Religion

Mr. Pence and Mrs. Butterworth

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Let me start out at the outset by saying that The Onion’s spoof of the WaPo’s revelation[ref]Actually, just a mention of something Pence told the Hill back in 2002, but never mind that detail.[/ref] that Mike Pence “never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either” is hilarious: Mike Pence Asks Waiter To Remove Mrs. Butterworth From Table Until Wife Arrives.

Let me add, as a second point, that the issue of unequal treatment of women is very much alive today, and affects many women, especially those working in male-dominated sectors like engineering and computer science. We’ll come back to that at the end.[ref]I added this paragraph on 2017-April-01 after a Facebook discussion with a woman in one of these sectors. I hadn’t added it before then because I thought it was obvious.[/ref]

The mini-debate that has been ongoing on about Pence’s policy has been quite interesting. At least one friend on Facebook compared it to The Great Dress Debacle of 2015: conservatives found Pence’s stance perfectly normal while liberals were split between ridiculing him and accusing him of practicing Sharia. Lest you think I’m joking, here’s one example cadged from The Federalist:

So, here are a couple of thoughts.

First, some folks seem to be missing the primary point of a rule like this. It is not, as the mockers deride, because Mr. Pence’s self-control is so flimsy he is afraid that merely sitting next to a woman in a restaurant without supervision would place him in danger of fornicating right there on the spot.

This isn’t a minor confusion. It’s a fundamental misapprehension of an ancient worldview that Christians still adhere to. In religious language: we’re all weak, vulnerable, and prone to sin. In modern, secular language: we’re irrational and often behave in ways that counter our own best interests and/or confound the values and goals we think we have. Doesn’t matter if you call it “fallen nature” or “cognitive bias”, in this context we’re talking about the same thing.

So how does this play out? The most common way that Christians (or other social conservatives) might try to explain a rule like Pence’s goes something like this: Anyone who goes on a diet will start by throwing out all the tempting food in their house.

The problem is that this analogy is very easy to misunderstand. One interpretation–the wrong one–is that cheating on your wife is the same kind of momentary lapse as cheating on your diet. It’s as though absent-mindedly chomping down on a Krispy Kreme you forgot to throw out is equivalent to absent-mindedly wandering into a hotel room with a woman you’re not married too. Lots of folks get as far as this (silly) interpretation and stop there.

The actual interpretation of the metaphor is quite different. It is saying that good behavior is not just about making the right decisions in the moment. It’s about manipulating your environment to make it conducive to the kind of behavior that you want in your life. Social conservatives understand that because we’re irrational creatures with amazing abilities to rationalize our ways into following short-term desires part of being virtuous isn’t just saying no to temptation in the moment, but avoiding it altogether.

Pence’s rule doesn’t draw the line at the moment when he’s tempted to be sexually unfaithful to his wife. It draws the line much, much earlier and so prevents the first seeds of infidelity from ever having a chance to take root in the first place.

I don’t follow Pence’s rule. I think it’s overkill. I’m not interested in trying to convince anyone that his particular rule should be some kind of universal standard for everyone. But I don’t think it’s ridiculous or absurd either. After all–in addition to the concerns about compromising marital fidelity out of an initially innocent friendship–there’s also legitimate concerns about being taken advantage of. Politicians are powerful and that also makes them vulnerable. Just ask the KGB (the FSB, these days) which has employed agents to try and seduce traveling politicians and officials for decades and decades in order to blackmail their targets into betraying state secrets. This is, by the way, one of the reasons that the CIA, FBI, and many other agencies are fond of hiring Mormons.[ref]Catch up here, if that is news to you.[/ref] Not only are we extremely family-focused (I know lots of Mormons who follow Pence’s rules), but we also don’t drink. Taken together, this means observant Mormons are less likely to be compromised in this way than the average population.

In the wake of the Republicans failing to pass the AHCA, there was a nauseating avalanche of cutesy Facebook posts from liberal fans of Hamilton. Here’s one:

If you missed the reference, it’s from Cabinet Battle #1, when Madison and Jefferson taunt Hamilton. Other favorites included “Winning was easy… Governing’s harder” and “Do you know how hard it is to lead?”

The funny thing is, if Alexander Hamilton had followed a rule like Mike Pence’s, he could have avoided his part in America’s first political sex-scandal, saved his family a lot of agony, and spared Lin-Manuel Miranda a song or two.[ref]Die-hard Hamilton fans are probably not persuaded by that last one, of course.[/ref]

And that brings me to my second point. Just as liberals are happy to take very selective lessons from Hamilton, there’s an awful weird dichotomy in a town where liberals practice all kinds of non-judgmentalism for open marriages but are more than happy to ridicule and deride someone for trying to keep their marriage closed. That’s the point Jonah Goldberg made at the National Review:

Last summer, when Bill Clinton spoke about his wife at the Democratic convention (“In the spring of 1971, I met a girl . . . ”), liberals gushed at the “love story,” and the rule of the day was that marriage is complicated and the Clintons’ ability to stay married (though practically separated) was admirable. Besides, “Who are we to judge?” — no doubt Bill Clinton’s favorite maxim.

It’s a very strange place we’ve found ourselves in when elites say we have no right to judge adultery, but we have every right to judge couples who take steps to avoid it.[ref]Emphasis added.[/ref]

He’s not wrong, you know.

I do think there are some legitimate concerns. The most important being that if you’re, say, a business executive who follows these rules, does it mean that you’re creating an environment where you give preferential treatment to men? If a young, up-and-coming male executive could ask you out to lunch to seek your advice, but a young, up-and-coming female executive cannot, then we do have a legitimate problem. It’s also possible to simply take this stance too far. I don’t recall conservatives having a problem with forcing Muslim boys to shake hands with their (female) teachers in Switzerland, for example.[ref]Unsurprisingly, liberals have a double standard that cuts against traditionalist Christians while social conservatives have a double standard that cuts against traditionalist Muslims.[/ref]

So I’m not saying that it’s impossible to have questions and concerns about a position like Pence’s. But the degree of hostility and deliberate (or at least, lazy) misunderstanding of the rules that the Pences have agreed on for their own marriage are at least as concerning as the rules themselves.

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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Check out the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week and join our Facebook group to follow along!

Religious Belief: Less Analytical, More Pro-Social?

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A 2016 study finds that while religious belief has a negative correlation with analytic thinking, it has a significantly positive association with moral concern. Interestingly enough, the negative correlation with analytic thinking can in part be explained by the tension between it and moral concerns. “When there’s a question of faith, from the analytic point of view, it may seem absurd,” said Tony Jack, who led the research.

“But, from what we understand about the brain, the leap of faith to belief in the supernatural amounts to pushing aside the critical/analytical way of thinking to help us achieve greater social and emotional insight.”


…”A stream of research in cognitive psychology has shown and claims that people who have faith (i.e., are religious or spiritual) are not as smart as others. They actually might claim they are less intelligent,” said Richard Boyatzis, distinguished university professor and professor of organizational behavior at Case Western Reserve, and a member of Jack’s team.

“Our studies confirmed that statistical relationship, but at the same time showed that people with faith are more prosocial and empathic,” he said. In a series of eight experiments, the researchers found the more empathetic the person, the more likely he or she is religious. That finding offers a new explanation for past research showing women tend to hold more religious or spiritual worldviews than men. The gap may be because women have a stronger tendency toward empathetic concern than men. Atheists, the researchers found, are most closely aligned with psychopaths—not killers, but the vast majority of psychopaths classified as such due to their lack of empathy for others.

…“Because of the tension between networks, pushing aside a naturalistic world view enables you to delve deeper into the social/emotional side,” Jack explained. “And that may be the key to why beliefs in the supernatural exist throughout the history of cultures. It appeals to an essentially nonmaterial way of understanding the world and our place in it.”

…[Jared] Friedman said, “Having empathy doesn’t mean you necessarily have anti-scientific beliefs. Instead, our results suggest that if we only emphasize analytic reasoning and scientific beliefs, as the New Atheist movement suggests, then we are compromising our ability to cultivate a different type of thinking, namely social/moral insight.”

“These findings,” Friedman continued, “are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral.”

In short, “taking a carefully considered leap of religious faith appears be an effective route to promoting emotional insight. Theirs and other studies find that, overall, religious belief is associated with greater compassion, greater social inclusiveness and greater motivation to engage in pro-social actions.”

Gender Differences in Religiosity Among U.S. Elites

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Check out the graph below:

Schnabel_final color

The data come from a 2016 study on the religiosity of high-earning men and women. The author explains,

Among high earners, women are no more religious than men. High-earning men are just as likely as high-earning women to be religiously affiliated, to pray daily, to identify as a strong member of their religion, and to attend religious services weekly. This convergence occurs because the relationship between earnings and religiosity operates differently for women and men. High-earning women are consistently less religious than low-earning women, and high-earning men are consistently more religious than low-earning men.

Why is this the case?:

One likely explanation is the gendered norms around work and family in family-centric congregations. Previous research has shown that even progressive congregations still value and provide services around the assumption of a 1950s family with a bread-winning father and a stay-at-home mother. Therefore, high-earning men may receive positive validation from family-centric religious congregations and identities because they are fulfilling their “proper” role as providers for their family (and are seen as important congregation members with leadership potential). High-earning women, however, may receive less validation than women who are perceived as less career oriented and more family oriented. In fact, women with high-powered careers may feel marginalized when many “women’s activities” are centered on homemaking and scheduled during the work day.

Although scholars have come up with complex explanations for why women are more religious than men, the difference may simply be due to social expectations and social benefits. People may expect women, who are also expected to fill caring roles in their family and in society, to be more religious. These expectations could be especially strong in Christian contexts where religion is associated with family-centrism and sympathy (gender gaps in religiosity are usually smaller or non-existent in non-Christian religions). Relatedly, it is possible that the average woman simply gets more out of Christianity than the average man (e.g., opportunities to socialize outside the home, existential security, etc.). Among high earners, however, women may no longer get more out of religion than men.

Regardless of exactly why earning more money means something different depending on whether you’re a man or woman, there are no gender differences in religiosity among high earners, and differences among women and men are just as large as the average differences between them. Therefore, gender differences in religiosity shouldn’t be reduced to sex categories and hormones.

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[ref]described in Luke 2[/ref], 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.[ref]Moroni 7:13[/ref]

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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Check out the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week and join our Facebook group to follow along!

Who Speaks for Islam?: Interview with Dalia Mogahed

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This is part of the DR Book Collection.

Image result for who speaks for islamSome of the most interesting and infuriating things to witness on Facebook are the threads on Daniel Peterson’s wall. Peterson teaches Arabic and Islamic studies at BYU (he’s even authored a biography of Muhammad) and has been a big name in Mormon apologetics for some time. Because of the latter, he tends to be favored among conservative Mormons, both religiously and politically. However, his educated, sympathetic, and often favorable views of Islam tend to bring Islamophobic Church members out of the woodwork. I’ve seen ignorant Internet warriors attempt to lecture him on the “threats” of Sharia law, provide decontextualized readings of the Quran,[ref]They should pick up the fairly new The Study Quran.[/ref] explain how Islam is an inherently violent religion, and justify Trump’s Muslim ban. In the midst of one of these exchanges, Peterson suggested John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed’s Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think based on the Gallup Poll of the Islamic world.

The book was eye-opening. For example, the authors summarize some of their findings as follows:

  • Who speaks for the West?: Muslims around the world do not see the West as monolithic. They criticize or celebrate countries based on their politics, not based on their culture or religion.
  • Dream jobs: When asked to describe their dreams for the future, Muslims don’t mention fighting in a jihad, but rather getting a better job.
  • Radical rejection: Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustified.
  • Religious moderates: Those who condone acts of terrorism are a minority and are no more likely to be religious than the rest of the population.
  • Admiration of the West: What Muslims around the world say they most admire about the West is its technology and its democracy — the same two top responses given by Americans when asked the same question.
  • Critique of the West: What Muslims around the world say they least admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values — the same responses given by Americans when posed the same question.
  • Gender justice: Muslim women want equal rights and religion in their societies.
  • R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: Muslims around the world say that the one thing the West can do to improve relations with their societies is to moderate their views toward Muslims and respect Islam.
  • Clerics and constitutions: The majority of those surveyed want religious leaders to have no direct role in crafting a constitution, yet favor religious law as a source of legislation (pg. xii-xiii).

This is just a taste. The hard numbers paint a very different picture than what we typically see in the media. You can see an interview with Mogahed about her research below.

For the Cause of Righteousness: Lecture by Russell Stevenson

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This is part of the DR Book Collection.

Image result for for the cause of righteousnessThe priesthood restriction in LDS history is one of the most controversial elements of Mormonism. Last year, I declared Paul Reeve’s Religion of a Different Color to be “the book for understanding the history of the priesthood ban.” Yet, Reeve largely focused on Mormon racialization in the 19th century. Russell Stevenson’s For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013 covers–as the title indicates–the history of blacks in the Church from its origins to modern times. While figures like Elijah Abel are becoming more familiar to everyday Mormons, few are likely aware of the various situations involving the Church in Africa prior to the lifting of the priesthood ban. Stevenson does an excellent job of fleshing out the global context of the Church’s shaky relationship with blacks. It’s a story that predominantly white American Mormons would do well to learn.

What I didn’t realize before starting the book was that it is split in half between historical narrative and important documents. This makes Stevenson’s book somewhat unique in that one can read the first half to get an informative overview of the black history in the Church, but then use the latter half as a reference tool. This approach was both unexpected and welcome. For me, Stevenson and Reeve are my go-to sources for black history in the Church. And this book is an excellent example of why.

You can see a lecture by Stevenson below.

Re-Reading Job: Interview with Michael Austin

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This is part of the DR Book Collection.

Image result for rereading job“The phrase “the patience of Job” has become idiomatic among people who have never opened a Bible.”[ref]Re-reading Job, pg. 7.[/ref] So says Michael Austin in his Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem. He explains that

the Book of Job contains two fundamentally incompatible stories about a man named Job. The first Job story, which predates the biblical book by as much as 500 years, was a common Near Eastern folk tale about a guy who loses everything yet never complains to his god. The second Job story is a Hebrew poem that challenges many of the assumptions of the folk tale by having its supposedly complacent hero abandon all pretense of patience and complain, in excruciating detail, about his god (pg. 4).

Austin takes us through the book, laying bare the contradictions, the tensions, and the profound wisdom within its pages. Austin provides the historical and cultural background, but his literary analysis is where he shines the brightest. An excellent resource for understanding one of the most well-known (and least understood) books of the Bible, especially (but not strictly) from an LDS perspective.

You can listen to an interview with Austin here.

Times & Seasons: Trials and Their Purpose

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I gave a talk this past Sunday in sacrament meeting on the theme “trials and their purpose.” I received a lot of good feedback and posted it at Times & Seasons. My main focus is that God does not “give” us trials in any literal sense. To do so would would, in most cases, violate natural law, human agency, or morality. Here are a couple excerpts:

In the opening of the Genesis account, the world is described as “without form, and void” (Gen. 1:2). The Book of Abraham states that it is “empty and desolate”; a place in which “darkness reigned” (Abr. 4:2). And yet, out of the darkness and chaos, God was able to fashion something he could declare as “good” (Gen. 1:25). God did not create the chaos, but he did forge something beautiful from it. Similarly, I seriously doubt that God is the one wreaking havoc in your lives, but he can plow through it with you until you emerge a (hopefully) more compassionate, loving, and empathic person on the other side. Consider the case of Joseph sold into Egypt. Following the death of Jacob, he told his now fearful brothers that while they “thought evil against [him]…God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20). It’s safe to say that God did not cause Laban to cheat Jacob, leading to the unhealthy competition between Leah and Rachel and the rift between their sons. God did not cause Joseph’s brothers to throw him into a pit or sell him into slavery. What God did do was redeem the evil situation for good. This is likely what Paul meant when he wrote that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28). Or what Lehi meant when he told Jacob that God would “consecrate thy afflictions for thy gain” (2 Ne. 2:2). Or even what the Lord meant when he told Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail that his suffering would “give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7). Indeed, trials can give us experience and can work toward our good; what some have referred to as “soul-making.” Psychologists have described the positive outcomes of highly challenging life crises as “posttraumatic growth.” However, this is miles away from the claim that God willed Joseph Smith’s imprisonment. Indeed, God attributes it to Joseph’s captors being “servants of sin” and “children of disobedience” (D&C 121:17). But he does comfort Joseph with the promise that “thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes” (D&C 121:7-8).

…It should be recognized that Christ came to conquer death and hell (2 Ne. 9), which should indicate that they have no place in His kingdom, no eternal purpose. He came “to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12), not dole them out. He came to bring good news to the poor, not tell them that poverty is a great learning tool. He came to preach deliverance to the captives, not explain how prison and slavery would teach them valuable lessons. He was sent to heal the brokenhearted, give sight to the blind, and set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18); not to lecture them about how God works in mysterious ways. When the woman with an issue of blood touched his cloak, Jesus didn’t say, “That’s cute, but your 12-year hemorrhage is an excellent learning opportunity.” Instead, she was healed (Mark 5:25-34). When friends of the paralytic lowered him from the roof, Jesus didn’t say, “You know, I’m sure God is just trying to teach you something with this whole paralysis thing.” No, he forgave and healed him (Mark 2:1-12). If we want to know how we should think about trials and suffering, we should look to the Savior. He confronted evil and drove it out. He nurtured those suffering and relieved them of their afflictions. This is what His kingdom looks like. And if we are trying to build God’s kingdom here on earth, we should be engaged in the same kind of work. We are meant to build Zion in the midst of Babylon. We are meant to, as Joseph Smith put it, “turn the devils out of [hell’s] doors and make a heaven of it.” This doesn’t happen by resigning ourselves to evil and suffering, but by opposing it. But not only is Christ our example, he is our hope. He offers hope for a time when all these things will cease. And He offers hope in the present as one who loves and weeps with you in your trials.

Read the whole thing here.

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[ref]The argumentative theory. You know a topic is cutting-edge when you can find scholarly and popular references to it, but no Wikipedia article yet.[/ref], 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!”[ref]Isaiah 5:20[/ref]

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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Check out the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week and join our Facebook group to follow along!