Why Does God Give Us Moral Agency or the Power to Choose?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to the book of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 6-8; 15; 18; 29-30; 34) to Moses’ repeating what the Lord told the Israelites forty years earlier. The title of this lesson is “Beware Lest Thou Forget the Lord,” and the following information introduced the lesson. 

Moses’ earthly ministry began on a mountain, when God spoke to him from a burning bush (see Exodus 3:1-10). It also ended on a mountain, more than 40 years later, when God gave him a glimpse of the promised land from the top of Mount Nebo (see Deuteronomy 34:1-4). Moses had spent his life preparing the children of Israel to enter that promised land, and the book of Deuteronomy records his final instructions, reminders, exhortations, and pleadings with the Israelites. Reading his words makes it clear that the real object of Moses’s ministry – the preparation the people needed – wasn’t about wilderness survival, conquering enemies, or building a nation. It was about learning to love God, obey Him, and remain loyal to Him. That’s the preparation we all need to enter the promised land of eternal life. So although Moses never set foot in the “land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8), because of his faith and faithfulness, he did enter the promised land that God has prepared for all those who follow Him.

Some principles taught in this scripture block are (1) “Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7; 8:2-5, 11-17; 29:18-20; 30:6-10, 14-20); (2) “Beware lest thou forget the Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4-12, 20-25); (3) Helping people in need involves generous hands and willing hearts (Deuteronomy 15:1-15); (4) Moses was “like unto” Jesus Christ (Deuteronomy 18:15-19); (5) The Lord invites me to choose between good and evil (Deuteronomy 29:9; 30:15-20).

This essay will discuss principle #5 about using our agency to choose between good and evil. We will begin by looking at those scripture verses.

Deuteronomy 29:9

9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

15 ¶ See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

16 In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

These verses tell us that we will be blessed and “prosper in all that ye do” if we (1) keep the covenants that we make with God, (2) love the Lord, (3) walk in His ways, (4) keep His commandments, statutes, and judgments, (5) obey His voice, and (6) cleave unto Him.

Now we will compare the last words of Moses to the final teachings of Lehi to his family in

2 Nephi 2:26-29; 4:4.

2 Nephi 2:26-29

26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.

27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;

29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

2 Nephi 4:4

4 For the Lord God hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; and inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence.

These verses tell us that we have freedom to choose good or evil because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We can choose good or evil -- captivity and death or liberty and eternal life – because God gave us agency. He gave us the power to choose while we lived with Him in the premortal world, and He allowed us to take agency with us when we came to earth.

Lehi also taught his family that Satan (the devil) would have power to tempt us, but we have power over him if we choose righteousness. Like Moses, Lehi tells us that we will “prosper in the land” IF we keep God’s commandments.

God wants us to use our moral agency to choose righteousness because we love God. It is not enough to say and do the “correct” things. God wants us to desire to do the correct things and choose to do them because we love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

 

Are Men to Blame for Low Marriage Rates?

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when parents prepare their children for marriage. Yet, marriage rates continue to fall. Liberals and progressives claim that men are to blame for the low rates of marriage, but marriage experts Maria Baer and Brad Wilcox do not agree.

It’s all men’s fault.

It’s a popular catchphrase in liberal circles generally, but especially in conversations about marriage. Whenever we at the Institute for Family Studies or the Wheatley Institute publish new research about falling marriage rates (or declining dating trends), progressive thinkers seem to instinctively rush to the defense of women, as if we’re casting all blame on them….

Believe me, we get it. We have heard from plenty of liberal and conservative young women that too many men aren’t measuring up. But pinning all the blame on working-class men leaves elite liberals free to avoid facing their own responsibility for the present cultural moment they’ve helped shape.

Consider, for example, the gutting of the Boy Scouts, one of the few institutions in America dedicated to turning boys into virtuous young men. After being pressed by left-leaning elites for decades to go coed, the organization said in 2017 that it would begin admitting girls. It filed for bankruptcy three years later.

Since the 1960s, masculinity itself has been viewed with increased skepticism, maligned in the mainstream media and the ivory tower, while in the real world, its virtues – including strength, initiative and chivalry – were still expected and demanded in the workplace and yes, even in dating….

Men and women build culture together, and the liberal thinkers and writers who place the blame for falling marriage rates squarely at the feet of today’s men ought to reckon with the norms and trends – many of which they’ve expressly had a hand in – that have brought us to this moment where too many men don’t seem marriageable. (It’s worth noting that many young men tend to agree with this assessment: our recent study found that nearly half – 46% -- of young American men ages 18-23 say they think of themselves as “a failure.”)

It is true that many more men are “failing to launch” today than in prior generations. Women now outnumber men in higher education by a ratio of almost 3 to 2. Fewer young men are working, and a rising number are stoned on the sofa. Fully 1 in 5 are living with their parents. For a young woman hoping to marry, these trends shrink the pool of available and attractive partners.

And yet progressive educators, politicians and journalists have presided over the collapse of boys’ performance in schools, a left-wing monoculture on college campuses that discourages young men from engaging in the classroom, a COVID-19 response that robbed boys of countless opportunities to develop their social skills, and the push for legalization of marijuana. They have also done their level best to demean and devalue masculinity. So, yes, some of our young men ought to be doing better, but our culture also ought to create better norms and institutions so that more young men can thrive.

Take today’s social norms around sex. It’s fascinating to note, for example, that many of the women Anna Louie Sussman references in her New York Times piece about the death of marriageable men are mothers, all lamenting not having found a spouse. Yet there is no examination of why women are agreeing to sex with men who are so utterly – by their own expressed standards – not marriage material.

The answer is norms. Marrying young – in your 20s – is no longer aspirational, let alone normal. Waiting until marriage for sex is stranger still. In many circles, particularly among the progressive elite, a more traditional sexual ethic is actively mocked.

So while it may be true that many young women still say they hope to marry and become mothers, they don’t want to marry young and few forgo sex until marriage. Yet those two habits, were they once again normalized on a cultural scale, would not only increase women’s odds of marrying but would almost certainly improve the quality of their dating pool. Men are more likely to commit and embrace mature adulthood when that is what society expects them to do.

We can lament that truth – men should grow up and commit anyway – but we must reckon with it. Men are much less likely to level up and embrace committed love when they have ready access to low-cost or no-cost sex, including internet pornography….

The social science bears it out. Thirty years ago, Nobel laureate George Akerlof studied the sexual and marriage habits of young men and women in the wake of the sexual revolution. He concluded that as out-of-wedlock births rose in that era (despite predictions that they’d fall), so-called “shotgun weddings” almost completely disappeared. In the name of sexual “liberation” (for men and women alike), we destigmatized nonmarital childbearing and deadbeat fatherhood – and, predictably, ended up with far more deadbeat dads and children born outside of wedlock. It turns out “sexual activity without commitment was increasingly expected in premarital relationships,” Akerlof wrote.

Today, we see that another form of cheap sex, internet pornography, also seems to be undermining committed love, as well as marriage. Young men (22-35) who are frequent porn users are about twice as likely to say that they avoid committing in dating relationships and 7 in 10 agree that they date in order to have sex, according to the National Dating Landscape Survey. Another study found that “heavy Internet usage generally, and use of pornography specifically” was tied to lower odds of marriage.

We have given men abundant access to precisely this kind of cheap virtual and real sex. We also have – both explicitly in pop culture, and implicitly in our laws and customs – told women that expecting commitment from men before having sex is “needy” and anti-feminist, and that to co-accept responsibility for sexual decisions is victimization. And then we’ve continued to expect commitment and maturation from men. It’s a strange world that asks men to grow up and embrace commitment while telling them sex requires no commitment at all, let alone marriage.

This inconsistency has created a tornado of cascading social ills, including generations of single mothers, kids without a dad at home and too many men who can’t seem to find a reason to grow up. As Akerlof himself noted, men are more likely to “settle down when they get married: if they fail to get married, they fail to settle down.”

The breakdown of norms, ideals and institutions – including sexual ones – that usher boys into manhood has created a large minority of young men who seem unworthy of, or uninterested in, real love, not to mention marriage. But if love and marriage is the pathway to the good life (spoiler: it is for most of us) then it’s in everyone’s interest – men and women alike – to create a healthier culture. We need a less cynical view of dating and marriage, including young marriage, among women. We should stop allowing vice (drug use, online gambling, overreliance on government assistance) to proliferate. And by creating new social sexual norms, or returning to old ones, we should encourage men to step up, communicating that we expect more from them than easy sex and suppressed masculinity.

We should expect men to embrace real love and marriage – and equip them to be worthy of both as good men. Then there would be no need for the male blame game.

 

What Is the New Candidate Law in Georgia?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the value that all candidates for office must receive equal treatment. The State of Georgia is upholding that value even though Democrats are upset about it. Joseph MacKinnon at The Blaze wrote the following about Georgia. 

Democrats are enraged over the prospect of DA candidates having to do more than brandish their party affiliation to win over voters.

Fani Willis, the Democrat district attorney in Fulton County who tried and failed to throw President Donald Trump in prison, has found a new reason to rage publicly, level groundless accusation of racism, and masquerade as a victim of opposing forces.

To the chagrin of those Democrat officials and other race hustlers who demanded its veto, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) ratified legislation on Tuesday requiring nonpartisan elections for certain offices in the Peach State’s five most populous counties – Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton – effective Jan. 1, 2028.

It’s supposedly ‘racist’ because the five district attorneys … are black female Democrats. Candidates running to become or remain county governing authorities, tax commissioners, superior court clerks, and solicitor-generals must run in nonpartisan elections. County sheriffs are exempt.

Under the law, district attorney candidates will no longer “be nominated by a political party or by a petition as a candidate of a political body or as an independent candidate.” They will also forgo a nonpartisan primary, competing only in the general election.

What Is Purpose of Trump’s Trip to China?

President Donald Trump, numerous members of his cabinet, and approximately thirty top businessmen traveled to China for historic talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Discussions about business are a big part of this trip, but “the Iran war is casting a shadow over the meeting,” according to Mehek Cooke, Senior National Security and Legal Analyst at The Daily Signal. 

China wants the world to believe it is a force for peace, open shipping lanes, stable energy markets, lower oil prices, and a responsible global power. But the truth is much uglier, and Beijing is helping to bankroll the very regime threatening the world’s most important energy choke point, the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is openly forcing China’s hypocrisy into view. It is now a test of Beijing’s role in sustaining the instability it publicly opposes. He arrives in China with leverage over a contradiction that Xi has tried to hide.

The test is critical as Iran stalls during peace talks. Trump called Iran’s most recent proposal “totally unacceptable” because it was not a peace offer; it was a list of demands to end the blockade, lift sanctions, and preserve Tehran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. Once again, we are watching a weakened regime try to bluff from a position of strength. The U.S.-Iran ceasefire is on life support, and the message is clear from Trump: If Beijing wants calmer energy markets and protected shipping lanes, it must stop underwriting a regime that threatens both. Beijing has spent years playing both sides. It wants uninterrupted access to Gulf energy, freedom of navigation, and all the economic benefits of regional order. At the same time, it treats Iran as a useful anti-American partner by helping Tehran evade U.S. sanctions, sustain its destabilizing activity across the Middle East, and, in return, secure deeply discounted Iranian oil.

While the China-Iran relationship is not a formal alliance, an official document is not required to see what the United States already knows. China is Iran’s largest trading partner and the primary purchaser of Iranian oil, accounting for roughly 90% of Iran’s exported crude and providing Tehran with billions in revenue.

China’s relationship with Tehran directly conflicts with America’s mission to restore global stability. It continues to benefit economically while the U.S. absorbs the security costs. Trump is changing that equation.

This moment is unique because Trump is directly turning Tehran into a China problem. If freedom of navigation is not restored and the Strait of Hormuz remains unstable, Beijing can no longer hide behind slogans about peace while bankrolling the regime, putting the global economy risk. China may not care about America’s interest in restoring order, but it cares about its own growth, energy security, and economic stability.

For years, Beijing enjoyed a free ride in the Middle East. The United States absorbed the terror, security, and military shocks, while China collected the economic benefits and expanded its regional influence. Trump is ending that arrangement and calculates that China will bend, given that its security is on the line. Historically, China acts when its own energy security and commercial stability are threatened. In 2008, when piracy endangered Chinese petroleum imports from the Middle East and trade routes to Europe and North Africa, Beijing deployed naval escort missions to protect shipping. The Strait of Hormuz now presents the same test on a far larger scale.

Trump’s visit to China today is also a call to policymakers in Washington to recognize that the Iran war is a broader power struggle with Beijing and not an isolated Middle East conflict. Every move China makes, from China-based entities supplying drones and missiles and satellite imagery that enabled Iranian strikes, to U.S. intelligence showing Beijing was preparing to transfer a new air-defense system during the conflict, shows the clear fight.

            If Beijing wants the benefits of stability, it must stop financing Tehran. It can either use its                    leverage over Iran to help force peace, or it will face a Trump pressure campaign that no longer             lets China profit from chaos at America’s expense. 

What Is Causing Antisemitism to Increase?

Democrats, antisemites, and other Left-wing groups have often demonized Israel and Jews. However, the antisemitism has increased in recent years. Victor Davis Hanson recently discussed this topic in a podcast, and a transcript was published at The Daily Signal. 

We’ve seen these campus protests on American universities where they have these signs, “From the river to the sea.” That’s an eliminationist slogan that Israel would be wiped off the map from the Jordan River all the way into the Mediterranean Sea and, I guess, dumped into it.

And, of course, we’ve had antisemitic incidents of students chasing Jewish students into a library and trapping them there, roughing them up on campus. Demonstrations where they get quite violent, and they’re overtly and proudly antisemitic.

And the point is, what’s behind all this? Why in America now? Because after all, there are more Jewish citizens, or at least roughly comparable, in the United States than there are in Israel, which has about 2.5 or 2 million Arabs and a number or Christians as well.

So why in the so-called bastion of Jewishness in the West, here in the United States, which has avoided the antisemitism of Europe and the Middle East, why is it starting to come out now? What’s behind this? And from people that you wouldn’t expect it from.

Well, the first is DEI. Diversity, equity, and inclusion divided the nation into a 70/30 binary. It was dreamed up by [Barack] Obama because he felt he didn’t have enough traction with the old binary of 12% blacks being victimized, which was true, they were, by the 88% whites, when, due to immigration, the country was no longer 90% white.

So, he bundled a new group and said it doesn’t matter how wealthy you are, it doesn’t matter what your class is. If you’re not white, you are a victimized, oppressed person with legitimate grievances.

What that did is it allowed people exemptions, so you didn’t question somebody’s performance on the job or how somebody was hired if it was race-based, because that would be insulting or racist.

But it also did another thing. It meant that people could express themselves in racist, biased fashion. But if they were from that protected binary, you couldn’t say anything.

Now, that had been true of the black community, unfortunately, for a long time. I can’t think of a major black leader other than Martin Luther King that didn’t voice antisemitic tropes….

The second is demography. There had traditionally been about, oh, 6% to 7% of the population was Jewish and maybe 1% was Muslim, and that has radically changed now – mostly through immigration – and the Muslim birth rate in the United States is about 2.6, and all other ethnic groups, white, black, it’s about 1.7. And that population is about 5 million, and it’s projected to increase to a number higher than the Jewish population.

But you can see the trends already.

And then you have to factor in that it’s very hard for a Muslim to be secular, agnostic, atheistic, Christian. But in the case of Jews, they’re more and more being secularized or intermarrying much more, and their support of Israel is not contingent on their being Jewish.

More importantly, we’re getting billions of dollars. The UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are among the top five donors to universities in America, and they have founded Middle East studies programs, and those are not Middle East studies programs. They’re indoctrination centers for the entire student body.

So, demography means that people feel that in states like Michigan, the future will be you have to say something critical of Israel….

The third is the Democratic Party is not democratic anymore. As I’ve said before, it has a Jacobin agenda, a French revolutionary party agenda. It’s not just that they want to tear down statues and rename buildings and change the foundational date to 1619. Those were all Jacobin trademarks.

But they have a holistic socialist agenda: open borders, illegal immigration mainstream, mass amnesties, no-case bail, critical legal theory, DEI, and massive cuts in defense, raising taxes, and more entitlements. And of course, in the Green New Deal.

But embedded in that agenda is anti-Israelism and indifference to antisemitism.

I say embedded because that’s a non-negotiable agenda. If you want to be nominated for an office in the Democratic Party, you can’t come out for pipelines or more drilling…. You can’t say we need tougher criminal prosecutions. You can’t say, “I love the wall. It’s a good idea.” You can’t say anything.

And by that same reasoning, you cannot say you support wholeheartedly Israel.

Anybody who does so in the Democratic Party, like John Fetterman, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, becomes persona non grata in his own party.

Finally, there is a sense that the institutions in the United States that bequeath laurels and mainstreaming and adulation, they’re all left-wing. All the book reviews, the major venues are left-wing. The major media is left-wing.

And a lot of people feel that they’ve been in the wilderness. They’ve been pelted with this left-wing hailstorm, and at some point they get tired, and they want to come out of the storm.

And so, we’ve seen people … who have flipped over, and now they receive adulation. [The Left likes them once they start denigrating conservatives, Jews, Israel, etc.] …

The final irony, the so-called bigot, Donald Trump, the so-called racist, Donald Trump, he has admitted he’s probably going to be the last president that wholeheartedly supports Israel. For now, he is the last dam holding back this deluge.

[Emphasis added.]

 

 

 

What Are Your Sibling Relationships Like?

My VIPs for this week are siblings in general and my siblings in particular. My parents have twelve children, and I am the eighth child – four boys and eight girls. My siblings range from fifteen years older than me to nine years younger. We were good friends as children and youth, and we are still good friends. I love each of my siblings.

Five of my siblings have passed to the next life, so I look forward to the time when we can be together again. As a mother, one of my dearest hopes is that my children will be good friends and will be great support to each other.

One thing that I noticed in my family of origin as well as my family of choice is that two children can grow up in the same house with the same parents and have the same opportunities. Yet, each child will see each experience through their own set of lenses.

While talking with my siblings about different things that happened in our younger years, I am amazed at how they saw events because I saw them in completely diverse ways. It is good to be able to discuss happy as well as difficult experiences with someone who loves us unconditionally.

In her article published at msn.com, Kelsey Borresen shared thirty-five conversation-starting questions that can help to strengthen the bond between siblings. Here are five of those questions.

1. What would you change, if anything, about our experience growing up?
2. What do you admire most about Mom and/or Dad?

3. In what ways did Mom or Dad let you down?

4. What’s something you wish you could have told me when we were kids? Why didn’t you tell me then?

5. How could I have been a better sibling to you when we were growing up?

You can find Borresen’s other questions at this site. 

How Patriotic Are You?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns patriotism. July 4, 2026, marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is the 250^th anniversary of the birth of America. Americans should be celebrating and wearing their red, white, and blue clothing. Yet, polls say that patriotism is declining.

In her article published at the Deseret News, Lauren Irwin shared results of a new Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics’ surveys of Utahns and voters nationwide, conducted by Morning Consult. Results show that “there are very real partisan, gender and age differences around feelings of patriotism.” 

The survey found that Utahns are more likely than the general American public to say that they are either somewhat or very patriotic, with 75% of Utah respondents choosing those options. Nationally, that number is 69%. [It should be 100%!]

Still, experts say that number is low. Matthew Wilson, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University, said it’s an “unfortunate development” that’s happened relatively recently.

[Republicans More Likely to Say They Are Patriotic Than Democrats]

The finding also found that Republicans are more likely to say they’re patriotic than independent voters or Democrats.

In Utah, 90% of Republican voters ay they’re patriotic and nationally it’s 82%. In Utah, just 49% of Democrats – the lowest of any group in the survey data – say they’re patriotic. That number jumps at the national level to 61% of Democrats.

“Traditionally, we assumed that patriotism, love of and pride in the country, was a constant that cut across party lines, that Republicans and Democrats might have different visions of what America should be and how the country should move forward, but that they were united and consistent in their love for and pride in the country,” Wilson said. “And unfortunately, that is less true than it used to be.”

Wilson noted that when Republicans accuse Democrats of being less patriotic, the data show that they’re “not wrong.” But, patriotism is not solely related to who controls Washington, he argued.

The MAGA and patriotism pipeline

President Donald Trump has not only embraced patriotism in his campaigns and administrations, but has tried to portray patriotism and love of America as “largely synonymous with support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,” Wilson said.

To that extent, Trump has seen more support among male voters, which Wilson notes could be why more men in Utah and nationwide say they are patriotic than women. To the extent that women tend to be skeptical or not approve of Trump’s messaging, it “may bleed over” into skepticism about American patriotism generally.

The survey found that among men, 81% in Utah and 75% nationally say they are either somewhat or very patriotic. This drops among women to 70% in Utah and 64% nationally. Hinckley Institute Director Jason Perry noted that the partisan gap, in addition to gender and age differences, shows that “people’s relationship with national identity” is being shaped more by politics than it used to be. He said it was “striking” that the same patterns continued to show up across multiple surveys.

The age gap

The survey found that in both Utah and nationwide, the younger generations are less likely to say they’re patriotic.

In Utah, among respondents ages 18-34, 57% say they are very or somewhat patriotic. Nationally, it’s nearly equal at 56%.

For people ages 35-44, those saying they’re patriotic jumps to 71% in Utah and 61% nationally. For those 45-64, in Utah, 86% say they’re patriotic and 67% of the general population says the same. The oldest generation was the most likely to say they are somewhat or very patriotic with 92% of Utahns and 86% nationwide.

Wilson noted that the decline in patriotism seen among younger generations could be attributed to multiple things. Younger people are more likely to be “disillusioned” with the extreme political polarization they have been raised in, but changes in the country’s education system have also likely impacted the way younger Americans view their country – and their love or disdain for it….

Latter-day Saints’ unique relationship with patriotism

Wilson highlighted the unique relationship between patriotism and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The survey found that 88% of Utah Latter-day Saints considered themselves patriotic.

Leaders in the church teach that America’s founding documents are divinely inspired, including the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

The spiritual significance of Independence Day

Church President Joseph Smith in 1839 said that Constitution is a “glorious standard” and was “founded in the wisdom of God.” He said that the love of liberty inspired him and civil and religious liberty were “diffused into my soul by my grandfathers.”

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has spoken about how his faith informs his public service. He said the country needs to look beyond politics to solve the nation’s problems and believes there needs to be a “religious revival.”

Wilson said that for members of the church, the founding of America was not just historical, but theological. Church leaders and the Book of Mormon teach that God would raise up a free nation where his church could be restored. It’s why religious freedom and patriotism are core tenets of the faith, he said.

“There’s a kind of core LDS belief in the divinely guided nature of the American founding and so patriotism is kind of woven, in some ways, into Mormon religious DNA,” he said. “More than any other religion, it is completely interwoven with American patriotism.”

Perry agreed. Utahns are more likely than the rest of the country to say they’re patriotic and faith plays an “important role” in that.

“It speaks to Utah’s strong traditions of service, volunteerism, and community life,” Perry said.

Patriotic acts past and present

The survey asked individuals about how they have expressed patriotism, including by voting, standing for the national anthem, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, flying an American flag, protesting and more…..

Perry argued that an “encouraging” finding from the data shows that Americans still broadly agree on what patriotic behavior is.

“Voting, military service, and civic participation continue to receive strong support across political lines,” he said. “Even when people disagree about the meaning of patriotism, there is still considerable agreement around the civic values behind it.”

 

Is there a fix to falling levels of patriotism?

Wilson highlighted how over the last several decades, Americans have changed the way they identify with political parties. The polarization seen in the nation today is part of a phenomenon that is fueling the decline of patriotism.

“There are partisan gaps opening up in almost everything,” he said. “This deep division between people on the left and people on the right shows up in things from what television shows they watch, what cars they buy, what fast food or coffee places they patronize and it has shown up in whether and how they express their affection for and pride in the country.

Wilson said he thinks the decline in Americans who say they are patriotic is a “symptom of broader social polarization.”

So, is there anything that can be done? Wilson said there’s not an easy or quick fix.

“I do think that some correction of the highly critical America narratives that have pervaded education, that’s a part of restoring this balance, but a general decrease in social and political polarization would help as well….