Of Freedom and Federals

May 7, 2020 1 Comment

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

News Flash, Washington:  The national government sometimes gets it wrong.

Another News Flash, Elsewhere:  So do the States.

Of course, this is no news to anyone, rather old news to everyone.  We all know that the national government is neither perfectly right nor wrong.  The same is true for state governments.  All are staffed by human beings, like you and me, with the similar packages of wisdom and foolishness.

For nearly two decades I worked in the U.S. Senate for a very wise man.  I once heard him say that when he came to Washington he was frustrated at how little one person could get done.  He said he soon came to rejoice in the fact.  Yes, it is hard for one person to achieve the good that he envisions, but it is even harder for one person to impose on everyone else the good that he envisions.

The founders of the nation did not seek to perfect mankind.  They left that for God, as flawed humans cannot create perfect humans.  For now God has left governments to imperfect people (though He is willing to provide as much wisdom as people are willing to accept).  The wisdom of the founders, thousands of miles away from other nations, but drawing upon thousands of years of history, was to create a system of government that did not rest upon the wisdom and foolishness of one individual or even a small cadre of them.

The founders arrived at a system of government for the new nation that neither guaranteed nor expected officials to get it all right.  It was designed to make it harder for them all to get it all wrong.  Moreover, the founders worked to limit the field of that government, so that as much as possible of the getting things right and wrong was left to the people themselves in their myriad of daily activities, far too complex for a government to manage.

The arrangement divided governing responsibilities among many hands.  States have their responsibilities, which they share with local governments.  The national government has its share of duties and powers to be applied where appropriate for a national sphere.  Those powers are further divided among three interdependent branches, the executive, legislative, and judicial.  I say “interdependent,” because neither was given enough power to operate without involvement with the other two.

Impasse arises, frequently, because schemes for government to govern too much wreck upon the shoals of the diversity of our people and the multiplicity of their needs and preferences.  Such impasse is not a sign of inefficient government but of our system of government efficiently reminding us when it is trying to overreach, going beyond government’s competence.

The founders formed their plan as they realized that it was the only way to govern a nation so geographically broad, increasingly populous, and already socially diverse.  As the 13 states have become 50 from sea to sea, and the several million have become several hundred million, it is even truer today.  There are things that governments must do.  There are many more that need to be left to the governed.

In recent months we have witnessed waves of expanded government restrictions, probing the limits of government wisdom and power.  Space here will not allow an evaluation of the successes and failures, or the effect on individual freedom.

I rejoice in this federal system of government that allows for a diversity of approaches and accommodation of a diversity of conditions.  In my view, the governor where I live has gotten more wrong than right and is out of step with his state’s conditions.  I find the contrast of other examples a source of hope.  The purpose of dividing governmental power is to allow the exposure of mistakes and thereby preserve and promote individual freedom.

The division of error in our system offers hope of relief and recourse from error. It still leaves room, as well, for individuals to get it right and when they get it wrong to learn from the errors, with the freedom to try again and do better.

I will tattle, that the Senator for whom I worked for so long sometimes got it wrong.  Having been a college professor, he told us that we learned so much by working for him that we should pay tuition.  We did not agree.  He did not press the point.

Parting News Flash, New York:  The United Nations gets it wrong almost all the time.  Details, daily.

Filed under Constitution, federalism, freedom, government, hope, perfection Tagged with , , , , ,

Of Coming to Heaven and the Lord’s Supper

October 2, 2014 Leave a comment

The lyrics to a Spanish song that I enjoy listening to include this line:

Para entrar en el cielo, no es preciso morir.

That translates into, “In order to enter heaven it is not necessary to die.” Of course, that is true. I have often said and know from some experience that eternal life can begin even in mortality, since the core element of eternal life is to possess the spiritual gift of charity, meaning the pure love of Christ (see Moroni 7:47), the one spiritual gift that never ends.

While it is not necessary to die to receive eternal life, we do need to come unto Christ. Eternal life means living with God the Father, in His presence, and inheriting all that He has. To qualify for that existence where perfect love and goodness prevail from this world of imperfection, corruption, and sin, it is necessary to come unto Christ, who has overcome all and who offers to help us to overcome all.

We come unto Christ only on His terms. We cannot command that He come to us on our terms. He is the perfect being, and we are very much short of that. We are the ones with distance to cover. Christ condescended to come as mortal man into our presence and our world of evil, but He did not condescend to partake of the evil. We have. He left our world through death, as we all will, but then was resurrected, which none were before Him, but because of whose resurrection all will follow.

Following resurrection, we will all be judged by the Father to determine whether we may remain in the Father’s presence and continue to grow and develop under His care. At that judgment, Christ will identify for the Father those who have come to the Son and thereby qualified to remain in heaven.

How do we come unto Christ? What are His terms? Just these, that we solemnly promise by covenant with Him and the Father that we will accept Him and keep His commandments. That is, we promise that we will follow Christ and stay with Him. How can coming unto the Savior mean anything less? Either we come unto Him or we do not.

The Savior has declared that this solemn promise and covenant is to be made in such a way as to be unmistakably imprinted on our minds, rich with the symbolism of washing away sin, burying the unrighteous way of life, and then rising to newness of life in accordance with the laws and ways of heaven. This covenant and symbolism are present in the ordinance of baptism. We place ourselves in the Savior’s hands via those whom He has personally chosen to represent Him. We are buried in water, washed and cleansed from sin, and arise out of the water in the image of the resurrection into a Christian life.

The person who approaches baptism truly repentant of all of his sins, genuinely committed to a complete turning away from all evil, will feel the powers and joys of heaven filling his heart. He will enter into the presence of God through the power of the Holy Ghost. In fact, shortly after baptism, the next step in coming unto Christ is to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands of Christ’s representatives, just as the Samaritans anciently, who were baptized by Philip and soon thereafter were given the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands of the Apostles Peter and John (see Acts 8:12-17).

I have experienced those steps personally and testify that it works just that way. Through faith, repentance, and baptism, sins are washed away, and through the gift of the Holy Ghost the heart is changed and filled with the gift of charity, the pure love of Christ.

Sad to say, and I would not excuse myself by noting that it happens to us all, not long after the covenant is made the covenant is broken, and it is not broken by God. He perfectly fulfills His part. On our part, sins are once again indulged in, old or new ones, or both. The Spirit is grieved and withdraws, the gift of charity is also withdrawn, the man is left back on his own. With the covenant broken what are we to do?

With a graciousness that far surpasses the patience of any mortal man, God allows us to remake the covenant and come unto Christ again. We need not be rebaptized. God has provided another ordinance that allows us to reaffirm the baptismal covenant and reclaim its powers and blessings. As with baptism, it is a physical action that embodies a spiritual commitment. Also, like baptism, it is designed and prescribed by God in a symbolic form that reminds us of Jesus Christ through whom our redemption is possible.

I refer to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. As with baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper comes in two parts. In the first, we partake of broken bread, reminding us of the Savior’s body broken for us and soon after resurrected. In the second we partake of water or wine to remind us of the blood shed by Christ in Gethsemane and on the cross.

As we partake of the sacrament with the same intent and spirit with which we were baptized, the whole baptismal covenant is reaffirmed and renewed, and we resume our Christian life. We return to Christ. We need this sacrament or our baptism would be nullified by our later sins. We need it to retain the effects of our baptism.

It is astonishing, really. It is a marvelous manifestation of the grace of God that He offers us this opportunity, weekly, to renew our solemn baptismal promises that we not so solemnly break. While we renege, the Lord does not. In fact, He offers us the second, third, and hundredth chance, which by all rights and justice He need not do. Which of us would have such patience with those who broke their promises to us?

Because of the Lord’s patience, to enter into heaven, the presence of God, again and again, it is not necessary to die. It is necessary to live, and to do that we must come unto Christ, and He beckons to us, all the time. Why wait to answer His call?

(First published August 26, 2012)

Filed under atonement, baptism, charity, death, eternal life, faith, grace, heaven, Holy Ghost, joy, mortality, ordinances, perfection, repentance, resurrection, sabbath, salvation, sin, spirituality Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,