Freedom and Soul: America at 250
Celebrating Our Past, Living Our Potential
250 years ago, a nascent nation courageously took upon itself the responsibility of freedom. In this special anniversary, we can reflect on what we have managed to accomplish as a nation; on what has changed and what has remained the same in our national identity; and how America can live up to the highest and best within us. It’s a time for gratitude, a time for hope, a time for firm resolve. It’s a time to deepen our spiritual commitment to the brotherly love that unites us as citizens.
In the following essays, we express our faith in our great experiment of self-governance and our ability to follow Christ’s teaching that out of many, we become one.
Our Origin Story
We can’t recall many occasions when we have heard a general authority recommend a work of biblical scholarship not written by a Latter-day Saint. But at the recent groundbreaking ceremony for the Winchester, Virginia Temple, Elder Robert M. Daines of the Seventy did exactly that, commending to the audience Leon Kass’s
Patriotism and its Counterfeit
I love America. I rarely make it through the Pledge of Allegiance without choking up. I can’t sing “God Bless America” without my heart swelling with emotion. I love the ideals upon which our nation was founded — ideals of liberty, equality and justice for all.
Patriot Saints and the Fall
I am honored, humbled, and more than a bit nervous to speak on the 250th anniversary—the semiquincentennial—of the United States of America, at a moment of national celebration and sober reflection. Taking the pulpit to talk about civics in an age where even Mister Rogers can spark partisan snipings . . . well, I plead for your prayers that today we mig…
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