Revelation, Scripture, and Politics

Church leaders these days are a gutless bunch, says my plain-spoken friend Brother Jones, as I’ll call him. Although he insists that his testimony of the Church is as rock solid as ever, Brother Jones doesn’t participate much in the ward lately, in part because he is deeply unhappy with the Church’s leaders. They lack the courage of their convictions, he thinks—the courage to stand up for (or against) political positions and figures as the scriptures and Church doctrine prescribe. Other churches are out there in the public square boldly proclaiming what they believe. They stand for something. Meanwhile, our Church leaders sit mutely on the sidelines.

I haven’t said what political positions Brother Jones favors, nor will I. Though I’m thinking of a particular individual with whom I happen to talk regularly, I have friends who make similar criticisms from both the left and the right (and perhaps also the center, if there still is one). The issues vary. Some critics are alarmed by Donald Trump. Some are concerned about creeping socialism, or “wokeism,” or increasing governmental encroachments on freedom, or persecution of religion. The common element is that they are disappointed with Church leaders, whether local or general, for limiting themselves to bland pieties in the realm of politics instead of being more aggressive in supporting good and opposing evil.

I’m not entirely unsympathetic. I have some of the same concerns.

But an implicit assumption made by the critics—and sometimes by myself—is that the Church’s revelations and scriptures support specific positions on these controversial political issues. Is that assumption justified?

Usually, I believe, the assumption rests on a mistake. On two kinds of mistakes, actually. One kind of mistake is about the nature of politics. The other is about the nature of revelation and scripture.

First, politics. In our idealistic moods, we may suppose that politics should be the application of true principles to governance. At some level of abstraction this may be so, but at a more basic level this isn’t what politics ever has been, or could be, or should be. Politics, as the saying goes, is the art of the possible, and what is possible is constrained by numerous factors. By resources, which are scarce. By entrenched practices and traditions that we happen to have inherited. And by what “the people” in all of our earthy orneriness are disposed to support, oppose, or put up with. In our times, politics occurs in a cultural war zone in which people disagree, ferociously, about what is good and bad, just and unjust; and in a democracy, for better or worse, all of these cacophonous voices are supposed to count.

Moreover, one commitment of our own democratic political tradition is to individual freedom, which necessarily entails that people are going to be allowed to do and say many things that some of us believe to be profoundly wrong. So, how to draw the line between what is wrong but permitted and what is legally prohibited? There is no rule or formula for answering that question.

In this situation, politics inevitably entails a large measure of prudential judgment. And of compromise. We often hear criticism of sleazy politicians who “compromise their principles.” But sometimes statesmanship requires compromise—even of fundamental commitments. Sometimes it is the person who doggedly refuses to compromise who is being uncivil and even, yes, unchristian.

Consider the federal convention that produced our Constitution (under divine guidance, as our scriptures teach). The delegates discovered, sometimes to their dismay, that they had to compromise on some of their most cherished principles. Even on a subject as horrific as slavery. They could have maintained their integrity, stuck to their principles . . . and we would not have had a Constitution or, probably, a country.

Christians might say that this lamentable and sometimes tragic situation is the result of “the Fall.” It is. But we can’t wishfully pretend that the Fall isn’t real, and it is perilous to try. Plato laid out plans for an ideal republic that would have been a human nightmare if his ill-fated attempts to implement it (through the rulers of Syracuse) had succeeded. More modern attempts to govern rigorously according to some idealized philosophy—by the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot—have ended in atrocities. This side of the Millennium, our ambition should perhaps be to live in a less ambitious, less idealistic political order in which aims are lower and willingness to compromise is something to admire, not to condemn.

But here again, there is no rule or formula to tell us when or how to compromise and when to stand firm. It’s a prudential judgment.

Now about revelation and scripture. Like most Church members, I believe in revelation, and in the authority of scripture. But when we invoke or reason from revelation recorded in scripture, we are attempting to govern ourselves with . . . words. And when you think about it, that is a yawn-inducingly familiar and inevitable enterprise—but also an audacious and perilous one. Words are wonderful but also wonderfully treacherous things. They instruct and inspire, yes; and they can also mislead and confuse. (I should know; I used to be a lawyer.) Wittgenstein thought that the whole project of philosophy was one of struggling against the puzzles and confusions that arise when we become entangled in language. Bewitched by words.

Words do not lose this double-edged capacity to instruct and to confound just because they appear in a scriptural text. Although we regard scripture as “the word of the Lord,” the Lord of necessity speaks to us in our words, and in words suited to (or “dumbed down” for) our exquisitely finite cognitive capacities. So we need to think carefully about how words are being used in scripture.

In this respect, I think it is a mistake to treat scripture in the way some members treat the Church’s General Handbook—i.e., as a sort of comprehensive code, applicable cross-culturally to wards and branches throughout the world, containing carefully organized instructions (“see 3.4.1.2”) that can simply be looked up for definitive answers to the various questions that arise. On the contrary, the revelations contained in scripture have been received over millennia by a host of differently-constituted recipients living in radically different linguistic, cultural, and political circumstances. Usually these revelations have been responses to particular questions or problems. How to apply what was revealed for one purpose and situation to a totally different purpose and situation is not usually a simple or automatic deduction.

To be sure, what is revealed for a situation may be phrased in general terms. But if you just extract the words from their context and slap them down in a totally different context, you will likely be distorting or overtaxing their meaning. “You shall not oppress a stranger,” Exodus says, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (see Exodus 23:9). That’s important, yet it would be a mistake to treat it as a complete answer to complicated questions of immigration in the very different world of today.

We should remember as well that when we read scripture, we are almost always reading a translation—and probably a (perhaps much edited) translation of a translation. That is because the obvious translation—from Hebrew or Greek or reformed Egyptian, say, to our own native language—is only the second and probably not the most fraught one. Often, the original revelation will not have been delivered in actual words at all, but rather through powerful impressions, feelings, ideas, or through visions or dreams, which then had to be converted by the recipient into human language. Some recipients might attempt to convey what was revealed in the form of a divine verbal delivery—of God speaking in the first person. Others might claim less direct correspondence between what they felt and the language that resulted. In a journal entry, Wilford Woodruff observed: “Joseph said: ‘Thus saith the Lord’ almost every day of his life in laying the foundation of this work. But those who followed him have not deemed it always necessary to say ‘Thus saith the Lord;’ yet they have led the people by the power of the Holy Ghost. . . .”

In his classic history of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides purported to report political speeches that had not been transcribed and perhaps had not been given at all. The historian explained that these were his own reconstructions “appropriate for each situation.” Many great historians have done the same. The constructed speeches may not be factual in a verbatim sense, but they may be an effective way of conveying what happened or what was decided. Might not a writer of scripture use the same device in an effort to convey what has been revealed by a transcendent Being whose thoughts, as we know, are as high above ours as the heavens are above the earth? In such instances, it is perfectly appropriate for us to take the scriptural words as communicating the essence of what needed to be said. But it is also prudent to remember that we are working with a translation, with all of the obvious limitations and imperfections that translations inevitably involve.

Sometimes, to be sure, God does address humans in words, and in an audible voice. Perhaps the clearest instance would be in the New Testament, where over a period of years, Jesus daily speaks with his followers face-to-face, audibly, and in their Aramaic language. And yet even then, it seems that Jesus is constantly having to reprove his listeners—not just random bystanders or pharisaical naysayers, but his own chosen apostles—for completely misunderstanding him. Sometimes they misunderstand by taking his sayings in a literal, straightforward sense. (“I have bread to eat that ye know not of.” “Did somebody bring him lunch?”) And even within the same sermon, Jesus may pronounce generalities that just on their face seem directly to contradict each other. (“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works . . .”—but don’t let your prayers, your alms, or your fasting be “seen of men.”)

The upshot is that applying revelation and scripture to particular situations is typically not just a matter of finding some pertinent text or story, reading it for its supposed “plain meaning,” and then plopping that meaning down to answer the question posed today. Scripture and revelation call for more careful study and reflection, and ultimately for discernment and judgment. “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). This observation is true in general, I believe; but it is a fortiori true in matters of public policy, which is hardly ever the subject that particular revelations were directly addressing anyway.

If we put together the necessarily prudential and pragmatic nature of politics with the personal, contextual, uncodelike character of most scripture, I think it follows that in political matters about which people in good faith disagree, we will usually not be able just to read off the correct answers directly from scripture. There will be some categorical commands, yes. We should never act out of hatred for our political enemies, for example. We should remember that all human beings are precious children of God. But political views and judgments about disputed questions will need to take account not just of religious truth (which, as discussed, may itself require interpretation) but also of history, economics, and the sociology of our time and place. Among other things.

Does this leave us with nothing but relativism and pragmatism? Does it mean that scripture and revelation are not actually guiding our political positions at all—that all we are left with is practical, situational, perhaps self-serving judgments that we sometimes try to make more authoritative by dressing them up in religious garb?

Not at all. For many believers, our most basic convictions about the purpose of life, the nature and destiny of human beings, the meaning and content of “good” and “evil,” or the kind of society we should aspire to will be firmly grounded in understandings derived from revelation and scripture. These basic understandings are the framework within which we make our political judgments. In this way, our scripture-based faith informs, infuses, and superintends our political deliberations, commitments, and efforts.¹ Scripture provides a vast and indispensable repository, not just of abstract principles and precepts, but of on-the-ground accounts of men and women and communities struggling with the aid of the Spirit to apply these principles and precepts in facing particular challenges.

Even so, a believer’s political positions will be the product of a blend of religious premises and convictions and of more contextual or prudential considerations. In the end, a good deal of contextual judgment will inevitably be called for. And “reasonable minds,” as they say, will be able to differ.

So we should not be surprised to learn that different prophets and Church leaders over the years, while sharing a common faith, have differed in their political positions. Or that over the centuries, living in vastly various circumstances, thoughtful Christians have reasoned from Christian premises to reach radically different political conclusions. For or against monarchy. For or against democracy. For pacifism or for just war. For communal collectivism or for laissez faire individualism. For conservative stability or for revolution. For governance that is infused with religious values, messages, and symbols; and for governance that is rigorously secular.

Occasionally, to be sure, Church leaders will advocate a specific position on a specific political issue (as I recall from my days handing out leaflets door-to-door back in the time of Proposition 8, per Church instructions). And occasionally, the Church or a Church leader will issue a statement that integrates religious truths with prudential and contextual considerations to deliver instructions and insight that speak directly to current political issues. In my opinion, the Church’s much-discussed proclamation on the family is a notable instance. If we look beyond the LDS canon, John Paul II’s encyclicals on “The Splendor of Truth” (Veritatis Splendor) and “The Gospel of Life” (Evangelium Vitae) are additional powerful examples.

More often, though, modern Church authorities enunciate principles and offer broad guidance. How that guidance applies to the choice between candidates Henry Hoover and Maria Mendoza who are vying for the legislative seat in the Fifth District, or between competing policies on matters like immigration or regulation or foreign policy . . . those sorts of questions are usually left for us to work out on our own.

We might wish that it were otherwise—that Church leaders would tell us more specifically how to view particular political candidates or issues. Or, when we are pretty confident what the right political position is, we may wish that Church leaders would come out and publicly confirm what we think we know to be true. But it is perhaps neither surprising nor regrettable that Church leaders remain, for the most part, politically demure. Among other things, this stance avoids the risk, so often realized in Christian history, of cheapening and deflating the eternal truths and goals of the gospel by conflating them with earthly concerns that, however important to us in the here and now, are nonetheless of passing significance viewed against the backdrop of eternity.

In addition, the Church’s relatively apolitical stance allows us to live respectfully and even lovingly with people who disagree with us on political concerns. I can (and do) regard Brother Jones as a good friend even though I may believe (and in fact I do) that he is mistaken in his political views. Indeed, I may think those views are dangerous, and at some level incompatible with gospel truths. When he answers “no” to the question about whether he supports or promotes “any teachings, practices, or doctrine contrary to” those of the Church, I respectfully but silently disagree. But I can respect him (and I can hope that my leaders will extend the same respect to me) because the Church has not officially and publicly taken positions on the political issues that divide us. Brother Jones may be wrong, but he is sincere, and in his political advocacy he is not directly, deliberately violating any explicit Church teaching. And, hopefully, he can think the same about me. We go on being friends, despite our differences.

If the Church is to go forth into all the world, bringing together good-hearted and faithful (but diverse and differently-minded) people and uniting them in the pursuit of eternal goals and truths that transcend our mundane pursuits and controversies, what other stance would be consistent with this purpose?

But more generally, we say that the purpose of this mortal life—of this probationary period—is for us to be tested, and to grow. So, are the test and the growth about obedience and nothing more? Is it just a question of seeing whether we will learn to jump whenever someone in authority says “jump”?

I don’t think so. We are commanded to serve the Lord with our “heart, might, mind, and strength” (D&C 4:2). I’ve emphasized the third term in the list because I think we often skip past it. And yet God gave us minds—that is surely one of the features in which we were created “in the image of God”—and an essential part of our probation here lies in the exercise of our minds as we confront the various questions and challenges of life. We need the experience of thinking through matters on our own and as carefully as we can.

Indeed, reading the scriptures, I am sometimes amazed by how much scope God gives his followers even in spiritual matters—even in ecclesiastical matters—to try to figure out for ourselves how we should serve him. Consider the last chapter of John’s Gospel. Jesus has died and been resurrected, and his disciples now have to figure out what to do next. And so Peter and his brothers decide to . . . go back to their fishing business. To the business they had left behind when Jesus came to them and said, “Come, follow me.” Consequently, Jesus has to pay them another visit—not to give detailed instructions, but to remind them that they have not been released from their callings. They are supposed to feed his sheep. To carry on the mission of the Church. And then, having cooked breakfast for them and lovingly given the needed reminder, he leaves them to the task.

Read on to the next book in the Bible—Acts—and we see the disciples struggling to carry out that task. How should the Church care for the poor? What to do about the Gentiles? What about the old (and, according to the scriptural text, “everlasting”) law of circumcision? The disciples meet, debate, ponder, pray. They reflect on the implications of experiences they have had, such as Peter’s encounter with the centurion Cornelius. They seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised to send them. And then they eventually make some decisions (which, as the book of Acts as well as other books—most pointedly Galatians—make clear, often cover over continuing and sharp divergences of opinion).

If God respects his followers enough to leave us that much scope for agency and reflection in the conduct of his Church, is it surprising that he would leave us ample room to think things out and make our own judgments about the affairs of this world? In political matters, in other words?

In the end, I will probably still wish from time to time that Church leaders would be a bit more forthright on some matter of political significance. Such forthrightness might not have any appreciable effect on the political situation in the nation or the world, but it might be reassuring to me. Fortunately, these matters are not all about me, and I am not the one making these judgments. And all things considered, I can be grateful to be associated with a Church that for the most part attempts to teach correct principles and let us govern ourselves.

Steven D. Smith, now retired, was a Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, and has taught at Notre Dame, U Colorado, and U Idaho. He has published numerous books and articles, mostly in the fields of constitutional law and legal philosophy.

Art by Joan Mitchell (1925–1992). Sunflowers, (1991), Trees, (1990–1991), and Champs, (1990).

1. This also, by the way, is why the modern project of many secular jurists and political philosophers of excluding religious convictions from political deliberations is so profoundly misguided.