Agency, religious freedom, and the U.S. Constitution
Resources for your May 31 fifth-Sunday discussion
“When we exercise our religious freedom to serve and lift, to strengthen community ties and to pour oil on troubled waters, and to make America better—when we use our religious freedom to bring people together in unity and love—we are defending and preserving religious liberty and the Constitution in a most profound way.” —Lance B. Wickman, as quoted by Dallin H. Oaks
Dear friends,
In anticipation of the fifth-Sunday meeting on May 31 where wards and branches in the United States have been invited to “discuss the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and how these documents support religious freedom and our God-given agency1,” we wanted to share a few past resources we’ve curated around this topic.
First, an excerpt from Cross Purposes by Jonathan Rauch, in which Rauch—a gay Jewish atheist—argues that Dallin H. Oaks and the Latter-day Saints’ dedication to pluralism, compromise, and to preserving moral agency for all might be the very thing America needs right now.
“We have always had to work through serious political conflicts,” Oaks said, “but today too many approach that task as if their preferred outcome must entirely prevail over all others, even in our pluralistic society. We need to work for a better way—a way to resolve differences without compromising core values.”
…Oaks argued that religious communities cannot exempt themselves from democratic deliberation; they must participate in it and abide by the results according to “the principle of honoring both divine and mortal laws.” In other words, religious liberty is essential, but people of faith cannot simply enjoy it and walk away. It comes with obligations.
…“The right relationship between religious freedom and nondiscrimination,” he said, “is best achieved by respecting each other enough to negotiate in good faith and by caring for each other enough that the freedom and protection we seek is not for ourselves alone.” Like Madison, he placed good-faith negotiation at the very center of the Constitution’s meaning, quoting another church official who said, “When we use our religious freedom to bring people together in unity and love, we are defending and preserving religious liberty and the Constitution in a most profound way.”
…As Oaks wrote in an article in the scholarly journal Judicature in 2023, “We should not expect or seek total dominance for our own positions.”
Here the italics are mine, because this is more than a tactical injunction to obey the law in order to stay out of jail, and more than “render unto Caesar” boilerplate. Oaks argues for an alignment between God’s moral constitution and Madison’s political one. Speaking for the church, he sees patience, negotiation, and compromise not as means to some end, to be jettisoned if the results are unsatisfying, but as social and spiritual ends unto themselves. At the risk of exaggerating or oversimplifying (but only a little), one could put what he is saying this way: Never dominate, always negotiate—because that is God’s plan.
—Jonathan Rauch, Cross Purposes
Next, a recorded conversation between Jonathan Rauch and Terryl Givens to dig deeper into these ideas:
Madison put compromise at the heart of the Constitution because he correctly understood compromise to be more than a mechanical, difference-splitting approach to managing conflict. While it can sometimes be mere difference-splitting, compromise is more often a creative, generative, pro-social endeavor in its own right. If the parties in a disagreement dead-lock, they gather more information, bring in new factions and voices, imagine innovations and workarounds. The result is often better than what anyone started with. And the legislative outcome is not the only product; just as important are the relationships built during negotiations, the habits of collaboration formed, and the feelings of goodwill and fellowship which arise among previously antagonistic groups. Simply by having to interact and do business, the parties to a negotiation develop the civic habits of peaceful coexistence and unlearn the habits of domination and distrust.
Last, two podcast conversations we recorded in 2021 discussing Dallin H. Oaks’ conference address about the Constitution.
In 2021, President Dallin H. Oaks delivered a landmark General Conference address where he spoke passionately about the U.S. Constitution and ended with an urgent admonition to end political tribalism and division, insisting that we address this in our wards and stakes.
In this episode with Thomas Griffith, an expert in constitutional law, we explore not just President Oaks’ address, but what lies behind it—the rapid erosion of good will and trust in the American body politic, including among the Latter-day Saints. Griffith sees the possibility of a cataclysmic crisis in the not-too-distant future, and believes Latter-day Saints can and must play a critical role in healing today’s divides.
And in this episode, Thomas Griffith, Kurt Francom and Bill Turnbull explore how we can have a conversation about President Oaks’ challenge in our local wards and stakes, and how to ensure we live up to his challenge to end political tribalism and division.
We hope these resources help you feel better prepared for your May 31 discussions in your local branches and wards!