The Responsibility of The Church

In the spread and perpetuation of the Christian principles that found expression in this cherished government of ours, the Church played the principal role. It has a great stake in freedom. It must be equally zealous to preserve and maintain it. It is its duty whenever that is threatened, either by direct assault or the insidious undermining of the principles on which it rests, to raise its voice in warning and in protest and to throw its whole influence into the scales to preserve that freedom under which men may live and grow toward the ideals taught by the Master.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Responsibility

In September, 1923, eighteen years ago, at a religious service in this Tabernacle, I mentioned certain trends I then saw. They were: a spirit of revolution that threatened the very foundations of government everywhere, indeed the destruction of the existing bodies politic of the world; the unrestricted immigration of aliens who were foreign and in tradition hostile to our systems of government; the enhancement of the power of the Federal Executive; the breaking down of the mutual independence of the three branches of government,—executive, judicial, and legislative; the disappearance of local self government and the assumption of control by the Federal Government of the very details of our lives; the curtailment of our constitutional guarantees under the Bill of Rights; the building of class in our nation and of class conflict and hatred; the spread of Bolshevism, we call it Communism now, working for the overthrow of our government, the doing away with religion, even the overturning of our family relationshps.

During the eighteen years passed since then, I have on all opportunities repeated these observations.

I will leave you to make up your own minds how far these trends have become realities.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Loss of Freedom

No Man Sees End

No thinking person doubts that our people, our nation, and the world are now passing through one of the great crises of the world’s history. We are in the midst of a world-wide revolution, which is wholly alien to our free institutions and is foreign in birth, concept, and directing head. No man, of his own power, sees the end. But the end the revolutionists seek is fairly clear; it is the overturning of the whole existing order, political, financial, economic, social, religious, the complete destruction of our Constitution and the government established under it, and then the setting up of some sort of despotism that shall destroy, in all these fields, the free agency which the Lord gave to man. The revolutionists plan that this is to be largely done during the war, under the plea of war necessity; it is to be continued after the war under the excuse—if we are not then too cowed to require an excuse—that this new political order is necessary that we may rehabilitate the world. They count that then, after a little time, the revolution will be secure. There seems no doubt that this is their conscious, deliberate, planned end. We have gone a long way already down this road.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Downfall

Our Duty To Sustain The Constitution

Knowing as we do that God set up this Constitution of ours and that He has declared it “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles,” (D&C 101:77) it is the duty of every member of the Church to protect and defend the Constitution against any and all attack. In this country our lawful political allegiance runs not to any man, not to any party, not to any “ism,” but to the Constitution of the United States and to the free institutions set up under it. There can be no tampering with the “just and holy principles” of the Constitution. No true Latter-day Saint can or will do other than reverence the Constitution; each will do all in his power to save it from pollution or destruction.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: US Constitution, Defend

Europeans Plan To Have U. S. Pay For War

Notwithstanding the fact that our former associates in the World War owe us the money which we lent them amounting to over ten billions of dollars, and also owe us the great bulk of the interest which we, the people of the United States have been paying on that loan, and notwithstanding they took tremendous loot from Germany at the end of the War of which we did not, I am proud to say, take a cent, war loot, counting the German colonial possessions, many, many times greater than the money they owe us, nevertheless there is strongest reason for believing that some of the most skilled, astute, and shrewd diplomats, politicians, and statesmen of all Europe are now planning to have the people of the United States finance the next European war either before the war begins or during its progress.

Furthermore, certain of these same diplomats, politicians, and statesmen are planning to entice the United States into an offensive and defensive military alliance in order that we shall participate in that next world war by sending our young men to the battlefields of Europe. The argument they now plan to use to bring this about is that in this way only can the peace of the world be preserved. While this is a most profound fallacy, it will unfortunately find a sympathetic ear among many of the people of this country who do not fully understand international relations. It will require the wisest statesmanship on our part to prevent the United States from becoming again the victim of a world military catastrophe.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Politics, International

Compulsion does not belong to the theory of government in the Kingdom of God. There are many man-made governments where they seek to control the actions of others, even in their religion and everything else. All this is contrary to the mind and will of God. He desires that every man shall be free “to choose his life, and what he’ll be, for this eternal truth is given, that God will force no man to heaven.”

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Free Agency

As the state’s steady growth over the last 70 years indicates, once the government becomes the supplier of people’s needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right.

Source: Lawrence Auster

Topics: Government, Tyranny; Rights

All governments are more or less under the control of the Almighty, and, in their forms, have sprung from the laws that he has from time to time given to man. Those laws, in passing from generation to generation, have been more or less adulterated, and the result has been the various forms of government now in force among the nations; for, as the Prophet says of Israel, “They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant.”

Whoever lives to see the kingdom of God fully established upon the earth will see a government that will protect every person in his rights. If that government was now reigning upon this land of Joseph, you would see the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Quaker, the Shaker, the Hindoo, the Mahometan, and every class of worshippers most strictly protected in all their municipal rights and in the privilege of worshipping who, what, and when they pleased, not infringing upon the rights of others. Does any candid person in his sound judgment desire any greater liberty?

The Lord has thus far protected and preserved the human family under their various forms and administrations of government, notwithstanding their wickedness, and is still preserving them; but if the kingdom of God, or a theocratic government, was established on the earth, many practices now prevalent would be abolished.

Source: Brigham Young
Journal of Discourses, Vol.6, p.342-3, July 31, 1859

Topics: Freedom, Religious; Heavenly Interest in Human Events

The present strife between capital and labor, which in its enmity threatens to undermine the very foundation of the Government, would cease, for the spirit and actions of coercion, intimidation, and violence are contrary to the teachings of Jesus and by Him would be most vehemently denounced. Intimidation and dictatorship are elements foreign to the spirit and government of the Church. The Church encourages and recognizes honest labor whenever and wherever it presents itself, but it must condemn the spirit of oppression, of compulsion, of intimidation wherever it rears its head.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Threats to

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