Religious freedom
October 17, 2009
I finally had a chance to read the transcript of Elder Oaks’ talk on religious freedom. Go read it if you haven’t already.
A couple of comments:
It’s obvious that Elder Oaks has been influenced by the Book of Mormon (surprise, surprise) because of the way he ties together freedom and responsibility.
Therefore they relinquished their desires for a king, and became exceedingly anxious that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land; yea, and every man expressed a willingness to answer for his own sins. (Mosiah 29:38)
I don’t know anywhere else that “equality” is tied like this to a “willingness to answer for his own sins.” This is quite a bit different from the way our culture increasing equates liberty to absence of responsibility.
My second point is something that Elder Oaks didn’t touch on. One of the things that increases the challenge of religious freedom today is that government has come to function for many politically active secularists in the way that church functions for people of faith. When some of these people talk about “separation of church and state” what they’re really saying is “keep your infidel beliefs out of our place of worship.” How do we prevent the establishment of religion when the state becomes a religion?
Forks and Hope 
October 18, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Interesting point of view about the state becoming a religion. When the state starts to require religious like devotion through legislated “morals” we need to be concerned. I believe our founding fathers were inspired men of God who fought for a limited government in order to enable the freedom of the people to seek happiness, not force its will whether it is a good idea or bad. Good things done for the wrong reasons are in the end bad. Thus freedom of religion must be upheld and protected.
October 25, 2009 at 9:01 pm
that talk was awesome…we are living in the times those Book of Mormon prophets saw, many choose other gods over Heavenly Father and his Son.