I recently listened to a Think interview (10 Jan 2018) where the author of Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics discussed her new book on the history of the sexual revolution in America. In the interview, R Marie Griffith, explained that Protestants and Catholics were both generally opposed to birth control until a Catholic priest took a stand and then Protestants were galvanized to support birth control just because it was opposed by Catholics.
In many ways, the debate in the public square over sexuality and social justice continues to galvanize people. I have observed how same sex marriage has not been an issue people put out of their minds. Instead they take sides and defend their position with very little common decency. There appears to be no middle ground in today’s debate.
If as Marie Griffith has written, that the sexual revolution fractured American Christianity in the 1920’s, than it is amazing that, in contrast, these social changes are unifying American Mormons. Our position on permissible sexual activity limited to heterosexual marriages and chastity before marriage has not changed. In fact, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have strengthened their resolve to defend the position that sexuality is a divinely authorized privilege by which the unborn spirit children of a Heavenly Father are welcomed into this Earthly mortal life. All varieties of sexual deviancy which included adultery, prostitution, pornography, sexual abuse and perversion are unauthorized uses of the physical body and we will be held accountable for our actions in a post-mortem interview with our Father God.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is led by a mostly male clergy, has always included women in ecclesiastical positions to serve one another and bless the entire church. I will show how the LDS faith has a long history of defending women and children and condemning actions that hurt women, children and families.
The first great champion of women and womanhood was Jesus Christ. He appreciated them, taught lessons based on their life experiences and ennobled them.
The first LDS prophet leader, Joseph Smith, when he organized the Relief Society, told the women that the same organization existed in the church anciently. (reported by Eliza R Snow) He said, “The church was never perfectly organized until women were thus organized.” (quoted in Sarah M Kimball’s autobiography)
The second LDS prophet leader, Brigham Young, said, “Now, Bishops, you have smart women for wives. … Let them organize Female Relief Societies in the various wards. We have many talented women among us, and we wish their help in this matter. Some may think this is a trifling thing, but it is not; and you will find that the sisters will be the mainspring of the movement.” (Deseret News Weekly, 18 Dec. 1867, 358.)
President Lorenzo Snow taught that the Relief Society exemplifies pure religion. “The Apostle James said that ‘pure religion and undefiled before God … is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’[James 1:27] … The members of the Relief Society have most surely exemplified in their lives pure and undefiled religion; for they have ministered to those in affliction, they have thrown their arms of love around the fatherless and the widows, and they have kept themselves unspotted from the world. I can testify that there are no purer and more God-fearing women in the world than are to be found within the ranks of the Relief Society.” (The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, comp. Clyde J. Williams (1984), 143.)
Belle Smith Spafford, a general president of the Relief Society, wrote: “Never have women had greater influence than in today’s world. Never have the doors of opportunity opened wider for them. This is an inviting, exciting, challenging, and demanding period of time for women. It is a time rich in rewards if we keep our balance, learn the true values of life, and wisely determine priorities.” (A Woman’s Reach (1974), 21.)
In more recent times, the LDS prophet leader, Gordon B Hinckley, issued a proclamation on the importance and value of the family. Since that time, prophets have condemned the use of pornography and the sexual perversions that destroy families. Dallin H Oaks said in 2004, “if we indulge in drugs or pornography or other evils that the Apostle called sowing to the flesh, eternal law dictates that we harvest corruption rather than life eternal. That is the justice of God, and mercy cannot rob justice. If an eternal law is broken, the punishment affixed to that law must be suffered. Some of this can be satisfied by the Savior’s Atonement, but the merciful cleansing of a soiled sinner comes only after repentance (see Alma 42:22–25), which for some sins is a prolonged and painful process. Otherwise, “he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption” (Alma 34:16).
Because of my faith, I understand God’s plan of salvation and have a unique worldview that helps me see the reason for God’s commandments like the law of chastity. My priorities and practices are peculiar and reflect the fact that I value marriage and family. I have spent 20 years raising 8 children in a legal monogamous relationship and I plan to continue to collaborate with my husband on these duties until all my children are raised. I do not share the increasing public acceptance of cohabitation without marriage and of same-sex marriage. Yet I love my friends and family who choose those behaviors without condoning those behaviors. I choose to live to a standard of sexual purity, marital unity and family cohesion that results in a peculiar kind of happiness.
Sources
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