Twin Towers Of Truth And Tolerance

[changed]

Did you catch the fireside tonight? It was really good.

http://lds.org/broadcasts/watch/ces-devotional/2011/09?lang=eng&pid=738917358001&pkey=AQ~~,AAAAmBrDwtE~,_58lK-P1xvJ5WTHbRnmdONkYkAiPKoal

Notes (sorry - not perfect, but should give you the idea of the talk)

the twin towers of truth and tolerance

1- Truth

We believe in absolute truth. All truth – from whatever source.

truth endures.

Truth is a knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.

The existence of God, and the existence of absolute truth are fundamental to life on this earth, weather they are believed or not.

Evil exists. Some things are everlastingly wrong. Shun evil, and seek truth.

The world is increasingly polarized between belief and disbelief, between good and evil.

Thieving and lying in civilized society - Rioting in London, and teachers cheating on standardized tests in Georgia – make us question if we are losing the moral foundation western countries have received from Judao-Christian heritage.

People thinking that there is no right or wrong, that it is all just man-made choices, people question if there even is a God… Moral relativism…

Contrast between older and younger generations – 80% of American adults believe there are clear guidelines of good and evil that apply to everyone regardless of their situation. 75% of college students believed that right and wrong were relative.

Certain behavior is absolutely right. Certain other behavior is absolutely wrong.

We who believe in God, and in absolute right and wrong, have the challenge of living in a Godless and amoral world.

We have a duty to stand up and speak up to affirm that God exists, and that there are absolute truths.

“the pillar of truth will endure to the last,

And its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast

And the wreck of the fell tyrant's hopes” - Hymn – O say what is truth?

People are practicing and teaching moral relativism, which is changing the shape of society. Moral relativism denies what millions of believing Christians, Jews, and Muslims consider fundamental, and creates serious problems for all of us. What believers should do about this introduces the second of my twin towers – tolerance

2. Tolerance (time 24:20)

Tolerance is defined as a friendly and fair attitude towards unfamiliar opinions and practices or towards the persons who hold or practice them.

We are all in closer proximity to one another (internet, travel, etc. etc.).

Greater exposure to diversity both enriches and complicates our lives.

Diversity of the children of God.

Challenge us what we can embrace, and what cannot be embraced – introduces the potential for conflict.

What is tolerance?

When does it apply?

When does it not apply?

An atheist has no need to decide what types of profanity should be allowed – everything goes – you do your thing, and I’ll do mine – tolerate any behavior or person. (except tolerating those who believe in a God who should be respected)

What does tolerance mean to believers?

Three absolute truths shared by believers:

1. all persons are brothers and sisters under God taught within their various religions to do good to one another.

We differ in interpretations, but can have mutual respect for one another in our belief in God.

Muslim scholar – “To tolerate something is to learn to live with it even when you think it is wrong and down right evil. We must go, I believe, beyond tolerance if we are to achieve harmony in our world. Relying on the teachings of the Koran, we must respect this God-given dignity in every human being, even in our enemies, for the goal of all human relations, weather they are social, religious, political, or economic; ought to be cooperation and mutual respect.”

Living together with mutual respect is a challenge in today’s world.

Absolute truth #2:

2. This living with differences is what the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us we must do.

Kingdom like a leaven – hidden away in a larger mass until the whole is leavened (raised by it’s influence. Our numbers will be small, we will be hated because we are not of the world. Called to live with other children of God who do not share our faith or values, and do not hold the covenant obligations which we have assumed….

In the world, not of the world…. Not taken out of the world, but to remain in it – kept from evil,

Seek tolerance from those who hate us for not being of the world.

Sometimes need to challenge laws which would impair our freedom to practice our faith.

Lutheran case now in supreme court -

“The ability of people of all faiths to work out their relationship with God and one another without the government looking over their shoulder.”

Christians should follow after the things that create peace – honor the good we should see in all people. All things which are good come from God – all things which entice to do good is inspired of God – do not judge that which is good and of God to be of the devil. – leads to respect and tolerance.

Truth #3

3: Tolerance does not cause us to abandon the truth and our own covenants.

Stand up for truth, while practicing tolerance.

Not required to respect wrong behavior.

We can seek relief from some behavior which is wrong.

We all deploy murder, terrorist behavior, even when done by extremists in the name of religion….

The world’s definition of tolerance seems to be in tolerating wicked lifestyles. How would the Lord define tolerance?

Packer “Tolerance often demanded, but seldom returned….it is a very unstable virtue”

Tolerance for behavior is a two sided coin. Tolerance/respect on one side, with truth on the other.

Savior – woman taken in adultery – tolerance - “neither do I condemn thee… truth – “go and sin no more” we should also speak both with tolerance, but with truth.

How can we stand as a witness without offending? (Sabbath holy, co-habiting, swearing)

Tolerant with others, but not with ourselves. With ourselves, we should be strong in keeping the commandments, not tolerate anything wrong. Sin often wears the mask of tolerance… make a stand for right in your own behaviors even if you stand alone.

Teach with love, patience, and persuasion.

Associates who co-hebitate etc. etc. – nothing should ever cause us to react with hateful communications, or unkind actions. Speak with love.

How directly are we affected by it? We can tell people that profanity is offensive to us.

Condone, sponsor, or facilitate – we do not need to do this. One thing to ignore private serious sins… quite another thing to sponsor or endorse them (house them in our own homes)

Private lives:

Avoid contention.

Example should be the warning voice – in mildness and meekness.

We should not judge our neighbors, that judgment is the Lord’s.

Within the Public square –

1. seek inspiration of the Lord, which true principles they seek to promote – focus on broader issues…. Preserve religious freedom is a vital matter.

2. methods of promoting our positions should be tolerant of others. Should not add to extremism. Speak with love, compassion towards adversaries… do good to those who despitefully use them… bless them that curse us, do good to them who hurt us… frame arguments with reason and civility.

3. not be deterred by charge that we are trying to legislate morality. Our civilization is based on Christian morality, and cannot exist without it. Adams “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people – it is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

Accused of being self-righteous or intolerant of others – we need to be more wise and skillful in expressing our views.

““Let us not forget that we believe in being benevolent and in doing good to all men. I am convinced that we can teach our children effectively enough that we need not fear that they will lose their faith while being friendly and considerate with those who do not subscribe to the doctrine of this Church. Let us reach out to those in our community who are not of our faith. Let us be good neighbors, kind and generous and gracious. Let us be involved in good community causes. There may be situations where, with serious moral issues involved, we cannot bend on matters of principle. But in such instances we can politely disagree without being disagreeable. We can acknowledge the sincerity of those whose positions we cannot accept. We can speak of principles rather than personalities.” – Hinckley

prophet – watchmen to warn Israel.

Set a watchman on the tower, to give warning to the vineyard while the enemy is still afar off – I speak to you as one of those watchmen.

- Oaks

“I proclaim my knowledge that God lives. His creations witness His existence and His servants hear and proclaim His voice. Some have the gift to know Jesus is the Son of God and it is given to others to believe on their words. As one who knows, I invite you to believe in my words.” – Oaks bears testimony of Jesus.

[changed]

no comments?

OK - so when Oaks said "I speak to you as a watchman" - that an official warning was being given through this talk - what do you think we were specifically warned to do?

Was it a warning that we are supposed to be tolerant? that we need to not be self-righteous extremists, but need to see the good in everyone, and recognize that all that good in everyone comes from God?

or was it a warning about the threat of losing our freedom of religion?

If you could summarize it in a few words - what specific message did you get out of it? what was the warning for?

[thesometimesaint]

changed:

You do need to give us a while to respond.

To me the most important thing is to love God, and treat our fellow man as we would want to be treated, or as that ancient Chinese sage said. Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.

Edited September 12, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[mapman]

It was certainly a thought-provoking talk. I was impressed by his statement that he was one of the prophets on the tower. I'm waiting for the transcript to be put up so I can look at it more closely.

[changed]

Here is another thought provoking talk:

http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=11324

It's the one Elder Oaks quoted quite a bit out of - the one given by the Muslim scholar... the intro they gave him at BYU was pretty powerful too.

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Yesterday I called into a conservative radio talk show - they were talking about how people remembered 9-11, and I thought it would be cool to share Elder Oaks's talk / thoughts...

host: did we do enough to remember 9-11?

me:

"I don’t think you could ever do enough – especially now when there is so much anger between political groups – between everyone - seems like tensions are rising and 9-11 is a reminder that we need to deal with our differences in peace and civility – I think it was providential that this anniversary fell on Sunday – a lot of us at church, hopefully listening to– how we should be peacemakers like Jesus.

Our church had a broadcast entitled “The Twin towers of Truth and tolerance” by Elder Dallan H. Oaks with a good discussion on how we can stand up for the truth that we believe in – but stand up with love and compassion towards our adversaries -"

next caller replying to my remarks:

but these people don't understand about peace and Jesus - you need to shoot them before they shoot us, can't do anything but pull the trigger, and keep pulling it etc. etc. (yelling, very emotional etc. etc.)

host: so don't turn the other cheek huh?

caller: no - we can't just turn the other cheek

~~~~~~ so they kept replaying my call, and the next call, and turned it into a debate on "turn the other cheek" or "fight" which was hard for many people to answer, as many conservatives are both Christians, and NRA members ... It is a hard line to draw - to know when you are standing up for right, and when you are just being a hypocrite becoming the terrorist you wish to fight.

Edited September 13, 2011 by changed

[LeSellers]

next caller replying to my remarks:

but these people don't understand about peace and Jesus - you need to shoot them before they shoot us, can't do anything but pull the trigger, and keep pulling it etc. etc. (yelling, very emotional etc. etc.)

host: so don't turn the other cheek huh?

caller: no - we can't just turn the other cheek

~~~~~~ so they kept replaying my call, and the next call, and turned it into a debate on "turn the other cheek" or "fight" which was hard for many people to answer, as many conservatives are both Christians, and NRA members ... It is a hard line to draw - to know when you are standing up for right, and when you are just being a hypocrite becoming the terrorist you wish to fight.

Well, in fairness, we did "turn the other cheek". You do recall, I'm sure, that 20010911 was the second attack on the Trade Center?

There were also the USS Cole, Kobahr towers, etc.

Lehi

Edited September 19, 2011 by LeSellers

[katherine the great]

Sounds pretty good. Elder Oaks always gives very interesting and thoughtful words. I do have to disagree with him on one point though--that we should not extend tolerance to ourselves. I strongly disagree with that. We should love everyone, including ourselves. We should certainly be the best person we can be (and no one knows what our best is better than ourselves), but we also need to realize that we are probably not better than those around us and will fall short at times. Self forgiveness is a powerful thing and we must understand that the Savior's atonement was intended for us just as well as the other guy.

[changed]

Sounds pretty good. Elder Oaks always gives very interesting and thoughtful words. I do have to disagree with him on one point though--that we should not extend tolerance to ourselves. I strongly disagree with that. We should love everyone, including ourselves. We should certainly be the best person we can be (and no one knows what our best is better than ourselves), but we also need to realize that we are probably not better than those around us and will fall short at times. Self forgiveness is a powerful thing and we must understand that the Savior's atonement was intended for us just as well as the other guy.

yea, it's good to forgive ourselves after the fact - but before we do anything, we should try to hold ourselves to a high standard. I think Elder Oaks was trying to concentrate on "before" rather than "after"?

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(Guide to the Scriptures | E Ephraim.:The tribe of Ephraim)

The tribe of Ephraim: Ephraim was given the birthright in Israel (1 Chr. 5:1–2; Jer. 31:9). In the last days their privilege and responsibility is to bear the priesthood, take the message of the restored gospel to the world, and raise an ensign to gather scattered Israel (Isa. 11:12–13; 2 Ne. 21:12–13).

In the last days we are supposed to be gathering together all the lost tribes - I wonder if this sort of theme (tolerance, seeing the good in others, building bridges, combining together with other faiths) is part of gathering scattered Israel?

For some reason lately, I've been thinking about our duty to gather everyone, and what that entails.

Edited September 15, 2011 by changed

[Mike Reed]

Twin towers. Hmmm... Your notes are different from mine.

Tower#1: rebuke people for having "Pagan body piercings," as though piercings having pagan origin is (by default) appropriate grounds to reject them. Shall we talk about Christmas, or the wedding ring he was wearing? How about the religion marginalizes and offends with such words?

Tower #2: Condemn atheists as the enemies of God and the Church as much as possible.

Edited September 16, 2011 by Mike Reed

[Scott Lloyd]

Tower#1: rebuke people for having "Pagan body piercings," as though piercings having pagan origin is (by default) appropriate grounds to reject them. Shall we talk about Christmas, or the wedding ring he was wearing? How about the religion marginalizes and offends with such words?

I don't think Elder Oaks meant to imply that pagan origin is the only thing objectionable about body piercings.

[frankenstein]

Well, in fairness, we did "turn the other cheek". You do recall, I'm sure, that 20010911 was the second attack on the Trade Center?

There were also the USS Cole[/], Kobahr towers, etc.

Lehi

If the USA is Christian nation then it must turn the other cheek. A lds nation would have the benefit of section 98.