Politics is a strange business with the Church and BYU. Dan Ellsworth talks about author and columnist Jonathan Rauch and his "partnership" with the Church. He also covers some major structural differences between the Restored Church and Evangelicals.
one of the questions in his book is
"Okay what do you consider to be
Christianity?" You know as a secular
atheist Jew in a same-sex marriage when
you talk about Christianity what are you
talking about
all right well some very interesting
things happening politically inside the
church we're going to keep talking about
this with BYU kind of holding up
Jonathan Rouch as a model for
Christianity this episode is brought to
you by Go and Do Travel i am the
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and the Journey of Wisdom Cruise very
excited about this we're going to talk
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we'll be visiting Istanbul and Ephesus
and then down to the pyramids and
Memphis in Cairo Egypt going through the
teachings of Paul and John and Abraham
and Joseph of Egypt and
Moses and comparing those contrasting
those with the philosophies of men and
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September September 12th to 24th i'll be
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Journey of Wisdom i think this will be
one of my favorite trips now on to the
interview right welcome to Quick Show my
name is Greg Matson and I am your host
in this episode we bring back again Dan
Ellsworth welcome Dan thank you good
this episode by the way is brought to
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Substack and Dan is one of our
contributors and he has an article
coming out here very shortly on the
evangelical let me get the title there
is no evangelical church why don't you
go over what uh what what triggered you
to start writing this article i'll I'll
tell you what happened uh we had a an
explosion of news recently from an
individual named Jonathan Rous okay now
he is a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution which is a think tank and
he's a great writer great public
commentator and he started talking a lot
about the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and he wrote a book
called Cross Purposes where he has like
a huge amount of a chapter devoted to
the church like who we are what do we
believe and there's a lot of Latter Day
that are all like "Yay yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah this is great." And it is
great to to a certain extent but Right
right and but part of what is
interesting about hearing him talk about
us is he describes himself as a secular
atheist Jew and he's in a same-sex
marriage mhm and so here he is in his
book promoting Latter-day Saints as a
model for the rest of America to follow
when it comes to to our approach to our
religion and
politics now he has an interesting
argument in his book his book is called
Cross Purposes and what he says is and
this goes back to things that the
founding fathers of our country said
that our constitutional government is
for a moral people you can't just do
this with anybody it has to be a people
who have a sense of morality that is
deep and well-grounded right he's very
Msonian yeah correct
and and
he a as a secular atheist Jew has come
to an
awakening that
Christianity is supposed to be that
thing that creates the moral society
that allows us to function with this
constitutional government mhm now if you
are a conservativeleaning
person and you have you know over the
years you've paid attention to how our
country has gone with the decline of
Christianity and how that has impacted
not just our politics but a lot of other
things you're going to say "Yeah he's
absolutely right." and glad that you
know people like him are actually seeing
this thing that we've been talking about
for a long time the decline of
Christianity has consequences in our
country and so Roush has this really
it's an it's a very interesting book and
he's a great guy he went and spoke at
BYU he had a good sit down with
President Don H oaks because President
Oaks a few years ago gave a talk down
here uh where I live at the University
of Virginia where he talked about how we
as Latter-day Saints should approach
politics and it was outstanding it well
he wasn't just talking about Latter-day
Saints he he was talking about Americans
in general what's the ideal way to
approach politics and it was a
remarkable talk that President Oaks gave
at UVA it was fantastic and Jonathan
Rouch said you know after he kind of
came to this awakening he stumbled
across this talk from President Oaks and
he said "This is exactly what is needed
this is what is needed." And so his in
his book he makes a very good case that
much of
Christianity has been kind of watered
down over the years and it has been
mixed with other things like politics
and secular culture and things like that
that have kind of watered it down to
where it it doesn't have the authority
that it once had right and so he says as
a result of that Christians are
struggling
to be that different voice in politics
that brings everybody around to you know
reasonable ways of dealing with each
other so all of this is really great
right all this is what he gets right he
makes a great case for all of these
things
now when you look at the fine print this
is where we kind of struggle
because one of the questions in his book
is okay what do you consider to be
Christianity you know as a secular
atheist Jew in a same-sex marriage when
you talk about Christianity what are you
talking about and he quotes a Catholic
theologian who said that Christianity
you know he said "What do you think is
the essence of Christianity?" And this
Catholic theologian told him three
things and he said these three three
things are be not
afraid and um so it's be not afraid and
be like Jesus Christ yeah follow Jesus
Christ emulate Jesus Christ and and
forgive yeah forgive those are the three
things okay wonderful things
definitely powerful principles in
Christianity
but Greg you know as well as I that if
we were to go around just preaching
those things nobody would rally around
that banner nobody would and
so yes those are great things but
Christianity is a message about what
Christ has done and is doing right that
he atoned for our sins you know he lived
this model life atoned for our sins died
on the cross and was resurrected that is
the Christian story you know and now we
have forgiveness of our sins and we're
all going to be resurrected it's it's
not just these nice ideas that this
Catholic theologian gave to Jonathan
Roush now if you're Jonathan Rouch and
you're a secular atheist those are great
principles and and but we know as
Christians that there's there's a lot
more if you're going to if you want
people to rally around something you
can't just Well and he takes it and he
and he overlays it with Madison right
with a few of Madison's principles and
and he says "Here it is it's the same
thing madison's principles are
Christian's principles it's the same
thing." and and he is very you know to
give him credit he's he's very founded
in the founding fathers right he's very
founded in in in in the principles that
created America right to begin with
right but here's here's where I run into
issues on this with with with Roush is
that his basically his speech with the
Wheatley Institute at at BYU which had a
standing ovation
right is all about compromise now look
when when when America was founded you
had 13 different colonies different
religions in in dominated in in each of
those states and different denominations
of Christianity and so you you Yeah
there's definitely a requirement for for
for compromise i mean right they things
fell apart at first and you know they it
started with uh the Articles of
Confederation it fell apart you know
they had to come back and add things and
change things and end up with a
constitution and
it's
but but there are things you cannot
compromise on correct right and and so
you have an idea of okay well you have
your beliefs I have my beliefs let's
both shorten our beliefs a little bit
here so that we can find some some
things that are in common you can do
that politically
politically that can work to some degree
and needs to work you're talking about
tax rates yeah yeah like okay let's meet
in the middle i'm here's where I But if
you're talking about I mean for me for
example I would say if you're talking
about the family proclamation I can't do
that right correct i can't I can't
compromise on that correct and and if
that starts running into politics which
it very much does these days Yeah i
can't compromise on those things right
so the message the highest value here is
not compromise which is what I hear from
him
it it the high you know there's a much
higher value to me than which is truth
and and so when you're talking about a
religious
conviction I I I I it's it's it's not
always the best message to me correct
correct i agree and now he has an entire
separate book on the importance of truth
seeking which I think is a great idea
you know to write a book on that
the the challenge is and I'll say this
as well and and we've talked about
this there was a shift a few years ago
when we saw just the fullblown flowering
of Marxist ideology in our politics mh
and Marxism is is a giant totalizing
worldview that does not compromise on
anything
and so when you're dealing with that
um it becomes difficult to find a
partner a dialogue partner
who cares about truth because with
Marxism it's all about power all of it
is about power and you know Marxism has
this fusion with post-modernism in our
time to where the whole tool set is
about how do you how do you acquire
power and nothing else matters
so that
is you know I I think it's wonderful to
compromise
when it is needed i I think to to have
the the disposition to do that is a good
thing
but what we are dealing with
now in politics is there are worldviews
at work that just simply do not
compromise now as Latter-day Saints we
can stand apart from those things to
some degree
but there needs to be honesty among
people like Jonathan Roush about the
nature of the debates now that it is
there's a rival religion to Christianity
so So I I'm 100% with Jonathan Rous when
he says Christianity is the backbone of
our constitutional democracy it like it
it's it's essential you cannot do this
without it but right now it's not just a
secular liberal
ideology that is contrasting with
Christianity in our public debates
anymore now it's Marxism which is its
own religious ideology
so anyway I I would like to see him
write a
book that talks about that that says
"Yeah what happens when another religion
has come along that is going to try to
pull Christianity out of the equation
altogether totally suffocate it." Right
because that is not something that he
covers in his book yeah well even for
him I mean that that that not only
suffocates Christianity it suffocates
the principles of the founding of the
United States which he is enamored with
right and so it's that you know for him
that's what's going to go to his heart
how how do you deal with that right when
there is no compromise from the
opposition yeah and and that's the
elephant in the room right that's the
elephant in the room of his book his I I
think his book makes outstanding points
but there is that elephant in the room
so finalizing this the the there is no
evangelical church why is there no
evangelical church and this is part your
the title of your article so this this
speaks to what Jonathan Roush wants to
do with his project he wants to persuade
American Christians that hey if you get
back to the basics of your faith and
don't allow it to be diluted by these
political commitments and other things
it will be that loadbearing thing that
carries our democracy that's what he's
saying the problem is who can
actually say that like if you were to
create an initiative right to help
people make adjustments to their
thinking in that direction how would you
actually do that now as Latter-day
Saints we gather twice a year for
general conference and we have like a
handbook of instructions and all of
these things that where we actually have
an authority who can tell us hey here is
what we should do with our political
thinking or or our strategies for this
or that we actually have like the
ability to come together
cohesively and that's an incredible
blessing as Latter Day Saints
uh evangelicals if you're looking to
evangelical Christianity for that kind
of thing I'm sorry to inform you
Jonathan
Roush it's not going to go well if
you're if if that is who you're trying
to target to you know have a group come
together and change fundamentally how
they do things it's going to be a lot
harder and in the Substack I explain in
detail why that is yeah yeah and that's
very interesting it it really is
something I when you look at how Latter-
Day Saints are are able to mobilize in
anything whether it's disasters or or
some other mission directive from the
top it's incredible you're going to get
you're going to get a a a a mass of
volunteers or money or whatever it is
that they're they're trying to to to get
right it it's it is that is the power of
a hierarchal structure in in your
religion and and I I get sometimes as
Latter-day Saints we can find that
frustrating we want kind of more freedom
than we sometimes have but man when a
crisis
happens you see how incredible it is to
be part of a group that can mobilize cuz
nobody can do it like we can literally
nobody nobody can the structure that we
have is is built for that it really is
dan really appreciate your words uh this
is just a a a tip of the iceberg for the
article that you'll get in Substack
we're going to give you the uh link to
Alive and Intelligent that's the name of
the Substack in the description box
please go there or you can go to
quickdia.com cwicdia.com on the homepage
there and get the link to the new
Substack dan will be a regular
contributor and we're very excited about
that dan thanks for coming on the show
again thank you
