This past month we had the privilege to participate in the semi-annual general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The speakers at the conference delivered two straight days of uplifting sermons that were extremely poignant to meet the concerns of our challenging times. The speakers at the conference clearly reacted to the trying social conditions that are raging around us and gave important counsel for the relief of social ills threatening our peace.
to the immense importance of adherence to time tested and divinely given principles in the sustaining and flourishing of human society. He said, “The concept of sustainable development is an interesting and important one. Even more urgent, however, is the broader question of sustainable societies… Sustainability is not guaranteed, and a thriving society can fail in time if it abandons the cardinal virtues that uphold its peace and prosperity.”
It is the connection between sustainable free societies and teaching our children to adhere to principles that uphold that peace and prosperity that I would like to focus on this month. Specifically I would like to focus on the need to practice and teach self-governance, both at home and at school. Many of you may be familiar with the author and speaker Nicholeen Peck and her book, “A House United; Changing Children’s Hearts and Behaviors by Teaching Self Government,” but if you are not I highly recommend her work to you. Nicholeen Peck has provided countless parents the structure and tools to better practice and teach self-government in the home and as such has changed many lives for the better. In her book Nichileen Peck said:
“The time for strong families is now. The world around us is complicated and depraved. Our homes need to be refuge from the storms which rage around us and our children. I want my home to give all who enter the feeling of warmth, peace, strength and courage to face the challenges of our times. I want my home to give a message to the world. I want people to see something different in my family than they see in the rest of the world. Not only does a home like this strengthen my family, a home like this strengthens many families in the world around us.” To have this kind of home Nicholeen Peck teaches that each person in the family must be responsible for governing his or her own behaviors and emotions. This is the kind of self-discipline that leads to self-government.”
Self government is: being able to determine the cause and effect of any given situation and possessing a knowledge of your own behaviors so that you can control them. If you teach a child how to govern his own behaviors, you will teach him how to change his heart. This change of heart is more important than any behavior change. This change of heart and change of behavior based on divinely given principles is the only real power there is on earth to sustain families and by extension free societies. Latter-day Saints should be particularly acquainted with the principles of self-governance. When I think of this critical principle of sustainable liberty I often think of the long ago story of Joseph Smith, recounted by John Taylor, the third President of the Church. He reported: “Some years ago, in Nauvoo, a gentleman in my hearing, a member of the Legislature, asked Joseph Smith how it was that he was enabled to govern so many people, and to preserve such perfect order; remarking at the same time that it was impossible for them to do it anywhere else. Mr. Smith remarked that it was very easy to do that. ‘How?’ responded the gentleman; ‘to us it is very difficult.’ Mr. Smith replied, ‘I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.’”
A lesser known account from Brigham Young, the second President of the Church, reported: “The question was asked a great many times of Joseph Smith, by gentlemen who came to see him and his people, ‘How is it that you can control your people so easily? It appears that they do nothing but what you say; how is it that you can govern them so easily?’ Said he, ‘I do not govern them at all. The Lord has revealed certain principles from the heavens by which we are to live in these latter days. The time is drawing near when the Lord is going to gather out His people from the wicked, and He is going to cut short His work in righteousness, and the principles which He has revealed I have taught to the people and they are trying to live according to them, and they control themselves.’”
It was this personal allegiance to God given law that Elder Christofferson spoke of at this last conference. He warned of the consequences to our society when people turn from a sense of accountability to God and abandon the institutions of the family and religion. “When one has no higher god than himself and seeks no greater good than satisfying his own appetites and preferences, the effects will be manifest in due course.”
Edmund Burke (1729-1797), is rightly renowned as the father of conservatism, Burke Championed "Ordered Liberty" a philosophy which relied on the rule of law governed by the moral restraints of the individual, he said it this way: “But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” We live at a time when our children are constantly being taught by the world to throw off moral precepts, to askew personal responsibility and accountability, to doubt the wisdom of age-old commitments to chastity before marriage and fidelity in marriage, and to misunderstand the indispensable relationship between virtue and liberty.
Increasingly voices in our society champion freedom of choice without any expectation of constraint. They talk about freedom as a matter of choice without consequences. There is an expectation that social safety net programs will provide individuals with relief from debauchery and never discriminate against personal choice, essentially subsidizing dysfunctional and dangerous personal conduct that tears apart the fabric of family. Individual freedom has become a twisted virtue that turns a blind eye to the pornification of our culture, supports legalized prostitution, drugs, and any sexual deviancy imaginable. Americans seem to have decided that what goes on in a persons’ private life has no sway on their public ethos. I avow that there can be no separation between private morality and public character. What goes on behind closed doors sends shock waves through our families, culture, and institutions.
Burke did not place individual liberty as high as to be untempered by the law and the moral restraint of society. Burke argued that these abstract rights are extreme and unrealistic as they provided that men were free to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie. He denied that such rights ever existed.
“Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to justice.... They have a right to the fruits of their industry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death... But liberty is not license to act from sheer self-will. Rather, it is “social freedom."
In an article titled, “Behold, the Enemy Is Combined”. Neal A. Maxwell asked, “How can there possibly be a disturbing loss of individual impulse control without a corresponding loss of collective freedom?” He cited historian Will Durant’s warning that “If the hunger for liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.” He went on to say that “while I would not shrink the circumference of freedom, the size of that circle is not the sole measure of social well-being. Hence, to exult, as some do, over how much decadence is permissible at the edges ignores the erosive effects of such grossness upon all within that circle.”
The world is preoccupied with the pollution of our physical environment and completely unconcerned about the harm done by the pollution of our moral environment. Which is the more pressing danger facing the sustainment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? It’s uncomfortable to be expected to govern one’s self and to rein in personal freedom for the guarantee of collective freedom, however It is incumbent upon us to spend our lives in the pursuit of it, to sacrifice our comfort in obedience to it, and to be willing to lay down our lives in the protection of it.
Burke taught that to be fit for freedom, people need self-control and morality. “Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
The family is the single greatest antidote to the poison in our world. It is therefore in the inculcating of divine virtue and true principles of human conduct in our homes that our primary energy must be applied. It is in the training our children receive at home that they will learn to bridle their passions and develop the wisdom of temperate and dedicated self-governance. In so stating I do not wish to diminish our role and responsibility to defend principles of truth in the public square or engage in critical work to strengthen institutions of government, education, or culture. Clearly if we retreat into our homes and leave the public institutions to decay we will find in short order that even our homes are no longer safe from the advancing forces of evil in our world, but our community role is a topic for another article.
My purpose today is to emphasize the importance of religion and the institution of the family for the purpose of endowing both individuals and communities with the virtues that sustain an enduring free society. As Nicholeen Peck observed that, “Not only does a home like this strengthen my family, a home like this strengthens many families in the world around us.” As we attend to this critical teaching, may we apply the principles of agency in harmony with God’s plan and give our children the room to develop personal responsibility through agency and accountability. It is my hope that we will realize the importance of teaching self-governance to our children and view it as our greatest contribution to the strengthening and sustaining of our free republic.
*I highly recommend Nicholeen Peck’s book as a guide to the teaching of self-governance in the home. You can find her books
here.
