Russell M. Nelson said in June of 2010: “Theistic forces, be they Islamic, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or Mormon, teach that there is an absolute right and wrong. Theistic forces have an ethic that reveres the righteous judgments of a loving God and obeys civil and divine law voluntarily. The theistic mindset instills a conscious to do what is right and obey laws that might otherwise be unenforceable. . . .
Granted there are people in America who are not religious who also obey unenforceable laws. Why? Because they live in a theistic culture. Although they may try to invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God and without acknowledging Him as the ultimate source of true joy, they still draw power from the theism of their ancestors. Their culture is good because theistic forces have endowed them with a rich culture of righteousness. Unfortunately, good culture alone is not strong enough to cause good culture to endure in perpetuity. Additional strength is needed from the power of theistic conviction.
For this reason, a policy to completely separate church and state could become completely counterproductive. The effect of erasing a theistic culture would allow atheistic forces to flourish unopposed in the public square. If that happens, the theistic and noble concept of “freedom of religion” could be twisted and turned to become an atheistic “freedom from religion.” Such an unbalanced policy could sweep out the theistic forces that have been responsible for our society’s success and leave the field wide open to atheistic ideology, secularism, and huge losses for each of us.
The scenario was foreseen by our Master, who taught that such people “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” [*].
Without an acknowledgment of God and God’s law in one’s life, momentary pleasures will be continually contaminated by gnawing guilt. Momentary pleasures would become meaningless as each raw experience would be stripped of deep meaning and sweet memory. Each day’s work would become sheer drudgery, beauties of nature would become boring, and children would be deemed nuisances to be endured. Without God’s moral underpinnings, political behavior would become skewed toward short term expediency, lurching nervously from crisis to crisis. (“We Are All Enlisted,” Devotional Address to Young Adults of New England, June 10, 2010) (From his book: ‘Teachings of Russell M. Nelson, Deseret Book, 2018 p 353-54.)
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
