“Unto This Very Purpose”

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Especially if you came from Mormon Archipelago as it only includes my major article posts.
Thanks for visiting!

Today is Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution was signed by a majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention 217 years ago and sent to the states for ratification. Elder Neal A. Maxwell spoke on the miracle of the Constitution’s creation and some of its spiritual implications last year in his talk Unto This Very Purpose [PDF 3.2 MB].

As to be expected, Elder Maxwell’s entire talk is a must read but here are a few highlights. First, the miracle of the United States’ founding document which brings to mind the current efforts to incubate liberty elsewhere:

Think of all that the Lord had to oversee, including the shaping events that occurred long before the Constitution was written, ratified,
and implemented. First, it was necessary for God to cause a handful of highly talented and wise individuals to be raised up. Second, they needed to live in one geographic area on this planet. Third, this contiguity also had to occur in a short time frame. Fourth, a citizenry had to be prepared who wanted and would then implement and sustain self-governance. This latter incubation was as important as the later ratification. Thus, the words “raised up” involve multiple and concurrent conditions. Without similar incubation, it is no wonder that establishing
modern republics and democracies is not easy. Founders require foundational building
blocks. Otherwise, holding elections can be cathartic but not consequential.

The crucial need for the freedom of religion and suggestions that the free exercise clause should be just as valued as freedom of speech:

Human history makes abundantly and sadly clear that not all mortals use power wisely. Unsurprisingly, therefore, certain of the Constitution’s central features—such as the vital separation of powers and the precious
First Amendment, as conceived and intended—were and are needed to foster moral agency (see D&C 121:39). This later condition is central to God’s plan of salvation
for all mortals. Back in the founding days, however, these and other key concepts
needed “cleats” that would take hold early in the history of the American nation. Otherwise, things could have come apart soon after the birth of a nation.
Dean Rex Lee observed of such central features:

In some ways the free-exercise-of-religion guarantee bears closer marks of kinship to the free-expression provisions of the First Amendment than to its sister religion clause. Like the speech, press, and assembly guarantees, the free-exercise-of-religion clause deals directly with the protection of individual liberties, whereas the establishment clause is a structural provision,
regulating institutional relationships between church and state. Moreover, speech and assembly are central to most religious activity. [Rex E. Lee, A Lawyer Looks at the Constitution]

The encroaching threat against a moral consensus and the need for other institutions beyond the government to keep civilization civil:

The ongoing tug-of-war over power and over the preeminence of contending values continues, but does so within the context of a modern condition too little noted. Zbigniew Brzezinski described how “the political structure of the state guarantees the relativism of all values through constitutional protections.” Brzezinski also noted how “the traditional socializing institutions—
the family, the school, and the church—[when] fully intact . . . provided a moral grounding, a counterbalance to the indulgent propaganda of the mass media.”

But will the counterbalances check relativism,
as was once the case? The heightened emphasis in our time on individuality, often at the expense of community, needs no elaboration
with this audience. In my opinion, the big challenge for Christians is maintaining a moral grounding amid surging secularism, and, sometimes, amid arrogant irreligion. Operationally, except for thoughtful and genuine pluralists, irreligion may become, defacto, the established state religion with its own rituals, orthodoxy, and various tests for prospective office holders.

Some counsel to attorneys:

A few words about you and the law. As alumni, what you are is more important than what you know about the law. The long-term influence of your character is more significant
than legal expertise, though how commendable
when both are combined! Hence, adequate emphasis on character at the J. Reuben Clark Law School is as vital as the curriculum.

Therefore, as you help to manage conflict,
you should always practice advocacy without acrimony and without animosity. Be eloquent, not only before the bench but also in your life’s example. You need your own checks and balances, including at times the constraining influence of the Spirit.

And finally, the limitations of the Constitution:

The living Constitution remains a most remarkable document. Nevertheless, the various
interpretations of the Constitution are finally more reflective of the moral status of America’s citizenry, its lawyers, and its judges than we may care to acknowledge. A people, for instance, can actually lose the capacity for genuine self-governance by losing one of its precious prerequisites: “Obedience to the Unenforceable.” Lord Moulton, the originator
of that perceptive phrase, focused on an individual’s obedience to that “which he cannot
be forced to obey,” which, significantly, Moulton, nearly 80 years ago, linked to free choice.

Secular churning can lead to a heedless
democratization of values and truths, which, after all, are not equal—hence, the hunger for a more proportional and a genuine
hierarchy among competing values.

Again, read the whole thing. Also, Senator Hatch laments how our society does not appreciate or understand the Constitution.