up is President Nelson. Eric (first comment) spotted the error.

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On the Inseparability of Idealism and Pragmatism

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Jesus at the house of the Pharisean, by Jacopo Tintoretto (Public Domain)

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

When I first started this blog, the tagline was: “doing the right thing for the wrong reason for the right reason.” I loved the tagline, but nobody else did, and so I got rid of it. But this talk—Elder O. Leslie Stone’s The Importance of Reputation—is a great example of what I was trying to shoot for with that tagline.

The desire for a good reputation has itself earned a bad reputation in our society, and there are good reasons for that. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is an example of the sentiment that appearances—and reputation is a kind of appearance—are shallow ways to judge people that should be avoided. Concern for reputation and appearance is associated with hypocrisy, pride, and elitism.

But there is a kind of unrealistic utopianism behind all of this. As much as we say, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” the reality is that covers matter. They matter literally—the right or wrong cover has a huge influence on not only who buys a book, but also what they expect from the book—and they also  matter metaphorically. Humans are social animals. According to one theory, human language and possibly even human intelligence itself evolved precisely because we  needed better ways of managing our reputations in dense, complex social environments.

Regardless of what you think about the evolutionary psychology arguments, the end result is that you can pretend that reputation doesn’t matter all day long, but in reality it does. So, what are we going to do about it?

You  might expect a talk to treat reputation as a kind of necessary evil: we can’t get along without it, but try to pay as little attention to it as possible. Try to ignore the reputations of others and give your own reputation only the barest possible attention.

But that’s exactly the opposite of where Elder Stone goes, and his willingness to dive right in and embrace the reality of reputation is the hallmark of my favorite aspect of Mormonism: the stubborn refusal to allow a glint of daylight between pragmatism and idealism. In Mormonism, we find our ideals in the mundane, and we’re unashamed of it.

And so Elder Stone freely admits that there are some nice benefits to having a good reputation—Elder Stone mentions how it has helped him in his business career—but he emphasizes the very real spiritual stakes of having a good reputation:

…as we live the gospel, our lives will reflect righteousness and virtue, and we will be a powerful influence for good in the lives of others. This is why it is not enough to be righteous for the sake of our own salvation. We must let our goodness radiate to others, that through our example and reputation they will lift their lives and have the desire to follow the Savior’s pattern of living.

This is close to what my old tagline meant. In the end, it’s more important to do the right thing than it is to have the perfect motives. If it’s possible to help someone privately—without drawing attention—then do so. But if you find yourself in a situation where someone is asking you publicly for help and you have to respond then and there, you’re not going to be able to separate the bad motives (you want to look good and impress people) from the good motives (you want to help someone in need). So what should you do? Well, the most important thing is that the person in need get help. So if you need to embrace less-than-perfect motives (impressing other people) as the kicker to do the right thing (lend a hand), but you wish you were doing it for the right reason: then go ahead and do it. Do the right thing (help people) for the wrong reason (it makes you look good) for the right reason (you’d rather help someone now and perfect your character later.)

You’ve heard the expression “the ends justify the means,” but this is the opposite. Instead of using good intention to justify bad behavior, I’m saying that—in certain situations—it’s OK to use bad intentions to motivate good behavior. We should all try to be saints on the inside, but if we acted like saints on the outside, that wouldn’t be such a bad start, would it?

This isn’t exactly what Elder Stone was talking about, by the way, and I realize that. It’s just adjacent to it. Now, back to what he was actually saying…

Because Elder Stone has decided to ignore the taboo against speaking openly about the positive aspects of reputation, he’s also able to grapple with what it means:

I prefer not to think of reputation as a superficial facade, attempting to indicate depth where there is only shallowness, honesty where there is deceit, or virtue where there is unrighteousness. Rather, I like to think of reputation as a window, clearly exhibiting the integrity of one’s soul. It is through this integrity of thought and integrity of conduct that we become pure and holy before the Lord. It is in this state that we can be most effective in serving our fellowmen.

And then, beating that drum of practical application of our ideals once more:

It is not enough for us to live the gospel inwardly; we need to be shining examples to all with whom we come in contact. In this sense, it’s not only what we are that’s important: what others think of us is also important. In order to be truly effective as missionaries, we need to be known for our good qualities, to have an unspotted reputation in all things.

It should go without saying that—no matter how we try—ultimately our reputation is not up to us to determine. Elder Stone acknowledges that, too:

We can’t always control what others think of us, or how others judge us, but we can control the kinds of messages we send out through our behavior.

There’s a new aspect to this that I think Elder Stone would have a lot to say about if he were to give this talk again today, and that is the fact that in 21st century America it is possible to get a bad reputation because of doing the right thing. That’s always been true to an extent, of course, but never more so then today, when there are so many who  “call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

I don’t know exactly what he’d say, of course, but I’m pretty confident it would be something along the lines of: work hard to gain a good reputation to the extent that you don’t have to violate your principles. If possible, work even harder on those virtues the world still recognizes as virtues. But, when it becomes impossible to reconcile righteous principles with a sterling reputation, lay it on the altar with everything else we’ve been asked to sacrifice and thank God for the privilege.

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The Humility of an Apostle

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

President (then Elder) Thomas S. Monson was the first speaker during the Friday afternoon session of the October 1975 General Conference, but we’ll never know what talk he planned to give because he threw it away:

In the balcony to my left I see a beautiful girl of perhaps ten years. Sweet little one, I do not know your name or whence you have come. This, however, I do know: the innocence of your smile and the tender expression of your eyes have persuaded me to place aside for a future time the message I had prepared for this occasion. Today, I am impressed to speak to you.

The story that followed was poignant and sad, but the thing I couldn’t help but noticing was the amount of humility implicit in how President Monson shared this story. He mentioned others being inspired—like President Benson, who sent him to Louisiana in response to a prompting—but he never talked about any inspiration of his own.

In contrast, he described himself making the wrong decision and then being corrected by the Lord. When considering whether or not he would make the trip to visit a sick little girl, he reports that:

I examined the schedule of meetings for that evening and the next morning—even my return flight. There simply was no available time. An alternative suggestion came to mind. Could we not remember the little one in our public prayers at conference? Surely the Lord would understand. On this basis, we proceeded with the scheduled meetings.

But this was not the right decision. As he prepared to start his meeting:

I was sorting my notes, preparing to step to the pulpit, when I heard a voice speak to my spirit. The message was brief, the words familiar: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:14.) My notes became a blur. My thoughts turned to a tiny girl in need of a blessing. The decision was made. The meeting schedule was altered. After all, people are more important than meetings. I turned to Bishop James Serra and asked that he leave the meeting and advise the [family].

And so he travelled to the bedside of a dying girl and, there he found holiness.

I have been in hallowed places—even holy houses—but never have I felt more strongly the presence of the Lord than in [her] home.

He gave her a blessing, but he does not record what that blessing contained. Only that, four days following, the little girl passed away. Some might ask why—if an apostle was guided to Louisiana and then specifically to the home of this sick girl—she could not be spared. That is an issue I will not tackle today.

Instead, I simply want to observe that President Monson’s story itself has a childlike quality of love, trust, and humility. His story was not only about a child and delivered to a child, but exemplified how we can be like children ourselves.

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