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.
“That theological element is crucial, because that’s instructing the world in what it actually means to be like Christ.”
Watch a video Rauch did with the Deseret News below and read the full summary of his BYU remarks on Deseret News.
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