"Religion, the Church, and the World"
Elder Charles Didier
January 28, 2003
I suppose that like everybody else you like to watch movies. We all have fond memories of one or the other memorable movies that we saw at one time or another in our life. For myself, I remember very well my youngest years when I was given 40 cents by my parents to go to the movie theater along with my little sister on Sunday afternoon. This, by the way, was after the Second World War, and the Church did not exist yet in our country! We were nonmembers at that time. The first American movies were being shown, and we had the time of our young lives laughing with Laurel and Hardy; exploring the jungle with Johnny Weismuller, the great Tarzan and Jane; and discovering the American way of life with chewing gum. Movies were not only entertaining but also learning experiences by treasuring the stories of true and righteous heroes.
We usually remember movies by their titles. Who does not remember the following: "The Ten Commandments," "Ben Hur," "The Great Escape," "Miracle on 34th Street," and many others which are now defined as classics. Ironically, in a way, many of these movie titles carry a spiritual connotation. For example, I looked at a recent weekend paper with the movie reviews and found the following titles: "Die Another Day" (preferably after repentance!), "Analyze That" (the plan of salvation, of course), "Treasure Planet" (no doubt it is Kolob), "8 Miles" (they must be talking about enduring to the end), "The Ring" (my grandson told me it was about a CTR ring), "All or Nothing" (or what about eternal life or eternal damnation), "Abandon" (it must be sin), "Far from Heaven" (to be meditated), "Heaven" (must be about our objective), "Signs" (of tenets thou shalt not talk!). Is this not a good illustration that all things in this world have a spiritual nature?
Walking one day in Lima some years ago and passing in front of a movie theater, I discovered a very interesting title. It was in Spanish and said, "Retroceder Nunca, Rendirse Jamas." Translated: "We Will Never Retreat, We Will Never Surrender." May I submit the following spiritual thought to be attached to this title for our purpose today: "We will never retreat from our religion, neither from the Church; we will never surrender to the world."
What is religion, what is church, what is the world? This may be the time to think not only about the meaning of these words but also about the consequences that they carry if we understand them correctly.
Communication is composed of words. Too often misunderstanding is a result of giving a different meaning to a word. Just think about the word Christ and ask what it means to people of various religious groups, for example. A study was made a few years ago to determine if fourth-graders understood LDS-related words. These were Church members. Here are the results: 8 of 850 words that were presented to them were understood 100 percent. Guess what they were? Amen, decision, fasting, forgiveness, missionary, mob, nonmember, and obedient. There were 240 of the 850 words understood by only 50 percent of them and less. Deity, meaning God, received only 6 percent of understanding! No wonder that we may find contention in homes, in the churches, and in the world if we do not communicate to be understood.
I know that you are not fourth-graders, but it might be well to see if we are in and of the same planet, supposing that men are most of the time from Mars and women all the time from Venus!
So, let us start by opening our minds to the word religion. Think for a moment, how would you define it if you had to communicate the value of it in our world today? From the dictionary, it may mean "the service and worship of God or the supernatural; commitment or devotion to religious faith; a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices; a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith" (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary). You almost need a college education to understand this phraseology!
To simplify and summarize this version of the word, we could say that religion is a set of practices tied to a certain determined faith and a doctrine of the divinity.
If we turn instead to modern revelation, we will see from the scriptures that the definition of true religion is "the system that the Lord ordained to enable His children to worship Him in such a way as to gain full salvation" (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 43). That is easier to understand!
Did you notice the difference between the definition of the world and the true definition given by the Lord by revelation? The difference is one word; it is the word salvation. True religion has a purpose, to help us to return and live in the presence of our Heavenly Father. "This is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).
Let us look at a few scriptural references to better understand the principles attached to the word religion because "We believe that religion is instituted of God" (Doctrine and Covenants 134:4).
First, and in general, you will have to defend it because it is always under attack from the world. Listen to the words of Moroni to the Lamanites: "But this is the very cause for which ye have come against us; yea, and ye are angry with us because of our religion" (Alma 44:2). The Nephites were contending with the Lamanites to defend their religion. The Nephites were commanded "to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion" (Alma 43:47). You will notice that religion was and still is inseparably connected to family, home, country, and rights. The latest episode of the battle of words and opinions about protecting rights of the Church Plaza in Salt Lake City is a vivid example of the necessity to stand for what we believe is right.
Second, as an individual, you not only have to defend your religion but make a covenant to maintain or develop religious liberty or the protection of religious human rights associated with it. Again, from the Book of Mormon and the example of one of the great leaders, Moroni: "Yea, and he was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ, and he had sworn with an oath to defend his people, his rights, and his country, and his religion" (Alma 48:13).
Third, if you are now convinced to defend your religion with a covenant not only made in the house of the Lord, you must be persuaded to live by it in the world; that means to practice the spirit of that religion in your daily life among your peers, to exercise charity and to be morally clean, as James taught:
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (James 1:22-27).
In summary now, to belong to a religion or to be religious has the following implications: to defend it; to stand for it with a covenant ever in the Lord's house, the temple; to live in the world by its ordinances and principles; to exercise charity and to be free from moral stains. That represents a lot of unexpected requirements if we do not perceive correctly what religion means. Too often, as we consider that religion is action in words and deeds, our first reaction is to retreat from this responsibility and to surrender to the easy way instead of enduring to the end! Remember, however, our theme of the day: "Never Retreat, Never Surrender."
What is really the problem of our day with religion? Individually, it is the temptation to create its own religion and use its own so-called power to administer it. That is why we have such a personal confusion today. Collectively, it is the temptation to use religion to impose discrimination under a form of fundamentalism. The wars of religion never die.
The prophet Joseph F. Smith said the following: "No man, in and of himself, without the aid of the Spirit of God and the direction of revelation, can found a religion, or promulgate a body of doctrine, in all particulars in harmony with revealed truth. If he has not the inspiration of the Lord and the direction of messengers from his presence, he will not comprehend the truth, and therefore such truth as he teaches will be hopelessly mixed with error. This is proved to be the case with many professed founders of religious creeds. Their teachings cannot be made to square themselves with the revelations of Jesus Christ and his prophets" (DS 1:189).
True religion associated automatically with the worship of a true and living God and his gospel leading to salvation has been the exception rather than the rule throughout the history of mankind. Since the beginning and commencing with the children of Adam, who had been brought to the knowledge of the plan of salvation, the temptation has always been to transform religion into a form of service to himself to satisfy his pride, his ambitions, and his natural condition, which is carnal, sensual, and devilish. It started with Cain and continues in our day with his followers. "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord" (Mosiah 3:19).
Can you start to see why true religion is essential because it leads to the true Church and thus to eternal salvation through the Atonement of Christ.
Let's have a look now at the word church. Is it the same thing as religion? We will see that the word church is always associated with religion. Its original meaning is that of a group of faithful, a body of religious believers having the same doctrine and gathering together. Again this world definition is missing the essential, the one that we already discovered was missing in our definition of religion. It is salvation.
The Church is, in true reality, the divinely established organization through which the gospel or plan of redemption--the plan of happiness, also called the plan of salvation--is taught, is prepared and practiced by receiving the ordinances of salvation administered by the authority, the priesthood (Doctrine and Covenants 84:19-20).
There is a difference between the church of man and the true church of God, the same way that there is a difference between the religion of man and the true religion of God. Elder Bruce R. McConkie defined the Lord's Church this way: "It is a formal and official organization with prescribed officers, defined units, approved doctrines, and authorized ordinances. Its ministers are endowed with power from on high; they hold the holy priesthood, and they are empowered to act in the place and stead of the Lord Jesus. Miracles and gifts of the Spirit always abound within its folds; its way of worship is always pure and perfect Christianity. And it always bears the name of that Lord whose church it is" (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 329).
In the gospel of Jesus Christ, personal religious experience is the foundation, vitality, and culmination of religious life (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, "Religious Experience," p. 1208). The Church is the vehicle that is used through personal religious experiences to reach our destination called salvation. Can any church do that? You may remember that finding the true church of God was the initial quest of Joseph Smith, confronted with a multiplicity of churches with different doctrines. He told us that there was "an unusual excitement on the subject of religion" because of the competition between the different faiths and their preachers to attract converts (JS--H, v. 5-6). He concluded his thinking with these words: "What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it and how shall I know it?" (JS--H, v. 10).
That question could only be answered from on high, by revelation as it happened in other dispensations before when truth had been taken away when people rejected the gospel and fell into apostasy. God always reveals the gospel of Jesus Christ to witnesses, to prophets that He chooses, not directly to all people: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). Truth about the plan of salvation is eternal and unchanging and comes, as I said, only by revelation from God.
Inspired by the scriptures and the testimonies of former witnesses of Christ, the original Apostles, Joseph Smith came to the determination "to ask of God." The answer came through a vision: He saw two Personages, the Father and the Son, and was answered not to join any of the religions of the day for they were all wrong, teaching incorrect doctrines.
Is that unbelievable? Certainly not if you are familiar with the Lord's ways to communicate truth to the one that He calls as a prophet to restore what was lost and to teach once again to men to rely on revelation from on high instead of their own wisdom.
Why is it necessary to mention the uniqueness of the restoration of the true Church of Jesus Christ? Once again, because the temptation is, more than ever today, to join a church that appeals to our preferences and prejudices, that is agreeable to our worldly nature and not to our divine nature. Or, more simply, to abandon the religious battlefield and declare: "I am not religious any more, but I am spiritual!" The warning about this temptation to change the ordinances or break the everlasting covenant is given in the preface of the Doctrine and Covenants and is obvious:
"They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall" (Doctrine and Covenants 1:16).
Once we have accepted to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of our faith in Jesus Christ and our repentance, because of His Atonement by a covenant called baptism, once again, there is no time to retreat from that covenant, no room to surrender to our own ways. The Church is an essential element of salvation. It cannot be replaced by a salad bar from which you choose what you like. President Gordon B. Hinckley emphasized the importance of that association in a general conference:
"To young people everywhere I should like to say that you need the Church, and the Church needs you. There is no better association than that with other young men and women of faith who recognize God as their Eternal Father and Jesus Christ as the living Savior of the world.
"That association will give you strength. It will give you companionship. It will challenge your abilities. It will afford you opportunity for growth. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is office and responsibility for all" (Gordon B. Hinckley, Conference Report, April 1967, p. 54).
Now, after religion, after church, what about the world? Are we not supposed to be experts in the knowledge of what it is all about because that's where we spend our life, our energy, our hopes? The name world may signify many things. There are at least 14 entries in the dictionary to define it. For our purpose, looking at things from a spiritual point of view, we will take the following definitions: "The sphere or scene of one's life and action"; "The concerns of the earth and its affairs as distinguished from heaven and the life to come."
Moving to the spiritual meaning is quite interesting. It seems that we have more warnings about that sphere than anything else! I found more than two and one-half pages of references to it in the Topical Guide in the standard works. From those quotes, it seems to be a very dangerous place to live unless, once again, we use the knowledge received from a loving Father in Heaven to preserve us from its dangers. The first warning: "In the world ye shall have tribulation." But also, the first help: "But be of good cheer; I (Jesus Christ) have overcome the world" (John 16:33). The "how to" overcome the world abounds in the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Apostles: "Be not conformed to this world" (Romans 12:2). Don't rely on the so-called wisdom of the world, says Paul: "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Corinthians 3:19). Beware of the wrong friendshiping: "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" (James 4:4). Attention worshipers of things of the world: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). All of this you may say belongs to the old world. After all, we are a new generation; we know better. Maybe. Why then these words by a modern prophet? President Gordon B. Hinckley admonishes us today against the ways of the world:
"We have a different way of life. There is a difference. It is a way of life and it doesn't fit the mold that a lot of people have. So we are different and they use the word weird. . . . We live in the world, we are part of the world, but we don't need to take on all the ways of the world. That makes us appear different and I suppose weird. But we are not weird." (Interview with Bob Anderson of 60 Minutes, December 6, 1995.)
Do we appear weird because we try to live the gospel? President Hinckley reassures us by inviting us to live our religion in the Church:
"All of us live in the world. Of course we do. We cannot live a cloistered existence. But we can live in the world without partaking of the unseemly ways of the world. "The pull gets ever stronger. The adversary is clever and subtle. He speaks in a seductive voice of fascinating and attractive things. We cannot afford to let down our guard. . . . We need not run the wrong way. The right way is simple. It means following the program of the Church, bringing into our lives the principles of the gospel, and never losing sight of what is expected of us as sons of God with a great inheritance and a marvelous and eternal potential." ("Don't Drop the Ball," Ensign, November 1994, p. 48.)
In some closing remarks in a later General Authority training meeting, his conclusion seems to be very familiar when he counseled not to retreat from our moral standards, never to surrender to the world:
"We see all around us a worldly creep that is destructive of faith. . . . I know that the temporal things of life are important. I know that we as a people must live in the world. But I hope that we will not surrender ourselves to the world." (General Authority Training Meeting, September 27, 1994.)
Let us also now turn to the voice of the world and listen to a few alarm signals ringing loud and clear even from this secular world:
". . . [It] seems like many young people today are picking and choosing elements of several religions to form their own individualized spirituality. According to Princeton sociologist Robert Wunthow, students today are piecing together their faith like a patchwork quilt. 'Spirituality has become a vastly complex quest in which each person seeks his or her own way,' said Wunthow" (Mark Weber, "The New College Spirituality," Relevant Magazine, June 17, 2002).
In Europe, more and more people continue to move away from organized religions and churches. In 11 of those countries, religion is ranked as "very important" by an average of only 17 percent of those surveyed (Europeans and Religion. Information Center News, Vol. 12, Nr. 15 Oct. 2002).
"Kristine Greenaway, director of communications for the World Council of Churches in Geneva, said Europeans were spiritual, 'but not necessarily in an organizational sense. They have the same questions about a supreme being, about prayer and life after death and they have a deep and sophisticated belief system, even if they are not part of an institution.' North Americans, on the other hand, have a "consumer oriented" approach to religion, a 'cafeteria mentality. We are individualists, so we think we can pick the church that suits us'" (International Herald Tribune, Barry James, "Religion plays a vital role for 6 in 10 Americans, survey reveals," Dec. 21, 2002).
In the U.S., the number of American adults who claim no religious preference has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Let me quote from James Hitchcock, who wrote about "Christianity American Style":
"While the United States is recognized as one of the few industrialized countries where religion is still strong, its culture often seems at odds with traditional religious values." Mr. Hitchcock's conclusion: ". . . Americans tend to value religion insofar as they regard it as supportive of their personal lives but not when it seems to 'interfere' in their lives or make demands on them. They are deeply religious in a sense, but their commitment proves fragile when it fails to provide the emotional support they seek."
Hitchcock's other comments: "The orthodox belief that human beings survive after death is warmly accepted by believers primarily insofar as it promises personal happiness, not insofar as it threatens punishment." Three-fourths of all Christians think that people should determine their own beliefs independent of any organized religion.
In his concern over what he perceived as the growing gap between traditional Christian teachings and personal beliefs, Hitchcock averred:
The very religiosity of American culture is often turned against Christianity, in that the entire world has now been made to seem like a spiritual garden in which people can browse as they see fit, plucking the flowers that smell fragrant. Plucking them does not require accepting the church's discipline--literally becoming a disciple--but merely savoring the scent and leaving the rest. The ultimate test of religious authenticity is now thought to be personal feelings, which are among the few things the culture still regards as sacred. Religion has value insofar as it makes the individual feel good. (James Hitchcock, "Christianity American Style," Touchstone 14:10, December 2001: 3-5.)
It seems thus that for more and more young and older people, the personal experience is of more value than the teaching of religion in a church. They are, however, forgetting a major truth, as James E. Talmage said: "that man alone cannot save himself; Christ alone cannot save him" (The Co-operative Plan of Salvation, Improvement Era, June 1917, p. 705).
What is the Lord's answer to this calamity where people take in their own hands their terrestrial salvation and believe that they can work out their salvation alone with no need of religion and the Church, where they believe that to hold to a few good principles that all will be well with them? The Lord declared by revelation to the need to belong to a church, His Church, with these unequivocal words: "[I] called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments . . . [to] proclaim these things unto the world . . . that faith also might increase in the earth; that mine everlasting covenant might be established; that the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed; . . . that also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth" (Doctrine and Covenants 1:17-30).
Since the time of his mortal ministry to the restoration of his original church, Christ established the spiritual absolute that salvation can only come "in his Church, and of the Church and is obtained only through his Church" (Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, Apr. 1973, p. 157). The great purpose of the Church thus is to not only bring salvation to men but to also make our religion an effective way of daily life centered in our Savior Jesus Christ and the teachings of his prophets. It is the way to perfect our lives and to prepare us for eternal life.
It is time now to come to the essential provided by religion and the Church that the world cannot provide, which is salvation. It is Alma who taught that "this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God" (Alma 34:32). Salvation depends on knowledge as the knowledge of divine and spiritual things is absolutely essential to it, and that is why the gospel is to be taught to every soul. That is why the Lord has repeatedly warned the parents to teach the Lord's ways to their children; that is why missionaries are called to give the voice of warning to all nations and all people; that is why we have the ordinances of the temple for the dead. All of this with the same simple purpose that people might prepare their salvation the Lord's way in His Church:
"I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness" (Doctrine and Covenants 93:19).
True religion, true church, true knowledge of the nature of the Godhead, true worship, true authority of the priesthood, true ordinances are the essentials for gaining our salvation. It is a process that we need to know, that we need to testify about, that we need to share, that we need to live and to defend. Salvation is in Christ, in His Atonement and is the greatest of all the covenants; it is the new and everlasting covenant. A covenant by which we have the promise to return and live in the presence of our Heavenly Father by having faith in Christ, repenting of our sins and accepting the ordinances of salvation, namely, baptism by immersion for the remission of our sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost, priesthood for males, the endowment and the sealing in the temple.
Salvation is also the greatest gift of God:
"If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation" (Doctrine and Covenants 6:13).
"And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God" (Doctrine and Covenants 14:7).
Three words, three steps towards life after death: religion, church, salvation. They cannot be disassociated. They rely on each other, and all of them are based on revelation from on high. It is because of revelation that we are here today; that you can enjoy the blessings of education in this marvelous BYU-Idaho facility; that we know the truth, the way, and the life, even Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.
Never deny this knowledge, this testimony that He is the Son of the living God. Never retreat to your own ideas of religion or church, never surrender to the world. The miracle of the divine mission of Jesus Christ is to change our mortal nature into a divine nature and to give us a divine destiny because of His Atonement.
Testimony
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