Jonathan Rauch is a non-believer, but he recently spoke at Brigham Young University (BYU) at Provo. In doing so, he lauded the approach of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to civic theology, suggesting that it is an example for American Christianity. Tad Walch covers religion with a focus on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and reported on Rauch’s speech at BYU.
In a remarkable address at Brigham Young
University, a nationally respected public policy expert and journalist said that
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has developed a modern civic
theology desperately needed in American Christianity in an age of
secularization, polarization and dechurching.
Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution, believes strongly enough in what Latter-day Saint
leaders are teaching that he, an atheist in a same-sex marriage, spent the past
week in Utah asking church leaders and BYU students to amplify the message that
he gleaned from the church itself.
“One of the reasons that I’m here,” Rauch
said, “is that in all of Christian America, I can only think of one church that
has worked out an articulated civic theology of how Christians should address
politics and the public world, and you heard it here (Tuesday) from Elder (Gary
E.) Stevenson” during a BYU devotional.
Elder Stevenson called on BYU students to
take up the flags of peacemaking and understanding others. It was built on
landmark talks by church President Russell M. Nelson (“Peacemakers Needed”) and
his first counselor, President Dallin H. Oaks (“Going Forward with Religious
Freedom and Nondiscrimination”).
“I believe that the discipleship that The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has embarked on has national civic
implications,” said Rauch, from Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and
author of eight books. “I believe that it deserves an audience outside of the
church, not just inside the church. I believe the work that it is doing is to
articulate not just the conclusion, which is ‘be peacemakers,’ but how you
reach the conclusion, why that’s what God wants.
Walch’s
article has too many good quotes from Rauch to include in my essay. Rauch makes
many good points about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints can be good examples of how people with differing political views can
have peaceful relationships. Peacemakers are needed in a nation that is so torn
politically that family members refuse to share Thanksgiving or Christmas
traditions with other family members with differing political views.
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