According to President Gordon B. Hinckley:

I was a missionary in London in 1934, sixty years ago, and I vividly recall the advertisements of one of the popular newspapers that Dickens’ The Life of Our Lord would be published serially.  I paid little attention to it.  Following serialization, it was published as a book.  There was a surge of interest, and then it seemed to fade.

Years later Sister Hinckley found a copy of the book and read it to our children. . .  It is a wonderful story, told in language beautiful and easily understood.

. . . The Life of Our Lord, written in a very personal way, without adornment of flights of fancy, and written for the children he loved, carries with it not only a beautiful narrative but a compelling admonition:  “Remember!–It is Christianity TO DO GOOD always–even to those who do evil to us.”

The book was finally published after the death of his last child.

The book isn’t universally loved.  According to Kirkus Reviews:  “Though a bestseller at the time, it is way down on the list of rewrites of the life of Jesus that an adult would ever care to read.”  Kendal B. Hunter, a Mormon writing on amazon.com, also has point of view:

The only drawback with the book is theology, but that is understandable since we are of different faiths.  Dickens focuses mainly on the ethical aspects of Christ’s life, which is good, but incomplete.  Another president of the Church of Jesus Christ, President Howard W. Hunter [a relative perhaps?], once gave a talk called, “Ethics Alone is not Sufficient.”  If you remember in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge makes a conversion to ethical ideal, but not a conversion to Christ.  He is going in the right direction, but not far enough.

Dickens, a member of the Church of England (Anglican), believed deeply in Jesus as savior and in his moral teachings, but many of the novelist’s most avowedly Christian characters represent the worst in religion:  greed, hypocrisy, indifference to human suffering, arrogance, self-righteousness and theological bullying.

“He was more interested in the general spirit than the specific letter of the faith,” said Brian McCuskey, who teaches English at Utah State University.  “Holding broad, loose beliefs, he had little patience for either institutional or evangelical Christianity.”

To Dickens, says Barry Weller, a professor of English at the University of Utah who specializes in 19th- and 20th-century British literature, “any sectarian commitment got in the way of essential Christianity.”

It was Christian zealots’ attitude toward the poor that bothered Dickens the most.

“What we find again and again in [his] novels is that [these Christians] want to do charity in a wholesale rather than an individual way,” Weller says.  “They are not sensative to the needs of the individual families and their situations.  Instead of giving them what they need, they hand out a bunch of [religious] pamphlets.  When they visit the poor as representatives of a religion, they seem more eager to impress [on the needy] a certain doctrine than try to help them.”

. . . President [Gordon B.] Hinckley had seen poverty and lack of education and training prevent many young adults in the Church from achieving their potential.  He sought the Lord for answers.

In general conference on March 31, 2001, President Hinckley announced his vision for the [Perpetual Education Fund].  He conceded that it was a “bold initiative” but held that “education is the key to opportunity.”  President Hinckley invited all who wished to contribute to do so, and the program was underway.

Now, 10 years later, contributions large and small from donors worldwide have allowed the initiative–and its participants–to thrive.  Elder John K. Carmack, emeritus member of the Seventy and Executive Director of PEF, says it is “rescuing Saints from the curse of poverty. . .”

According to the Ensign the PEF has impacted over 50,000 participants in 51 countries.  The following statistics were listed:

• 47 percent are men, 53 percent are women
• 34 percent are married
• 80 percent of men are returned missionaries
• 82 percent work while in school
• Their average age is 24.5
• They take 2.6 years on average to complete their education
• They receive three to four times greater income after education

The PEF is patterned after Brigham Young’s Perpetual Emigration Fund.  The Hinckley-inspired fund is driven by monetary donations; the interest generated by the principal is loaned to prospective students.

I strongly support the PEF effort and encourage all Saints to contribute.  In fact, I would hope that members would consider allocating some of their “Tithing” money to PEF.  I would also like to see a PEF set up for worthy non-members.

• the LDS Church did not formally apologize for the priesthood ban and
• the LDS Church did not publicly repudiated any of the theories used to justify it.

For me this is problematic.  According to Daniel Burke writing for the Religion News Service (and published in the sltrib (1 Feb 2012)):

“Right now is a great opportunity for the [LDS] Church to say, ‘let’s clear the air once and for all,’” said Darron Smith, co-editor of the book Black and Mormon and a sociologist at Wichita State University in Kansas.  “But they won’t do it.  And that’s going to put reasonable doubt in people’s minds about Romney and the church.”

And:

“The [black] issue hurt [George Romney] and it hurt the image of the Mormon church,” said Newell Bringhurst, a historian and co-author of The Mormon Quest for the Presidency.

It may mar Mitt Romney’s campaign too, Bringhurst said.  “He’ll face more and more scrutiny on the Mormon-black issue, even though the church has abandoned the policy.”

And:

“If the LDS Church were to apologize, that would be casting aspersions on God’s prophets–the voice of God on Earth,” said Richard Ostling, co-author of the book Mormon America.  “I don’t think the Mormon soul could countenance it.”

Late last year, the [LDS] Church’s publishing arm, Deseret Book, put out No Weapon Shall Prosper:  New Light on Sensative Issues to address some of the hot-button issues of Mormon history and doctrine, offering members ways to answer critics.

While Mormons should not be “consumed with provocative materials critical of the [LDS] Church, the day for ignoring such matters is long past,” editor Robert Millet wrote in the book’s introduction.  “The Internet is filled with thousands of pages of anti-Mormon polemic, and it is extremely difficult for people to receive an honest and fair appraisal of Mormonism without significant effort on their part.”

Chapters are written by various authors–most of them professors at church-owned Brigham Young Univeristy–and tackle tough topics, including the Mormon view of God; the differing accounts of the founder’s Joseph Smith’s “First Vision”; Smith’s money-digging activities and plural marriage to teenage girls; the lengthy quoting of biblical passages in the Book of Mormon; and new questions surrounding the faith’s signature scripture from DNA analysis.

The contributors stress that there are sound answers to these sticky questions.

“I have heard that our overall activity, especially in the United States, is as good as it’s ever been,” [Elder Marlin Jensen, the LDS Church's outgoing historian] said.  “To say we are experiencing some Titanic-like wave of apostasy is inaccurate.”

But some Mormon scholars disagree:

“I definitely get the sense that this is a real crisis,” said Mormon scholar and writer Terryl Givens.  “It is an epidemic.”

There is a “discrepancy between a church history that has been selectively rendered through the Church Education System and the Sunday school manuals, and a less-flattering version universally accessible on the Internet,” Givens wrote in an email from Virginia.  “The problem is not so much the discovery of particular details that are deal breakers for the faithful; the problem is a loss of faith and trust in an institution that was less than forthcoming to begin with. . .”

LDS Scholar Richard Bushman, author of a critically acclaimed biography [of Joseph Smith] has become a kind of historical therapist, he wrote in an email from his home in New York, “counseling with distraught wives and parents or disaffected Mormons themselves.”

For those who discover unwelcome information about the church’s history online, Bushman said, “the whole picture changes in a flash. . .”

The best way to prevent this from happening, Bushman said, is give Mormons “the whole story from the beginning.”

I think the same thing applies to science, as well as history.  The LDS Church members should be encouraged to accept the truths of science.  For example, youthful members should not have to struggle with issues like the compatibility of organic evolution and Mormon doctrine.  There is no incompatibility.

According to Joanna Brooks writing on religiondispatches.com:

. . . studies by [Ryan] Cragun and [Rick] Phillips show that retention rates of young people (young men especially) raised Mormon have dropped substantially in the last decade:  from 92.6% in the 1970-2000s to 64.4% from 2000-2010.

The LDS Church leadership is concerned enough about the exodus of existing members, particularly its youth, that it has lanched an effort called The Rescue to reclaim its flock.  Among other things, this effort aims at providing better information through the Internet.

Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention argues that –[by adding] the Book of Mormon — Mormonism [is] a fourth Abrahamic religious tradition:  as Christianity is to Judaism, Mormonism is to Christianity.

[Arguing that Mormonism is an extention of Christianity is] right for the short term, but Land may be correct in the long run.  Consider that the earliest Christians in the first century considered themselves Jews — Jews with a better understanding of the Messiah; Jews who were “more Jewish.”

Mormonism is still a young religion; only time will tell what it will become.

Lincoln Cannon, President and Director of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, feels that Mormonism modifies Christianity “to such an extent that characterizing Mormonism as a mere extension of other modern Christian ideologies is inaccurate.  Mormonism is to modern Christianity as ancient Christianity was to Judaism.

The primary task of Mormon theology for the foreseeable future is to assess its relationship to naturalism and the scientific worldview. Many Mormons view God as located within and limited by our “particular universe,” which began some fourteen billion years ago with the big bang and is thus subject to all of the limitations of natural law. Others see God as transcending the existing natural universe because God is the organizer not only of this universe, but of many others. God’s relationship to the natural universe, whether God had a beginning of his divinity, and whether God is at the mercy of limitations of natural laws, remain major issues for Mormon thinkers to work out.

 

“I think I have more problems with those who stick around in it and want to reform it, as if it’s some sort of democratic thing,” Merris says.  “There’s this whole movement, like ‘New Order Mormons,’ for people who have become intellectually disenchanted with the church, but they still want to be a part of it.  But I think it’s an invalid organization from the foundations up.  Why reform that?  Just leave it.”

I find Merris statement to be overly harsh, considering the large number of members who would fall into the category of being “disenchanted,” particularly with the LDS Church’s current attitude toward gays.  Members may not be able to “reform” the LDS institution, but they can effectuate change.

James Faulconer, the Richard L. Evans Professor of Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University, made the following statement:  “if I believe that the Church is, on the whole, led by revelation, then I must be doubly skeptical of my opinions.”  But Faulconer is wrong, personal opinions do count.  The LDS Church is not a cult, we should not follow our leaders blindly.  The Church is a less-than-perfect evolving institution.

We all make decisions about what religion or non-religion we choose to join.  Mormon “doubters,” who stay in their less than perfect church, are important because they will subtly influence the path their religion will take.  And there are examples of how members have brought about significant change.

Many Mormons have a strong belief in God, yet find their institutional church to be imperfect.  So they have two choices, stay or leave.  Some stay because they can find nothing better.  Those who stay shouldn’t be intimidated with silly statements made by individual members like Faulconer, or Merris for that matter.

Should voters care about the faith of candidates?

I think moral values would be a better way, but I don’t see how you can separate faith from moral values.  I also don’t maintain that you have to be a Christian to exhibit those characteristics in private life or in public life.

Do American politicians overplay their Christianity?

Excessively so.  Some of that originated in opposition to me.  The so-called Moral Majority came into being to oppose me and was espoused by Ronald Reagan in his campaign against me.

What concerns you most about American today?

Every one of my successors has been in gratuitous wars.  I think we could have resolved most of those conflicts in a peaceful way.  And we share little of our wealth with other people.  These are a violation of the teachings of the Prince of Peace.

While I would generally agree with President Carter on most of his points, I disagree that you can’t “separate faith from moral values.”  I think there are many individuals who have little or no religious faith but still have high moral standards.  Can you be an atheist or agnostic and still have strong values?  Of course you can, and most do.  In fact, you can make a case that is some instances, misplaced “faith” has been a detriment to moral decision making.  For instance, when Christianity deviates from its principal message–love thy neighbor–things can and do go wrong.

But I strongly agree with his statement that Americans need to share more of their wealth with the world, whether that wealth is money, knowledge, technology, etc.  From what I can tell, President Carter lives what he preaches on this point.