friend Ralph Hancock professor of political philosophy at Brigham Young
University Ralph welcome back to the show thanks good to be here we're going to talk about something that is rather
deep um rather important and very pervasive I think in our current
political and church environment and that is political neutrality the church
earlier this year came out with a statement on how it is positioned in most cases to be politically neutral I
want to talk about that stance what that means um what does it mean to members of
the church and do we are we supposed to reflect that and what do others do uh as
compared to the church other other Christian organizations what are they doing in the United States I want to
start with this you made a comment in a recent article or portion of your
article here that was out in public Square magazine and Meridian magazine called pragmatic political priorities
Faith within a culture clash and you stated this if we want to help make our
world better or at least help prevent it from becoming much worse then we must
care about the laws policies and shared purposes that drive political
life do politics matter I mean we get so many talking points recently about and
and I agree with them oftentimes about don't let your politics move above your
worship above your your testimony Etc how much do politics
matter all right well an excellent uh not an easy but an excellent question to
start with I I think these two truths have to be kept in View and
held together on the one hand uh one can be too political too rapidly political
one can um be consumed by political concerns as
if they were ultimate concerns U as if um our religious devotion were swallowed
up in political activism uh that's of obviously a risk and it's a risk that
can uh affect uh both sides or both ends of the political Spectrum let's
say uh on the other hand it's also true that
um we're surrounded by politics we are
drenched in politics we are swimming in a political sea that politics uh
frames politics and you'll see that I'm using politics in a very broad sense you'll notice in the Church's neutrality
statement it's mainly focused on electoral politics and taking uh sides
in uh who should win or whom you should vote for and so forth but when I when I address politics I'm taking a step back
to see that in a sense a politics uh frames or is always let's say
pressing to frame um our ideas our morality our thoughts
about uh ultimate things a good life a good person Etc so that's the when I
talk about politics I'm uh you know I'm a teacher of uh the tradition of
political philosophy and uh including Aristotle notably and so I think
Aristotle is right that human beings are in a sense uh he says Political Animals
that doesn't mean that all of us are hungry to get elected uh or to have power it means means that
we depend upon and find our being in authoritative communities authoritative
political communities and everything we do is shaped by the the
moral authority of our uh of our most uh authoritative
decisive community so that that's the frame I'm in when I talk about uh
politics and in that sense uh to be neutral about politics would not would be not to care about um the very
framework of your life or that of your neighbors and people you love not to care about the future of your family
your children and your grandchildren because uh politics is going to affect
all that why do you think it is there was a poll that was put out recently showing
that for example Utah had one of the lowest participation rates in voting in
the country why are latterday Saints not as you'd think that they would be involved
they used to be much more involved in politics uh those numbers have changed
pretty dramatically over the last 25 years why would members not are members
more neutral politically now than they used to be do you think or why at least aren't they as engaged as they used to I
think there's a there's a temptation to withdraw and it's very understandable I
mean all of us want to like shut out the noise sometimes and we uh we all uh
complain about the uh polarization and incivility and we hear our church leaders
uh warning us against um extremism and
uh incivility so there are all kinds of reasons to want to withdraw but I I think that uh there's
also an element of of complacency we frankly we've all been a little spoiled
in our liberal Democratic country where our freedoms have been pretty
well uh protected and we've been uh
prosperous and we we've had the luxury of ignoring politics when we felt like
doing so but there's no guarantee things will stay that way and I think uh
latterday Saints and citizens of Utah in general have tended to be uh a little
complacent and uh wishfully thinking that we can uh avoid the noise and avoid the
like emotional upheavals and the emotional stress and that maybe like the
political world will leave us alone and just kind of go away it it won't matter
but I think it will so in a in a more and more
politicized world is there there is the danger of putting politics above
religion but where is the intersection between those two can it used to be for
example R it used to be when I was much younger I I I used to look at the Book of Mormon as purely just a spiritual
book and that's primarily what it is but it's actually a very political book and
and I I think to myself well what how much does my religion and my
belief system how how shouldn't I be expressing
that in my vote shouldn't I be expressing that in my involvement with a
community and politics or or is that something that needs to somehow be separated well I the separation can
never be complete look we are uh the
political sea that we are swimming in is a sea of uh liberal democracy in which
the idea of a a limited government and um a kind of rough separation between
religion and politics there's never a pure separation but a kind of rough separation between religion and politics
has been uh fairly successful but and so in that sense uh
we've been spoiled and we haven't even noticed uh the value and maybe the
fragility of the uh protections under which we live and I don't mean just the
explicit constitutional protections I mean
the uh more or less hospitable moral and political environment but now to come
right to the in a way the philosophical dimension of your question
uh politics and religion intersect necessarily because they both have to do with morality morality is
fundamental to both uh morality um the rules of Life an understanding of what
makes a good person what makes a good Community how we should live uh these
are at stake both in our political life and in our religious life and I'm not
arguing at all that they should be fused but the the intersection is inevitable
and the mutual influence between religion and politics is inevitable and
I would even say that there's some um
necessary uh transmission or you could say leakage of uh
fundamental beliefs understandings of the good
from both directions and that's why we need to be very attentive now you and I
as Latter-Day Saints we know what our ultimate perspective is it's the one framed by the restoration and the Plan
of Salvation and our covenants and our our idea of the ultimate good which is a
a kind of familial exaltation that's what we consider
ultimate uh but the political world generates its own
understanding of what makes a good human being and what a good human life
consists in and so the the work of uh keeping these two in some kind of
alignment however imperfect or adjusting um the two views so that they
can fit together in some workable fashion I mean the our ultimate religious beliefs and the morality that
U that seeps you might say from our political views that that task is
ongoing but I think we religion must be our priority but if
we ignore the interface the intersection between religion and politics you know
what's going to happen it's not going to go away the politics is going to seep into and determine our religion even
when we think we're being apolitical or most at most even more when we think we're being
apolitical yeah and that's of course I cover a lot of that on the podcast that is definitely happening and and a lot of
that is because there's not I don't know if I want to call it
always political but certainly involvement in supporting the gospel and
its principles and and uh those that would go along with Liberty Etc um what
about Ralph what about the culture War all right you we've got a a a polarity
now in the US that is you know it's always existed but it's it's it abs and
flows but we are we're in a position now where where it it's pretty strong because there are so many radical
changes right now that we're going through you had the 60s and 70s where we moved quite a bit to the left and and
and culture was disrupted this makes that look like Child's Play to me right
now with what's happening in in uh our our world view even even going down to
the point of our world view of our philosophical view here as members of the United States as citizens of the
United States this is changing very very quickly and so there's this culture war that has developed I would say certainly
like nothing that I've had in my lifetime where it can be a complete distraction
from the gospel and at the same time
um how can you not look at this and sayi
have a responsibility not just for me but for my family for my neighbors for my
community for my church to be involved and
to fight for the pr again fight for the principles and the worldview that we see through the
gospel well I agree with that perspective and I would even say that at
the most fundamental level the reason we need to
be aware of at least and and I would even say engaged in at least in so far
as uh an intellectual and spiritual engagement with the culture wars
because if we're not we're invaded by
uh the side that is winning the cultural Wars at least uh among Elites in the
west we're invaded by that side whether we know it or not so I know it's it's
increasingly unfashionable uh to talk about the cultural Wars first of all Ordinary People just want to seek peace and we're
a little complacent we'd rather avoid it but lots of uh intellectuals now try to
and political scientists want to poo poo the idea uh because well Frank because um
they don't want us to resist the sides that the side that is
winning so um people who talk the language of culture wars like us are
often accused of just of being immoderate or wanting to stir things up or um
exaggerating um differences and so forth I don't I don't think so I think
uh that the culture war is a fact that stares Us in the face I mean in the uh
in the in the article you mentioned in Public Square and Meridian I I reference
a friend and uh fellow political philosopher Scott yenner who describes
us as uh living under a a new sexual regime regime a new sexual
Constitution that's very different from the one that that held sway that was
part of the air we breathed when you and I were growing up well I grew up I don't know how many years before you but
anyway in the olden days um and uh so to ignore that
now to ignore that we're effectively living in a new sexual regime is uh not
to see how we are being influenced well and it's it's saying it's saying sorry
it it it's again the problem this is kind of like you know to use a term from
the left it's like we have American privilege we have we have we have
freedom privilege and and that freedom if you grab on to it and you live good
principles you're going to produce good consequences in a good environment and and so as you do that
and others then want to attack what you have and the way your way of life and
want to change everything you're in you automatically I I think by default at
least you're in a position of complacency because things are good and
they're good only because you're sitting on the Bedrock of certain
principles uh from the founding of America and liberal democracy and freedom of
religion that all where all of these things are coming you know line by line precept upon precept are being eroded
Drip Drop Drip Drop yeah ex how there but and I think what people
don't realize to me as I see this and I've watched this train steam on by I
there has to be a Tipping Point somewhere at some point there's going to be a Tipping Point where there may not
be a turning back yeah well who who can say how close
we are to this Tipping Point or threshold or whether we've passed it I think we have to uh
take responsibility for uh changing and resisting where we can but on the on the
point of complacency I was going to say there's there's even a more Insidious dimension of the complacency than the
one that you brought out about our being accustomed to living under uh relative
uh freedom and prosperity but here's the thing the re the regime changes like the I mean the
proverbial what is it a frog in the boiling water uh and we don't want to notice that how
much has changed and you look at that's why I think the example cited by uh
Scott yenner in my article is it's it's so important to
come to terms with because if you look around us it's undeniable that we're living under a different regime a
different Authority a different set of ideas that hold old Sway and that Define
what is permissible to not only to say but to think so the really Insidious
side of this complacency is that uh we don't even dare think some
things like some lifestyles are right and some some are just wrong you know
much less say them we don't even dare think such things so far have we been
influenced by the authority of the uh regime determined by the increasingly
Winning Side of the culture War yeah and again how has that happened
how did that Authority take over you know you have a a a hardle
movement that uh in the early 20th century throughout going even pushing
through the late 20th century this was done by force this was done by rifles and
tanks uh and coups and here you have more of a cultural coup that that has
happened as these ideas have of identitarianism and uh um you know
certain tenants of of leftism that have completely taken over the
institutions in the United States yeah that's a story I mean you're you're comparing the um the establishment of uh
hard and explicit totalitarianism in uh certain regimes
like the Soviet Union and communist China um and
others uh but we we have a more in a way a more subtle and possibly even more
Sidious Insidious version of a kind of totalism that has uh
sort of crept over our way of life and our
institutions uh roughly think since the 60s I know like Baby Boomers like me were accused of uh were easily accused
of assuming that things that happened when we were young are the most important things but I'm going to
unapologetically say things started happening in the late 60s and 70s there
was a turning point where a kind of uh radicalism got a foothold in the
mainstream and you know we could try to trace some of this history back to 1968
and the you know the the radicalism in the streets the Takeover of the democratic party the changing of the
rules of the democratic party but a new left became ensconced within the
Democratic party and its influence has grown and uh many of the uh radicals
have become many of the kids uh radic ized in the streets and invading
University Administration buildings are now the professors that are my age or older
or now now we've had time that for them to teach another generation of professors who who takes that
radicalism uh for granted so our Elite institutions starting with universities
but including uh law schools and the legal profession and uh media and now now we have even
like corporations businesses which were supposed to be in a way the the check
against um impractical radical nonsense the largest corporations are uh
happy to um take on the apparatus of
diversity equity and inclusion and and all the uh expense that involves because
they can afford it and the smaller businesses can't so it helps to secure their their positions but anyway this
this has been a process of uh the uh yeah the march from the institutions is
the Neo Marxist uh or cultural Marxist formulation but uh how can you say it
hasn't happened how can you say it when you when you look around and see what is uh considered uh respectable or uh
authoritative what is considered uh uh correct thinking these days uh is
very much has been very much influenced by what was uh the province of a radical
few uh when I was a youth yeah you know and that's the thing you know you hear push backs sometimes
from individuals like saying come on this this is too much what you're saying is too much almost like don't get
involved right don't you don't need to speak up this is not as bad as you think it is and and and and you know certainly
we don't want to talk about some doomsday issues here but it's I I I I I
think your question there of saying um how can you deny any of this is a very
good one I mean look around you what what major institution in the United States is not run by
leftism yeah it used to be that you had business that at least was because you
know you didn't and again I trace this all back through Academia and so you you you don't have that as much coming out
of the humanities and and you've got business which is about Enterprise and and capitalism and um and then all of a
sudden you have Occupy Wall Street that happens what almost 15 years
ago now and so you look at the change that has happened in those you know 13 to 15 years in Wall
Street it is no longer you know the the uh
um the Chamber of Commerce along with the Fortune 500 that are the even the
country club Republicans so to speak and and are you know bastions of capitalism
and being these are now becoming the exact opposite when you look at the major investment banks that are involved
with these companies what they are pushing what they're requiring with the shareholders what they uh the the
internalizing of Dei in each of these uh these companies
look business then you've got you've got family look at what how our families
have changed and the things that we have are walking on eggshells with you've got the media completely that's social media
completely I mean go back anybody who's looked at any of the Twitter files those put out by Barry Weiss and Matt taibe
it's incredible the involvement of the government on one side and the FBI have
with social media companies whether you're looking at Hollywood or the news media for the most part it's all run by
one side uh law is is is not as bad but
it's it's definitely leaned harder to the left and you have a number of leftists getting involved there in
bigger and more powerful positions it's like every major institution is has changed dramatically
right especially in the last 15 years yeah and let me I mean but again let me come back to the most uh
primary and uh unavoidable evidence of the regime the
final Authority that we're under because it's it's useful and Illuminating to trace historically the March through the
institutions beginning if you will especially in the late 60s it's uh and
then you it's it's worthwhile to study each of our institutions and anal ize
how power Works through through those institutions but I would invite The Listener the viewer just to do the
simple exercise of imagining what you can say and not in
public without fear of being shamed discredited or even being harmed
materially I mean talk to young people uh in the workforce especially in
large uh uh corporations that have uh are part
of the global economy but not only in the larger Enterprises but talk to young
people and ask them what are you free to talk about and what not and if they're if they're really introspective they
will they've already been shaped to know what things are permissible to
say uh and sometimes the sanction might be just uh informal you'll be looked
down on but but we're talking about people's uh
associations and their livelihoods here it's it's uh to deny the fact that we
are that our thinking is constrained by uh a new Elite that is
has been decisively shaped by what was considered extremism and radicalism just
a few decades ago I think to deny that is uh impossible if you just look at the
facts that are staring you in the face one one more add-on to that that you don't need to address if you don't want
to but you know you bring that all the way into say a subsidiary of the church
like biu and it's you see this happening
regularly uh we cover this a lot on this podcast yeah uh I know many professors
that have had to be quiet that are afraid to speak up for that very reason
they're afraid to be yelled at a lot of them are afraid of their jobs I don't think their job is that issue but they
think it's an issue and and they're they worry about tenure they worry about
promotion um I know a couple of professors specifically that have been turned down for tenure because of their
their political stances and many that have been forced out
because of uh of their political stances and so it we're not immune to this and people need to realize yes we're we're
speaking of this as in in a about the United States but as Latter-Day Saints
and the church and our culture we are not immune to this this
is happening on a regular basis it is also as an institution creeping into the
church yeah well it's it's uh yeah it's unmistakable it's inevitable that this
um new regime of authority which
has so thoroughly captured at least the critical mass of Elites in the United
States it's inevitable that this affects BYU BYU is part of the
larger academic Enterprise uh Brigham Young University
especially in Provo there are certain reasons why BYU Idaho is slightly more U
uh insulated from some of these uh pressures that would be another question
that I'm a little less familiar with but uh how can you deny that by Brigham Young University in Provo which seeks to
be uh to operate as an elite academic institution and to prepare extremely
able students for participation with other National and
Global Elites in society and economy and media law what have you how can you deny
that we're we're part of this system and we're affected by it our the the peers
who peer review us are uh establish are parts of this
establishment that we are talking about the graduate schools from which we hire
faculty uh and the journals that publish our research are largely part of this uh
establishment now it's not an absolute monolith but we're talking about Broad and Powerful tendencies that that shape
basic uh habits of thought and and uh patterns of behavior so yes obviously
um look uh if I were if I wanted to be hired at BYU if I were 30 years old and
wanted to be hired at BYU I wouldn't I couldn't be on this show talking with you yes I that's right I understand that
yeah because of what you're saying yeah yeah so so Ralph what can BYU do about
this I mean you are BYU is in a position where as you said it wants to be an elite
University uh it wants to it's part of the Big 12 now uh there's a lot that
comes along with that I've already seen several results from this um can BYU do anything to carve itself
out from the rest of Academia that's that's an interesting question and interesting you mentioned
the Big 12 uh I'm not competent to pursue that further but it's I mean it's
an example of us being uh ingrained in uh existing institution so I make a
suggestion that can be we could come back to another time but will we be better off if BYU keeps losing in the
Big 12 that is in the sense of uh not uh not envisioning our identity so much as
part of this large institutional thing uh called the Big 12
I don't I'd like to win I'd rather not lose but uh the question does occur to me but in terms of uh BYU and its um
larger academic host you might say the the uh environment the larger academic
Enterprise in which we operate you might say we live and breathe and have our being uh I would
say it's it's very hard to be a distinctive institution it means going
against the grain and knowing you're going against the grain in every decision in every policy in every point
of institutional design all the time because it's like uh I don't know like
rowing up River it's it's not going to happen by accident um who was it some uh
conservative pundit pundit or uh conservative leader decades ago said
that said something quite true he said uh any institution that that is not
explicitly deliberately intentionally conservative will be liberal Progressive
I would add now uh woke that's the drift that's where things go it's not
enough uh just uh say not to be uh not to enthusiastically and deliberately
embrace the drift you will drift you will go with the flow which is a very
powerful Flow It's like white water it's not just a calm Lazy River you will go
with the Whitewater flow so uh you the only way to be an alternative is uh
deliberately to uh go
against the prevailing Tendencies and that's difficult that's unpopular
especially when uh you know we've hired a a faculty and largely an
Administration for decades on other principles on principles of uh integrating as far as
possible with the academic Elite as a whole
well yeah I mean I mean let's be honest I mean BYU is going along with the Whitewater
more than not going L it's not like they're swimming Upstream yeah if they are they're
they're barely swimming up scream or they're slowing down they they're not
they're just putting in their ores to not go quite as fast yeah they're they're they're moving up but they're
they're swimming they're they got their ores going Upstream just slightly but they're still moving backwards no I I
don't disagree but let let's give credit to a new um body of leadership
um from Elder Elder Holland uh who's no longer on the bo but he's made great
contributions in some speeches that weren't popular with faculty to uh Elder Clark Gilbert the commissioner of
education and the new Administration Shane Ree and his very um
articulate and um I think um well understanding uh academic vice
president Justin Collins all these people have announced in unmistakable terms that they want to row
Upstream I wish them well it's not going to be easy it's it's it's impossible to
overestimate the task of how how many ores we need in the water and how hard
they need to row so um it I still don't um we
we're um we're still hopeful that we can row Upstream by uh by persuasion and
exhortation uh I don't I don't see that happening we there are too many vested
interests and these interests are not just like Financial like having a salary or getting a raise they are
deeply social psychological you could say spiritual in the sense that they relate to fundamental
worldview uh we have uh we have embraced a worldview or an intersection of
worldviews a way of intersecting our worldview
latterday Saint worldview with um the
larger that of the larger increasingly ruling Elite and to to extricate us from
that is not just uh materially
threatening it's psychologically and spiritually uh a
crisis well it's a crisis and I will say anyone involved with BYU listening to
this and agreeing with this it's you have to put your or in people need to realize this this is
we are such a button-down polite niceness type of a
culture and you got to realize that's great when things are going well
but if you are going down stream you you better put your ore in and and and and
start going Upstream a little bit and if people don't do that in enough numbers you can have as many people as you want
at the top they're not going to get rid of all of these individuals they're not going to go f do some Mass firing at BYU
this requires people to stand up and say something this requires people to put their ores in and start swimming
Upstream rolling Upstream it's you can't you can't as I said you can't just
participate in the spiral of Silence it's it will it will roll you over it'll steamroll you if if if you're not
careful yeah you've mentioned the spiral of siren I think of the U the uh
eloquent phrase from soci nson that has been quoted by friends such as rod rer
and Daniel J Mahoney live not by Lies We to the degree that we uh silently accept
our Ascent to um a
regime that is finally uh incompatible with some fundamentals of
the Gospel we are reinforcing the LIE we are we are
um contributing to the spiral of silence or we're
actually contributing energy to the white waterer you might say that we've been talking about here good point all
right I want to go back to the church here for a second because your article that you wrote you give a two different
views on things one is from the church and I just want to read a short portion of this from their statement on
neutrality here the work of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints includes sharing the Gospel of Jesus
Christ strengthening individuals and families and caring for those in need the church does not seek to elect
government officials support or oppose political parties or generally take sides in global conflicts generally is
an important word there uh the church is neutral in matters of politics within or between the world world's many nations
lands and peoples okay opposite of this here is what you have the The Manhattan
Declaration that comes from 2009 of several Christian uh
organizations that got together and put this together here's what here's an excerpt from this it says freedom of
religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to
compel persons of Faith to compromise their deepest convictions we affirm
marriage as a conjugal Union of man and woman ordained by God it sounds very familiar from the creation and
historically understood by Believers and non-believers alike to be the most basic institution of society okay so here's we
have a proclamation on this that sounds very similar to that put in 1995 uh 14 years before The Manhattan
Declaration here is put out by these other Christian organizations um and
interestingly and I may have to insert this but at the bottom paragraph of that
Proclamation on the family it states that we are expected to be involved
politically with supporting the principles of the
family right it is almost a call it is not a neutrality on those principles of
the family no not at all neutral in fact uh I I've memorized this statement no
I'm cheting I actually I'm not I'm not so good at memorization I called it up uh further from the LDS family
proclamation which what was the date on that again 1995 uh seems like yesterday to me but
that's me further we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals communities and Nations
the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets how's that for neutrality we call upon responsible
citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures Des
designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of
society that's that's as every bit as robust as The
Manhattan Declaration and so I mean it leaves with this this has not been rescinded uh and of course in the last
it was just in the last General Conference wasn't it was it yes president Oaks or someone else who B who
essentially said o president Nelson and and president Christ or Elder christofferson also all three said this
is not going away right so we have to lay this beside the neutrality statement
and it it it arguably creates a bit of a head scratch or how do you put these two together this that was really the
occasion from writing my article how are we to think about uh this uh what I call
a pragmatic stance of neutrality in relation to this claron call to stand up
uh for the family and and a warning that not to do so
risks a disaster a Calamity the Calamity foretold by ancient and modern
prophets uh well that that's uh that that sets to us a a a problem
that I think is uh worth considering that's why I wrote the article but I what I mean what we have to see then I
think the U the pragmatism of so-called neutrality has to be understood against the
background of this fundamental position okay it certainly
can't be deduced one cannot be deduced from the other but you have to I think
the fundamental truth of the family proclamation has to be held in the background when we talk about neutrality
and then we we hear all of the qualifications like you just read one in general and but there's always the
qualification in cases of um uh very significant moral issues the church
reserves the right etc those are all qualifications
so what I'm hearing is that uh for now it the church leadership has judged wise
to keep our heads low to um not pick
fights that we can't win or maybe that we've already lost and
uh even while there may be this is
my uh extrapolation or interpolation of what's going on between the lines uh I
offer it for what it's worth uh but even though um our we may feel our
freedoms uh constricting we we may uh worry that
we're not as free as we were even a short time ago still we have a freedom
to build temples and to do Temple work and uh maybe especially against the
Horizon of a what seems to be a fairly short time perspective in terms
of how much time we have to work with in this phase of our existence on Earth the millennial
question that I evoke at the beginning of my article in view of all that let's
pragmatically lay low as far as possible for now do the work work of the temples and also uh not let these cultural
divisions um uh tear up our congregations but try to keep peace so that we can make
progress on the most uh fundamental points that's that's my effort to make
sense of the the pragmatic strategy that uh the church seems to be
leading with at this moment so and and
fine you know that you know who am I to say that's right or that's wrong I I can see issues there yeah but that doesn't
mean even if we say that's the right approach that doesn't mean that there
aren't consequences for letting all of this virus quite frankly yeah coming in
especially into the church I mean Ral I get I just had another one today I get this almost every day someone tells me
about an incident in primary this what today today was primary and young women's and young men's a fast and
testimony meeting in Sunday school you know where there is this movement to
make Jesus something different a political Messiah there is a uh um a a a
push against the proclamation on the family right there there everything you would think of that this virus brings in
is is being done on a regular basis already in the church in the United
States and so how long do you say well we're not going to create a conflict
because it's not just external it's not just a matter of well we want to make sure that the government doesn't affect
us yeah that to me is secondary I I I think that is a secondary threat it's a big one but it's a secondary threat the
primary threat is that virus entering inside and us not doing anything because
we don't want to create a conflict you you you've come to the key Point Greg because the real point is the culture
war in our souls and in the congregations uh the the real question
is not uh whether we win or lose in terms of the constellation of forces in
America or in uh Western liberal democracies or what have you the
question is uh who wins in our souls and in our
congregations and this points up exactly what I was saying early there's a a very
strong tendency for those uh categories that Prevail in the larger society and
that we uh Ascent to even on just pragmatic grounds there's a very strong
tendency for those categories to seep into the way we think even in the
religious frame and and in our congregations and often
when we think we're being not political or politically neutral or leaving politics alone that
can be the moment when we're Mo when we're most political I mean you will hear people say in in Sunday school or
priesthood Relief Society let's not be political or let's not be involved in the culture wars let's just accept
everyone just as they are and not be judgmental that is massively
political that is taking the category stories of uh of uh relativistic
tolerance I would say from the larger society and applying it to
our religion and to the very terms foundations of our uh religious
communities so let me link this back to the theme of uh of the culture War
because um you know if someone were to argue Ralph Greg the reason we're not talking
that way anymore is that we've lost well at least that would be a sober
assessment that would have a lot of truth to it and I and I have two answers to that one we can keep
losing there is more to lose and notice how it was that U like three days
or three minutes after the obergfell decision that nationalized gay marriage
then this trans movement emerges where uh
it's somehow BEC becoming um the latest expression of Liberation to uh mutilate
children in the name of the rights of transsexuality so that's we can keep
losing we can keep losing in the political realm but even more importantly if we accept the
categories imposed of imposed Upon Us by the new Elite regime under which we have
lost then uh that's an internal disaster then
then the foundation of our beliefs is dissolved in this relativism or wokeism
this phony relativism which is really a dogmatic a dogmatic wokeism so I say if
we've lost say it say we've lost and it's a disaster I mean just to come back
to the language of the family proclamation that that uh foretells
calamities that would come about by the disintegration of the family we've lost
and it's a disaster and maybe can we turn things
around and win again or can we stop losing well very important practical question yeah I I would I would splice
it and say yeah we've lost and it will be a disaster yeah exactly but as soon
as we as soon as we admit the cost of the Lost of present and
future then we're in the wholesome frame of
mind where we're not letting ourselves be invaded by the winning
worldview yeah well you you bring up along with that the idea of neutrality
you bring up two words that we hear a lot that go along with it that you seem to pull in as being comparable to the
idea of of neutrality and that is fairness and
tolerance right those to me are two very negative
words uh and and and and you know obviously at least from an individual
standpoint I'm not going to say this about the church they're an institution maybe they have a different view on this
from an Institutional per but if you're comparing neutrality to
fairness and to tolerance neutrality is not neutral it
can't be neutral there is no neutrality neutrality means loss yeah well you
could you could go you could try out the statements uh fairness isn't fair and tolerance isn't tolerance and there
there would be truth in both of those uh the I think the The Stance of fairness
is strictly uh consonant with the pragmatic strategy of neutrality let's
let's win what we can under the language of fairness you know fairness for all uh
in Utah politics proposed as a model for the nation basically says all right if
we can promise um uh the homosexual
Community uh equal rights in U housing and employment it's things like that
that art stake isn't it if we can we can be fair to them then we'll ask them to be fair to us in terms of protecting our
right to hold our beliefs about the Eternal family and our Temple practices and Covenants and so forth and then
every everything will be fair well that's a that's a uh you know if that
negotiation works or holds some ground uh for however long it holds then U and
I'm not the the the political strategist for the church I don't don't know all the all the forces in play I don't have
a feel for that but that works as far as it works it's not a stable religious or philosophical
Foundation because everyone's going to Define fairness in terms of what they think is ultimately important in terms
of what they think makes a good person and a good Community if you believe that a good person is one who is uh liberated
from all sexual Hang-Ups and who would never judge anybody because of their sexual practices then fairness what you
mean by fairness is deeply colored by that so uh the idea fairness even
tolerance uh help us maybe to make some common ground but it's temporary it's
shifting I mean Elder Packer as I cite in my article and as president Oaks
cites in his uh Speech or article on truth and tolerance Elder Packer says uh
tolerance is a very unstable virtue I would say the same of fairness of of
neutrality uh they're all unstable because they can't name their own
foundations they can't uh there's no stance yeah they can't explain the uh
the purposes behind their stance Ralph are those even virtues then is really neutrality of
virtue uh neutrality is kind of uh it's it's hard to but let's talk about tolerance
because that's a little more full body a little better candidate to be a virtue and I would commend to
people um president Oak's talk on truth and tolerance I'm forgetting now where
it originated but it's appeared in in more than one form uh but yeah he he he
does a good job of uh showing the uh partial truth or degrees of truth
intolerance as well as truth because it it is true that we need to U not be
excessively confident uh that we know every point of the truth or its
application uh and even for merely just for pragmatic purposes in the world we
need to learn how to tolerate and deal with people with whom we may disagree at
a fundamental level so uh that's all very true but um tolerance is finally an
unstable virtue I tolerance can be a satellite virtue or subsidiary virtue to
truth but everything finally comes down to uh an understanding of Truth in a
holistic sense what a human being is what the Des what the purpose and Destiny of a human being is these things
are always at work in our political and moral categories whether we know it or not and tolerance
is not an exception so tolerance uh risks becoming the tail that Wags the
dog of Truth tolerance risks becoming the new truth and you could say that's
in a way uh the uh dogmatic fanaticism of
wokeness as if a diversity of Truth could be the truth but it but it can't
it's a it's a uh rapacious solvent of any livable truth I would say but but
people embrace it fanatically as if it's a truth so so Ralph speaking of
Tolerance and allowing certain things to happen so to speak here at BYU I want to get back to that just this week there
was a talk given by a professor uh that I have brought up before on the
podcast uh that had to do with they they you know it's interesting at BYU because
at a minimum I can say they they move the term equity and so you don't see things that
say diversity equity and inclusion because Equity is the the end gold of this but they do call it diversity and
inclusion so this is a diversity and inclusion talk from a professor and I know that you've uh you've got some
knowledge of this talk yeah this happened just yesterday and yeah you by the way it is interesting I guess Equity
is the edgiest part or the most flagrantly radical part of diversity
it's the most anti-gospel part yeah but diversity and inclusion seem like
Concepts that we can just incorporate within a gospel framework uh that's why I think
they're they're all the more Insidious for that reason the way they tend to be
understood in the Contemporary intellectual and academic environment including that BYU well this was uh this
not just a a happen stance uh lecture somebody who happen to be talking visiting the University know it was a a
BYU faculty member uh honored to give the u a named lecture the Martin
Hickman uh lecture of my college Family Home and social sciences and by the way
Martin Hickman uh was a friend or a senior colleague of mine who uh uh you know
died um on the JW at BYU actually
some decades ago I don't think uh Professor Hickman brother Hickman
eventually Dean Hickman of our college for a time would uh necessarily appreciate this uh Honore uh for his
named award but uh this talk uh this officially sponsored diversity and
inclusion talk used uh all the language of um
authenticity of being who you are of being accepted just as you are so these
are the terms of inclusion and this is absolutely incompatible with the uh
identity ideas that President Nelson laid down when did he begin laying them
down was it last April or oh I it was a year before or the year before the our
identity as Sons and Daughters of God as uh Disciples of Christ
Children of the Covenant Children of the Covenant uh there
was I don't there was nothing about that or at least that was not the emphasis the emphasis was on including diversity
of all kinds and accepting people as they are and not putting up barriers you
see this is the the constant Temptation when we think about inclusiveness then we then we think of
uh any any substance any moral and spiritual content any explicitly
distinctive religious teachings as as barriers so we we we use religion
against religion Christianity against Christianity to be truly Christian is to be inclusive so it's not to be Christian
it's to include people on their own terms whatever identity they uh advance
or or claim or assert and so this was uh
this I think was uh absolutely the the language of the of the speech that we
heard uh yesterday and by the way this is not surprising that in your college
that this is who receives this award it's yeah I don't think I was a
candidate for the award Grace no no I don't think you were rough um yeah the the the uh argument of
the honored speaker of the Hickman diversity and inclusion inclusion lecture was that a fitting in is the
greatest barrier to belonging so the fact that we ask people to uh conform to
certain uh beliefs and doctrines and standards of uh of character and faithfulness is a
barrier to belonging it's a way of asking people to be like us rather than
just embracing their authentic selves and so the the language of the authentic
self was used as the uh was sort of inserted into this
supposedly uh Christian ethic of inclusion this is basically a way of uh
so separating the Second Great commandment to love neighbor from the first and here I'm
echoing the profoundly important language of Elder Christopherson which he's repeated on more than one
occasion but this separating of the of uh love of neighbor from our love
loyalty obedience to God what we get is the validation of the authentic self and
its assertion of uh identities that have nothing to do with our trifold identity
as so emphatically defined by President Nelson and this is this is
how can we not say this is mainstream at BYU this is our honored fhss lecture yes and that's what people
need to realize it's you know again it's kind of like so who are we who is uh your college by the way also because
your college is usually going to be the culprit on this but it's um you know bringing in uh Professor
Pagan you know why why is this the man that has chosen to speak about the Book of Mormon here it's because of what he's spoken of already
and they know exactly what he's going to say and they want that message going out to the students which is similar to to
to what this professor spoke of yesterday it's interesting you know because Elder kristopherson speaking of
Elder Christopherson he he gave a talk about the doctrine of belonging it is the exact opposite of
the way this professor is using it it's the exact opposite and we know very simply that there is a narrow gate and
and a narrow path yeah that we are supposed to follow and we are supposed to change and assimilate
to that truth and to that path and yet what the doctrine here that she is
teaching of of Dei and inclusivity and and her version of belonging is we're
going to widen the gate and widen the path as much as possible so that every
person regardless of what you choose is included and that becomes the goal and
that becomes the end it is a goal of equity that is a wide gate is a goal of
equity that says that you know everybody receives the same thing and everybody gets the same thing regardless of the
way you choose to live your life but but notice this uh this transmogrification of the idea of
inclusivity it it demonstrates that inclusivity like tolerance or even more than tolerance I would say is an
unstable virtue because by by defining the gospel in terms of
a an inclusive love dissociated from any
uh uh from putting God first from seeking Holiness from obeying
Commandments from keeping Covenant and inclusiveness detached from
that becomes a a new like a counter dogmatism a new definition of the
religion and who is who's now excluded anyone who says
like what about the Commandment thing yeah you know what about putting God first what about inviting people to uh
enter in upon the straight and narrow path to baptism and Covenants and all
the steps of uh of obedience that lead to exaltation what about that that's
what's excluded in this U this uh sort
of inclusiveness yeah belonging seems to be more a destination of Liberation yeah
well exactly belonging belonging and inclusivity cash out as Liberation as the liberation of
the authentic self exactly and then all the all the passions of
wokeness attach themselves to that Liberation because it's an incoherent and Bot and
bottomless idea the human beings are not not meant to be Li liberated from
all moral and religious Norms or all definitions of what makes a good person
so it really opens up this uh this vacuum or this uh this
Whirlpool of uh of passion that is never satisfied and that is always like
scapegoating those who stand for judgmentalism because they actually stand for something Etc but but don't
get me started now I'm into the psychology of well it it just seems to me that the the authentic self is
natural man that's all it is at its worst yeah at its worst yeah
not just a natural man who has his uh sort of bodily uh appetites which tend
to be insatiable but the natural man as uh as um overcome by this devouring
psychological need to assert a new identity uh to assert
whatever identity uh clamors for validation and
to uh respond hatefully to any any remaining stance of judgment yeah well
Ralph really appreciate your words always enjoy you coming on the show I want to give a shout out to the curriculum that you've you are the
source of which is fathom the good you can find this at fathom theeg good.com it is based on the founding principles
of liberal democracy liberalism found in the founding of America and uh you both
they've got curriculum both for high school and for adults and I think you guys need to go and check this out and
see if it's something that you should include in your understanding of what's going on in the world today of wokeism
and these Mists of Darkness that are put out there this is uh uh some clarity
some much needed Clarity that you can you can learn from yeah thank you Greg fathom the good that's what we've been
talking about the question of the of the good of moral substance doesn't go away
and it can it can't be replaced by uh this neutral fairness or a tolerance
without content or inclusiveness the question of the good of the human person
and of the good Community these questions don't go away that that Insight is really the foundation or the
you might say the uh the keynote that keeps coming back of this curriculum
great Ralph thanks so much we'll put links to your article on political neutrality in the description box and uh
we'll see you next time okay thank yo
