A Mormon Homily: Joseph Smith and Civic Life [Bryan]

A talk given to the Hilliard Ward of the LDS Church, Sept 21, 2008. It was requested that I speak about "civic responsibilities" -- here is what I came up with.

As a member of the LDS Church, what is my responsibility as a citizen? How does being a Mormon change how I act in my community and in politics? Is my religion purely a private matter, something that has no bearing on larger social, cultural, or economic issues? Or, is my religion something that should dominate my life as a citizen – should I, for example, seek to ensure that the principles of my religion become the law of the land? Or is the relationship between my religion and my citizenship something else entirely? These questions are particularly difficult because we live in a society full of different religions – believers and non-believers alike – many of whom claim to possess unique truths, just as we do.

In the Fourth Gospel, we read that Jesus, when asked if he was a king, replied, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). In this story, Jesus seems to be uninterested in the political or civic life. His kingdom was very different from those here on earth: it was instituted to save souls, not to keep order; it sought to change us through love, not force us to be obedient through power. The idea that Christ's kingdom belongs to another world, and not to this one, has led some Christians to turn away from their role as citizens. They have sought Christ in quiet monasteries and through silent contemplation rather than through civic action.

But there is also the story of the tribute money, recorded in all of the synoptic gospels. A man, apparently a Pharisee spy, approaches Jesus and asks him about the lawfulness of giving tribute money to Caesar. Jesus sensing that the question is a trap, responds, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s” (Matt 22:21). One could read this passage as endorsing a sort of divided life. You have the life of God on the hand, the life of Caesar on the other, and these lives have nothing to do with each other -- no intermixing of the two is allowed. But, really, the lesson we are to draw from this story is uncertain. For one thing, it is clear that Jesus was not answering a sincere question. For another, one might ask whether this teaching applies to us in constitutional democracies or only to those living under occupation by Imperial Rome.

One thing we might do, when we want to know about the relationship between our religious lives and our lives as citizens is to examine the life and teachings of Joseph Smith, who lived in a constitutional democracy. How did he see things? What was the relationship between Joseph Smith the prophet and Joseph Smith the citizen?

Richard Bushman, in his acclaimed Joseph Smith biography Rough Stone Rolling, indicates that, at first, Joseph took the “my kingdom is not of this world” view. Larger civic communities and political entities were simply irrelevant. Bushman writes, “ [Early] Mormons…tended to dismiss human political institutions as ephemera doomed to disappear.” For Joseph, though, this attitude slowly began to change with the experience of mob persecution in Missouri. While confined in Liberty Jail in 1839, Joseph was told to record the persecutions and sufferings of the Mormons and "present them to the heads of government" (D&C 123:6). The Jackson county attacks suggested to the Latter-day Saints that the government could be an ally in recovering their lost land. Another revelation suggested that, under persecution, the Mormons should “befriend constitutional law” (D&C 98:6). Civic government had become relevant!

The Missouri persecutions also changed how the new Church came to see itself with respect to other citizens. The Mormons began to tell a story, not just of Golden Plates and a glorious Restoration, but now also of their persecution by mobs. They told their story, not necessarily to convert their audiences, but to inspire sympathy for their plight. As Bushman points out, telling such a story assumes, of course, that there are good and sympathetic people whom the Saints can befriend and work together with, even if these people do not convert to Mormonism. This insight freed the Mormons, in some ways, to work with other good people in civic society.

The story of Joseph’s engagement with the larger civic and political world comes to its climax, no doubt, in 1844, when Joseph declared his candidacy for the US presidency -- he ran on an interesting platform that called, among other things, for the establishment of a national bank and the eventual abolition of slavery.

Clearly, Joseph began to see the need to be an active citizen, and he seemed to believe, at the end of his life, that religious duty and civic involvement could be compatible. The life and teachings of Joseph Smith offer some help, however, not only in understanding that civic engagement is necessary, but also in how we are to act in politics and the public sphere. Looking at Joseph’s life and teachings, I’ve come up with a list of five things that I believe Joseph would advise if he were here today. These principles will be familiar to most of you, I think, even obvious, but they are things we could all do better, especially me.

First, I think he would say that we can’t be agents for good in our communities if we are not first good listeners. Joseph wouldn’t want us to assume, I think, that we Mormons have all the answers. He once wrote, “Have the Presbyterians any truth? Yes. Have the Baptists, Methodists, etc., any truth? Yes…. We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true ‘Mormons.’” Elsewhere, he says, “One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.” Thus, Joseph thought that all of those around us, all of the non-members, have much to teach. Joseph not only paid lip service to listening to different perspectives, in Nauvoo he actually offered people time at his pulpit. As one visitor to Nauvoo, a socialist, wrote, “Joe Smith was in the practice of inviting strangers who visited Nauvoo, of every shade of politics and religion, to lecture to his people.” I don’t think Joseph would approve of a public discourse dominated by shouting, ugly insinuation, and name-calling; instead, he would want us to listen more closely to what others have to say.

Second (and this is related) Joseph would say that we should be informed as we act as citizens or serve our communities. Joseph saw intelligence as a primary feature of godliness, and where did intelligence come from? For Joseph, it was partly through hard studying and hard reading. In section 88 Joseph says, “seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” And what sort of things should we read and study? Section 88 says: “Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms.” Now, that is a reading list that will keep us busy for a lifetime! To be sure, his advice was aimed at missionaries, but at the end of Joseph’s life there was no clear distinction between missionaries and civic agents – missionaries, after all, played the central role in Joseph’s 1844 presidential campaign. So this advice to be informed holds, I believe, for all of us who would be active in our communities or in politics – we should study and read widely throughout our lives, taking in many different perspectives.

Third, I think Joseph would want us to pay special attention to unpopular groups or people who were not being protected under the law. Joseph was stunned, remember, when President Martin Van Buren told him after Missouri, "Your cause is just, but I cannot help you.” As part of his 1844 presidential platform, it therefore should be no surprise that Joseph promised as president to help unpopular groups if the state government was not doing enough to protect them. Obviously, this grows out of Joseph’s own experience as the leader of a despised and unpopular group. As Latter-day Saints, I believe he would say that we have a special responsible to the “least of these [our] brethren” – to the poor and disabled, to prisoners and sinners, and to the "bruised and battered children of the earth." As Joseph B. Wirthlin recently said, “At the final day the Savior will not ask about the nature of our callings. He will not inquire about our material possessions or fame. He will ask if we ministered to the sick, gave food and drink to the hungry, visited those in prison, or gave succor to the weak.” “That,” Wirthlin says, “is the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Fourth, I think Joseph would say that, although civic engagement can be part of religious life, we should also recognize the limits of mixing religion and politics. In D&C 134 he writes, “We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.” We wouldn’t want others to force us to live by their particular religious principles, so we should not force others to live by ours. We do need to remember sometimes, especially in a pluralistic society like ours, that the Lord’s kingdom is “not of this world.”

Fifth, in all our civic interactions, Joseph would have wanted us to engage in public life in a spirit of friendship. He once said, 'Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of "Mormonism"; [it is designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease and men to become friends and brothers.” Joseph, then, wants us to try change this world, not simply wait for a future world to come. He advocates a type of revolutionary action -- a revolution so radical that it will cause war, that great scourge of the human family, to cease. That revolution, however, is not grounded in violence. Instead, the revolutionary Joseph Smith advocates a quiet revolution: not of shouting, but of kindness; not of hostility, but of friendship; not of beating others down, but of lifting them up. Joseph, on this point, may be dismissed by cynics as an idealistic dreamer. And it is true that Joseph Smith was dreamer of sorts, but he was a prophetic dreamer, and his visions, for us Mormons, bear the mark of divine inspiration. We do not have to agree on everything, but we can be friends, and in that civic friendship – more than in the policies we advocate -- the world will find peace. Just think: of all the things Joseph could have said in talking about the most important principles of Mormonism – he could have said priesthood, revelation, and so forth -- he chose to talk about friendship.

Joseph says, in my mind, that our Mormonism, more than telling us the positions we should advocate or the issues we should champion, teaches us the personal qualities that make for good citizens. It is my hope that we can be listeners and learners, as Joseph advised. That we can look out for the “least of these” and grant to others the same religious freedoms that we cherish. All of this, I believe, is circumscribed in the idea of friendship, that Grand Fundamental Principle of Mormonism. And this is the ideal that should govern our civic and political lives.

In the end, Joseph, as with the rest of Christianity, describes God fundamentally as a creator. For Joseph, though, the difference is that God does not create alone; instead, he calls others in friendship to participate in his work of creation. Joseph talks of God calling together "grand councils," councils in which God gives us a voice in his planning and requests our hands in building a more just and beautiful universe. Working together with others, as citizens, is perhaps another way we can work as creators and as active agents for good. It is my hope that we can be creators and do good with others in the spirit of friendship.